A Bridge Not Far Enough

Unlike the Japanese author Haruki Murakami who thinks of various things when he’s running, as in “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running”, I don’t think about anything lofty when I’m running.  Most of the time, it’s all terribly quotidian, like when is the next water stop, or what should I have for breakfast, or my toenail is hurting.

When I do think about running, I often think about Forrest Gump, the character brilliantly portrayed by Tom Hanks in the 1994 movie of the same name.  I think about Forrest Gump because, in the movie, on a sudden impulse, he started to run and he didn’t stop, running clear across the Continent and achieving a cult-like status in the process. 

What did he think about when he was running?  He paraphrases that he thought about the people in his life, but mostly about Jenny, his troubled childhood girlfriend who found her place in life after a distressing journey and finally came home.

Running as a parable for life – is that what motivates people to pay good money to punish themselves, many having travelled from various parts of the country, running in the company of thousands of other runners, waking up at an ungodly hour for the indignity of pushing bodies that would rather be asleep than pounding pavement?  Motivation is a remarkable thing.

In the wee hours of the morning on November 22, 2015, thousands of runners in running shoes and vests converged on the starting point, by Queensbay Mall in Penang.  The roads nearby were choked with parked cars and buses disgorged crowds of runners.

At the starting point, the mood was subdued, or certainly less upbeat than in previous years, with the loud music and bright lights and the assembled roar from thousands of throats.  There was a more business-like mood, like ‘let’s do it’ and dispense with the frivolities.  The annual Penang Bridge run is a well-established event by now.  Perhaps the early euphoria has faded with youth into more sober middle age, just as running in Malaysia has evolved from a fringe activity for fitness nuts into a mainstream activity, where you’re likely to be the fringe if you DON’t run.

This year, the run took place once again on its traditional home, the first Penang Bridge, with the 2014 event having taken place on the then newly-opened second Penang bridge.  For anyone who ran in 2014, the logistics and location of the first Penang bridge are far superior.

The human chain of volunteers holding back the crowd at the starting line stepped back, the starter’s gun fired, and the event was on.  In the darkness of night, by the orange glow of artificial lights, thousands of warm bodies surged across the starting line, with the constant high-pitched emission from the pressure pad underfoot, capturing the start times of individual runners from the pairing of embedded chips in the runners’ bibs.

As usual, there were the over-enthusiastic runners sprinting at the start, and more experienced runners taking a more measured pace.  Of the storied Kenyan runners, who as in years past, would sweep the top positions, there was no sight: elite runners started in front, the better to make a clean getaway from the mere mortals trailing up behind.

We surged onto the open Lim Chong Eu Highway, the rare chance of running on what would otherwise be a busy highway, a human tribe, strangers to each other, bonded by the common activity of running.  The air was humid and warm, a cloying sheet that molded itself and clung to me as I ran, and I was soon drenched in perspiration.  I’d spent several weeks training for the event, or as much as I could, given the un-trainable conditions during the environmental disaster that we blithely refer to as “the haze” in the middle months of the year. 

The route was quite joyless, being on a broad highway. It was simple however, being a straight up and down with U-turns at either end and a leg along the Penang Bridge. The turn points were not natural but artificial ones, designed to accommodate the distance of the run. 

Many runs worldwide take place across crowded areas of the city, hence the celebrated runs globally are scenic tours of well-known landmarks, with crowds cheering runners on.  Crowd participation adds another dimension to the run: signboards, impromptu refreshments, water, and most of all, the encouragement of the crowd cheering runners on – we are, after all, members of a larger human tribe. 

A run shouldn’t just be about the runners, or staging the event for the sake of doing it – it should be an extension of the city and its society – an occasion for the whole city to turn out and celebrate their city and how special it is, an occasion for the city to strut its stuff to the world, to the accumulated mass of foreigners who have come from far to run in this place.

For some of my friends, the absence of this aspect mars the Penang Bridge run as it takes place in the wee hours of the morning, and it takes a safe route along the highway, not bypassing any of the iconic Penang landmarks other than the Bridge, but what a missed opportunity for a photo-op of runners streaming by some of the older parts of town, or for an overhead picture from Komtar Tower!  At the time of morning, there were no residents up to watch or cheer runners as we ran by – we ran like thieves in the night, the event destined to be mostly completed by the time local residents awoke. What a missed opportunity for Penang residents to swell with pride that runners from all parts of the country, and world, turning up to run through their city!

Even the leg up the bridge felt like a token gesture: in my event, we didn’t even get to run up the main hump of the bridge before turning back.  From the bridge at least, there was a view of the city, its lights reflected in the straits – but it was only a short view before the turn back point.

Even though the number of runners was much reduced from the previous years’ event, there were still thousands, and because of the course itself, you would see running running in the opposite direction.  I noticed an absence of antics – where were the dressed-up runners, those running in unusual running attire, where were the cheer-worthy runners who, in spite of some handicap, overcame adversity and came to run?  I didn’t see any myself, and it robbed the event of the sense of fun and spontaneity, for we run not only to run, but we run to see our humanity reflected in others – those fleet of foot, those out-of-shape who try anyway, those who run to make a statement of some kind… we run to be part of a larger whole, and I felt this dimension missing. 

Towards the end, the usual mad dash to the finish, but no fanfare at the end, just the pressure pad to capture the ending time.  I don’t expect fireworks, but I do expect a sense of occasion.

Mass runs should be fun events, memorable for what they are, not just an extended run on a route you couldn’t otherwise access. 

The organisers did their job in handling the logistics of thousands of runners who completed their run, but they also missed the point, because that’s what the Penang Bridge run needs – it needs fun, it needs spirit and it needs soul.