My Fiancée (Eileen) and I
reached the race site (The Float@Marina) in the early morning Sunday at 4:30am.
It was her 1st half-marathon race in her entire life. Initially, Eileen was
worried that she could not finish her 21 km race as she did not do any race
more than 10 km distance. However, I told her that she was going to make it to
the finish line as she had LSD trainings with us (Freedom Freaks) previously
and had increased her longest distance mileage to about 25 km. Before the race was started, both Eileen
and I linked up with Jeff, his girlfriend (Yingshan), Chee Wah and Jeremy at
the baggage deposit area. After
depositing our stuff at baggage counter, we immediately did our warming-up
& stretching exercises and then heading to the 21km start line.
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| - With the gang - |
Near to the start line, I met up with bro Izat and wished
him all the best in his race. I told him that he sure can finish his race in
sub-1:30 hour due to the recent's improvement in his training at MacRichie
Reservoir with Sam E, Yaoming, Asree, Izhar and other FF runners.
Bro Izat then asked me for my target time. I replied to him
that sub-1:40 hour would be good enough for me because I had been putting on weights
this year and also did not do much LSD trainings with FF runners. Hence, it was quite unlikely to do a
new PB time for me, I thought so.
At the start line, I felt privilege to position
myself together with our well-known Singapore elite marathoners like Ashley
Liew, Anne Date, Ivan Low, Izat and other fast runners.
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| - Being with the super elites !! - |
Soon, the 1st wave of 21 km
race was flagged off at 6:00 am sharp. Izat bro was then immediately flew off
like an rocket. Cool right? Hahaha!
I ran and met up with Anne Date during my 1st km run. To make myself
feel like an elite runner in that competitive race, I then quickly speed up my
pace and ran beside her. Hehehee!
At that time, we were running together at a pace of 3:43 mins/km. But I
told myself that I should not push too hard above my usual pace/speed from the
start because I would easily hit my wall early and eventually slowed down my
overall performance. Hence, I began to slow down my current pace to about 4:30
mins/km and kept focus on my run with a steady and comfortable pace.
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| - Chasing the elites - |
Throughout my run, I
managed to hit my objective timings for the various distance markers (5km in
21m 55s, 10km in 45m 38s and 15km in 1h 09m 19s) and finally I crossed the
finish line with a new PB time of 1h 37m 09s (average pace 4:37 mins/km). That was
3 seconds faster than my previous PB which I achieved in SAFRA Army
Half-Marathon 2011. My overall rank position was among top 50 finishers, that
is, 43 out of 2997 runners. Honestly speaking, the feeling was awesome!
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| - Sprinting to the finish line - |
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| - My official result - |
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After the race, Eileen and
I found ourselves at the baggage deposit area. I was very happy to know that
she did 2h 40m 08s for her debut 21km race. I must say that her timing was good
and respectable, especially for non-seasoned runner like her. But I think she
has the potential to run as fast as me. Hahaha! :D
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| - After the run - |
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| - We're a happy couple !!! - |
My upcoming races in May
2012 are MetaSprint Series (Triathlon), Trifactor Swim 1.5 km and lastly
Sundown Marathon 42km. Hope things
will be fine and go smoothly. Safety always comes first and timing comes
second.
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