I arrived at Bangkok Thursday evening, two days before the marathon.
I used my Finnair bonus points to upgrade to business class which helped
to get some sleep during the night flight. Tiredness was still present in
the first two days but there was enough time to adapt.
The marathon was scheduled to start Saturday/Sunday midnight. I decided
not even try to adjust my sleeping rhythm but kept awake until 3-4 am every
night, and then slept late every morning. The time difference was +5 hours.
My weekend schedule was somewhat packed because the marathon was in
the middle of the conference I was participating. In fact, the schedule was kind
of crazy. I had invited talk in Saturday afternoon and then another presentation
in Sunday morning. And the night in between I was supposed to run a marathon.
Ok, I can do that.
To make my plan more human, I had originally asked to put my presentations
either Saturday, or Sunday afternoon. The organizers apparently got confused
because of two separate presentation, and as a result, the presentations were
allocated Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Great! In addition, they
asked me to serve as Session Chair for the entire afternoon session. No way!
If they just knew my plans a bit better. So, I declined this extra honor/duty
and also asked to re-schedule the morning presentation as late as possible.
It was then moved accordingly, to the last of the session at 11.15.
Friday itself was free of any program. The conference was supposed to start
but the only program was registration. I also visited conference EXPO to
collect my running bib and freebies like marathon shirt. The rest of the day
I spent wisely: I rested.
Bangkok marathon expo was organized doutdoor
Saturday
Now the plan looked clear: participate the Saturday conference program,
give my presentation, have early dinner, rest, and go run the marathon.
Then hopefully to get some sleep before getting back to the conference.
I would miss most of the morning session for sure, but I think some sleep
to recover was needed more.
Saturday afternoon I started to have flu symptoms: sore throat and feeling cold.
After my presentation, I had to leave the well air-conditioned ballroom due to coldness.
I went to buy some C-vitamin drinks from the nearby shop and spent some time in
the pool area to warm-up. In Bangkok, it is often warm outside but cold inside.
I went to the conference dinner around 18.00 and then quickly back to my hotel
for rest. The worst of the symptoms luckily disappeared but I had to say that things
did not look very promising at that moment. If someone had asked the odds for me
to finish the marathon, I would have said only 90%. Still high but already not
very typical for me.
Around 22.30 I started to move. The marathon start place was near the Grand Palace.
I just took some money for taxi and my good old Nokia C5 phone to track my run,
and to get a few random photos seen here. My taxi driver was clueless where to go
even if I had the entire marathon brochure for him to study the route to the place.
I already wanted to change the cab half-way, but luckily, there was enough spare
time and I reached the place 1 hour before the start.
Random pictures from Lumpini park (Friday)
First half
There were about 20,000 runners in total, of which maybe 6,000
full marathoners. Full marathon was scheduled 24:00 and few hours later.
The start corral was rather crowded, as usually, but off we went.
Quite soon I managed to clear out from the crowd and ended-up running
in almost an empty road with only few others here and there.
Basically, the only scenery on the way was the palace at the start and
finish line. The rest of the run went along an elevated highway
20 km from center towards west and back; almost all the way to Mahidol university
where I was going to visit next week. Near the end there was
J-shape zigzag where we first made a U-turn to the opposite
lane and started to come back towards the city. After reaching the
end point of the J-curve, we turned back again and followed
the same way back to the city.
All we could see was the darkness, service stations, occasional
other runners, and the elevated highway. Kilometer after kilometer.
Moon was somewhere on the horizon for the first half. On the way back,
we could eventually see the city lights and when crossing the river,
then some city streets. Before that there was mainly darkness
or some minor window lights no matter if looked left or right.
Quiet suburban areas in the middle of the night.
Weather was fine: +28 C. Enough warm to give hydration challenge and
energy loading but the warmth itself is always good for my muscles.
My running felt good and I could sense the speed was good.
During the entire race I had no idea about the time or my speed.
The first time I got aware of the time was when I crossed the finish line.
First 10 km went pretty well. However, some alerting over-heating signs
(feeling coldness) showed up between 10-20 km but I got rid of it simply
by starting to drink more often. There were drink stations at every 2 km
but originally, I stopped to drink only at every 4 km. After 12 km sign
I started to drink at every station. It helped the symptoms, but poor stomach,
it had to deal with it all.
I also relaxed my pace a bit at that moment, predicting that I might run
out of energy too early otherwise. But my stomach seemed to work.
Either it is better for me to run in the evening, after all,
or the Asian style food consumption during the conference was a good
preparation for the race, who knows.
At the half-way along the J-curve I could see the faster runners on the right
lane seemingly passing me using the other road. At this moment I could not
understand why there were some faster runners there. Later I realized it was
the J-shape of the route and the runners were far ahead of me running the
same in parallel.
The leader pack I had faced already earlier somewhere around 18 km.
And they seemed to run fast, even though the winner's time were not
that much below 2:30. Still almost 1 hour quicker than me at the end.
Pictures from the start
The second half
My energy levels were getting a bit low around the halfway. For this reason,
I ate my one and only energy gel already at 22 km. The organized claimed to
have gels available at 30 km and 36 km, which seemed just perfect locations.
Except that I never found any. There were bananas at 32
(or 34 km), but I did not take any. Choice that I regretted later.
I was still waiting the refreshment point with gels to appear but it never did.
As a result, I started to run out of energy too early.
Another inconveniency showed-up later in form of the large masses of 21 km
Runners. They were using the same lane but heading to opposite direction
away from the city while marathoners were already returning back. First just
few top-runners. Then more and more.
The worst was at the 34/36 km drink station when the entire road started to
be full of the slower half-marathoners going to the opposite direction!
Ok as long as they leave small space at the side of the road.
But at the drink station, the flogs used
tables on both sides of the road, and consequently, blocking
the entire road. I tried to make noise and avoid hitting anyone but eventually
collided with one girl. Luckily nothing serious happened but she was quite shocked
as surely, she did not expect anyone running full speed to the opposite direction
than her. She was just following the crowd whereas I was the fish swimming
upstream and knew what was going on. Must have been scaring moment to her.
Luckily the things cleared soon after the drink station as the crowd left
1-2 meters gap, enough to avoid further colliding drama. This incident was somewhat
annoying but still less so than what used to be common in Singapore marathon
last kilometers, even though there the masses of slower 10k and half runners
all went to the same direction there.
This incident was also probably the reason why I missed my last change of
energy re-fuel in the form of gels or bananas.
The last 5 kilometers I felt lack of energy and no spirit to keep up the pace anymore.
Here the gel would have made the difference, and never knew if they had it in the
troublesome service station or not. I finished the run in 3:19 time. I was quite
exhausted and could hardly walk. It was quite a stress both for the legs and for
the stomach which had really tough day - or night, actually.
During the entire marathon, I saw my time first time only when crossing
the finish line. The clock showed 3:18 and some seconds. I falsely assumed
that I had made my season best (Riga 3:20, Kaunas 3:20, Warsaw 3:19).
It was quite an emotional thing to see the result
after the hard run and the difficulties, especially since never
knowing during the race how fast or slow I really was. Only the feelings during
the race gave some hints about it.
Later I found out that my real timing was a bit more, 3:19:54 (gun) and
3:19:41 (net) exactly.
Maybe the watch at the finish line was not running and merely showed
the finish time of the previous runner at 3:18:35. This also shows how
lonely the later part of the race was. Nobody in front and nobody behind you.
I did pass few runners towards the end who were stopped at the side of the
road or going very very slowly.
I squeezed most of the water out of my shirt on the ground, and cooled down
a bit before entering a taxi. First taxi refused the wet semi-naked guy
but the next one was less picky. The short 10k run was also going to
start soon, maybe 4.00 morning. As a result, runners were just arriving and
many free cabs were available. So, it was easy to catch an empty one and to
get back to hotel.
When arrived at the hotel, I took shower and ordered pasta from the
24h room service. Thinking that eating a bit would help to get into sleep.
Should have stuck with the noodles
as I could not eat almost anything of the very creamy pasta Carbonara.
Then tried to drink one beer
and eventually finished it even if the stomach was so upset that it basically
accepted only sport drink at the moment.
I did not sleep much. I tried. But the problem is that I could not
stay in any single position for longer than 1 minute before
aching started. Mostly somewhere around the hips. This itself is quite
typical and it eventually gets away when the body gets some rest
to recover.
I slept about two hours, but I think it was important to get the recovery
process started. Most aching had calmed down and I was able to get up
to the conference place. I had left a paper note to the session chair
yesterday that I would miss the early session, but no need to worry,
I would appear at about 11.00. So, I did.
My presentation was at 11.15. The room was full of people. Apparently my
presentation (Mean-shift outlier detection) arose a lot of interest.
The presentation won the best presentation award!
Receiving best presentation award with Bangkok marathon shirt
Time to move on
I stayed the afternoon sessionsin the conference but had to leave early to Dom Mueang airport and fly to Cambodia same evening.
I was scheduled presentation there next day due to the forth-coming water festival.
I therefore skipped the planned sight-seeing tour organized by the Bangkok conference
but I anyway did not fancy sitting long hours in a bus to see some temples.
Going to Cambodia was only one-hour flight. I left the conference at 17.00 and
arrived my hotel in Phnom Penh at 22.30.
What a weekend.
Touring after conference
My post-conference tour consists of three short
university visits: Royal University at Phnom Penh (RUPP),
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH),
and Mahidol University in Bangkok.
Only RUPP I had visited before whereas my HUTECH host, Tho,
I knew from an earlier conference in Vietnam, and the contact
in Mahidol was arranged via my PhD student who did MSc studies
there.
In Phnom Penh, I presented UEF study posibilities to the local
BSc students. My visit was schedule earlier than expected due
to the forth-coming water festival holiday, which I had some time
to join as well. Phnom Penh is also one of the rare capitals
where one can go to the airport by Tuk tuk.
The second visit was a quick stop at HUTECH in Ho Chi Minh City.
They had "thank the teacher" day when students present flower
buckets to the teachers (my host in the picture), often sponsored
by local companies in the hope to recruit the best of them.
Usually the companies manage to catch them already well before
graduation.
Last stop was back to Bangkok and a visit to Mahidol university.
During the marathon I had almost reached the campus already by
running but this time I took taxi and stayed overnight.
Mahidol had both international and local computer science
study lines. The students in the international line spoke
good English while the students in the local study line
had more performance based selection criteria.
