River Kwai Half Marathon - 2012

For whatever the reasons are that drive runners to take on new challenges, I decided that I would run in Thailand’s oldest road race this year, the 31^st Mizuno River Kwai Half Marathon.  I struggle running in the heat in Scotland, never mind Thailand but as I’ve already run a couple of 12k races in Bangkok, so the next logical step was to tackle a Half Marathon.  I signed up for the event and increased my weekend long runs in preperation.  It’s always good to have a race to train for; it keeps you focussed and makes those long, lonely miles worthwhile.

I spent a few days in Bangkok, where I really struggled doing one particular training session in the heat in Lumpini Park and had to stop a few times.  I realised then, that if I was going to have a successful Half, I would need to start slowly and utilise every water station on the route.

I moved up to Pung Waan Resort on the River Kwai for a couple of relaxing days and to get away from the distractions that Bangkok has to offer.  There was a special function laid on at the hotel for the race participants and I was glad to get the chance to load up with carbohydrates from the Spaghetti Bolognese which was on the menu before retiring to bed just after 8pm.  With the Race starting at 6am and the bus leaving the resort at 5am, I had arranged for an early breakfast for 4:30am.  I was hoping to get around 8 hours pre-race sleep but I’m afraid that, although I got a good rest, I just couldn’t get to sleep!

The positive side of this, I guess, is that I had little chance of sleeping in and I enjoyed a cold shower before having a light breakfast and joining in with my fellow runners as they bussed us the 10k, or so, to the Race Start.

I had made friends with a few hotel guests from Malaysia and we found an appropriate place to assemble as the organisers completed their pre-race announcements.  Just as daylight was breaking at 6:07am we were set on our way heading towards the main (323) Sangchuto Road, where a left turn took us towards Sai Yok. 

I had been told that the first 5k was uphill, followed by a plateau and then another hill before we turned around at 10.55k and retraced our footsteps back to the Start/Finish line.  The River Kwai and the cloud covered, mountains were on our left hand side as we made our way north and uphill. 

I had set myself the target of: enjoying the race; only resorting to walking at the official drinks stations; and having a negative split.  I wasn’t interested in my overall time, I just wanted to finish but to be honest a sub 2:30 would do me fine.

The first mile took me 9:51 and I was slowly making my way through the field in front of me.  The hillier second took 9:59 and I was already starting to tire.  With humidity over 90%, it was like running in a steam room but I knew that the course would flatten out and the race would get easier.  The 3^rd mile took me 9:44 and as the 10k runners reached their turn point, I found myself running alongside a local runner and Andrew Marshall from New Zealand for a couple of miles.  The 4^th mile also took 9:44 but after that the course must have been downhill and I increased the pace to 9:11, for the 5^th mile, lost both of them in the process. 

I was sticking to my plan of stopping for a drink of ice water at every opportunity and pouring some over myself to cool me down and was happy to see that I had managed to run the 6^th mile in 8:59.  I knew that the turn would slow me down, as would taking on the Gatorade, water melon and water, which would all be provided at the next drinks station and settled for a 9:06 mile.  Unfortunately the Gatorade didn’t stay with me long and the 8^th mile took 9:21. 

“Last five miles and it’s either flat or downhill”, I told myself as I increased the pace.  The 9^th mile took 9:08. “One more mile and it’s an easy 5k” helped me to an 8:37 10^th mile.  Although I was tempted to ‘go for it’ for the last 5k, I still stopped at the final two drinks stations. Mile 11 took 8:12 but I was tired and had to work hard to complete the 12^th mile in 8:15.  By now, I was fully concentrating on the two runners in front of me and attempting to close the gap on them, mile 13 took me 8:14.  I caught a Thai woman runner,  สายปัญญา ตันวิไล, in the final 161 meters and crossed the line in a time of 1:59:59!

I exchanged congratulations with the runner in front and behind me before making our way to the drinks station.

Result

I was absolutely delighted to have stuck to my race plan, to achieve a negative split of 6:23!(1:03:11/0:56:48) and to have dipped below 2hours in the process. 

I placed 172nd overall out of 592 finishers, 10^th out of 21 Brits and 1^st and only Scot but most of all I had enjoyed the experience.  Mind you I'd love a Guinness, Arthur that is, not Alec!

PS I just noticed that the famous film dates back to 1957, just like me.

Full Results here

Photos here

Congratulations to everyone who completed the Race, not only the oldest one in Thailand but also the most challenging.