Delhi

Now I am in Delhi, India for another work "mission". I will spend my Raya holiday here working.

I miss home since arrived here last Saturday.

Anyway, I managed to snap some photos here to share. More stories later.

A marathon that took 55 years to complete

In 1912 Stockholm Olympics, a Japanese marathon runner named Shizo Kanakuri (photo below) sought refreshment near a farm house during his run, but collapsed later due to heat exhaustion and was cared for by the farming family.


When he came to, he realised his race was over. Feeling ashamed, he quietly returned to Japan without notifying the race officials. The Swedish officials was looking all over for him but couldn't find him.

When he was back in Japan, he still trained and ran competitively. He even ran in 1920 & 1924 Olympic Games. He finished in 19th place in 1920 but failed to complete in 1924. However, the Swedish authority was still ignorant of his whereabouts.

Then in 1966, after being listed as a missing person for over 50 years in Sweden, a reporter managed to track him down to Japan where he was living a pension life as a geography teacher. At that time, he was already a 75 year-old grandfather.

A Swedish businessmen's committee invited him to come to Stockholm to complete his run. He gladly accepted the offer and continued his run where he had last stopped (the farm house).

Finally, Kanakuri made his triumphant entrance into the Olympic Stadium and finished his marathon in 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 8 hours, 32 minutes, 20.3 seconds.

More on 5th PAR

The detail results of the 5th Pacemakers Anniversary Run can be found here.

I just want to express my sincere thank you to my team mates again for their pia spirit shown in run. Special mention to Janice, who ran with an injured left shoulder. Not only her shoulder gave her the pain, halfway through her run, her shoes were giving her problem as well. So she decided to ditch her shoes and ran with only her stockings on. See the photo below.

Janice in action, with an injured shoulder and no shoes. (Thanks Tey for the good photos)

Looking at her face expression, it was not an easy run for her. However, her time was commendable. She clocked 13'49" for 2.6km. Position among female runners was 16 out of 41. Overall position was 100th among all runners. There were 132 runners in the competitive category. Well done, Janice. Another note to mention is, she didn't really train well for this. I feel if she is healthy and train more, she could have run better.

Another point I left out in the previous post, after the PAR5, BP and I met Mr Gurdip in Bukit Aman carpark. It was good to see him again. He just finished his morning run and was going back on a motorcycle. We chatted for a few minutes and he mentioned that he will join PBIM 2009 as well. See you there, Mr. Gurdip.