ING Taipei International Marathon

I arrived at the Taipei City Hall (台北市政府) at around 6.30 am this morning. By that time, there was already a sizeable crowd, many of whom doing their stretching and warm-up runs in the runner's pen. Since the 9-km, 21-km and 42.195-km runners were all to be flagged off at the same time, the organisers just herded us all towards the start line. At 6:57 am, the elite runners were flagged off, most of them Africans. The rest of us more ordinary runners were flagged off 3 minutes later. And because the rest of us (I reckon about 16,000 runners) began our race at about the same, the start of the race was expectedly congested. :P

The route for the 9-km race was a boring 4.5 km down Jen-ai Road (仁愛路) and then back along the same way. :P But those doing a longer distance had a better deal, I think, as their route would be more scenic and crosses the Keelung River (基隆河) twice. Furthermore, those running 21-km and above would not only receive the same sort of personalised certificate of achievement as the one which would be posted to me in a few days' time, but they would also get an additional towel and a precious medal at the finish line. *sobs, if only I registered for the 21-km*

Weather-wise, it was great. It was slightly chilly at the beginning of the race, with a temperature of around 17 degrees Celsius, but it warmed up quickly.

This is one race in which the road marshalls stopped runners at some of the major road intersections...at least for the 9-km category. As I entered my second half-hour of my race, I was stopped thrice and made to wait for traffic. :P Fortunately, I was treating this race as a leisure run, so this didn't bug me too much. But I can imagine that some other runners with a more competitive streak would feel absolutely irritated with the interference with their race.

There weren't as many colourful characters in this race as the marathon in Singapore. But there was one guy (or was it a gal?) dressed as a pink ninja and a pair of teenagers dressed as Spiderman and Superman. There were also a number of visually-handicapped marathoners, some of whom did extremely well, coming in sub-4 hours. Well done! But the highlight was this sub-3.30 marathoner who did three cartwheels as he finished his final 50m dash. That was quite a sight! :)

Despite the little problems here and there, it was a fairly well organised race, and the weather's great for running. If I can, I'll try the half-marathon next year.

But now, I've got a big blister on my left foot to nurse...

Oh, and I came in around 54-55 mins. Slow huh? :D