Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2009

Datran Merdeka - Race Pack Collection Centre

It's my first overseas marathon that ended with a disappointing result as I didn't get to sleep the night before makes it a very tiring run for me. I somehow just could not motivate myself to run as I struggled to recover from breathlessness. For the very first time my heart actually gave up on the race even before I reached the halfway mark, feeling very tired as I ended up walking for about 6km.

Mount Faber Run 2009

This will be my 4th consecutive race for 4 weekends and I am also into the 2nd week of Sundown Marathon reverse tapering. But with an eye on the coming KL Marathon, I decide that this will be just another "training run".

It's a cooling morning I managed to reach Bukit Merah View 15mins before the race starts while getting ready with stretching and warm up. I unexpectedly got to rush off with the run as the race started 5mins earlier at 7:25am. As I get on with the run and so far so good as I still managed to reach the 5km mark in 25mins, but soon hill running started to take the toll on me as I don't do hill trainings on such long hilly route. I find it really difficult to keep up with my usual pace. At that moment my only thought was hopefully I can make up loss time during the down slope run.

As I finally reaches the main roads I was forced to control my pace to avoid sudden stops as I was surprised that road marshalls actually stops runners at the traffic lights. I was lucky that I only stop once as I managed to keep a steady pace all the way to the finishing line in 54mins. Overall I had a bad run for the 2nd part of the 5km route, way off my PB, and I do feel that the event will be a better one if roads are closed, ideally I prefer distance marker for every 1km.

Klang Pacers 1/2 Marathon 2009

This will be my 1st overseas running event and as usual I will set a finishing time for myself. Ideally I will hope to finish in 1hr 45mins, which will requires me run at a pace of 5min/km. However, I myself is also doubtful as it's just 1 week after Sundown Marathon and I hardly do any running.

Overall it's a well organized ran with good weather, except that there are no distance markers and only plain water are served during the race and just before the race starts I realised that my Polar foot pod runs out of batt. Well I just have to "feel" my running pace and estimate the distance.

The race started off at 6:30am and as adrenaline rush I pick up a fast pace, and very soon my hip gives me pain again, wonder if I am running too fast and halfway through the race, guess around 10km and again I got stitch. Got to endure the pain throughout the rest of the race but really glad to have received cheers from my follow Safra runners. What a painful run! At least managed a Sub 2 hours with a time of 1hr 53mins.

Sundown Marathon 2009

After months of preparation and finally comes the real test of my endurance, hope I can fulfill dream for a sub 4 marathon. After months of training with competitive races I managed to clock a sub 50s 10km with a PB of 48 mins and a 1hr 16mins 15km run during last week's Passion Run, so I am hopeful that I can achieve my aim. According to plan ideally I will need to maintain a pace of 5:30min/km pace throughout the marathon.

On race day 30 May 2009 I managed to reach the starting line at about ½ hour before the race to lookout for the 4 hour pacer group, and as the race started at 00:00hrs I followed the pacers closely, determined not to fall back too far behind. Everything goes well although I realised that the pace is faster then I thought, but in my mind I was still hopeful that I can do it!!! and don't give up!!! Well soon I started to feel tired and after the 7km mark at the turn after Changi Coastal Road I struggled to keep pace with the pacers as I can only maintain a visible distance. Soon things goes from bad to worse as my hip started to feel pain :( kind of feeling very demoralized but no choice have to slow down and run at my own pace, while also regret that I over paced myself as I failed to recover fast.

Despite of that I managed to hit 55mins at the 10km mark :), not too bad but still the pain is getting unbearable and I could not run faster :( . By around the 15km mark, all my hopes were gone as the 4 ½ pacers overtook me while the pain just get worse I could not even keep up with the 4 ½ group. Finally at around 18km I had to stop running and limp with my mind filled with thoughts of giving up. I walk for more then 5mins, feeling better before I decided that I will just run, well just go for the best result and no more stop. Still I feel kind of sad as I cross the 20km mark in 2hrs 7mins, hmm...that’s very very slow. Well, I'll just run and hope that I can pickup pace later on and hope I can still hit 30km in 3hrs. As I reaches 26km near Bedok Reservoir Road it's almost 3hrs, another disappointment!!! At 30km it's 3hrs 14mins, hmm.... lousy... that's very close to my last marathon timing, was thinking must try to at least get a better timing as I set a new target of between 4:30 to 4:45hrs.At around 39km it was already 4:30hrs, very tough as I got to go for a 5min/km pace to finish in 4:45hrs as I started to pickup pace, I aimed to reached the bridge to the jetty which I thought is almost the ending point. But to my disappointment the route has changed as compared to last year and now I got to take a right turn to the main road which is about 800m longer :( 4:45hrs gone too. I finally crossed the finishing line in a time of 4hrs 50mins.
Points to note as on the positive side I got a PB, which is a 4mins improvement. However, consider the weekly mileage I clocked during training I felt that this is a poor result. I have probably over-paced myself as the pacers are running at a faster pace. My long term hip injury affected me too and running in the wee hours makes me feel real sleepy. Overall I feel that I still lacked the endurance to get good results for longer distances. Dream on....... Sub 4 hours....For future trainings I will need to clock longer weekends LSD. Now I can only hope to do better in KL.