Last weekend, the 11th edition of the OSIM Sundown Marathon took place with more than 25,500 runners participating across the various race categories – the 42.195km Full Marathon, 21.1km Half Marathon, 10km Competitive Run and the 5km Fun Run.

Click here to view the OSIM Sundown Marathon 2018 photos.

Winning the Men’s Full Marathon was Kenya’s John Muriuri Mburu, 27, who clocked a time of 2hr 29min 07sec. 

Kenya also dominated the male categories in the Half Marathon and the 10km Run, with Lee Kipchirchir, 24, winning the 21.1km race in 1hr 10min 24sec and fellow countryman Godfrey Ngetich, 36, taking the 10km title in 36min 04sec.

Said John, “I felt good to win this race. If God says that I will be the winner, then I win it, thank God.”

But in the women’s categories, Singaporean runners rose to the challenge with podium finishes and victories.

Angela Hu Xiu Ying, 40, a freelance coach, was the winner of the 42.195km Full Marathon Women’s Open category and she overcame leg cramps to win the race in 3hr 35min 50.9sec.

Said Angela, “Actually today I didn’t do my best. I walked all the way back from 36km because of leg cramps. I never expected to win; I just wanted to complete the run and didn’t think of giving up.”

Singaporean Kelly Ho came third in the Women’s Half Marathon and national triathlete Phoebe Kee, 18, won the 10km Individual Women’s Category. 

Said Phoebe, “The race pushed my limits today. The route was not as flat as I thought it would be, but was still a good race with sufficient water stations and race marshals. The race was really well organised too and there was no getting stuck at bottlenecks or being merged with other runners.”

In the marathon category, Angela’s strategy had initially been to target a 3hr 20min marathon regardless of position but she had to give up on this goal because of cramps.

She said, “I was supposed to run at a 4min 45sec/kilometre pace to achieve my target but at the beginning I started out too fast. The weather was also quite humid so I could not achieve my best timing. That was why I suffered at 36km.”

She said, “If I was able to run, even at at a slower 6 min/kilometre pace, I would still have been able to achieve a 3hr 25mins marathon but now my timing was 10min slower than I wanted.”

But for John, he knew that he could win the race from the 29km mark onwards. Said John, “I was not sure if I could win at first because everyone was competing and coming here to win the race. But my body reacted well and from 29km I was still moving at a good pace and from that point on, I knew that nobody could beat me.”

He added, “But it was tough from 34km because there was nowhere to get water at that point, so that was tough. The slopes along the way were not an issue though because I train on slopes all the time and I was fully prepared and well-trained for this race.”

But Angela however, admitted that despite winning the race, she did not have enough training for to run a marathon well.

She said, “For this run, I had trained about three times a week but I did not do any long distance runs since March. That was also why I cramped at 36km. Three times a week is also not enough preparation.”

Continued Angela, “I want to advise all runners that if you want to run a marathon, you need to run long distance so that you do not suffer during the race. Long runs means that you need to build up your runs to about 25km-30km to prepare your body for what is needed. My longest run was 25km in March and my weekly mileage peaked at about 60-70km. It was not enough. Next time I need to do more longer runs.”

Neither of the two full marathon winners thought that running through the night with a lack of sleep and going against their natural body clock, had been an issue for them though.

Said John, “It is not easy to run at night, but I was not sleepy and I felt good It is also more cooling than running during the daytime.”

Added Angela, “The race is on when I would usually be sleeping but I try to get some sleep in the afternoon and I think that usually works for me. But I never trained myself to run during the night though as I think it is not necessary.”

Here is a full list of the winners from all the categories at the Sundown Marathon.

Race Review – Sundown Full Marathon (42.195km)