Penang Bridge International Marathon

This is my first time participate in Penang Bridge International Marathon. Since I visit Penang a few times a year, I always want to try it out. I collected the race pack when I arrived Penang on Wednesday.

The day before the race, a group of us went to have Penang char kway teow & Chendul

The race starts at 2am. When I was preparing, I was wondering whether I should wear a singlet or a t-shirt. Due to it rained the night before, and I am highly sensitive to cold weather, I decided to use t-shirt instead of Singlet.

The race starts and end at the Queensbay Mall. It go through the bridge and U-turn at the toll plaza.


It was normal at the beginning. It was a little bit hot and I was wondering whether I made the wrong choice to wear t-shirt. Then, after the u-turn on the bridge, the HEAVY rain came. The rain is really heavy, you feel the pain when the rain drop on the skin. In order to avoid hypothermia, I run a lot more than usual. The heavy rain last for about 45 minutes and then ease off to a drizzle. With the cooler temperature due to the rain, I was able to run more than usual. I was able to maintain run-walk all the way to 33km when I felt that I had a hotspot on my right foot. I switch to pure brisk walk from there. Overall time is 5 hr 36 minutes, 9 minutes faster than my expected time of 5 hr 45 minutes.

I was able to keep a fairly good pace throughout the marathon. The two fast pace are achieved during the downslope of the bridge. With the cooler temperature, the heartrate is relative low. The last 9km are pure brisk wall.

The finisher's medal is in a special shape and the finisher's t-shirt is in green colour. But the wording at the back is white which is difficult to read.

Sunbird #9

Today has one of the fast changing weather. At the start, there is a very light drizzle, overcast sky. Just one hour into the run, the sun comes out and blast its power over everyone. More sun tan on my arm and face. About 2 more hours later, it turns back to overcast and about 30 minutes after finishing the run, rains cats & dogs.



For the pacing, it works well into the 1st hour (only 1 minute too fast), but the group slow down a bit in the 2nd hour (4 minutes too slow, about 3 minutes due to water point stop at NSRCC). The half marathon time is 7 minutes too slow. From that on the pace went downhill. All 9km are significantly above the 9min pace time.

Tempo Walk

A quick 3.3km tempo walk. Good pace in the first 3km and a quick dash to finish. Shoe used is Nike Free 5.0 The fitting of the shoe has became bad. I got blister for just a 3.3km walk!!


I also upgraded the SportTracks software to 3.0 seems to be better, especially on the map.

Sunbird #8

It was raining overnight and up to 7am. Just turn into drizzle when the run starts at 7:16am. Due to the dark sky and potential more rain, the run was changed to two loops in ECP.

Azhar and me are pacing the 6 hr group. Therefore, we keep the first 5km slow, then switch to run/walk at 80/20 ratio till half marathon distance.


The pacing is quite good up to 1st loop (15km). Timing is about 1 min faster than desired pace. But the 2nd loop is getting slower especially after the U-turn. There is also a break in buying drink and I have 3 stops (top up water, clear dirt in my right shoe and clear dirt in my left shoe). Overall timing is a little bit slower than anticipated pace. But in the actual day, there won't be any toilet stop, hope it will accelerate a little bit. At the end, I still have a little bit reserve and able to give a good run in the last 500m.