Route for the Half marathon
Hand tattoo for timing splits
Pre race preparations ..I did it, i completed my longest and furthest run to date. 25.53Km according to Garmin 305, in a time of 3:23:50. After the many liters of sweat, with the ups and downs of illness from training, knee creaking, early sunday monrning runs ... i completed my first half marathon..
I know my timing is nothing to shout about ... but however .. i survived the ordeal, and i am looking forward to the next half marathon .. 21 km in Johor Baru, December 21st ..
Pre race ==> went to bed at 10 pm, but was tossing and turning and eventually slept at 12 am.. there was a lot of slamming of doors, kids playing with the neighbours door bells and folks laughing outside... with the anxiety & pre race adrenalin .. just could not sleep..
Woke up at 230am, groogy blurr and cold, gobbled on my power bar then got dressed and wrote on my hand tattoo with the timing splits. Went down to the lobby to wait for SK..
Race ==>4:30 Am sharp, flag off ran at a very slow pace 8:00 Mins/km, to keep everything in check, to ensure that the body , fat joints, ligaments and muscle do not pull and upped the pace until they warmed up.
Pass Queensbay mall onto the service road i picked up the pace and once on the bridge, settled on a pace of about 6:30 to 7:30 mins/km... i tell you, whenever i run i will pick out the furthest lamp post and use that as my guide... once i reached that goal depending on how i feel i will chose another further post.
Running on this bridge specially with all the mile markers on the center of the road... is not helping... 0.1km on the mile marker seems very slow..
Once passed the service ramp, the bridge is relatively flat until the center where there is the incline of the cable bridge then flat all the way to the tol booths..but one way is very very far, approximately 8km ... arck!!
I kept pushing myself and psycho-ing myself that if i can complete the Klang 12 km without stopping, i gotta run further than 12Km before i am allowed to stop... So other than water stops, I am proud to say that i ran continously for 17.25Km before i walked. This is from start through one way of the bridge, pass the tol booths, U turn and back to the middle of the bridge, near the cable section. i stopped because my calves were starting to pull ... So at this section, i had my last power gel, drank 2 cups of 100+ & 5 cups of water ... and limped, walked and shuffle to the finish.. from here onwards, the mile markers passed by even slower..
Penang island is relatively small... and for the first time in my short 30 yrs of life, i was running towards Penang island, with dawn behind me... its really nice, the orange hew from the horizon and with my achieving my first half marathon, its a special moment for me.
At the finish... i was rushing to make it back before the 3hr30mins cut off... i need to get the finishers medal and certificate... took a wrong fork and nearly ended finishing at the fun run section...
It was a great and momentous to get the cert and medal... i was dead tired and completely out of gas... makes me think why oh why do we kill our body like that...
However updating this blog... i am having the itch ... asking why do i have to wait 1 month for the Johor half marathon...
run on.............
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