Army Half Marathon 2009

Yesterday I completed my 2nd half marathon.

Paul and I woke at 4am, both of us having attended 2 different weddings separately the night before! I was pretty disciplined..... no drinking, no social smoking,... didn't even stand near ppl who were smoking. Funnily though, I had serious problems finding CARBS at the wedding! It was a western buffet, but there were no fries, mash or anything like that! The best I could find were some bread rolls. There was A LOT of yummy meats though! I ended up eating 2 large plates full of meats. All sorts of meat! I have no idea if that was any good for me, but what the hell.

Anyway, back to the race.... Paul kept telling me that the race would be fine and that "the crowd will carry me". I wasn't sure. I already had 2 failed runs that week. I had an 8km midweek run which I just couldn't finish.... had to walk home after 4km. So you can imagine how I felt about having to run 21km. I was also worried about doing worse than my previous race at SCM cos I do believe in trying to do better with each race if possible. Afterall, SCM was my virgin half marathon, and I also did it 4 months after birthing (Sophie), so surely I could beat my post-pregnancy half marathon timing?

I had a loose goal of 2hrs 15min.

Paul was right,..... the crowd did carry me, .... I was hoping to keep close to about a 6min/km pace as far as possible. I was feeling pretty fresh for about 14km doing 5.5 to 6 min pace. The water points were well spaced out, distance markers were also good (quite unlike SCM), waves of starters well spaced out. I didn't experience any bottlenecks. All in all, I thought the race was really well organised.

At around the 10km mark, I was just under an hour and was feeling pretty fresh which made me review my 2:15 goal time. I decided that a sub 2:10 timing was looking like a possibility and sounded much nicer (and faster) too. I just had to keep going at this pace and still have 3min to spare!

Alas, it was not meant to be….. at around the 14km mark, I started feeling tired and it was up and down for me all the way till the 18km mark where I punctured. I was kiasu again this year and had 3 gels (40min, 1hr20 min, 1h45min) I think the last one didn't really kick in properly though (not to one of the gels was also expired) I was just willing myself to MOVE IT! I was literally DEPENDING on the motivational banners that these kind mascots were carrying!!!

“Pain and failure is the difference between Men and Boys!!!” – Not applicable to me
“Pain is temporary, pride is forever” – Wow! Go Peng GO!!!

I am not sure, but I think the present that Paul got me for my birthday helped me quite a bit - Garmin Forerunner 310xt. It is a little bulky and certainly seems hardcore for a novice runner like me! Paul got it for me cos I kept running the wrong distances for my long runs and had to keep repeating them (waste time!). Anyway he only gave it to me after I was done with ALL my long runs so this was the first long run that I was going to get to use it. I LOVED IT! With it, I could pace myself quite effectively. When my pace was getting to under 5.5min/km (which I knew I would never be able to sustain), I would slow down. If I saw ppl running past me, previously, my instinct would be that I was going too slow and try to catch up but when I checked my pace, and found that I was still running under 6min, I continued on steadily and didn't speed up.... conserving energy.

The 310xt allowed me to extract the data and split out my pace throughout the run which was rather nice. It concurs with where I punctured. :P Below is also a cute little video showing the graph of my speed along side where I am on the map at that time.

As you can see from the table, somehow the race was about 270m longer than 21.1km! Anyway, by the 21km mark, I had missed my revised sub 2:10 target and came in at 2:11.... which I am still happy with. :)

I have already decided that I won’t have the time to go for a full marathon end of the year at SCM, and who knows, I may never have the time,… but since I have this spanking new toy thanks to Paul, I will be doing the half again end of the year for sure…..

** Thanks Shem for the track sessions. Despite me doing pretty crappily during the track sessions, am sure it helped in improving my timing. :) I think it definitely helped me keep stronger for longer...