Running in Sukhothai (and two 10k races)

I journey back to Southeast Asia, the one place where I have enjoyed sports glory in recent years.

This year I enter two running races on consecutive Sunday mornings - the first -Bangkok’s Rama VIII Bridge 10k and the second event the Chiang Mai Mini-Marathon.

Between the events I travel the 700 kilometers between Bangkok and Chiang Mai  by train and bus, spending several days in Thailand’s original capital- Sukhothai.

Sukhothai was the center of a vast empire in the 13th century, but now it is a sleepy rural town, way too far off the track to attract hordes of tourists. This makes it an absolutely superb training destination. The historic park area is a sprawling collection of ancient temple ruins surrounded by well-groomed lawns – perfect for bounding and strides.  

The ancient city walls make for nice long contemplative runs on soft surface – especially in the hours around sunrise and sunset.





I just wish I was not so tired -- tired from my paranoid finishing kick over the final kilometer of the Rama Bridge 10k..

The Rama Bridge race, along an expressway in the hours before dawn, is flat, fast and relatively cool for this region. With so little to distract me up on this expressway, I find myself locked in an internal struggle to stay positive. I hit the turnaround in 18:44 and am told that I am currently 3rd in my division. Knowing that only the top three receive awards, I obsess with fear of being overtaken.  I am so paranoid, that despite my mounting fatigue  I somehow summon energy for a desperate surge with well over a kilometer to go, accelerating my pace to under 3:30 per k for over 800 meters.  The final 500 meters is an agonizing slog.

I manage 9^th overall and 2nd place in my division, which means

big prize money— 4,000 baht (well, big money for me anyway given my impoverished financial situation and low costs in Thailand). With my race times slowing down and always one other guy seeming to show up and blow me away every race, I look for triumph wherever I can.

My official chip time for the 10-kilometer? distance is a respectable 37:16. But upon seeing the results afterwards I wonder if maybe I should have been more tactical -- and saved energy for running in Sukhothai and for Chiang Mai. 

So then during the weeklong journey north I sleep 10 hours per night to fight off a cold and to ready myself to defend my age group title at Chiang Mai. 

This is my 4^th time running the Chiang Mai 10k, but this year the kilometer marks are short which makes me believe that I am running much faster than I am – this helps give me a confidence boost early and makes the race more enjoyable than the stressful, mental challenge of the previous week. I am only slightly disappointed as I note the rather slow time of 40:45 for 10.5-kilometers? when I cross the finish line. Most any disappointment is dispelled when finish line volunteers put the division 1^st place tag around my neck. 

At Chiang Mai I win 3,000 baht of prize money

and, even better -- this funky elephant tower trophy:

At the awards ceremony we discover that we are not the only athletes traveling and working the Thai running circuit.  We meet Kindu Swemehon who had also competed in both the Rama Bridge and Chiang Mai races.  However Kindu competes in the half-marathon and full marathon and is the overall winner of both of them.  So as rugged as we might claim that our week of travel and racing was, it is relaxing compared with Kindu.  For now I will hold off on leaving my day job and joining the Southeast Asia Running Tour full-time.