Went to do another overseas marathon, this time the Stanchart Taipei Charity Marathon (12 Nov 2023) and throw in a year end holiday with Chien 🙂
Scoot airlines, the flight for this trip kept changing the timings (once for departure from SG from 9 Nov 4 pmish to 10Nov 1 am, which I changed to 9 Nov 1 am)(once for departure from Taipei to a later time 4pm, instead of around noon)..quite annoying especially the early morning timing and arrival at 530am at Taipei! How to spend the time before check-in at 3 pm?? Read on 🙂
We had a quick bite at the airport and then took the metro to the city to deposit our bags at our hotel (Relax 5) which was a walking distance away (10min).
We had a second round of breakfast at a shop near to the hotel, and after this, Chien went for her 3hr “free” walking tour while I “parked” myself at the 228 Peace Park for birding and sketching the rest of the morning and just pass noon!
The Taiwan National Museum in the park so happened to have an exhibition on bird migration and I decided to just take a look (30NTD only) and get out of the afternoon heat before meeting up with Chien again for a late lunch.
After lunch and check-in, and a short rest, we headed for Taipei 101 (Chien had pre-booked tickets to the 101floor for 430pm)..
Unfortunately, the sunset was mostly blocked by clouds, except for this view when we were at the 101st floor
Day 2…Daan forest park (AM) for birding, and cycling part of the marathon route along the right bank of the Keelung River (7km mark to 15km).
It was a fun session at Daan, as I met up with some local birders who, like me, were trying to get shots of the common kingfisher! Plenty of water birds like little egrets, black crown night herons, and eurasian moorhens around and taiwan barbet (again!)
We had a snack and then headed to the Keelung River where a big part of the marathon took place (up and down the two opposite banks, crossing 3 bridges). Good thing was the ease of renting the youbike the moment we stepped off the bus, as I was much more conscious this time to reduce walking before the race.
Took more photos of birds as we cycled along 🙂
Day 3 Saturday
Early start to the day as went to meet up with other runners from SG at the start line area..
And then Fu Hang for Michelin star rated breakfast of soybean stuff and other local delicacies (all thanks to Chien who went earlier to queue and had to stand in line for 1h 30 min before her turn came!!)
And after breakfast, to the botanic gardens for the Malayan Night Heron
Rest of day was spent chilling and prepping for the race on Sunday 🙂
Sunday 12 Nov Race Day!
Work up 2am to eat (2 slices bread with peanut butter and strawberry jam), and again at 4am, before heading out to the start line less than 10min walk away from our hotel.
Alas, the sub 4 target was not achieved – missed by 10min this time and I believe this was due to my pace being too fast for the first 21km, at 1:57 (even though this time was in line with my plan to target 3:55 finish and doing first half in 1:57:30)(slow 6min/k at start as no pen to separate runners and my trying too hard to catch up by 5k did not help)..and also the relatively warm temperature of 22Celcius in spite it being winter and drizzling lightly..
Overall, guess I was not ready to take this faster pace of 5:34/km given the conditions, as the next half of the run was much slower … (Nothing near to 5:34/k but more around 5:50 to 6:30/km, even 7plus for 37 to 40km) ..in all averaged 5:55/km
Still, it was not a bad timing, and we took the chance for a celebratory dinner with a nice Japanese meal after I spent the rest of the day resting ..
End part 1 Taipei..next up, Part 2 Beitou to Taichung
While I Live, I Learn 