Well Hello There!
I hope you all enjoy reading about my 7th Project 30 run. This was a tough one for me. There was plenty to love about the run because of all the parks that I got to explore but it definitely kicked my butt pretty hard near the end!
Running in Bangkok was very different than my previous runs in a lot of respects.
It was the first time that I:
Started a run prior to the sun rise
Could actually taste the pollution in the air
Ran directly after recovering from being sick with food poisoning
As I wrote about in one of my previous posts, I was sick for 6 days the week prior. I was barely able to move out of my bed as I recovered from the food poisoning. Then, on the following Monday, after landing into Bangkok from Chiang Mai, I decided I was strong enough to get a run in. As soon as I started, I felt a rush of serotonin, dopamine and GABA inundating my mind and my body.
I felt like Superman.
Running and exercising is my addiction and the week prior I was going to withdrawal. This run was my relapse and I was once again hooked. I decided then and there that I would be running my 7th Project 30 in two days.
The Run
Start Time: 4 am End Start: 11:18am (so yeah, this one took a while)
I learned from my Monday run that Bangkok gets ridiculously hot. So, in order to avoid that hellish heat as much as possible, I decided to start my run as early as possible. As luck would have it, my body woke up with a start at 3:30 am giving me a chance to be warmed up and out of the door by 4am.
To my surprise, I wasn’t the only one out and about. The city was alive, there were delivery trucks speeding by, people getting their food stands ready, and even restaurants filled with what I can only assume was the late night clubbing crowd wrapping up their night. New York City’s tagline could just as easily apply to Bangkok, it’s a city that never sleeps.
After about and hour and half of running through the streets and alleys of Bangkok a realization popped up in my head. I never once felt any sense of danger as I ran through the streets in the darkness of night. Bangkok truly feels like a safe city. I’m not sure how many capital cities I could run at night and feel this level of comfort and security. It truly is a testament to the Thai people and their culture of genuine kindness.
The Parks
I decided to make a few of the major parks of Bangkok my priorities of the run and it allowed for me to make a fairly easy route around the city. Here’s the list of the four:
Chatuchak Park
Santiphap Park
Lumphini Park
Benchakitti Park
It probably won’t come to a surprise to anyone reading this, but I tend to run shirtless, especially when the weather is 90 degrees plus. However, I learned very quickly that it is not only frowned upon to be shirtless, but evidently, it’s against the rules to do so in any of the parks. I tested the rule in each of the four parks and each time I was told by a security guard to put my shirt on. Can’t win them all.
Besides that silly, but I am sure societally insisted upon, rule I was very happy to run in the parks. Going from the noise and air polluted streets to the densely forested and floral parks was like stepping through a portal that teleported me miles out of the city. I could immediately breath easier, letting me get back to enjoying the sensation of running.
Chatuchak Park
I relished my time in each of the parks. This was especially true for my first park, Chatuchak Park. I got to this park after having ran about 8 miles through the heart of Bangkok. I arrived around 5:20 am, so the sun still hadn’t risen. It gave me the chance to run through the park under the veil of darkness. Making for an interesting and unique run. I was virtually the only person running in the park at this time so it felt as though the park was opened up just for me. Eventually as the sun finally began to rise so too did the number of runners. Suddenly, almost instantaneously, I was surrounded by fellow early morning runners.
I looped around the park a few times, taking in the beauty and diverseness of the park.
One of my favorite parts of the park are the small islands that are accessible by stepping on flat stones that seem to be levitating just above the river. Additionally, to my great delight, they have multiple calisthenics parks located throughout the park. I, of course, had to get a 20 pull up set in.
Eventually, I decided it was time to get back into the city and make my way to the second park. So, I left the serenity of Chatuchak park and made my way through the now fully awake streets of Bangkok.
Santiphap Park
This park is a small and very well kept park nestled between two massive apartment buildings. It’s an explosion of light green and crystal blue that seems to attract the older Thai crowd for their morning strolls. I did one quick partial loop before exiting and heading towards my next park.
Lumphini Park
Known as the Central Park of Bangkok, I was excited to make my way to this park. This was the park that I ran when I first landed into Bangkok just a couple days prior. While the park is nowhere near as expansive as Central Park, it’s easy to see why the connection has been made. The park is large and surrounded by many of Bangkok’s skyscrapers, making for great panoramic views of the skyline. I ran three loops around the park making slight detours on each of them in order to see as much of the park as possible. Even with three loops, I feel as though I still didn’t see all that the park has to offer, so it’s certainly a large park that has plenty to offer runners and strollers alike. You’ll also probably get a lot of surprise visits by the massive 5-6 foot lizards that will decide to cross the road just as you’re running by.
Benchakitti Park
One of the coolest routes that Bangkok has to offer is the bridge that they have that connects the Lumphini and Benchakitti parks. It’s a 1.3 kilometer pedestrian and cycling bridge so it makes for a comfortable run with a unique vantage point above the streets of Bangkok.
Benchakitti is a thin rectangular park with lengths that measure just about half a mile in length with an artificial lake that acts as the centerpiece of the park. There’s a running path that hugs the lake offering almost exactly a mile loop. By the time I arrived at the park, I had ran just shy of 24 miles, meaning I still had 6 more miles to go. Looking back, I wish I run a couple more loops in the previous parks so I didn’t have to run 6 loops around Benchakitti. The downside to Benchakitti park is that, unlike the other parks, the running path does not offer much shade from the sun. And unfortunately by the time I arrived to this final park, the sun was out in full force.
With just 6 miles left to go though, I smiled internally and told myself that I have ran 6 miles plenty of times before and that this was just one more stretch before I could celebrate finishing yet another Project 30 run. But then it happened. The moment I have been dreading throughout all the months that I have been training for and running Project 30. At mile 25 my right knee gave out on me.
I was in an excruciating amount of pain. It felt like pins and needles were being fired at me by a Gatling gun. For the first time since starting Project 30, I was in the kind of pain that I thought I wouldn’t be able to recover from. I sat down and attempted to stretch out my legs as best I could. I messaged my knee and did exercises to try to bring mobility back to my knee. After 10 minutes or so I got back up, gritted my teeth and began to run again.
I ran one of the most miserable miles of my life. Every step had my knee screaming out in pain. I just kept telling myself that I was only doing one mile at a time. I had to mentally allow myself to believe that every loop was a victory on its own and that after each loop I could take as much rest I needed before setting off for the next mile. And so that’s what I did. I took down each mile slowly and painfully but with pure determination in my mind. I rested and stretched out after every loop. Slowly chipping away at the last 5 miles. What usually took me about 50 minutes to do, took about hour and half to finish. I had to fight for every step that I took.
I dug in deeper than I have for any other kind of physical activity.
The hardest part of these last 5 miles was not the pain itself. It was the fact that I knew that I could quit at any time. At the end of the day, no one is holding me accountable for these runs. They are purely self motivated. It’s scary just how easily we can quit something that no one is keeping us accountable on. Throughout those last 5 miles, an increasingly dominant voice in my head kept telling me that it would be okay to quit.
“Just finish the miles later, who would know?” “Who would care?” “Just stop, it doesn’t really matter if you finish”
Versions of these questions and statements swirled around in my head. But there’s something about pain that makes me that much more stubborn. There was no way in hell I was going to let this pain be the determinant for my quitting the run. Deep down I knew I could continue to move even with this level of pain and if I quit to do the remainder of the run at a later time, I would never forgive myself.
So I continued. I thought about how many times before I wanted to stop on runs but didn’t allow myself to. I thought about how great I felt every time I finished a run before. I was not going to allow myself to quit. I kept pushing myself and finding more and more motivation to finish as I took each step.
The moment I felt my left wrist buzz indicating that I reached the 30 miles, I bursted out in tears. In the middle of a heavily trafficked city park, I was crying like a baby. I couldn’t help myself. I was so damn happy to have finished this run. It was the first time that I dealt with that level of knee pain and had genuine thoughts of quitting. I can’t find the words to explain just how amazing of a feeling it was to get this run finished. All I can say is that there are few things that feel better than accomplishing a feat like truly pushing your body and mind to the limit. It’s why the word ecstatic exists.
Post Run
As soon as the run ended, I started the stages of my recovery regiment:
Using my TheraGun
Drinking plenty of water
Stretching
Getting a massage
And of course getting a restful night’s sleep
The only portion that I am missing from my ideal recovery regiment is the ability to take an epson salt bath. Last year during my training cycle it was an integral part of my recovery. Unfortunately, access to a bath has been extremely difficult to find while traveling so I’ve had to go without it.
After the run I spent the next several days learning about and exploring why Bangkok has such a global reputation for its nightlife. All I am going to say here is that even during COVID times they still found a way not to disappoint. There’s plenty of options in this Thai metropolis to have some memorably wild nights!
Gratitude & Feedback
Thank you for reading up into this point. I know I haven’t been consistent with my posts over the past month. It’s been a physical and emotional rollercoaster ride so I appreciate all the support and love that you all have given me, I am deeply appreciative!
Keep pushing & much love!
-Dylan