Suan Pruek 99 Ultra Marathon

Last weekend’s 10-Hour Suan Pruek 99 Ultra Marathon was a different kind of race. Your or your team’s goal was to run as many laps in a park as possible within 10 hours. For the crazy ones competing individually, it meant running lap after lap around the 2.1k long Nawamin Phirom Park, from 6 AM to 4 PM. For those of us running in teams, it meant 2.5 hours of running. At least one woman per team was required and it seemed like most were gentlemanly enough to let the ladies go first.

I was asked to join a friend’s team long time ago, and therefore wasn’t a part of the Brooks Team Thailand in this particular event. My team was called B (for some reason) and I was running the second leg, 8.30-11.00 AM.

As I have Stockholm Marathon on May 31 in mind, I had no plans of going flat out for 2.5 hours. Instead I took the opportunity to get a solid workout in. For the most part, I kept a moderate pace, but I also ran 45 minutes at my target marathon pace. This felt a bit tougher than I wanted it to feel, but I pushed through the 45 minutes anyway. The temperature peaked during my run, which obviously didn’t help either.

It turned out to be a close relay. Though we were cheering on each other’s runners, it ended up being a fight between the Brooks team and team B. Finally my team came out as the winner by covering one more lap than Brooks.

The individual competition is where the real hardcore runners are. My friend Randy had a duel in the last hour with longtime rival K. Sanya. Not knowing if he grabbed the lead by overtaking Sanya, Randy gave it everything he had left. After the results were in, Sanya still had one lap on him and Randy finished 2nd after a heroic performance.

If the relay and the men’s solo were close competitions, the women’s solo was not. K. Saipanya Tanvilai ran steady as a metronome and covered a distance of 105k (50 laps), just 3 laps less than the men’s winner. Impressive stuff!

All and all Suan Pruek 99 Ultra Marathon was a fun and different event. Since you ran around the 2.1k loop several times, there was a lot of support around the route. Runners of all levels ran side by side and the atmosphere was great. The race was far more popular than previous years, almost 60 teams participated and 300 individual runners. All Results.