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.
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