The idea of a mara-cation (a vacation planned around the schedule of an annual marathon) started last year when my fellow triathlete Raymond Alo prodded us to register for the Standard Chartered HongKong Marathon scheduled on Feb. 12 this year.
And so, seven of us brave souls from Dumaguete registered for the full marathon; only four of us, however, made it in the guaranteed list of participants which was done through lottery: Dr. Santiago Tiongson, Michael Chua, Rodney Cordova, and myself.
Raymond, Recardo Cordova, and Ramjay Divinagracia — who also came with us on this maracation in Hongkong — ran the 21-kilometer half marathon.
We arrived HongKong four days prior to the event. We were full of excitement for the tours, the food, the sights and sounds — afterall, this was a deserved vacation as well.
I joined this full marathon in HongKong on pure guts; my training was not as rigid as when I did the Swiss City Marathon in October last year in about 5 degree weather in Lucerne, surrounded by its medieval architecture and the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland.
But just as excited for the HongKong marathon, we hit the ground running (literally) for some training to get a feel of the place, and how it was like to be running on nippy weather below 10 degrees.
Of course, we also did some sight-seeing adventures, becoming like kids again in Disneyland, too thrilled waiting for the fireworks display. Hong Kong-based Dumagueteño triathlete Glenn Gonzalez met up with us as we experienced genuine HK culture, and tasted its delicacies.
On race day, we started at 7 am; cut-off time was six hours or by 1pm. Since there were about 74,000 of us runners, we were sent off in categories and waves. Finally, we were off!
As I was running the first five kilometers, I could feel a kick-off, like an energetic burst that I thought I could actually finish in under five hours. It must have been the Gu energy gel I took prior to gunstart.
So I decided to continue with a slower pace, with the intention of making a number of particular stops along the route to document the magnificent views with my camera. Imagine the race route which took us from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, crossing the impressive Victoria Harbour through two long bridges, and then going into two road tunnels.
The sights were so dazzling, I almost got carried away: I stumbled when I didn’t notice a road reflector right infront of me, throwing me on my knees, and almost kissing Hong Kong ground. Good thing, the race marshalls were quick and kind enough to help me get up on my feet.
I finished the 42-kilometer race with Doc Tiongson in a respectable time of 5 hours-45 minutes.
The HongKong race organizers are truly commendable; no wonder this marathon has become so popular all over the world in the last 21 years.
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Irwin Noel graduated from Silliman University with a Business Management degree in 2003. He works with the RUSI family business, and is a proud 4th generation genuine Dumagueteño.
He started competing motocross races as early as 1995 when he was only in 3rd year high school. He has earned not only trophies and medals for that extreme sport, but also some sort of “popularity” among local surgeons, being almost a regular in the hospital scene.
He has been under the knife two times — each for the love of motocross racing: reconstruction and menisectomy of the anterior cruciate ligament, and pinning of his totally- fractured tibia/fibula.
He has had around 10 fractures which all went through natural healing, including five broken ribs, a broken collar bone, broken arms, broken fingers, a broken leg, and a broken wrist.
Irwin has also had six bone dislocations on both shoulders, on a finger, and on his wrist.
Add to that some brain concussions, and total blockout about four times.
He couldn’t count the number of times he has had sprains, bruises, and scratches on his body.
All for the love of motocross.
But also because of his various [painful] experience in motocross racing, he was compelled to go into roadrunning instead. Well, he also needed to reduce his weight, and improve his stamina.
Since then, Irwin has completed in March 2016 the prestigious Ironman triathlon in New Zealand, three half Ironman events, several triathlon standard distances, two ultramarathons, and five other local and national full marathons.
