Hi,

Ok, maybe you can call me easily amazed, impressed or duped. And maybe this all is obvious to most people. But when I lived on Beacon Street in Boston, on Marathon Day you could wake up at 9:00 in the morning and look out your window all day long (until maybe 6:00 in the evening), watching as the (thousands of) runners kept streaming by. People would come from all around the area and line the entire marathon route to watch, eat, drink & cheer encouragement for hours; it was always a great day! Of course, that was in April... in Boston...

We've been living in Jomtien for almost (4) years. This year, my beautiful TGF and I have moved into a great apartment- right on Jomtien Beach Road. Sit on the balcony, anytime you want, and look across the road at the beach... just great! Soooo, anyway, on Marathon Day I made sure to get up by 9:30. I went out to the balcony at about 9:35. After a minute, a couple of bicycles pedalled by, passing two slow-moving joggers. Around 9:38, (2) wheelchairs rolled by. Then, nothing happened for a few minutes...

At about 9:42, an Isuzu pick-up cruised slowly by with three Thai guys in the back wearing bright pink safety vests, the last of whom was leaning out to collect the orange plactic safety cones from the road/route... the race was done. I'm on the Marathon route, and that's all I saw! It was 9:45. Slowly, over the next few minutes, the cars came back and the road returned to normal. Hmmmm... not even 10:00 yet.

Ok, so I kinda didn't think/forgot about the intense mid-day heat, the different starting time, and the much smaller field of runners here in Pattaya, but geez!! The whole thing just passed me by before I could say, "There go the Kenyans!!" What the heck time did they start, for goodness sake?

Anyway, this was a mild one for me. But, ahh... life in Pattaya- every time I think I'm settling in so well, and calmly adjusting to life here I get amazed, stunned, surprised, wowed or whatever...!! It's great; kinda keeps you on your toes, no? What next?

-Michael (away!)

What the heck time did they start

About 4am..I too caught a few last stragglers at 10am near to Walking street.

TIT

Wee morning hrs marathons start in most countries around 7am, however prob start earlier in thailand because of the heat.

What the heck time did they start

About 4am..I too caught a few last stragglers at 10am near to Walking street.

TIT

4 am...!!?!??! <deleted>, Chuck??

Who'd-a-thunk-it?

-Michael (away!) (& wowed, again!!)

As others have already said, and also on the Pattaya Marathon web site, its was a 4am start.

Here are some photos from the Marathon. Might post more at some point later.

Great Pictures.