A failed attempt at full marathon: Penang Bridge International Marathon 2010

The left knee pain was excruciating at 36km when the traffic police passing by. He waved me to go up the sweeper bus of Rapid Penang, saying the distance to finishing line at Queensbay Mall is still far.

Under normal circumstances it would take me about an hour to run the remaining 7km, now to complete the race with a limp it would definitely take more than two hours, and I still had a home bound bus to catch at Butterworth and needed to cross the Penang Channel in the ferry. So I hopped on the bus broken-heartedly!

In the bus there were a few full marathon participants already inside, most of them were young runners who looked less than 50 years old just like me. The older runners were still running and already near the finishing line. I think they were far more experienced and prepared.

When the sweep bus approached Queensbay Mall, I looked at the long span of Penang Bridge and was surprised I actually ran to and fro on it few hours ago. Although a little bit proud, this was no consolation to the strong feeling of shame of not being able to complete the journey- not even by crawling at the last miles!

The sweeper bus stopped near the Mall for everyone to alight. To our surprise one runner in the bus got down and start running among those approaching the finish line. At that moment it was near to 7 hours completing time. Was he going to claim the finishing medal and thus cheating himself and the rest of the world? For the rest of us we still had a few ounces of honesty- if not running stamina- left so we got down and walked the side way towards Eastin Hotel and runners tent, with that unmistakable injured runners’ gait which quite resembled a duck walking in running shoes!

Around finishing line and Queensbay Mall there were many full marathoners moving around with sunshine smiles and the glittering gold Finisher medal hanging round their neck. I congratulated each one of them, shaking hands, and chatted on my failed attempt and pointed to them my injured side of left knee. They all graciously encouraged me to come again next year and try once more, to which I answered with a halfhearted “ok, hopefully, will see first”.

If I ever try it again, I will pay more attention to weight training so as to strengthen my knees. The same problem cropped up in my previous mountain climbing trips. The Penang Bridge marathon route was similar to mountains. We have a few rise up sections at the Bridge and along Jelutong Expressway, there were where I picked up the ligament sprain.