KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 -- National long distance runner K. Prabudass broke his own Half Marathon national record after clocking one hour and seven minutes at the Hokkaido-Sapporo Marathon Festival 2021 in Japan today.
The 31-year-old Negeri Sembilan-born runner finished 49th with the new record, 29 seconds faster than his previous mark of 1:07:29s set at the 41st Gold Coast Marathon in Australia on July 7, 2019.
The Gold Coast feat also saw the Royal Malaysian Navy personnel erasing the then 15-year-old national record of 1:07:59s held by former national runner M. Arul Thevar since July 4, 2004.
Prabudass was delighted with the new record, as he was competing for the first time since December 2019 and was recovering from a viral fever just about a month ago, which forced him to miss the Malaysian Grand Prix (GP) Championship on April 10-11.
“I am very happy with this achievement, with only two weeks of preparations after being admitted to hospital. Initially I was thinking of doing my best to finish the race because I had to race against strong and cold winds here.
“It was very challenging to compete in the windy conditions; I stopped twice due to cramps … Right calf cramped in the 13 km mark and then both calves cramped at 19 km, but I'm happy to finish the race with improved time,” he told Bernama when contacted in Sapporo.
Besides that, he only managed to train in the hotel corridor for almost a week since arriving in Japan as the marathon was held under a strict quarantine bubble amid the rising number of COVID-19 cases.
“I was only running in the hotel corridor, around 100m long for a few hours every day. We are not allowed to go out of the hotel and even to the venue we must use designated vehicles,” he added.
Prabudass, the 2017 SEA Games 5,000m silver medallist, will next switch his focus to track events to earn his qualification for the Hanoi SEA Games scheduled for the end of the year, where he hoped to compete in the 5,000m and 10,000m events.
-- BERNAMA
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