My first run in Chiang Mai and I ended up in hospital. I had decided to take a week off of running after the River Kwai Half Marathon to allow me to fully recover from my recent races and of course to save some energy for all the walking that holidays bring. However with a long day scheduled for Sunday, I headed out for an early morning run on Saturday. I reckoned that 30mins would do me and I left the Rain Forrest Boutique Hotel on Soi 5, turned right and joined the main Charoen Muang Road, where a left turn took me past the Railway Station, over the River Ping to the city centre. A left turn took me to the Night Bazaar, where I turned around and headed back to the hotel. My legs were starting to feel less heavy and I was enjoying the run, although it consisted of a mixture of running on a busy road and a rather dubious pavement. It was the latter that I was concentrating on when, 26mins into my run, I felt an almighty bang on my head and fell to the ground. After a moment, I opened my eyes to see a pool of blood and I took off my running vest to use it to stop the bleeding. As I got to my feet some locals came to my aid and, seeing the blood, called for an ambulance. I could see that the cause of the accident was a rather low sign, now covered in blood, above the pavement. When the emergency services arrived it was clear that the cut would need hospital attention and I was soon being driven to the McCormick Hospital where I received immediate treatment, which consisted of a partly shaved head, some stitches an injection, a bag of various pills and an appointment card for my stitches removal and of course an itemised bill before being picked up by staff from the hotel who took me 'home'.
I must say that the whole process was very efficient indeed and the assistance of the locals and the hotel staff was much appreciated as of course was that of the medical team, even if it does seem strange to see all the medical staff's time, equipment and procedures spelled out in a Bill.
During World War 2, the Japanese used allied prisoners of
war (POWs) to build a railway from Thailand to Burma, so they could supply
their army without the dangers of sending supplies by sea. The railway line
became known as the 'Death Railway' and was immortalised in David Lean's 1957
film 'The Bridge on the River Kwai'.
My father never talked of his war experiences, I knew that
he was in Burma and that he suffered from malaria but I don't know if he was one of the 60,000POWs who worked on the railway. 16,000 Allied POWs died as a building the
line, including 6,318 British personnel, 2,815 Australians, 2,490 Dutch, about
356 Americans and a smaller number of Canadians and New Zealanders. Some 180,000 Asian labourers were also forced to
work on the project, half of who were to die. Unlike the well-fed
extras in the movie, the POWs did not whistle the Colonel Bogey tune. Nor did
they have any semblance of uniform.
Scenes from the movie starring Alec Guinness were nothing
compared to the treatment of the real life POWs who were beaten frequently.
The construction of the Death Railway was one of the
greatest war crimes of the 20th century. It was said that one man died for
every sleeper laid.
If a man driven mad by the
incessant beatings turned on a guard, he would be tethered, spread-eagled, to
the ground. Guards wrapped wet rattan - the same string-like bark used to lash
the bamboo huts together - around his ankles and wrists, and then tied him to
stakes.
As the rattan dried, the ties
would slowly gash into the skin, drawing blood and tearing into sinew and
cartilage as they pulled limbs from their sockets.
Today the River Kwai serves as a tourist attraction and as a
reminder of those terrible conditions of only 70 years ago.
Rather than taking a tour bus, I caught the train at its most
northern stop of Nam Tok, paid my 100 Baht (£2) and spent the next 6 hours
travelling the 200km back to Bangkok.
The train
passes along the scenic Kwae Noi river, along the Wampo Viaduct and over the
River Kwae Bridge to Kanchanabur before continuing southwards to Bangkok
Thornburi.
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 31st 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 3rd 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 4th mile also
took 9:44 but after that the course must have been downhill and I increased the
pace to 9:11, for the 5th 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 6th 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 8th mile took 9:21.
“Last five miles and it’s either flat or downhill”, I told myself
as I increased the pace. The 9th
mile took 9:08. “One more mile and it’s an easy 5k” helped me to an 8:37 10th
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 12th
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, 10th out of 21
Brits and 1st 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.
Jim Thompson was perhaps 'the best known foreigner in Bangkok, and possibly in Southeast Asia'. In twenty years, he had accomplished more than most men in a full life. He had built a major industry in a remote and little known country whose language he could not speak; he had become an authority on an art that, previously, he scarcely knew existed and had assembled a collection that attracted scholars from all over the world; he had built a home that was a work of art in itself and one of the landmarks of Bangkok; and, in the process of doing all this, he had become a sort of landmark himself, a personality so widely known in his adopted homeland that a letter addressed simply 'Jim Thompson, Bangkok' found its way to him in a city of three and a half million people.
His house is a haven of tranquillity in Bangkok, you're not allowed to take photos in the house but here are a couple I took in the garden.
Jim's disappearance on a trip to Malaysia remains a mystery to this day, maybe it was linked to his role in the OSS or CIA...
