Stupid, argh!!

I am not running Adidas Sundown Marathon again even if somebody pays me, or even if the bloody thing is FREE. Fuck it.

First of all, the bloody thing starts a midnight. Which means that yeah, you have to run at midnight. Which is generally a time at which yours truly is deep in ZZZ - this is because i usually go to bed early (around 10-11) and as a consequence I am up early too.

Next, what better way to run than with super tight hamstrings from yoga. But I guess you forget about the super tight hamstrings when your previously sprained-but-never-healed ankle starts acting up around km 3. It acts up so much, that because of your funny running, your right knee gives in around km 10. And thus, the last 39 km were an exercise in whining and coaxing, with stops and stumbles at every water stop and then in between when i felt that my knee or my ankle just couldn't take it and i will have to walk the rest of the way. Luckily, they just needed a wee bit of rest and I could be on my plodding way again. The last 6 km, mostly uphill, found me repeatedly telling myself, "yeah, I can do 6/5/4/3/2 km ... COME ON!!, I can do this, only 6/5/4/3/2 left ..." Something that never happened before - i breezed through the last 10 km in my previous two marathons.

To whomever set the route for Adidas Sundown: you my friend should be cursed to run it at night as well. We had to cross zillions and zillions of expressways, which meant that we had to go on steep uphills followed by steep downhills on all crossovers. Furthermore, the crossover at km 26 HAD STAIRS. It's seriously dangerous to put stairs for runners especially so late in the bloody race, me thinks.

To the organizers of the last 2 km stretch of the marathon, you should be doomed to run it as well. Not only did this come after a uphill portion but after km 40 there were no markings at all. None. Zip. Zilch. Nothing and nobody to tell you which way to go, no bright light to see, nothing ... Top this with the fact that we had to run through a parking lot to get to the bridge that was about 100m before the end line and you have yourself a bunch of very confused runners. I cried real tears of frustration because i couldn't tell which way to go and I met up with a car and thus had to wobble out of its way.

To say nothing of the fact that for the first 5 km the singaporean air (about which i had forgotten while running in the dry air of Romania) hit me with all its might. To say nothing that this was a race for which I should've trained better.

All in all, I am NEVER running a midnight race again. Not even if it's free. And I am NEVER running a marathon without me being in tip top shape and feeling that I am ready for it. What I did was stupid. I should have just given up and probably I would have, had I had any opportunities. But it was 1am, then 2am, then 3am and I didn't see any emergency stations, nor any cabs on the streets. And had this race been something that I knew I could do (had it been standard chartered for example), I guess it would have been easier to quit. For all marathons from now on my cut-off time will be 4:30. I will not run a second above this cut-off time (unless I am 2kms or so from the finish). This one was 5:00 in which i felt every second.

Lo and behold! My ankle! It's looking forward to long physio sessions!!!