Macau Marathon

David and I both ran the Macau Marathon on Sunday, Dec 7. It was two loops of the half marathon course. It started at the Macau Stadium (Estadio De Macau in Portuguese) at 6 am with good marathon running conditions, about 12 degrees centigrade (53 degrees F). Roughly 3000 participants in the marathon, half-marathon and 5k all started together. The marathon had a 5 hour time-limit, and only about 50 women finished (I was one of only two from the USA), and about 420 men. So this was by far the smallest marathon I have ever done, as far as number of entrants.

David and I were both thrilled at our finishes, given our less-than-proper training for the event. It was David's 2nd best marathon finish time ever, and for me it was right at the midway point time-wise for all the marathons I have ever completed (7 for me). I finished at 4:10:12 chip time and David finished at 3:56. The course started in the Taipa section of Macau on reclaimed land, and bypassed various casinos as well as vacant land. There was some entertainment, including Japanese-style dancers performing in kimono, local boys breakdancing (that was different) and Portuguese style singers/dancers.

We crossed one of the local bridges 4 times. After running around Taipa, often with the Venetian hotel in sight, we crossed the bridge into Macau, which provided good views of the mountains and water, and I thought Macau looked very pretty in the morning. We then ran past the Macau Tower, the MGM hotel, the Star World hotel, the Wynn hotel and through other city streets, and then back over the bridge to the stadium, then repeated the course. It was a pretty flat course except for the bridge and some tunnels, so that's why I guess we got decent time with training that did not really include runs longer than about 12 miles. I only decided to sign up for the marathon the day before (I had intended to run the half), but, I'm not sure what got into me, but the marathon gods told me to sign up for the full-distance.

Thank goodness I brought power gels with me (I only took 4 this time, for those of you who know how I normally like to take about double that!) as the course only provided water and no electrolyte drinks at all, not even soda or anything besides water. It was kind of a boring race, where the second time around, all the volunteers at the aid stations and direction-pointers appeared bored and were not even cheering for the runners. But, I was thankful they were there and smiled at them (unsure what proper thing to say to them in Chinese to thank them...I guess a simple "m goi" would probably have sufficed). However, it was also one of my most pleasant marathon running experiences ever. This is because of the fact that I had not properly trained for the full event (most of you know you normally increase your long runs for a few months before the race until you go about 22 miles in a training run, then you have about a 3 week taper) and therefore I did not have high expectations for myself. I only wanted to finish in the time limit, and was psychologically ready to drop out and be ok with that if I felt unreasonable pain. Well, I therefore went out very slow due to the crowds at the start, and then just ran very comfortably at a not terribly slow pace, but neither did I push myself. Along the way I did get normal feelings of being tired and aches started to appear (also because I ran in brand-spanking new shoes due to the fact that I forgot my shoes in Hong Kong and had to buy some the day before the race in Macau!), but I didn't really feel any pains I had not felt in the past in running a a marathon. The shoes even were ok...no strange blisters nor black toes...only muscular pains from repetitive pounding in the feet. The best thing was the realization around mile 22 that this race was about over, and since I had taken it easy, I didn't have the normal dead feeling I had at past races. I felt a surge of energy, and it was awesome as I passed a pack of 9 men, and then more and more people as I ran my last 4 miles of the race the fastest of all the miles I had run earlier, and in fact ran tempo pace the last 2 miles (and close to it on mile 23 and 24).

Now I am recovering from my unexpected marathon run this weekend. I still don't recommend running a marathon without training properly, but surprised myself that I was able to do it!

After the race David checked us in to the new Four Seasons Hotel on the Cotai Strip. It was beautiful and relaxing. They have a fantastic spa there and the service was very attentive and personalized.