2ND PENANG INTERNATIONAL 12-HOUR WALK by LIM FANG HAU, JASON @ PM 23

This was my first time taking part in the 12-hour walk. The reason taking part was to test out how far I could walk in 12 hours. Overall, the race attracted more than 300 participants from local and abroad.

The race started at 8 pm, 16/1/2005. It was flagged off by a VIP (Teng Chang Yeow). This race involves walkers covering as many laps in 12 hours with each lap measuring 1,078 metres. Initially my target was to get a medal and a certificate within the qualifying time (24km within the first 6 hours.). I managed to do it within 4 hours. After the 4 hours I started to slow down and just walked to set a new personal record. There were sufficient food and drinks during the walk for walkers to re-hydrate themselves. It was quite boring for me to cover the entire lap as I had to walk the same place for many laps. There was music from the 60s to the 90s to motivate the walkers. The results were released every 1 or 2 hours had elapsed to indicate the distance the walkers had covered.

After 6 hours of walking, I felt totally hungry. This was the sign of insufficient carbohydrate and my body was burning the fats. I decided to stop and had some ‘nasi lemak’ and drinks. After that, I continued the race. At one point of time, I was totally tired and I could not walk. I had to rest for a few minutes. I nearly slept as I was feeling too sleepy. Some walkers slept for a few hours before continuing their race. At certain distance, my leg and body were too sore to walk. I did not want to give up but to continue with the race. My walking pace was like a tortoise, much slower than I expected to go.

At 4am, I managed to cover 42.042km. This distance is almost equivalent to a marathon distance. At last I managed to break the psychological barrier of 42km. This served as a good practice on my endurance and strength for my coming first marathon in March. After that distance, my left knee began to ache. I had to apply some painkiller on my left knee to continue. My walking pace was quite slow and I was walking like a handicap person. I felt like giving up but I was very determined to continue with the walk in the darkness until the end of the 12 hours. I also did some stretching on both my leg to prevent muscle cramps.

At 7 am, the sun was rising and I enjoyed watching the scenery near the sea side. I had 1 hour left. At that time, I covered 50.666km. I decided to use my full strength to cover as many laps as possible. I managed to cover 5 more laps. At 8 am the 12-hour walk ended with a siren. Total lap covered as 52 laps and total distance covered was 56.056km. This was my personal achievement as I had never covered such a long distance in 12 hours before. I got a medal and the certificate of achievement was posted to me recently. I did not know my position as the organiser only indicated the position for the top six walkers.

After the walk, my legs, muscles and knees were tired and sore. My left knee was giving me a problem. I could not bend my knee, if I do so my knee could feel the pain. I also could not straighten my left knee, if I do so I could feel the pain. I was walking like a handicap person after the race. It took me more than 2 weeks for my leg to recover the effect of the 12 hours walk. I still managed to run 30km during the Pacesetters practice run on 23rd January 2005 although the effect was still on my left knee. My left knee had totally recovered from the effect of 12-hour walk yesterday and I managed to complete my fourth 30km practice run.

For the potential walkers of the coming 24 hours walk in Genting, make sure you are fully prepared for it. It is going to be a torturing race as you will be pushing yourself towards the limit. I will not participate in the coming 24 hours walk as I am not fully prepared for it.