Ok! Have a quick review of the race here!!
Slept last night around 10.30pm after settling some stuff, esp preparation of Prot02.. Woke up at 4am, at least not like last year's nonsensical 2.30am just to chop the place at the starting line haha..no pressure this time round. Arrived around 5.15am where I headed for the toilet straightaway with a queue there. Waited for awhile then after peeing, i realised 21km start liao and I was like 300m away from the start line hhahaa.. so plus the crowd, i started roughly about 12mins after gun-time. Starting was crazy, very very crowded and had to employ evasive manoeuvrings to make sure I stay within my cadence. All the way till East Coast park was a technical run filled with looking for opportunities to overtake. At least that took my mind off the fatigue then. From turning point of ECP, that was when the run for me actually started. Saw Hakim along the way as well.
Basically I just concentrated on maintaining my race cadence of >94. I don't know if its because of the slow pace at the start or what, but actually i managed to hit a 95cad pretty easily. Actually the crowd sort of helped me to have a 'pace control' at the start, because on my training runs I'll burn out at the start, leaving myself with ITB problem that immobilized me a year ago. So feeling pretty good through the 2nd part, took couple of drinks for 2 aidstations.
The drummers along the way really motivated me a lot, because hearing their drum beats aided my steps as well. Was pretty heartened to see of my customers actually said hi to me! At least my effort paid off. Hoped they managed to clock a good timing! Nevertheless, had to carry on and focus on the run. Felt some pain in my hip flexors and I ignored it to maintain pace. Went away after awhile fortunately.
Along the stretch of the pitbuilding,I saw 3DIV booth!! Omg so happy to see them with their booth being the biggest and so many people! So proud of them! Wonder how did the 3DIV runners did though haha.. I saw some of the guys wearing the 3DIV tiger mask! haha very inspiring and motivating although they might not know me..fellow Pantheras!
Nothing much after that other than I saw Arvind,Sam along the way and Kamal taking pictures as well. At the final 200m, I sprinted. When I took my first sprint step on my right side after my left, it cramped. Nice. Then had to just run normally dammit. What a irritating piece of calf. So I sprinted for a grand total of 60cm on my left leg. Argh. Ended at 1hr48 gun time, RS800 reported 1hr 36min. Which is 1 min more than Tri-Factor 21km. I guess it was ok considering the crowd.
Went for the massage after that as always a post-race routine, and when the auntie pressed my calf, it was like totally steamingly pain. After that just chilled out at the event ground while waiting for slqx(who pangsehed me), while talking to my TNF partner,matt. Saw my former classmates as well. Chatted with RunFanatics guys, esp Eric and Eddie! Both looking cool as always! Didn't know TRF got quite a number of girls as well.
slqx fell down! twice somemore! =( felt paiseh for interrupting her from her friends to eat with me..
and also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISS GF!! haha!
Time to go home,rest and do some revision!
Army Half Marathon/Singapore Bay Run 21Km Men's Open 5:37:13am
Distance - 21.19km
Time - 1Hr 36min 45s
10km Split - 46min49s
Pace Max - 03:34min/km
Pace Avg - 04:34min/km
Ascent - 40m
Cadence Max - 112 (WOW never hit this before-did it on downslope though hahahahha)
Cadence Avg - 94
Avg Stride Length - 116cm
~sometimes you just feel tired.You feel weak. And when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you,gotta find that inner strength and just pull that shit out of you, and get that motivation to not give up, and not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse~
Signed off at 4:40 PM .