Bromo Marathon 2015!

Vallen and I signed up a few weeks ago to run a 10k at the Bromo Marathon. It was a great time! I met new PCVs, old PC staff, and a new friend from Surabaya ran, too. 

Vallen's results: 210 out of 400 men, woo! 

My results: 50th out of 200 women, not bad! 

While I remain quite impressed that my fellow PCV Shane created the Bromo Marathon in 2013 with his local counterparts, I recently found out there are other marathons that take place at Bromo. However, these are ultramarathons. An ultramarathon is anything longer than a regular marathon (as if that isn't enough already!) It is news to me that a run longer than 26.2 miles exists, but it seems it does. There will be an annual ultramarathon at Bromo in November, in which participants can run a half marathon, a full marathon, or for those uninterested in a mere 13 or 26 miles, one can run 43, 63, or 105 miles. I'm not sure if the 46-hour cut off time means 46 straight hours (as in 2 days), or if it means you are given about 4-6 days to run all this, and you only count 46 hours as the time in which you are running. Either way, this is ridiculous, but a real thing. There is a famous ultramarathon in the Sahara Desert too...what?!

Anyways, back to the mere 10k. 

Getting ready the Friday night before with some selfies! 

Power pancake breakfast the day before the race. 

On the way there (a three hour motorcycle ride is a feat in and of itself!), there were billboards welcoming the participants. 

We arrive after getting lost only once. Google maps suggested the back way, which turned out to be a scenic village route with no paved roads. We stopped after about 10 minutes to ask for directions back to the paved road. It was well worth the stop!

This map, to be honest, doesn't really show much of anything. I guess it informs us that we'd be  running in a loop! But no elevation or terrain information...

 We booked our accommodations weeks in advance. We first drove up to the check in in Tosari. When we road 5 km back down the winding mountain road to check in, they apologized, saying they'd given our room to someone else. So we hopped back on the motorcycle to ride 5 km back up the winding roads to meet a random Pak Giono on the side of the road. He was to escort us to the next homestay location, which turned out to be someone's living room. I forced Vallen to refuse this place, as we paid for a hotel room homestay, not a bedroom in someone's house. Pak Giono seemed unfazed. He hopped back on his motorcycle and roared up the hill. We waited on the side of the road for about 10 or15 minutes while he made some calls. Then he jumped on his motorcycle again (smoking and with no helmet, mind you), and took off down the hill. He showed us to another homestay, which was worth the money we'd paid. While no hot water in 65-degree weather is brutal, it all worked out in the end!  

A very tired 6 AM selfie before the race, despite sleeping 10 hours. We were sleeping by 7:30 PM because it was pitch black outside and cold. Nothing to do but sleep!  

We lined up with all the other 10k runners (700 people) all at once. Who needs waves!? I whispered to Vallen that my goal, like the Bolder Boulder 10k, was to not walk at all. Once the gun went off, I was shocked that everyone in front of me was walking! At the start line! Was this a race or a 10k walk?! I kept up my slow jogging for about 10 minutes, weaving in and out of walkers. I even kecp up my slight jog as the incline went straight up. We were dripping sweat within 6 minutes! Everyone (with the exception of few real runners and me doing the slowest jog ever) was walking up the incline. After about 10 minutes, it became apparent that this was a never-ending incline. To Vallen's delight, I slowed to a power walk. We finally reached the top of the incline at 3 km (we walked most of it with everyone else!)


The next section was the downhill. In our race packs the day before, we got about 100 advertisements for Garmin products, a bottle of water, a notebook, and a face mask. We didn't think we'd need this face mask so we didn't bring it with up. Unfortunately, this 2 km downhill was 100% dust! We made it past that part, however, to the next 3 km, an easy run through the villages. 1k of straight downhill on the pavement proved painful on Vallen's knees and my ankles, so we walked a bit. The final 1k was a slight uphill, filled with traffic and car pollution! We weaved in and out of cars that were lined up down the hill (returning from an early morning at Bromo volcano), and finally made it to the end. Huzzah!

Finisher medals! Great souvenir from this event!

About 10 minutes after we finished, Vallen turned to me and said, "Maybe we should run a half marathon next time." I promptly told him I'd fully support that...from the sideline!

With Puji from Peace Corps!