Like greased lightning!
Trip Start
Dec 13, 2006
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3
5
Trip End
Ongoing
Khon Kaen, Thailand
Monday, January 29, 2007
Ha ha! Despite sounding rather glamorous or adventurous to be jetting off to the neighbouring country for the weekend, it's actually a mere 30 mins/10$ by taxi to the border from our house. Easy peasy. We then headed to the unusual destination of Khon Kaen in the North East for ...da da dah!!
I can't do this any other way than burst it out so here it is I AM A RUNNING SUPERSTAR AND SMASHED MY PREVIOUS TIME ON A HALF MARATHON. There, it's out there now. Do with that what you will.
There's some pictures here of me after completing the 21km race, I particularly like the legs close up. Just look at that left leg. I could almost rival Arnie with that ripple. Incidentally the ripple is not permanent and is sadly not with me today.
It was a fantastic run, started at 0540 in the dark and ended, well... when it was light for most of us. Sorry if you are not interesting in running and all that, but if you ARE interested in timing and stats it was timed by champion-chip and so will be on their website in the next few days (http://www.championchip-thailand.com/raceresults.html). By my watch, I made my time somewhere between 1hr43 and 1hr 44. My previous (only) half marathon was around the temples of Angkor in December 2004, where I thought I did rather well to do 1hr 56.
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, by my reckoning my new personal best was an average speed of 12.29km/h (7.58mph) or the other way 4.88min/kh (7.9min/m). I like doing the maths. Ok, I'll shut up about it now. Next is a full marathon in June. Probably Phuket. Woo hoo!
The full marathon in Khon Kaen was won by a brilliant Ethiopian who must be famous because he was so fast, and yet didn't break a sweat and looked like he was barely expending any energy. Not sure of his time. At least I know that he didn't lap me.
The hotel was teaming with runners, who were feeding their faces after the race (if they were able - I saw one guy who was a rather interesting shade of grey who could barely move and kept saying to his table-mates that he 'felt a bit sick'. By the looks of him I reckon he did the full marathon. Blimey, the poor waitress. I think she really wanted to take him a bucket, but being a lovely polite Thai lady she probably didn't want to be seen as assuming too much...
More adventures to follow soon. In the meantime, yes I have managed to pick up some bits of work here and there...to keep me in shoes and sticky rice at least.
All for now,
Steph
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