Sheer punishment

It's not my fastest marathon.

While it was dehydration that derailed my attempts to achieve my target timing in 2005, this time, it was the paralysing cramps that gripped my legs which refused to go away.

At the most difficult moments of the race, when the kilometre markers seemed so distant, your mind really plays games with you. It takes sheer grit and mental discipline to focus your exhausted mind on finishing the race, rather than to succumb to the easy way out and fall out of the run.

I still retained that spring in my step, even past the 30-kilometre mark. But gradually, the cramps locked my hamstrings and calf muscles in a vice-like grip. Running became impossible at the last 5 kilometres. All I could do was hobble as fast as I could.

At the last bend of the road straightening to the finish line next to the Padang, I picked up enough momentum to run again, painfully.

Crossing the finishing line this time, however, provided less satisfaction compared to the past 3 years.

Maybe it is time to do something else, I thought, as I sat in the taxi on the way home.




I was really glad to be home. Feeling thirsty, I was about to pour myself a glass of water when I saw a glass of barley on the kitchen table.

Ah, it's my wife, who got me this drink just before she left for work.

That barley drink was the best I've ever downed in all my life!