This morning, I participated in the 2009 Toray Cup Shanghai International Marathon by running the half marathon (21.097km/13.1miles). 7 weeks ago, I had never run by choice before. I actually was not interested at all in running and thought it wasn’t fun. After training and running the half marathon, I still don’t think it’s fun! It’s mainly to keep in shape since I couldn’t do summer time sports anymore and there’s no such thing as winter sports in Shanghai. 7 weeks ago, I didn’t know if I had enough time to train to finish the half marathon but now that I’ve done it, I must say, it was kinda easy. 
Easy to finish but the difficulty lies in doing it fast, which wasn’t so much my priority as it was my first running event. I finished in 2 hours and 3 minutes, which placed me in 1929th position out of 4996 male participants in the half marathon. That’s good enough for me.
My training consisted of 3 runs per week: twice during weeknights for about an 45-60minutes and once every Saturday, trying to extend my run endurance by running longer than the week before. Those long runs went from 10km, to 13km, to 15km, to 17km, to 19k and finally the race itself. A bit surprisingly, not only did I run longer distance each week, I also ran at a faster pace.
As for the equipment, I already had some Nike running shoes but I bought Nike+ gadget to track my runs. One part goes into a special socket in the sole of the Nike+ shoes and the other part connects to my Ipod nano.
Not only does it tell me the distance/time/pace while I’m running, it also uploads the results to the Nike+ website where I can keep track of all my runs and progression.
Running with music helps a lot to keep it not too boring but having Nike+ also made running much more interesting. The website also had a specific running programming for beginner runners for the half-marathon that lasted for 12 weeks that I followed for the last 7 weeks. One bad thing about the Nike+ gadget is the default setting may not be precise for everyone. I never got a chance to run a known distance to calibrate the thing so I always used the default settings. Unfortunately, as I discovered during the race, mine was giving me distance bigger than the real distance which led me to believe that I was running longer and faster than real during all my training runs. After I finished the 21km race, my Ipod was showing me 23.5km.
The even itself had the full marathon (42km/26miles, 3500 participants), half marathon (6000 participants) and fun/health race (4.5km, 10000 participants). It started at People Square, the most crowded spot in Shanghai, then we ran along Nanjing Road, then Yan’an Road, then roads that I’m not familiar with that took me to somewhere not in the city center.
It was nice to able to run on the streets of Shanghai, even though some portions of the race were next to ongoing traffic. It seemed like some residents didn’t know about the marathon and got stuck watching everybody going by before being able to cross the street. Must suck to be them! Throughout the race, there was people on the side of the road not only watching but encouraging us. I never thought I would say this, but I actually appreciated the many 40 years and older Shanghainese women yelling at us! I saw a lot of group of them knowing about the event and preparing some drums or others to encourage us. They had drinks every 3-4km and taking a glass, drinking half of it, then throwing it in the ground while running is as cool as it looks during the Olympics. If it was hot weather, I would’ve splash one over my head just to feel awesome.
As for my race, I got to the starting line to warm up around 7am. At about 7:10am, it started to be full so I couldn’t really move anymore and was stuck there in the not so hot weather for 20 minutes.
At the start of the race, with so many people, we all started a bit slowly until everyone had a bit more space to hit their normal stride. The first 5km was pretty nice as we ran through famous Nanjing Road and passed through my district (Jing’an). It was nice until I saw a bunch of male runners go take a piss in the bushes at a park on the side. I thought it was totally disgusting and despicable until I needed to go badly myself. I feel ashamed but it was totally worth it. The first 10km was great and I felt like I could ran the full marathon but that feeling only lasted until oh, the 11km. My pace was getting slower even though I thought I was running as the same speed so I had to push a bit just to keep the same pace. That worked until the 15km where giving that extra effort was much more difficult and not so efficient. Then at around the 17-18km, I felt like they played a joke on all contestant by extending each kilometer to 1.5 kilometer. Each kilometer felt so much longer. Finally, I was able to give an extra effort for the last kilometer so that I wouldn’t look like a fool for the spectators and cameras at the finish line. I finished in style! All in all, I’m happy with my race. I managed to run at a faster pace and longer distance then my previous longest run. My only regret might have been that I forgot to eat a banana before my run like I usually do. I think I could’ve ran below 2 hours with that extra energy. Oh well.
Now let’s talk about Karen’s performance. Not her race, because she didn’t run, but her support for me during the race. It started well with her being at the starting line and taking pictures. The route did a U-turn of sort, which gave her a chance to see me again run but she failed to capture any pictures. Maybe it was like trying to capture a F1 car driving by, maybe I was jogging by too fast? Then, after that point, I actually managed to run faster to the finishing line then for her to reach the finish line through taxi/metro/walk. EPIC FAILURE KAREN! So to all my readers, that’s the reason why you don’t have pictures of me finishing the race in style. In her defense, there was a lot of traffic due to roads being blocked and she didn’t really know how to get there without taxi. She actually met another girl in the same situation as her while her husband was running the full marathon. pfffffft, women. Maybe next time, while we practice running, they should do practice session on how to get to the finish line by taxi. 
More pictures HERE.
you\’re so cool Nam!!