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.
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