- Seoul Marathon 2012: Race review -

      - SEOUL INTERNATIONAL MARATHON -
                   -Home of the Speed Demons-

It's been a week since that awesome race, Seoul International Marathon 2012. I've been tasked to write a race review about it for some time already by Abs. To me, this is the race  I've been looking forward to since I've registered for it 3 months earlier.This is the race where I felt that I'm gonna break into the Sub-4 hours timing and seriously I've been working my butts off for the past 2 months to get myself in the best possible shape before the race. Lots of sacrifices including dieting, training hard on working days and so on but it's been worthwhile ..... Worth the sacrifices!!! 3.41.48 !!! My timing for Seoul Marathon that is ....

Few days before that, I was feeling a little nervous leading to the race cos of the pressure to do well. I know that lots of the Freaks are right behind me and the support shown was awesome ... I simply gonna do it for the Freaks. It wasn't easy though. The pressure was great. But the BELIEVE IS EVEN GREATER. It could be because I was surrounding myself with highly motivated individuals perhaps?

                                                                                                             


A day before the race, Yaoming and myself managed to get a couple hours of rest before waking up early in the morning to get our stuffs ready.We reached the race site 1 1/2 hours before the start off.. It was such a freezing cold morning.

- With Marathon Maniac, Mike Cartwright -

  

We managed to warm up plus some camwhoring sessions with the locals.  We met 2 Singaporeans (Aileen Ho and Vincent Yeo) before the race plus a guy from my FB contact Mike Cartwright who lives in Hong Kong. A small chit-chat session plus photo taking followed.

- With fellow Singaporeans. Aileen Ho & Vincent Yeo -

                                                                                                            
The race started at 8am sharp. The 1st to go off were the elites, as usual. We were next on the queue. Before the race, I hugged Ming and wish him all the best. Without a doubt I believe that he's gonna do below 3.30 hours.
We both went our separate ways after the flag off. I told myself that i shouldn't go below the pace of 5min/km as I am afraid of cramping before 30 clicks. I managed to get my momentum going  and survived half marathon in 1hr 45 mins. That was fast, I told myself . I remembered Izat advise to hit 2hr 30mins for the 1st 30 clicks and I managed that feat. I'm very much comfortable with my pace between 4.50 to 5 and even then lots of local runners were overtaking me. I kept reminding myself not to be tempted by following them but to run my own comfortable pace instead. During the race, I didn't see much of the awesome scenery cos I choose to focus on  the race and my own pace.

For a moment, I was thinking for a sub 3.30 for the finish. Haha .... So ambitious to think of it. At 31clicks, I felt a slight cramp on my thighs. I remembered the "Legend's" advised to slower down my pace and not to stop when cramp sets in . I went to a pace of 5.30mins. It worked!! At 32 clicks, I felt a slight hamstring pull. As i continued running, it became unbearable. I stopped for a moment and was feeling rather shitty. I'm afraid that I might just have to walk all the way to the finish line and began to fear the worst.I just felt like CRYING seriously. Traveled so far with big dreams and ends with crushed dreams. How would you feel? Thoughts about love ones back home and the Freaks kept me going. Did some stretches and continued to do a slow jog. To my surprise, my hamstring felt normal again.

I continued past the 37 clicks mark and was on course for a  sub 345. I was smiling to myself for the next 5 clicks.With the awesome support along the Seoul neighborhood, I managed to run below pace 6.  Before I crossed the finish line, i saw Ming by the side who took video recording of my finish. It was an awesome finish. 3.41.48 hours on my Garmin watch . To me, anything else does not matter. Obviously I was surprised by my timing. I was just expecting between 3.50 to 3.59.

- The AWESOME Finishing pose !!! -

          
                                

- The souls of Seoul from Singapore !! -

                                                               

- Feeling the wonderful Seoul's fresh air -

- Signing off from the awesome race -

I hugged and congratulated Ming for his awesome finish of 3.21 hours. It was what I expected of him to do. As always. Overall I believed that the SEOUL MARATHON was better than HK Marathon due to the awesome support and I promised myself that I'll be back chasing the dragons in SEOUL again next year,if GOD permits. Thanks to those who believes in us and I promise to get even better ..... To those who gave me plenty of advises, you know who you are, thanks a million and with lotsa love .... for 315 sake ...

Signing off ...simply AA......