Runners are really easy to identify ? Saw many runners in their race tee or finisher tee at the holding gates in airport and at the race pack collections ? Saw many Singapore runners participated in the Kuching Marathon this year machiam it’s a Singapore Race ? Runcation is such a in thing now! ❤ Kuching International Airport is just 1 hour and 5 minutes of flight time away from Singapore, air fares is less than SGD$200 and it’s my first time to Sarawak ? And I think the only state I haven’t been to in Malaysia is only left with Kelantan? Any upcoming run there? ? Or have a aim to run in all the states in Malaysia? ?
This Kuching marathon really super epic and memorable ❤ First of all, sibeh sotong me lah! Didn’t remember I opted for courier delivery for the race pack? But sibeh WTF, Friday I’m flying to Kuching at 6 plus flight, Thursday I received a message I have a parcel from Kuching delivery to me the next day, I was still thinking what have I bought from Kuching online ah? ? 
My mum will be at home the next day so I thought that’s fine, I’ll just call home and ask my mum what’s that. Flying off at 6.45pm and meeting Christine at 4.45pm at the airport but at 3 plus while I’m still at work, I called home and asked my mum is there any parcel for me and she said yes and I asked her to open it for me. My heart skipped a few beats when my mum told it’s my running stuff ? Was supposed to head off to the airport directly from work and in the end I had to catch a grab home claiming additional time off from work. With my luggage again, lao niang already make the effort to take my luggage out since morning and took bus to work some more leh ? Took the race pack so freaking long to reach me lah!? How can so last minute sia, I could have flown to Kuching with the race pack still in Singapore! ?
On Saturday, I accompanied Christine to the race pack collection at Plaza Merdeka, it’s in a mall located right next to Padang Merdeka where the flag off will be. The queue was long but fast moving and there’s some stalls there selling sports accessories, apparrels and footwear there. Also poisonous booths which stung my eyes with cheap registration fees for the Borneo Marathon and Miri Marathon for next year ?
After the racepack collection, we went for some site seeing with some of our running friends from Singapore and met two young handsome boys ?
Plaza Merdeka is about a 20 minutes walk away from our hotel. We stayed in The Lime Tree Hotel about 1.6km away and walked everywhere nearby during our stay there, like what Christine said, because we are runners this distance of walking is nothing ? It was quite a nice stay at only about SGD50 per night and included breakfast as well. The breakfast was good. The hotel even offered free shuttle bus for full marathoners at 11.30pm as the flag off for full marathon was 1am. Heard from Rey who’s staying at the same hotel that he’s the only person on the shuttle bus ? Why shuttle bus not provided for half marathon runners? ?
On race day morning, Christine asked me while we were still getting ready whether it will rain or not, I replied confidently: Weather so hot ? Wished I can be like Nami from One Piece, can know the weather very well lah ? While we were walking to the race site, we can already feel droplets of rain ?
We were rather early and reached at about 3am. Of course I won’t missed the opportunity when I saw Milo Van ? It’s like 4 or 5 Milo Van lined up there. Luckily I went to get to drink some Milo before the race, because the queue is damn long after my run.
My anemia isn’t getting any better all these years, standing at a spot for too long I will faint so it’s common to see me in race site with all the opportunity to sit down like this while waiting to flag off ?:
(Photo credits: Christine)
Then it started to drizzle about 20 minutes or so before our half marathon flags off at 4am. And it gets even heavier ? Christine and I went to seek shelter, weighing the importance of our health. Our body very precious to both of us as we had been sick for a long period very recently. I even asked Christine will they postpone the race or cancel the race? And her answer was: This is Malaysia ? Ya man, Malaysia race won’t cancel because of heavy rain. Which reminds me of Penang Bridge International Marathon last year which I ran the half marathon. It was thunderstorm lah! ?
Both Christine and I were still contemplating whether or not to run. Since I got back from Khmer Empire Marathon, I’d been down with flu and didn’t run much. To me to run with a flu is fine as I’m almost recovered but I was pretty reluctant to run as I’m suffering dysmenorrhoea. Most of all, I DON’T WANT to be dripping blood on the tarmac along the way while I run ???? It’s a nightmare for many female runners to have a race during these few days of the month ?
Thinking I had already ran many races this year and it’s OK not to run this as next month I will have Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur Marathon and I will be running half marathon as well. Christine had just recovered from being sick for 3 weeks and I’m still sick since I gotten back from Khmer Empire Marathon 2 weeks ago ? I told Christine I will wait for her in the hotel room while she run. It was 3.58am and other runners who had seek shelter like us inside the tentage braved the rain and headed to the start line then. We heard the countdown for the flag off, its like heavy downpour and there’s even lightning just a while after flag off. Christine and I were the only 2 runners left in the bag deposit tentage hiding from the rain with the volunteers while Christine was videoing the runners running in the heavy rain exclaiming: All these are crazy people ?
(Video credits: Christine)
We asked the volunteers are there any closing time for the start pen and the volunteers kindly and efficiently checked for us. We were informed that there’s no closing time for the start pen as long as we finishes the race under 4 hours from the official flag off at 4am.
It’s going to be 4.30am soon, finally the rain became a slight drizzle. Christine said she needed to burn off the calories from our day before feasting in the Kuching Food Festival ?
Christine was paiseh to head to the start line alone so we tried jio-ing other runners who are hiding from the rain in another tentage to run together as well but they were all already planning to DNS or run a shorter distance themselves later on. I then told Christine I will cover a short distance with her and we headed to the timing mat to get our bibs “checked in”. A van stopped right there just as we were about to start running, these runners looked like the full marathon category runners who were sent back because of whatever reasons they DNF.
End up just right after we started running, we were lost ? We ran additional 1km even though it’s just like the first km ? We didn’t see any direction sign at all and concluded maybe the volunteer at the turning point declared pang kang already as we ran straight when we should have turned left but we ran straight and turned right ?
After that we only saw signage for 10km runners and we realised it’s the wrong way, we u-turn and carried on running till Christine run into a building which I feel is not the right path and I told her I don’t feel that it’s the correct way and we make a second u-turn ? It was after that then I know it’s a Mosque.
Then we asked the table of uncles sitting in the kopitiam for direction, they told us to go back and turn right in Chinese and Christine pointed left ? Jin hoseh, literally want to face palm myself eh ? This was also her 3rd race she got “hilang” this year ? Since seeing Christine not good in her sense of direction, since Christine slowed down and waited for me(She can easily run a sub 2 half marathon but ran with me at 7mins pace), since I was the one who jio-ed her to come for this Kuching Marathon, I carried on running behind following her hoping I will be fine. A while later she also confirmed with me whether I will continue running or not ?
After a while the drizzling stopped. There were many hydration points along the way but I think isotonic drinks were only available at alternate stations. Quite a few of the hydration points offered ice cold sponges. Think some volunteers along the way were shocked to see us still running after so long ? One volunteer even ran with us for a distance and make sure we turned to the right direction. I even asked him after the turn will we catch up with the rest of the 21km runners in front and he just shake his head and smiled a bit awkwardly think he dosen’t want to give us false hope ?
(Video credits: Christine)
Some parts of the route is quite dark. After a long time I was even asking Christine nobody walk one meh? ? Then we heard the prayers from the mosques. It was quite nice to hear the prayer actually as it was so quiet with just the two of us. From the echoing of the prayer broadcasts, there is quite a lot of mosque nearby.
(Photo credits: Christine)
We set a target to at least overtake 1 runner ? It’s only at our 8km plus when we finally saw a runner in front and overtook him. Then a while later we changed our target to overtake 10 runners but the target was accomplished soon. We then saw runners coming out from a mosque, must be them going in to borrow the toilet. I didn’t see any portable toilet along the way at all but Christine said she just saw ONE cubicle at a hydration point. We carried on running. I stop counting when we overtook 110 runners and it starts drizzling again till the end of my race.
All was going well till around 15km, when I started feeling tummyache and I told Christine to go ahead as I’m going to walk already, she even told me “Don’t DNF huh” before she run off ? I said OK and luckily I said OK because at about 17km I thought of DNF and getting a Grab back to hotel. I walked because I know THE SHIT IS REAL ? Worst thing is no toilet in sight. I was cursing many times inside me. I think is the tummyache that caused me not to have any awareness of any upslopess at the later part of the race and I really had the thought of getting a Grab and DNF ? Christine they all were saying after the race about the slopes and I even said, got slopes meh? ? Perhaps I was too focus in thinking about tahaning the tummyache till I reach the hotel toilet estimating the remaining distance and counting down the distance left to the super shiok toilet. Hope no one thought I was cheating or take short cut when they saw me turned towards the hotel lah, I even ran additional distance hor ?
Seriously, though the suffering of tummyache, but I enjoyed myself in this run. It was epic and memorable because the DNS and DNF is so real but I completed the race. It’s a new experience as it’s like Christine and I were the only 2 runners till our 8 plus km. Nobody overtake Christine her entire race ?
There’s an additional Finisher Tee for the top 200 finishers which looks similar to the normal finisher tee as well. Love the medal very much as it’s cute and the finisher tee is very nice as well ? But people judge beauty/nice/cute differently lah. Had a friendly conversation with a lady from Kuching who ran the half marathon as well sitting next to us on the plane while flying back to Singapore and she said the race singlet and finisher tee is getting uglier each year ? But I’m quite interestedbto run Kuching Marathon again as I enjoyed the race and didn’t completely explored Kuching yet! Well, it’s just 1 hour and 5 minutes of flight time away ?
