Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore 2010

In summary, this race was a bad race for me.

3 days before the race, I was down with a bad sore throat and the day before the race, I was having slight fever.  I tried to rest as early as 21:00hrs on the eve of the race date (i.e. 4 Dec 2010) but I just could not get to sleep and I have to wake up at 02:30 (on 5 Dec 2010) to get myself prepared for the race.  I finally fell asleep at about 23:30 and that mean I had 3 hours of rest before the race.

At about 02:20hrs, I woke up and went to the loo to do my "big" business.  I had a cup of milo and a potato for my breakfast before I went out.  Reached Raffles City at about 03:25hr, waited for Jason and Fred before we took a 2km walk to the start point in Orchard Road.

My target for this race was just a sub-4 timing but it turned out quite badly this year because of a few reasons.  I was aiming for a 5min/km for the first 30km and let the rest of the distance be determined by my condition of my soles.  Everything seemed to work accordingly to plan pretty well until I hit my 28km.

I was doing 46:47 for the first 10km which was slightly faster than 5min/km pace.  21km was 1:42:23 which was within the 3:30 finishing target.  At 28km, I had a pulled on my left calf muscle and I was forced to stop to do some stretching.  At this moment, I knew I was going to be off limit for my sub-4 finishing.  I was having this feeling that something was wrong with my left calf muscle a few days before the race because I could feel some pulls on the muscle occasionally while walking or sitting down.  When I reached the 32km mark, my timing was 2:46:43 and I knew if I could maintain running, a sub-4 was possible, but I couldn't because
1.  The muscles were complaining (maybe started to fast and lack of serious training).
2.  The road surface from 30km onward was very bad because it went through construction sites from Fort Road to Marina South.
3.  The merging of 42km, 21km and 10km runners at the Benjamin Shears Bridge (plus up-slope) where most of the 10km runners were walking.

I started to walk from 38km to 40km because I was blocked by the "walkers" along Sheares Bridge and the bad road surfaces before I could start to run again to the finish line.  Nevertheless I finished this marathon in 4:44:05 which was my personal worst of all my marathon races.

Anyway, though it was a bad race, but it was still a valid barefoot marathon for me.  I met a veteran barefoot marathoner from Malaysia (Wah Sing) and he told me that my sole is still very tender, need more training on it.  Wah Sing did a remarkably good 3:36 timing yesterday.

I think in running a marathon, determination is very important. Last year I did 3:40 for the marathon (SCSM 09) with full determination and effort barefooted.  This year, there was no determination and no effort put into this preparation and hence this result.

Guess what will I do for the next marathon?

Check the result here

Marathon photos can be found here.





I accidentally found an article that mentioned about me.

Rewarding LSD ...

It was my off day, I was trying to clear some outstanding day-off for the year.  I had 9 days brought over from 2009 that need to be consumed by 30 Dec 2010 and another 21 days from 2010 that need to be consumed by 30 Dec 2011.

I had planned to do a 35km LSD, 5 loops of 7km around Serangoon-Punggol Park Connector.  It was a mental torture but I had overcome it.  I finished 35km with a time of 3 hr 1 min @ 5:11 min/km.  After the run, I took a short rest and then went out to do some errands like visiting the dentist, buy a tap and then go to my mum house to repair a broken tap


After finishing the tasks, I went Yishun SAFRA to have a dip.  Swam 500m and then do some leg and body message using the jucuzzi.  It was "Shiok".

:-)

... Training for 5th December 2010 Marathon ...

Have been sometime since I wrote something on this blog, well I shall write something for now.

Initially I have planned to write all my training schedules that will lead to the year end 5 Dec 2010 Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore but I changed my decision as I am not committed to do any runs these days.

I am into an adhoc training schedule, no training plan nor target.  Of course I do not have any timing target for the marathon too.  I will just run and run for a stipulated time like 1hour, 1.5hours, 2 hours etc. during my training runs.  For the actual race, I will just run and hope to finish with 4 hours.

This morning was my long run since my last serious training.  It was a 20.4km run without any aim nor fix route.  I just ran and ran until I hit a 2hr duration.

Of course,  I did it barefooted.  :-)

POSBKids Run @ Anchorvale on 19 Sep 2010

It was an enjoyable outing with my family for the run. See the pictures and you will understand.

Army Half Marathon @ 12 Sep 2010

This run was a very leisure run for me as I was pacing a friend who has just started running for about 1 year. Wi Khiang was initially not very sure if he could finish the race because his longest mileage was 30 rounds a 400m running track. He is one of the kind that does all his runs in the stadium.

We started the race by me picking him up at Hougang at 3:50am and we proceeded to City Hall. Reached City Hall about 4:15am. Did some toilet business and we proceeded to the start point. I was very surprised that the start point is very empty at 4:30am. We walk toward the start line and took some pictures. In about 20 minutes, the place was filled with runners. There were all sort of runners like a lady in a fruit hat and wearing her pinkish red panty outside her running tights and I was joking to Wi Khiang that these people were "Pattern more than badminton". Haha.

The race started about 5 minutes earlier than stipulated 5:15am. We started the run easy and I was constantly reminding Wi Khiang not to go too fast as I have estimated and targeted his finishing time to be 2hr 30mins. Along the way Wi Khiang had 4 leg cramps at the calf muscles but he pulled through the journey and completed the race in 2:14:13.00. WiKhiang was very delighted that he completed his first 1/2 marathon.  I was very happy that he completed way before my target for him.

I was glad that I paced Wi Khiang all the way and this was the first time I have experienced the 2 hours plus crowd. The feeling was very relaxed and enjoyable. In all my previous 1/2 marathon races, I normally finish between 1hr 35min to 1hr 45min and I do not really get to enjoy the race experience.

Reflection: I do not always need do a fast race, try to enjoy the race.