Sundown Half Marathon on 31May/1Jun 2013

This year the organiser Split the half an full maratthon into 2 different night, I did the half marathon early this morning. The race started promptly at 11.30 pm and I manage to get into the start pen for the under 2 hours runners. I had mixed feelings as I did not put in the effort to train properly. Started really smoothly, there was not much of any bottleneck as I was in the faster  batch. I was feeling really apprehensive, keep wanting to go faster but hold myself back to run at my own pace. I would consider this as a good race as there were many better runners than me who serve as pacer for me. They kind of provided me the benchmark and motivation for me to keep pace and not to slow down too much. I think I made a good decision to not run too fast at the early part of the race and I retain some energy for the last few km till the end. There was nothing new about the route as it was similar to most of the half marathon races but at least there was no one section that was very dark. I managed to cover the first 5k in about 28min47sec and early stage is normally the part that runners want to get done with. I guess the fun thing is that you will never know what is going to happen next and you have this urge to go faster but is afraid that what you plan might fall apart. I think it's especially true for people like me who did not put in enough mileage but yet still hoping to achieve pb. Anyway I manage to reach the 10 Km mark in about 57min. I keep trying to keep to about 5.30 pace but keep falling back at some stage. Once we enter the Garden by the Bay east, this is where the boring part start. We had to run through the garden on a long stretch of path that facing the golf course away from the bay, through a portion of the construction area for the marina expressway and turn back and than exit where you eventually run along the bay. This is where we reached 15km, I did not bother to look at my time but just want to get across the bay. I took a look when I reached 17 km at the Garden Observatory and the time was about 1hr37min plus, still on target for a sub 2hr finish. I was feeling tired now but legs still working well but just afraid of muscle clamp. So I just keep running, keeping a good pace and there was people out drinking at the Sands Casino area who provided some cheering. Finally passed Sands and the office area at Marina Financial Centre and now at 19km. There were quite a number of people about my pace and likely had the same goal of going sub 2hr. The last stretch finally came after we passed the Esplanade bridge, was tempted to speed up a little but just keep a comfortable but slightly faster pace. After running passed the floating platform, came the last stretch, I just opened up and tried to run as fast as I could. Final time 2hr1min49sec, missing my mark by a little. Overall a good run and learn new lesson along the way!