2 hours 34 minutes

Good morrow, blog readers.  It is my happy duty to inform you that I did not die on the steps of Angkor Wat, as was anticipated this weekend.

For those of you who do not have Facebook and are only interested in the results (countless jokes about a certain school in a certain town just outside the M25 could be made right now) instead of the emotional and epic journey from kilometre 1 to 21, I managed to do it in 2 hours 34 minutes - 4 minutes over my target time, 26 minutes before the Cambodian race officials show up with their giant road sweeper to clear up leftover runners on the brink of expiration.  You may now stop reading.

Frenchie, who has missed his calling as a paparazzi photographer, managed to document some key moments, through which I will now commentate as a director does on those really boring DVD features:

 At around 6:05am, whilst stretching, I thought that now would be an appropriate time for the poo-face.

At around 6:15am, after I had finished stretching, it was time for tourist photos.  I figured, at this point, I could always just wait until everyone else had started running and the track was clear, and then get Frenchie to take some photos of me in running freeze-frames, and then I wouldn't have to suffer in agony for 150 minutes.

This is just after setting off.  I am pleased because my legs are capable of putting themselves one in front of the other, after all.

About three minutes later, I saw the wheelchair racers wheeling off into the sunrise (they started before us) and I welled up and thought, in a dramatic and emotional interior voice, 'If they can do this, Emma, so can you!'  And then I may or may not have picked up the pace.  I'm guessing not.


The Hoff looks entirely awesome at around 6k.  An admirable time of 1 hour 40 something, but he's done it before, which explains the 50 minute gap in our finishing times, right?







The Eggplant Man at 6k.  Frenchie became obsessed with this guy - and all the other people dressed in enormously hot costumes.  Crazy.

 Hooray Mr. Reynold's Love Child!  Mr. Reynolds would be proud if he knew a) he had a 27 year old son and b) his son was running a half marathon following a training schedule that looked a little like this:

Monday: beer
Tuesday: beer
Wednesday: think about running
Thursday: beer
Friday: run - beer

He still beat me, though, so we have figured out that if I train extra hard next year, and he drinks more beer, we can be running partners.

Me at 6k.  Yes, a good while after the Eggplant Man has run past: he beat me, too.

My thoughts at this point: 'This is amazing!  Look at us all running together as some form of international, awesome, running community!  My heart is full of joy and excitement and good feelings for humanity!  Running is the best!'  I think the Disney tunes had just started at this point, and the endorphins and ibuprofen and Haribo were doing their job properly.

At around 9k, my iPod decided to die and the terrible truth of a half marathon was revealed.  Instead of a bass-heavy, pounding, upbeat soundtrack to what I thought was an incredible achievement, I realised that all around me, grown men were being metaphorically raped by the terrible trauma they were putting themselves through.  Sounds I never want to hear, repetitively and at regular intervals from fit-looking, healthy, grown men and women ever again:

Huuh, huuh, huuh, huuh!

Eh!  Eh!  Eh!  Eh!

Whoooo.  Whoooo.  Whoooo.  Whoooo.

Haaaa.  Haaaa.  Haaaa.  Haaaa.

I also didn't want to hear my feet slapping against the floor, grinding down my joints and promising, with every footfall to reduce me to a zimmer-frame user by the age of 32.  I stabbed desperately at my iPod, cursed and swore at Apple Inc. who I DESPISE, considered flinging the stupid thing into the undergrowth surrounding a temple, or giving it to one of the small Cambodian children collecting water bottles or standing by the side of the road to high five me as I hissed expletives under my breath, but to no avail.  I hate Apple.  Hate them.  Hate them.

Clearly the Frenchie wasn't too keen on the half-marathon sound effects, either, because he - knowing he had at least two hours to kill as I dragged myself to the finish line - decided to go up in a hot air balloon:

Pleasant.

 By the time he came back, the Hoff and Be My Valentine had already finished, but he was just in time to catch The Hare winning the Big International School's Women's Team Race.  She beat that dude in the blue behind her.  Boo ya, sucks, blue shirt man.  Incredible time of 1 hour 44...? minutes.  Tiffany - could you take her?





And of course, he couldn't have missed his buddies, Eggplant Man, Bear Man, Monkey Man and Teddy Bear Man:

 And then me!  I'm smiling because for the last four years I've watched other people do sport, and got teary watching the London Marathon, and now I too, am as Li Hi as those people.  Almost as Li Hi as Eddie Izzard when he did his Marathon Man.  Right?

I don't think I was suffering enough at this point, so I clearly should have been running faster.

Team photo!  Huzzah!

On the way home, it will please you to hear, that whilst playing the 'test all the perfumes in the Duty Free shop' game, I absentmindedly left my passport and boarding pass on top of a shelf of perfume and dawdled away, daydreaming, until a friendly lady shouted at me, and held my passport up in the air.

Ahaha.  Oh dear.