WAI MAI?

As I sit down to write this you may be surprised - or repulsed - to learn I have only seven toenails left on my feet, with two of those on the way out.

Soon I will stand up and, like a crotchety centenarian, hobble slowly and unsteadily away from my desk. Oh, and my inner thighs are the colour of the UDD shirts.

Still, I feel on top of the world.

On Sunday, Nov 23, I joined the 48,000 runners who took part in the Bangkok Marathon, which started and ended outside the Grand Palace after a journey on the expressway that didn't require a car.

I was never a runner. I always thought marathon runners were a skinny bunch of joyless, determined-looking people. As I grew older, and more joyless and determined-looking myself, I started to change my mind. What if, just once, I ran a marathon? The idea was so daunting, so outrageous, I decided to do it.

Six months ago I picked up a book aptly titled The Non-Runner's Marathon Guide. With my new book, new running shoes and a house not that far from Rama IX park, I proudly announced to the world I was going to run the Bangkok Marathon.

"You're a bloody idiot," my boss at BEC-Tero, Brian Marcar, replied.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" said any number of Western friends.

"Aren't you too fat to run a marathon?" said just about every Thai I knew, stranger or friend, in their inimitable style. And the best response of all: "Oh really? Do you have health insurance? I work for AIA. I can offer you a policy that would provide 2 million baht to your next of kin, no questions asked."

The first morning I ran exactly 2km in 18 minutes and had to stop in order to prevent a heart attack and a windfall for my next of kin. But that wasn't the worst of it.

I work in - and on - television, and I am the only person who actually looks smaller on TV. Every day of my life I am accosted by, "You're so fat in real life". I was going to train six months for a marathon, and I really didn't want people recognising me.

So I did an ingenious thing. I bought myself dark glasses, donned a cap and pulled it down over my eyes. And on that first morning I set off, a lone figure at sunrise, jogging around the expansive Rama IX park in complete anonymity.

"Oh look, there's Andrew Biggs," three people shouted as they passed me. "Doesn't he look fat in real life?"

Very early in the training I was joined by Annie, my Thai-American friend. "I'll run the marathon with you," she said chirpily, as can only be spoken by somebody who has never attempted such a feat before. We managed to meet on many Sunday mornings for the long runs.

The running slowly became an addiction. Yes, I have an obsessive-compulsive personality and took to the running the same way I might have taken to smack had I accidentally picked up The Non-User's Heroin Guide at Kinokuniya. But my legs got stronger, my backside firmer, and my trousers easier to wear.

"Be careful of your knees," one or two - or was it 20? - people told me. I immediately bought ridiculously overpriced knee pills, which allegedly build up the gel in your kneepads.

I built up my kilometres. In October I ran 30km in driving rain. I was still getting the comments as people sailed past me, usually just two words - "Wai mai?" - roughly translated as: "Are you okay? Are you up to this?"

With 10 days to go, I realised I hadn't applied for the race. "Oh yes, applications are still open for all runs except the 42km full marathon," a helpful woman at the Thai Runners Association explained. "Which one were you wanting to apply for, kha?"

The evil demon that sits on my left shoulder giggled and clapped his hands excitedly. "Great! Now we don't have to go through with this madness."

Before I could even say "Oh okay, thanks, well maybe next year, bye", the woman very kindly said: "If you can get down here by today we can still process your application."

The angel on my right shoulder sang to the heavens, my demon slunk down despondently and I quickly dispatched one of my work-experience students to the Thai Runners Association.

The Bangkok Marathon started at 2am on Sunday.

"Make sure you get a good night's sleep prior to the race," aforesaid marathon tome sternly dictates in the chapter headed "Marathon Day". I foolishly believed I could jump into bed at 6pm, wake at 11pm and go to the marathon refreshed after a five-hour sleep.

Dream on, Andrew.

In fact, there wasn't any dreaming at all. I lay in bed, adrenalin shooting through aforesaid GNC-gelled knees, unable to sleep a wink. At 11pm I got up, showered, and as I ran out the door I scrawled a quick will - "In the event of sudden death all my money goes to charity. Give it to Father Joe. Andrew Biggs" - shoved it into my safe and ran into the darkness.

By 1am I had picked up Annie and we were sitting in Saran Rom park opposite the Grand Palace. This is normally home to male prostitutes who lurk in the shadows waiting for customers. They must have clapped their hands with glee when a couple of hundred sleek young men started drifting into the park that night. Their excitement must have waned when they realised none of them was there for any physical activity in the dark, other than running of course.

Annie and I unpacked our bags and started stuffing ourselves with bananas and Gatorade. It was all part of the master plan to be so carbo-loaded we would never hit the dreaded wall. "Hitting the wall" is when your body runs out of carbs, usually around 30km or so, and you are eaten by fatigue. There are stories of people's legs seizing up, of runners breaking down and crying, of grown men and women losing control of their bowels and limping across the finish line leaving a trail of ... oh, but never mind.

In the darkness I rubbed in Vaseline on my feet, between my legs and on my nipples. Camaraderie was building between total strangers who were brought together for this event. "My wife didn't want me to run, so just before I left home she made love to me, thinking it would wear me out. It didn't," he laughed.

By 1:50am, we were at the starting line. The Grand Palace looked magnificent against the night sky. And all around, happy smiling Thais, telling me how fat I looked in real life and was I up to running 42 kilometres? Wai mai? And when we heard the siren go off at 2am, the race was on.

Annie and I stayed together for the first 3km. After running over Phra Pin Klao bridge, which looked ominous but really not that difficult, she started to run ahead of me. "Slow down!" I shouted, but Annie was having none of that. I knew she would tire quickly and I'd meet her somewhere around 20km. I fantasised my waggling a finger at her as I sailed past her crumpled figure on the side of the road, announcing "I told you so".

Suddenly we were on the elevated expressway to Phutthamonthon, running with a cool breeze and a sliver of a moon. At around 5km, a bespectacled man joined me, a man called Lek who worked at the Thai Journalists Association.

The party atmosphere dissipated around 15km, at the very end of the elevated expressway, as we turned to run back towards the Grand Palace, and we were plunged into silence.

Still no sign of Annie.

By 24km we were back at Central Pin Klao and Pata Department Store. "Don't Give Up!" screamed a Wall Street English Institute billboard. "I won't!" I screamed back. I was joined by a young man who told me "Wait until you get to kilometre 30. That's when you get cramps and your legs seize up and you're in agony." I didn't need to hear that; as if public diarrhoea was a bad enough prospect, now my legs would seize up, too.

At 26km we heard over the loudspeaker: "Move to the left!" The elite runners passed us. They had set off at 3:30 and we were overtaken by a group of 10 or so Kenyan runners, running in a tight pack, with just the sound of their feet. They looked beautiful, powerful and scarily focused all at the same time.

By 28km I was hurting. Then a woman in red came running up beside me. She was 69 years old, had started running marathons at 55, and had run 48 of them - forty-eight - in the past 14 years. "My husband thinks I'm mad," she said. "Well, see you." And she tore off into the night, giving me the boost I so sorely needed.

Just before 6am we were approaching the beautiful sunrise at Rama XII bridge. We were about to hit 30km, me and my new best friend Lek. Every 2km there were pit stops and I chugged down Gatorade after Gatorade along with watermelon, the very first piece of which I could actually feel hit my stomach, the sugar spreading through my body.

Now I was into the 30s, my legs were starting to protest. At Dusit Zoo the guy whose wife had legally raped him eight hours prior appeared. "I saw your woman friend - she's about a kilometre ahead of you," he said.

By 34km I was hurting so much I started laughing out loud. The tiny bridges across the canals on the streets were more painful and difficult than that big Phra Pin Klao monster. Casualties in the form of cramp-stricken runners littered the road.

At Sanam Luang my shoelace started to come undone. "Lek!" I screamed, and he stopped with me. As I tried to bend over I felt like I was going to collapse. "Are you okay? Do you want me to tie it for you?" Lek asked.

Think about that, dear reader. Do you want me to tie it for you? Was there ever a more beautiful offer made in the history of mankind?

For those last 3km, I prayed to five deities. My Thai readers will understand. "Phraya Krut ... Phra Mae Toranee ... Luang Phor Sothorn ... Phra Phutta Chinnarat ... Phor Khun Ramkhamhaeng - please, please get behind me and give me a push. Please."

And you must believe me, they did.

I will never forget rounding the corner of the Grand Palace and seeing the finish line; we ran across it with hundreds of people cheering us, taking photos, and a man on the loudspeaker welcoming us.

And there was Annie. She'd never stopped - coming in at five hours and 37 minutes. I had been running for six hours. I had finished. I was a marathon runner and had a gold medal to prove it.

"Congratulations, Khun Andrew!" an executive from Standard Chartered said to me seconds after crossing the line, shaking my hand and beaming. "Look how fat you are!"

The marathon has changed me in so many ways. First, I never want to see a bottle of Gatorade again in my life. Ever. It was Gatorade that got me through those final 10km, but you can have too much of a good thing.

Second, this experience made me look at my body in a completely different way and I will never, ever, look down on myself again. I am in awe of the remarkable machine that is the human body.

And finally, I have a new outlook on life that has lasted long after the natural high of the event.

I have progressed from a "bloody idiot" to a source of pride. I feel I can conquer anything now, which is probably a good feeling to have given the current world economic climate.

Oh, and if you ever see me running around Rama IX park, you don't need to tell me I look bigger in real life. And yes, I am up to it. Wai krab.