Marathon here I come

I have signed up for the Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2009 this coming 28th June.

According to the legend (from Wikipedia), this 42km foot race was originated from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.

After the Greeks defeated Persians, Pheidippides, a Greek messenger ran from the town of Marathon to Athens to exclaim “We have won” to the assembly. He ran for approximately 42 kilometers without stopping and after he announced the victory, he collapsed and died of exhaustion.

Okay that’s pretty scary. Bravo to whoever that came up with the idea for making this deadly act into a race.

Since it’s my first marathon, and I don’t want to see myself dying of exhaustion even before I finish running, I signed up for the 10km run instead of the 42km full marathon, or the 21km half marathon.

Training for marathon isn’t easy. To be frank, I don’t even know how to train for marathon. All I did was running on the treadmill for 30 minutes each training session.

Last week, I took around 30 minutes to run for a distance of 4km. After running for only 4km, I already felt very exhausted. Imagine I have to run 10 times the distance to complete a full marathon, I guess I will just pass out half way.

Joining this marathon is more like challenging myself to see how far I can go. I do not expect much, all I want is to finish 10km within the time limit which is 1 hour and 30 minutes.

From my 30 minutes 4 kilometers record, it’s obvious I’m still far from what is needed to achieve my target.

Time’s ticking, need to get serious about my training soon…

Or maybe after I get myself a pair of new running shoes :p

P/S: If you are interested, go to www.kl-marathon.com to register and start your training now.