Melbourne Half Marathon 2022

Before the race I wasn’t sure if I could last the distance as during training the furthest LSD I did was one 24km and also missed out on a number of key sessions. As expected I was struggling towards the end and wanted to stop, glad that I overcome it physically and mentally.

Taipei Marathon 2019

This was my second time participating in Taipei Marathon, the first been in 2016 when I only managed to finish with a slow timing of 3hrs 49mins. This time I am better prepared, going through months of training, clocking over 100km per week. I was hopeful that I could do better this time round and achieved another PB.

On race day I reached the start point early before entering Pen B at 6am, waited for the race to start at 6:30am sharp, The temperature was just nice at 19 degrees Celsius, not exactly cold since it was not windy.

Soon as the race starts, the 1st km was quite jammed I felt tempted to overtake slower runners but decide against it since the race had just start and I thought there's still a lot of time to catch up so I shouldn't be wasting energy waving in and out.

At 2km I notice I was way too fast and by the time I hit 5km I realized I was just too fast. I thought I should have kept closer to 4:55min/km pace, instead of 4:50min/km pace. Perhaps the thought of getting another PB and running alongside some fast Taiwanese runners really  "pushes" me to run fast. I was also motivated to run fast when I overtook the 3:30 pacer group.

By 12km I had to slow down as i was feeling the strain of running too fast over the 1st 10km. Slowly the Taiwanese runners started to drift further away from me and I decide that I had to start running at my own pace, maintaining 4:50min/km pace.

As expected I soon started to run out of gas and was struggling with a pace of around 5min/km pace till 24km when Lee Shu Hao from SAFRA Toa Payoh caught up with me, I was surprised to see someone from Singapore. I was glad as I now had someone to keep pace with.

It was challenging to run with him, he was always ahead of me while I managed to overtake him at water points.  At 35km when I slipped and fall, despite that I got up immediately and continue running I could not longer keep up with him. I was too tired and was slowing down, very soon I started to lose sight of him too.

The remaining part of the race was a sheer test of mental strength where I tried my best to maintain 5min/km, I figured out that I could still have a chance of a PB from the mileage I banked in earlier in the race.

At around 39 to 40km running up incline highways were slowing me down, legs felt heavy with inner sole pain, and by 41 to 42km I could only managed 5:20min/km pace before going all out crossing the finish line.

Overall I am happy with the timing and it was encouraging that I could still get a PB despite started off too fast. I think I might be able to achieve average 4:50min/km pace throughout if I started the race slower between 4:55 - 5:00min/km pace instead. I was happy that mentally I was strong enough to hold on to the pace from 20 to 35km. I attribute this to the higher mileage of 100km I clock weekly during training. It's now 2 consecutive marathon PB since 2018 Nagano marathon and my third sub 3:30 finish.

Army Half Marathon 2018

The plan for this race was to run at 4:50min/km pace for up to around 7km before I pickup pace to 4:45min/km. However things did not work out as plan and I felt very tired and instead was slowing down. I never really settled down and the last few km of the race was terribly hard, especially last 1km all out effort I felt I could die any moment.

I think it was due to not having enough rest during the built up to the race, the only positive from this race was my determination to continue running, trying very hard to run at 5min/km pace till I almost died.

Marina Run 2018

Newton Challenge 2017

This race is part of my preparation for 3^rd December 2017 Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore. With only about 1 month to go, I am still not in good shape as I still have this heavy legs symptom every morning. Nevertheless I am still able to follow most of my training schedule closely, just that on easy days I had to run slower than usual.

As the race was schedule to start at 4:30am, I only had less than 5 hours of sleep after reaching home at around 9pm and wake up at 2:30am to have breakfast. I managed to reach Marina Barrage race site at around 3:50am, did a 5 minutes warm up run before I proceed to the start point.

The race started exactly at 4:30am and I run at an easy pace of 5:10min/km to 5:20min/km for 4 km leading to ECP. My thought then was to just complete this race as an LSD. However I was feeling great after the initial slow pace and I was able to keep close to 5min/km pace. It certainly felt good to run on my daily training ground too.

Along the way I tried to maintain 5min/km pace, I started seeing some familiar faces (Safra runners) and overtook a number of runners after running alongside them and very soon I got into the rhythm and was cruising at 5min/km for the entire race. It was a great feeling to know that I am back to my previous fitness level with a new PB for this event!

Splits	Time	Cumulative Time	Moving Time	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg Moving Pace	Best Pace
1	05:18.2	05:18.2	5:17	1	5:18	5:17	4:39
2	05:10.0	10:28	5:08	1	5:10	5:08	4:58
3	05:20.3	15:48	5:17	1	5:20	5:17	5:09
4	05:17.4	21:06	5:10	1	5:17	5:10	5:08
5	05:06.9	26:13:00	5:03	1	5:07	5:03	5:03
6	04:56.9	31:10:00	4:55	1	4:57	4:55	4:05
7	04:59.8	36:10:00	4:59	1	5:00	4:59	4:06
8	05:08.3	41:18:00	5:01	1	5:08	5:01	4:27
9	05:07.4	46:25:00	5:04	1	5:07	5:04	4:59
10	05:04.3	51:30:00	5:04	1	5:04	5:04	4:20
11	05:02.5	56:32:00	4:54	1	5:02	4:54	4:46
12	05:07.5	1:01:40	5:02	1	5:08	5:02	4:50
13	04:58.6	1:06:38	4:53	1	4:59	4:53	4:48
14	05:00.6	1:11:39	5:00	1	5:01	5:00	4:47
15	05:01.5	1:16:40	5:01	1	5:01	5:01	4:54
16	04:57.4	1:21:38	4:56	1	4:57	4:56	4:33
17	04:57.5	1:26:35	4:51	1	4:57	4:51	4:47
18	05:01.7	1:31:37	4:58	1	5:02	4:58	4:49
19	04:57.5	1:36:34	4:56	1	4:58	4:56	4:47
20	04:56.0	1:41:30	4:50	1	4:56	4:50	4:23
21	04:59.8	1:46:30	4:54	1	5:00	4:54	4:54
22	04:52.5	1:51:23	4:50	1	4:52	4:50	4:32
23	04:56.1	1:56:19	4:53	1	4:56	4:53	4:46
24	04:57.1	2:01:16	4:52	1	4:57	4:52	4:36
25	04:56.2	2:06:12	4:55	1	4:56	4:55	4:47
26	04:52.1	2:11:04	4:49	1	4:52	4:49	4:47
27	04:57.5	2:16:02	4:52	1	4:58	4:52	4:41
28	05:00.0	2:21:02	4:55	1	5:00	4:55	4:50
29	04:58.3	2:26:00	4:53	1	4:58	4:53	4:41
30	04:53.9	2:30:54	4:51	1	4:54	4:51	4:31
31	04:44.8	2:35:39	4:43	1	4:45	4:43	4:30
32	04:41.5	2:40:20	4:36	1	4:41	4:36	4:19
33	00:27.3	2:40:48	0:26	0.12	3:47	3:36	3:11
Summary	2:40:48	2:40:48	2:40:48	32.12	5:00	5:00	3:11