Jurong Lake Run 2011

This will be my first 10km race this year and in its inaugural year it will be the first race to be held in the western part of Singapore. It is always nice to run in a new route with scenic environment around Jurong Lake.

I was feeling excited as I wonder how will I fare since it has been a long time that I last compete in a 10km race, and to be exact it was almost a year ago in the Nike City Run on 24 Oct 2010 so I was a little doubtful on how fast should I run since I expect myself to be fitter as compared to 10 months ago, and especially now with the latest SCKLM ½ marathon PB under my belt.

As I looked back on my recent weeks of interval trainings and speed workouts, and also a check on the McMillan Calculator I felt 4:30km/min would be the right pace to run throughout the race and so ideally it will be a 45min 10km finish.

It was almost 7am as I was still queuing up for the toilet before I managed to complete my usual warm up run plus stretching, I was a bit late and did not have the chance go nearer to the starting point. But well, I will just hope that I need not have to waste too much time and energy waving in and out later.

Soon as the race was flag off at 7:30am, it was initially quite crowded as I opted to run more to the side which was a bit more spacious and surprisingly I was too fast and managed to clock 4:06min for my first 1km. Somehow I was feeling great and excited as I continue my fast pace with 4:17min/km for my second km.

At 3km I felt the need to slow down as I was starting to breathe harder, so I decide to drop my pace to 4:30min/km and the plan then was to stick to this pace throughout. I was doing fine as I managed keep to the right pace for the next 3km to 5km, it was a really tiring first 5km which I certainly over paced myself, to my surprised I clocked a sub 22min for the first 5km.

As my initial fast pace was coming back to haunt me I was slowing down from 6km onwards and to make things worse I started to suffer pain from side stitch, as I was still hopeful for a PB I tried hard not to slow down as I was hoping that I will get over it soon. Over 7 – 8km my pace continued to deteriorate to a terribly slow 4:47min/km and 4:51min/km, and with the pain persists I finally decide to give up my target for a PB and drop my pace to above 5min/km for recovery.

The slower pace certainly helps in my recovery but by then it was already 9km into the race. Feeling better, I started to overtake runners around me and also some Safra runners who overtook me earlier on. With the chance for a PB totally gone, my thought then was to just get over the race as I up my pace for a strong finish to recover some lost ground and finally crosses the finishing line strongly.

It was a tough and competitive 10km race which I was trying to “test” my fitness level, as the 1st 5km was almost an all out pace averaging 4:22min/km, a huge difference from the 2nd half of the 5km average pace of 4:50min/km. I really need to keep check of my pace for the coming Yellow Ribbon Prison 10km run in September.

Official results

RANKING	GUN TIME	NET TIME	SPLIT 4KM	SPLIT 6KM
74	0:47:21.37	0:46:37.00	0:18:05.56	0:27:41.58

Lap (5km)	Time (min)	Avg Pace (min/km)
0-5	21:48	4:22
6-10	24:11	4:50

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	00:46:39	10.18	04:34
1	00:04:06	1.00	04:06
2	00:04:17	1.00	04:17
3	00:04:24	1.00	04:24
4	00:04:30	1.00	04:30
5	00:04:31	1.00	04:31
6	00:04:37	1.00	04:37
7	00:04:47	1.00	04:47
8	00:04:55	1.00	04:55
9	00:05:08	1.00	05:08
10	00:04:44	1.00	04:44
11	00:00:34	0.18	03:08