Those Times and 4 Years Later
After watching Eliud’s documentary video made by INEOS Challenge 159, I realized a lot of things in life. Eliud always highlights from the sport he loves to do, that it’s not only the belief in oneself that’s significant in breaking barriers, but also the belief in your teammates and the training itself.
It’s somehow true to the old saying that “no man is an island”. His wisdom is simple, easy to grasp and we can almost apply to different aspects in our lives. To think that I’m about his age, I would say that he’s been always one of my inspirations in sports and life. Kenyans rule the running community and we can always learn from them. They have no secret recipes why they produce champions but it’s developing the good habits that makes the impossible, possible. Being focused, consistent, hardworking and determined in their lives are the keys to their success.
I only picked-up running around 4 years ago. Before that, I lived a different life. Like most of the people around us who only grind everyday making a living, paying bills and just thinking of staying comfortable. I became at my heaviest at 63kg, was too stressed out at work, doesn’t care at all on my well-being and I woke up one day realising that I wasn’t feeling ok. I thought that I needed to do something for myself. I have never been so convinced by anyone or even a friend of mine to try running. I have a friend who is into this sport since she was in school and I know how she loves running. She kept on asking me for about 2 years to participate in local races but I wasn’t interested at all. I told myself that it was a waste of time and money and I basically don’t like running. She constantly asks me every time they would register to a race until I found myself in front of the web page of Color Run, paying for the registration fee and that was it. It was a fun run anyway, and I told myself to just try and see how it will turn up after I finish it. One fun run led me to another fun run and I became addicted to it. I was slowly learning something from the sport. 5Ks became 10Ks and I was so hungry that I even went to 21Ks. I signed-up to 1 or 2 races per month and I went on trying to participate and gain experience from different types of local races. I was enjoying it and kept going for almost a year. Then, I found myself looking for another challenge. My friend haven’t been into longer distances beyond 21Ks so I couldn’t tell her at first that I’m quiet drown to the 42K. I saw the ads of Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore and I read all the information about the race. It was 2016 that I dared myself to run a full marathon. When I completed my registration, that’s the only time I told my friend that I’m going to try this distance and see if I could really do it. There was this big fear deep inside of me because this distance is for serious runners. I know nothing about marathons when I paid the registration fee. I just wanted to challenge myself. I started to read and research about running marathons and I was totally smitten. My curiosity and love for the sport grew from there.
I was only relying to my phone and I always use the Nike Running Club app with all things pertinent to running. As this was my first marathon, I didn’t expect anything so fantastic to happen to me. My goal was to know if I really can do it or not. I was telling myself that if I could finish it, then I would be happy and thankful. If on the other hand that something might happen along the course where I couldn’t make it, then it’s also fine with me. I trained alone and was juggling between work and other things. I wasn’t fully committed to the training and I couldn’t follow all the tasks given from the training plan but I still tried my best. (Maybe, I will share the details of this race on a separate post.) During the entire time and along the course, I thought I really couldn’t make it to the finish line. I have all the mixed emotions and my body was in pain and I was totally exhausted. I finished the race and was thankful that I managed to surpass the challenge I’ve put to myself. It was not a fantastic finish time but little did I know that crossing the finish line of a marathon for the first time will open bigger opportunities for me. I discovered something about myself, so profound that it’s hard to explain to others. My marathon journey did not end from here.
I continued to join local races and met new friends from the running community. My journey was not always tip top and there were rough patches. Friends from the beginning started to fade away and I lost some of them. True enough that people in my life do come and go. It wasn’t easy at all and I admit that I had struggles. As they say, only the genuine people will stick to you if they really want to include you in their journey too. I instilled to myself that I will do my best to still keep on going even if I must do running alone. Nothing is permanent in this world, if there are chances that I’d meet new friends, then I would be grateful then. After all, I will do it for myself to help me change for the better. Life must go on anyway. For numerous times that failed in life, one thing that I’m truly grateful is that there are few who stood by me and supported me along the way. New friendships were born from meeting them thru social media and thankfully those friends also became your “life-friends” outside of running. Friends who are from different walks of life who helped me grow and inspire me to dare greatly in life. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to strive in my own pursuit.
I learned about the World Marathon Majors, particularly Tokyo Marathon. I registered thru their balloting entry and was hoping that my name would be selected. Unfortunately, it wasn’t my time and my plans to travel to Japan have been postponed. I also tried Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon but my name wasn’t selected. I told myself that I will wait for the following year to try again. I minimised joining in local races as I was thinking to save money so that I can prepare for overseas races just in case I get selected. In later part of year 2016, I saw the ads of Gold Coast Airport Marathon from one of the accounts of a running club that I’m following in social media and I visited the website to know more about it. I invited my friends to join me and thought that it would be fun to travel together. I registered to the race as soon as they opened it online and a few months later, my friends whom I invited cancelled their plans, leaving me alone to travel. I never travelled alone in my entire life and I was a bit hesitant to pursue my trip. Then I asked my sister to come with me. We both applied for a visa and arranged our itineraries. It was also my sister’s first time to travel to Australia. I was relieved that I had someone who accompanied me on my first overseas race. (I will share my experience about GCAM on a separate post.) We both enjoyed our trip to Australia and we even visited our relatives there. My desire to join and complete more marathons grew stronger.
When 2017 came, I patiently waited for August, the month when Tokyo Marathon opens their registration for general entry. I tried again for the second time and I convinced one of my friends to try too. After a month, we received the email notification from the organisers. To our delight, we were both accepted to participate in Tokyo Marathon 2018. I felt like I won in lottery except that this has no prize money involved. I couldn’t explain in details what I felt. It was generally overwhelming and I couldn’t focus on my work for the rest of the afternoon. There, I was on cloud nine! The days came by quickly, training, preparing, and arranging things up until I saw myself standing at the start pen about to run the biggest city in the world. (To be continued on a separate post.) I felt like I was unstoppable right at that moment. Running gave me a whole new world and I was so exhilarated. I was crying after I crossed the finish line. I achieved a personal best and I broke my 7-hour barrier since my first marathon. I’m grateful that all my hard work really paid off. It was indeed a whole new level of experience. After returning from the race, I knew for myself that I was still craving for another overseas marathon. I then searched for the other 5 world marathon majors and I tried balloting for BMW Berlin Marathon and Bank of America Chicago Marathon. October came and the results were in for Berlin. My name was selected and this was on a first try. Germany is one of the countries that I wanted to visit since I was young because of their rich history and architecture. I still decided to join Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon on the same year, hoping to break my own record and run it with my friend. In the end, we finished the race but I lost to humidity only to have my timing to be the same as my first try. That was my last long run before heading to Tokyo on the following year.
Nothing is fantastic about my records because I’m just your average runner here. I still have a lot to learn about running and myself. I’m not a professional athlete and like everyone else, I too, have a full time job. I’m still working on my progress and I want to take it one step at a time and keep myself as balanced as I could be in order not to burn out myself too early that I may lose enthusiasm in running in the end. I’m trying my best to go with what works well for me. It was only a challenge to myself when I signed-up for my first marathon. I hate running during my school days and I’m not an athletic person. It wasn’t my dream to run a marathon, until it became a crazy day dream.
I thank every single one of you who has reached up to this point reading my story. Really, thank you for taking interest in knowing a pinch of my life. I hope everyone will gain something from what I wanted to convey. May you truly discover other great things that are inside of you. May you be bold enough in chasing things that’s worthy and will bring you to where you’re supposed to be. When the time comes that you succeed in reaching your stars, please don’t forget to share them to others and tag them along so you will bring some motivation to themselves and may they be inspired as well.
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