30th November 2007
Friday night, the journey began. My wife sent us to KLCC where we met many runners waiting at the railway station. The train started moving at 10pm sharp, gossiped with the fellow runners until around 12 mid-night then went to sleep.
1st December 2007
Around 3.00 am in the morning, slightly awaken and felt that the train was not moving, went to sleep again. Waked up again at around 5.00 am, the train was still not moving. Later I found that we were stuck at Rembau (somewhere near Seremban) for the whole night due to a cargo train derailed along the way!
Reach Tanjung Pagar in Singapore around 2.30 pm, rushed to take our brunch at the nearest hawker center. Reached Suntec city around 4.30 pm to collect our Bib & Vest. A bit disappointed to get a "L" size vest although I registered for "M" size, however this is the only hiccup for this event. Have my suppose to be carboloading dinner at 8pm and went to bed at around 11.30pm.
2nd December - The RACE day
Waked up at 2.15 am, after doing whatever necessary for the morning and walked to the bus stop alone. Gush down a few pieces of bread with water and boarded the night bus at around 3.40am. There were around 10 people in the bus and all except one passenger were runners for this big event.
Deposited my bag with no hassle (one up for the organiser) and went to the start line to do some warm up.
Took a bottle of drinking water around the start line (another thumb-up for the organiser) and the race start sharp at 5.30am. This is the 1st time I was running with a bottle of water in a race thinking that the first few water station will be very crowded.
Pacing with a group of runners with 3:45 printed at the back of their vest at the beginning, wow 3:45 what a humble target finishing time!
Noticed quite a number of male runners rushed to the bushes along the way. At around the 5 KM mark, I also decided to ease myself at the bushes. Joined the running line again and the 3:45 group were very far in front. Found Tan Wah Seng from Kuantan just right in front of me, increase my pace to catch up with him. We start some conversation and soon we reached the 9 KM point for around 51 minutes.
Soon we were passing the starting line on the other side of the road. Grapped a banana at the next water stop but it dropped back to the table, decided to just move on. Luckily the runner in front of me having 2 bananas and decided to discard 1 along the road. I picked it up and continue running while enjoying the banana along the way. To ensure that I would not be de-hydrated, I drank at all the water stations along the route!
After reaching the East Coast Park, I am pacing alone and still feeling strong. It took me around 1 hour and 50 minutes to reach the 21 KM point. Without realizing I was running faster than I planned, at the U-turn, around 27 KM mark, I started to feel that my legs were heavier, I quickly slowed down and tried to relax. Grapped a power gel along the way and hastily swallowed the gel with some water at the next water station.
However, after the 32KM mark, I felt like I couldn't move my legs. I continued to inch forward slowly until one familiar runner ran close to me. I have seen Lai Fong Sang many times in the Malaysian races and we exchanged a few words. Since he was sill running strongly, I had to increase my pace to follow him. Unfortunately, it didn't last too long that I had to slow down again and saw him zoomed pass me. At this point, I was so tire and the muscles of my legs were so stiff that I have to walk for many times. Many runners overtook me and I was a bit worried that I couldn't finish the race with the timing I wanted. Nevertheless I forced myself to move forward and limiting my walking time to a minute or two.
Continue with running a few hundred meters and walking for a minute, eventually I was approaching the padang. At around few hundreds meter to the finish line, I threw in whatever energy left and ran hard towards the end point. I was so release that I cross he line at less than 3 hour and 55 minutes. Wow, what a feeling!
My pacing chart
0 to 8 KM = 8 KM @ 11.3 KM per hour = 43 min
@ 8KM ------------------------------------43 min
8 to 21 KM = 13 KM @ 11.6 KM per hour = 68 min
@ 21KM ----------------------------------- 1 hour 51 min
21 to 27 KM = 6 KM @ 12.7 KM per hour = 28 min
@ 27 KM ----------------------------------- 2 hour 19 min
27 to 42 KM = 15 KM @ 9.5 KM per hour = 1 hour 36 min
@42.195 KM ------------------------------- 3 hour 55 min
