Some cities will never have optimal marathon weather, even if you schedule the race at midnight in wintertime. One of these is Ho Chi Minh City. The temperature at midnight … MORE
Some cities will never have optimal marathon weather, even if you schedule the race at midnight in wintertime. One of these is Ho Chi Minh City. The temperature at midnight race day was 81 F with 80% humidity, and by 5 am it was 77 F with 90% humidity.
This was the first edition of the Ho Chi Minh City race. It was sponsored by VnExpress, which is the top newspaper/news website in Vietnam. I think VnExpress was rolling out a series of marathons and road races in all the major cities across Vietnam, and HCMC was just one stop. For a first-time race in a developing country at midnight, the production was actually top notch. Registration was pretty cheap, like $70 (but don’t forget you will also need a visa to enter Vietnam if you’re American). The expo was outdoor, at a soccer stadium a mile or two north of District 1, and there are plenty of maps and photo ops and free Heineken 0.0 cans there. The expo itself felt like a party scene: people laughing and chatting and taking pictures, kids playing Kinect video games, I think even the local news station was there. I walked around the track and found some middle aged Vietnamese men kicking a soccer ball around, and I joined their game even though we couldn’t speak a word of each other’s language. It was beautiful.
Race Night, we started at a park near District 1. They flew drones over the whole crowd several times before the start of the race to capture the vibe. Race started at midnight. We passed the very scenic Nguyen Hue at 3K–it’s a fabulous walking street in downtown that has old French architecture. However, by 5 or 6K, I started to realize the heat was no joke. We ran next to the river for about 10K on a down and back, and luckily the river created a slight breeze. Aid stations were every 2K and they had an energy drink called ReVive that tasted like salt water, along with regular water cups (down the stretch, almost every runner neglected the ReVive in favor of real water. I guess even the Vietnamese hated it.)
There were a few small stretches near the middle of the course where we ran in darkness for 500m or so, but the majority of the race was under yellowish street lights. I think we crossed the river four times and did a lot of running on closed-down highways on the eastern suburbs of HCMC. We finished at a park on the northeastern corner of the city, next to the zoo. There, they offered us several treats including ramen and beer and green tea. Elevation change wasn’t bad and the roads were nice and wide. Traffic pollution was a slight problem for the first hour, but traffic died down by 1:30am.
I am just pleasantly surprised by how *fun* the atmosphere was, even at midnight. Thanks so much to all the volunteers who stayed up all night to hand out water to the runners, and thanks to all the fans who shouted “Golek!” or something like that at me. Maybe it means “keep running!”, I don’t know.
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Some cities will never have optimal marathon weather, even if you schedule the race at midnight in wintertime. One of these is Ho Chi Minh City. The temperature at midnight … MORE
Some cities will never have optimal marathon weather, even if you schedule the race at midnight in wintertime. One of these is Ho Chi Minh City. The temperature at midnight race day was 81 F with 80% humidity, and by 5 am it was 77 F with 90% humidity.
This was the first edition of the Ho Chi Minh City race. It was sponsored by VnExpress, which is the top newspaper/news website in Vietnam. I think VnExpress was rolling out a series of marathons and road races in all the major cities across Vietnam, and HCMC was just one stop. For a first-time race in a developing country at midnight, the production was actually top notch. Registration was pretty cheap, like $70 (but don’t forget you will also need a visa to enter Vietnam if you’re American). The expo was outdoor, at a soccer stadium a mile or two north of District 1, and there are plenty of maps and photo ops and free Heineken 0.0 cans there. The expo itself felt like a party scene: people laughing and chatting and taking pictures, kids playing Kinect video games, I think even the local news station was there. I walked around the track and found some middle aged Vietnamese men kicking a soccer ball around, and I joined their game even though we couldn’t speak a word of each other’s language. It was beautiful.
Race Night, we started at a park near District 1. They flew drones over the whole crowd several times before the start of the race to capture the vibe. Race started at midnight. We passed the very scenic Nguyen Hue at 3K–it’s a fabulous walking street in downtown that has old French architecture. However, by 5 or 6K, I started to realize the heat was no joke. We ran next to the river for about 10K on a down and back, and luckily the river created a slight breeze. Aid stations were every 2K and they had an energy drink called ReVive that tasted like salt water, along with regular water cups (down the stretch, almost every runner neglected the ReVive in favor of real water. I guess even the Vietnamese hated it.)
There were a few small stretches near the middle of the course where we ran in darkness for 500m or so, but the majority of the race was under yellowish street lights. I think we crossed the river four times and did a lot of running on closed-down highways on the eastern suburbs of HCMC. We finished at a park on the northeastern corner of the city, next to the zoo. There, they offered us several treats including ramen and beer and green tea. Elevation change wasn’t bad and the roads were nice and wide. Traffic pollution was a slight problem for the first hour, but traffic died down by 1:30am.
I am just pleasantly surprised by how *fun* the atmosphere was, even at midnight. Thanks so much to all the volunteers who stayed up all night to hand out water to the runners, and thanks to all the fans who shouted “Golek!” or something like that at me. Maybe it means “keep running!”, I don’t know.