In awe

I did many races. This is probably most awesome yet.

A year ago, I went to Toronto for my international debut. Yes, I felt like a hot stud. US is no longer my playground, now the whole world is. We are going international! Maybe one day, we get to run on the moon or another planet or galaxy!  One can only dream.

Seriously, running in another country is not as easy as it seems. First of course is the cost. Airfare of couple thousand dollars is no joke. Then hotel and various expenses. Unlike in state, I can’t sleep in the car at the start to save on cost. Then also the culture and language differences, which can be a huddle to get over.

Anyway, since I started running, I wanted to go oversea. It might be since 2020, I set a goal to save up for an oversea marathon.  Sydney was my target as well as Viet Nam, India, and Ireland. Maybe one day Greece.

Unbeknown, I ended up in Taipei, Taiwan as my first destination.  Of course, it was not completely unplanned.  My cousin informed me of her wedding about two years ago. I would be going to Sydney, however, the marathon I wanted to do there was not available (I couldn’t meet their requirement of running a 4:20 qualifying marathon time) and long story short, New Taipei WJS Marathon fits my schedule and there was no qualification for entry for foreigners. So I made a side trip to Taipei. For such a far away trip, it would have been a shame if I could not run a marathon.

The marathon registration website was not available until October.  There was very little information if it would be happening. I was a bit nervous to plan a trip around this race. In the back of my mind, I was doubtful if the organization is reliable.  Once it opened, I signed up. The website had partial English translation and it was a bit confusing to navigate but eventually, I got my foot in the door. 

It was a competitve event for the locals. Many would enter through a lottery system. As a foreigner, I bypassed the lottery.  I think they reserved 300-500 entries for foreigners.  I felt lucky. There were about 6000 runners total.

It is an out and back course. I read up on prior reviews and watched Youtube videos. I knew I would be in a treat.

As for the logistics, they recommended to stay in Taipei.  We would take a bus near the Taipei Main Station, at Kuo Kuang Bus to Wanli, Green Bay (Fei Cui Wan), in the direction of Jinshan Youth Activity Center. All these names and places meant nothing to me while I was in the US, because I had no frame of reference.  I could not remember any chinese words I read. Once landed, it was not hard to figure out where my race was and things were very easy to figure out. Most signs and places in Taipei have English translation.  Google Lens was an invaluable tool I learned to use by the third day. It can do Chinese to English translation on the fly.

The course had a time limit of 6 hours. The first cutoff was at halfway and we had 3:05 to reach it. It should not be a  problem to me. Somehow, I had an impression that the course cutoff was 5 hours and I tried to run a 4:30 time to beat it, which I did handily (bib time 4:30:38). There was a bit of stress before the race because I felt everyone was a faster runner than me.

We had 4 different waves for lining up at the start.  I was assigned Wave C.  I decided that C might be a little too fast after taking a look at the runners there (5:00 hr pace team lined up in wave C). It did not matter. In most marathons, I usually in the last wave. I know once the race start, people would spread out. If I am fast, I could catch up.

Because the gun time is the official time, some people in my wave tried to go as far to the front as possible. In many marathons I ran, unless you are an elite runner, gun time bears little significant. Most races place the emphasis on the chip time (such as sorting and ranking). But here, we are ranked by gun time, so runners wanted to be as close to the start as possible to get that couple minute advantage. Those who arrived late to the coral were pressing up to get to the front. We were packed in. I thought it was a bit rude to fight for a little distance. It created a bit of crowding at the front of the wave. I wanted to tell them calm down. We are all in D wave, and there is no point to fight for that bit of distance.

Once our wave crossed the start, everyone rushed forward and sprinted as if we were in a 5k.  I found it quite funny.  Many people passed me even though I think I ran at a very good pace.  About a mile or so, I passed the 5-hour pacer. Still many in my wave were rushing forward.

The course was still very crowded even though we had both sides of the road to run.  Later they ushered us to use only the left side of the road, and to leave the right side for the returning runners.  I accidentally elbowed someone and someone accidentally tripped me from behind. It was fine. It was not until halfway when the crowd thinned out.

At 14km I saw the first runner coming back from the other direction. I estimate, it was about 1:20:00 into the race. The first runner finished around 2:10.  They were fast. I think they were running around 5 min mile pace.

The course was scenic. We had good weather. The sky was mostly overcast.  Temperature was 65-70F, which was hot for me but cool to the locals. I was sweating early on.

Crowd support came from the nearby town people and villagers. It was a joy seeing them as we passed through one town after another and they were there chanting and cheering us.  However, there were very little fans from family or friends because the course was in kind of a remote place and many friends and family couldn’t make it out.  They also blocked the roads so transportation was not so easy.

Our charter buses only transported runners but not family or friends.  My mom stayed in Taipei and did not come with me. I could have planned better of having a hotel at the start so that my mom could cheer me.  However, I saw many others also did not have friends or family there.

Unlike marathons in the US, there were no impromptu signs held up by fans and family. I normally love reading those while running. Also, there were no unofficial aid stations unlike many races I did in the US. I think it was against the running rules for runners to accept unofficial aids from crowd and so on.  The race was so serious. Those rules normally only apply to the elite runners and not to us. I only saw one runner went to the crowd and someone handed him a beer and he drank it. Oh, how I wish I could have a beer. However, I did not want to risk a DQ (disqualification) for accepting aids.

The course was mostly flat but there were some hills especially toward the end section. At least this was my impression. For some, it might be a hard course.  The hills got me too. I could not run on some at 35 km. Not that they were steep, but I was out of energy.

Aid stations were plenty and well stocked. At no point were we out of water.  They had fluid at every station which was about 3 km apart. “Food” which consisted various kind of snacks were available at about every 6 km. I utilized them fully since I no longer use gels. Runners around me though mostly stayed away from snacks and gels.

By halfway, I started to make gain on runners.  Those around me were strong runners but pretty soon after halfway, there were a lot of people slowing down to a walk. I take it there were a lot of first time marathon runners. They hit the proverbial wall.

I was not the fastest. There were a bunch of other runners passing me too. I swallowed my pride and ran my own race and walked when I needed. I knew I had started too fast and now I was out of steam. I leapfrogged with some runners.

We had distance marker at every KM. I found them useful but I preferred mile marker in mile. I had to translate km to mile in my head. It was not too hard. I knew every 5 km is 3 mile (roughly). I usually count by five to make it easy for my brain.

I ran enough to know my wall is around mile 20, so at 30 km, it was expected to get hard for me. I got myself to 35 km. There was brief periods when I regained energy and pressed forward again, especially after 35 km. There was a long section of downhill. I ran my heart out.

Near 40 km (tunnel), I met a lady. She could speak English a bit. She was going strong. I have been chasing her for over several km. She had ran this marathon in 2016 according to her shirt. I asked if she has done it every year. She said she is a slow runner.  This was her 17th marathon. I congratulated her. I told her the last two miles usually is the hardest for me. I knew I should not quit now when the finish is so close. I knew no more than 5 minutes the finish line should come in sight.  She said something to me I don’t recall now, but it put a fire in me to run my hardest.  I ran without stopping, encouraging those around me to press forward too. A guy took up my challenge and ran along side. I sprinted into the finish.

My time was 4:30:38 (bib time), official gun time was something like 4:32:56.  I had my medal. The rest was good. We had a lot of good food and drinks.  We were given a towel for shower. I picked up my clothes from bag drop and changed into cleaner clothes. The swag was way better than many marathons I did. Most runners stayed behind to chat in the resting area tent.  Unlike in all the US marathons I did, the race was a bit difficult for runners to go back to the finish line to cheer other runners.  Everyone was waiting at the resting area. There was also no family reunion area, because many of our family and friends could not make it out to the country side.

My thoughts were, I am grateful to come from so far to be able to do this race.