Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2016
I completed my 12th marathon on 4 December 2016, Sunday. This year, the race started half an hour earlier at 4.30am at the same start point at Orchard Road. I reached the event start point early and was in the holding pen by 4 am.
I was feeling relax and ready to go, but I did not have high hope as I knew my training was really inadequate. I started about 7 minutes after the elite runners were off. As usual it was a slow first few kilometres, in fact I completed the first 10 km in about 1 hour 3 minutes plus. No problem at all for the early part of the race. Reached half way point in 2 hours 20 minutes 12 Seconds. My poor fitness began to be obvious, I started to feel tired and pace dropped drastically after the half way point. The body started to feel so weak and I kept having the urge to walk instead of running. It was a dreadful feeling, I have to struggle to keep moving at a very slow pace.
My pace dropped from 7 plus minutes to 9 minutes to even 11 minutes plus per km around 33 km. Usually by now the body would stop perspiring and it's difficult to keep the body cool, so at each water station I poured water over my head to cool the body.
I saw a guy who kept running for a stretch and then walked a bit, then start running again. Since I could not keeping running at a very slow pace, I tried the same strategy as well. It worked well for me as well and I tried to continue this walk, run fast and repeat. In the past, I would have tried to run as much as possible, but this year I kept fearing that I would pass out from heat stroke or over exertion. Therefore, I walked quite a bit and it really slowed my per km pace.
In the end, I managed to just keep running after 40 km till the end. I finished the last 2.2 km in 14min10sec, I completed in 5 hour 27 min 51 sec. It was a slow struggle against the weak body, next year I will run more distance to avoid having to go through the same situation again.
I was feeling relax and ready to go, but I did not have high hope as I knew my training was really inadequate. I started about 7 minutes after the elite runners were off. As usual it was a slow first few kilometres, in fact I completed the first 10 km in about 1 hour 3 minutes plus. No problem at all for the early part of the race. Reached half way point in 2 hours 20 minutes 12 Seconds. My poor fitness began to be obvious, I started to feel tired and pace dropped drastically after the half way point. The body started to feel so weak and I kept having the urge to walk instead of running. It was a dreadful feeling, I have to struggle to keep moving at a very slow pace.
My pace dropped from 7 plus minutes to 9 minutes to even 11 minutes plus per km around 33 km. Usually by now the body would stop perspiring and it's difficult to keep the body cool, so at each water station I poured water over my head to cool the body.
I saw a guy who kept running for a stretch and then walked a bit, then start running again. Since I could not keeping running at a very slow pace, I tried the same strategy as well. It worked well for me as well and I tried to continue this walk, run fast and repeat. In the past, I would have tried to run as much as possible, but this year I kept fearing that I would pass out from heat stroke or over exertion. Therefore, I walked quite a bit and it really slowed my per km pace.
In the end, I managed to just keep running after 40 km till the end. I finished the last 2.2 km in 14min10sec, I completed in 5 hour 27 min 51 sec. It was a slow struggle against the weak body, next year I will run more distance to avoid having to go through the same situation again.
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