I did everything right from the start, arriving early at 6pm to the race site, had my 2km warm up runs and with ample time for stretching and toilet breaks before I report to the starting point at 7:10pm, getting ready for the 7:30pm elite first wave. It was a race which I felt excited as I was looking forward to run with the elites with the entire course cleared for the front pack to run, it was indeed an opportunity for another PB. But unfortunately it was just not my day and my hope of a hat-trick of Half Marathon PB never materialized.
As the race started at 7:30pm I got off to a comfortable pace running right behind a potential top 10 female runner whom I knew was running close to 4:45min/km pace. It was the right pace that I needed to maintain for at least half the entire distance so as to have any chance of a sub 1:40hr finish. I was hopeful that keeping consistent pace behind an experience runner will help me conserve energy for the second half of the race.
As I was following closely behind her I managed to clock 23:48min for my first 5km, with a sight 3sec off from my target of 23:45min and on average almost 4:45min/km pace, and so far so good but somehow it was a rather tiring 5km where I was needed to run through grass patches and was forced to run in between narrow lanes enough for only 2 runners. Despite of that I was confident that I will be able to recover soon.
Soon after 5km it was the first u-turn point and I realized that she seems to have slowed down and so I decide that I should move on with my own pace and will look out for other pacers. While looking out I was probably too excited and with the mentality of “playing safe”, I unknowingly ran too fast as my 6km pace was 4:40min/km while 7km was ran at 4:36min/km pace. Soon it came the second u-turn point, I was getting tired as the turn also breaks my momentum. Despite of that I still managed to cross 8k with a pace of 4:44min/km. But from then on it was irregular up and down pace before I finally round up my 10km (second 5km split) in 23:27min, and I was 15secs ahead of time.
After the 10km mark I soon reaches the halfway point, it also marked the completion of the first loop and I was again back to the initial starting point. A quick glanced at the official gun time and it was about 48mins for slightly more than 10km, I was telling myself not too bad and I will just need to maintain this pace throughout.
Although part of the route was scenic but it was sickening as I will need to go through one more dreadfully loop again, it will be the same narrow paths, grass patches, followed by sharp turns and u-turns again and on top of that with runners from other waves joining in, it was more crowded and tougher to run as part of the routes were meant to be run to and fro with only cones as dividers in between the same route.
As it turns out, from 11km to 15km I was slowing down as I could not keep up with my 4:45min/km pace. The 10km to 15km 5km split was a slow 24:16min with an average pace of 4:51min/km, and from 16km to 18km my pace was inconsistent as I tried hard to up my pace but again was slowing down.
Soon it was almost 19km and with 2km left I felt it’s time to up my pace again. As I didn’t want to slow down and at split second I made a very bad mistake of making a wrong turn at the junction between KPE and Tanjong Rhu Road. I was making another run towards Jalan Benaan Kapal where instead I should have run towards the Tanjong Rhu Place direction. Feeling tired and frustrated I decide to stop my race the moment I reached 21.1km and I rounded up my run with another 2km cool down run back to the finish line.
Overall the race was not conducive for achieving a good running time as narrow paths, grass patches, sharp turns and narrow u-turns breaks my momentum. Despite of that, I felt that there are 2 points to note. Firstly I will need to control my pace better especially from 5km to 10km where I was 31secs ahead of time. Secondly, I will need to motivate myself to run fast even after realizing that I was taking the wrong route as there is always a chance of a self-timed PB.
Still it was a good run as my race turns training session took my weekend mileage to 25km, it includes my 2km warm up and 2km cool down before and after my race, a decent distance to clocked over the weekends. It’s now another countdown to the ultimate Army Half Marathon!
Split | Time | Distance | Avg Pace |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summary | 01:41:17 | 21.13 | 04:47 |
| 1 | 00:04:42 | 1.00 | 04:42 |
| 2 | 00:04:43 | 1.00 | 04:43 |
| 3 | 00:04:50 | 1.00 | 04:50 |
| 4 | 00:04:50 | 1.00 | 04:50 |
| 5 | 00:04:43 | 1.00 | 04:43 |
| 6 | 00:04:40 | 1.00 | 04:40 |
| 7 | 00:04:36 | 1.00 | 04:36 |
| 8 | 00:04:44 | 1.00 | 04:44 |
| 9 | 00:04:39 | 1.00 | 04:39 |
| 10 | 00:04:48 | 1.00 | 04:48 |
| 11 | 00:04:41 | 1.00 | 04:41 |
| 12 | 00:04:54 | 1.00 | 04:54 |
| 13 | 00:04:48 | 1.00 | 04:48 |
| 14 | 00:04:56 | 1.00 | 04:56 |
| 15 | 00:04:57 | 1.00 | 04:57 |
| 16 | 00:04:52 | 1.00 | 04:52 |
| 17 | 00:04:41 | 1.00 | 04:41 |
| 18 | 00:04:57 | 1.00 | 04:57 |
| 19 | 00:04:42 | 1.00 | 04:42 |
| 20 | 00:04:55 | 1.00 | 04:55 |
| 21 | 00:04:52 | 1.00 | 04:52 |
| 22 | 00:00:36 | 0.13 | 04:46 |
5k Split
| Lap (5km) | Time (min) | Avg Pace (min/km) |
| 0-5 | 23:48 | 4:46 |
| 6-10 | 23:27 | 4:41 |
| 11-15 | 24:16 | 4:51 |
| 16-20 | 24:07 | 4:49 |
| 21-21.13 | 05:28 | 4:50 |
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