Singapore Marathon 2012 – Sub 4:30 also CAN!

I think I’ve finally matured as a runner and learnt the biggest, most obvious and yet hard to accept secrets of long distance running – consistency. Team Fatbird’s Operation Sunbird weekend long runs training ensured I was consistent and was a really enjoyable way of getting the long runs done with like minded runners. It's also helped me in looking lesser and lesser like a 'fat' bird and more and more like a runner :)
Thanks to this consistent trianing and some weight loss, my goal at the time of signing up for the marathon of 4:45 was now going to be my worst case scenario. Sub 4:30 looked comfortable and I could even visualize chasing down the sub 4:15 pacers towards the end of the marathon if the weather was pleasant. Considering my finish time at the Singapore marathon last year was 5:54 and Sydney marathon PB was 4:34, it felt awesome to even think such finish times might be achievable in a city with an average temperature of about 28-30 degrees throughout the year (race day was going to be no exception!)
Race Day
Unlike last year, I caught one of the first trains to orchard, got to the start line and placed myself about 200 meters away from the start chute. I’ve never really been concerned about the ‘gun time’ and figured the pacers will spread themselves out based on their estimated finish times and I should be close to the 4:15-4:30 if I’m about 200 meters from the start line and will be able to start together with them.
I then saw all the pacers right under the start chute lining up with the Kenyans and other elite athletes!! WHAT?!?!?! I’m not sure why any pacers (let alone the sub 5 / 5hr30) pacers will line up with the elite runners. It was clear that they were planning to run based on the gun time but it really doesn’t serve the purpose as most people hoping to achieve a sub 4:30 (or 5/5:30) do it for their own achievement and don’t really care about what the gun time might be! Most other big cities marathon (and the sundown marathon) get their pacers to start at various intervals after the race start and that works really well but that wasn’t the case for SCMS 2012. That was Singapore Marathon fail #1 (of just 2) for me. I only crossed the start line about 2 minutes after the gun went off and pacers started. That meant I had about 2 minutes to get to the finish line after the 4:30 pacing group if I was to achieve a personal/net time of sub 4:30.
Unlike most of my races where I deliberately slow down and step back in the initial stages, I decided to go with the flow and keep up with the people around me. As we passed the first couple of KM’s I began to slowly pass each of the pacing groups. I saw the 4:30 group and passed them and placed myself between 4:15 and 4:30 group. At the half way turnaround at East Coast Park, you could see the runners ahead of you and once you turn around, the runners behind you. I was happy to be exactly where I wanted to be – about 5 minutes behind the 4:15 group and about 10-12 minutes ahead of the 4:30 group. That meant I was on track for about 4:20 finish if I could maintain the same pace. I knew maintaining that pace was going to be next to impossible and was really hoping for that second wind AND a flatter second half course AND slightly cooler temperature as I completed the return trip on ECP and headed towards the 30KM point at Gardens by the Bay. I tried to step up the pace after 29KM but a 4:20 finish became even harder when I ran past the 32Kms point in 3:20mins.
I had 60 minutes to complete 10 KMs. That is tempo run pace for me in Singapore weather and on top of that I had that extra agonizing .195kms at the end to run too (Marathon is 42.195kms – not 42km! - easy to forget it when calculating your pace but you feel every step of it at the end). I was slowing down but I didn’t want to give in. The water stops were longer and I could feel the temperature had risen by a few degrees in the last hour.
My next checkpoint was at 37kms. Despite having nothing left in my tank, I managed to pass it in just under 3hr50mins. Another 5Kms to go in 30mins to get there in 4:20 – that’s still tempo pace but strangely, it looked I might just do that?

Then came the exit from gardens by the bay, the gravel road, the heat and a bridge that felt like I was climbing forever!! With all that came the reality of a marathon and the feeling of hitting the wall. Within few 100 meters, I was struggling to run and felt like my calves and thighs were locking. Each step was hurting and I truly felt like I could fall over at any point. I was sucking down any water and drink I had left and was trying to survive the last few Ks. If I had any doubt that 4:20/4:25 was not achievable, it was made clear as I came off the bridge and the marathon runners merged with the wall of 10K runners and had to make our way through kids and families in the back of the pack in the 10K run. That was the last thing you want after about 39Kms of running. That was Singapore Marathon fail #2 (of 2) for me.

I passed 40Kms in about 4:15. A 4:20 finish or anything close to it was nowhere possible and in the state I was in, sub 4:30 finish was proving to be almost impossible too.. this was confirmed when the 4:30 pacing group passed me at the 40kms point and I couldn’t keep up with them at all and felt like I was going to fall over at any time. Only thing that kept me going was the fact that I had 2 minutes from the time they cross the finish line to get there so I finish under 4:30 too. The most sensible thing to do at that point would’ve been to give up on my sub 4:30 dream and aim to finish under 4:34. I would've enjoyed the last KM, Hi-5'd few spectators and still would’ve beaten my Sydney PB be happy with that. I know that is what I would’ve definitely done in the past. But this time was different - This race had already challenged me to the core and I had absolutely nothing left, but I decided that I had it in me to not up give in and I was determined to get to that finish in under 4hr30mins. I've had enough of dreaming and talking about finishing a marathon in under 4hr30mins. Shyamala has had enough of listeining to my constant blabbering on how I could achieve that (and has put up with all of that for too long!) - This was my opportunity to not give up and achieve that goal..It truly felt like a defining moment in becoming a new ‘me’!

The willingness to push that extra bit and not give up at the end paid off as I crossed the finish line in 4:28:58! :) That was a new PB for me. I had beaten my Sydney PB by about 6 minutes in a much tough course and climate!! My ranking has never looked this good! - For the first time EVER I've made it to the first 10%!!!

I’ve now earned the right to dream a sub 4:15 marathon one day hopefully soon and I think I now know what it will take to achieve my goal of a sub 4hr marathon one day. It's going to take a lot more than just luck to achive that. It'll need a lot more consistency, harder workouts and a more optimum race weight. A race in cooler climate will make it definitely easier but I'm not going let the Singapore heat get in the way of my goal..
Onwards and upwards! :)





My race data - http://bit.ly/TUcDaY
Team Fatbird - Operation Sunbird (SCMS2012 training) summary blog - http://www.teamfatbird.com/2012/12/standard-chartered-marathon-singapore.html

Using Google Drive and FolderSync to automatically backup your photos and data from your phone and a (brief) review on Mail2Drive

Google Drive is Google’s (much needed) answer to iCloud, Dropbox, Skydrive and a million other options available for online storage. I’ve never bothered to explore it further until I decided to go on a mission to automate and sync my android, Shyamala’s iPhone, home PC calendars using GoogleCalendar as the base. I also managed to sync my facebook and tripit calendar to it too and now have our complete schedule on both Shyamala's and my phones.

Since I was on an automation spree, I decided to work on automatically backing up my photos on my phone. Dropbox did exactly that. Their phone app lets you choose a specific folder on your phone and automatically syncs it to your remote folder on your dropbox cloud drive. However, when Google Drive was released around May, I decided to switch teams and jump on the Google Drive bandwagon. There are many good reviews on Google Drive (including Google Drive vs Dropbox features) on the web that'll explain why I decided to switch to Google Drive.

Google drive has a great software you could download for your PC. It automatically creates a 'Google Drive' folder under 'My Documents'. Anything you move to this folder is automatically synced to your Google Drive as is accessible on the net from any PC (or phone).

I'll not be doing a complete review on Google drive, but in a nutshell, I'm very happy with the 5GB free space - That's far from sufficient to backup all of my photos and data, but more than enough to backup anything important including photos and documents from my phones. I've never bothered to back up anything from my phones for the last few years and risked losing it all if I lost it. Google Drive does have an Android app to view the files and manually upload files from your phone. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an auto-upload function like dropbox to upload all of my photos regularly (so I decided to uninstall the Google Drive app!).

Fortunately, I've found another way to automatically backup photos and documents from my phone to Google Drive - At least until, Google comes up with this feature in their mobile app. I've done this using the FolderSync app. As always, I was reluctant to enter the Google Drive password in this app (especially as Google has just one common password for gmail, calendar and blogger) but decided to give it a go as the app had good ratings. This app has all the options I wanted:

* Syncs to and from Google Drive (2-way sync)

* Lets you select the folder on your mobile and on Google Drive

* Select frequency of the sync - I have it set to sync on a weekly basis

* Allows you the connection type for the sync - WiFi or 3G

* Syncs sub-folders and has an option to disable hidden files syncing

* 2-way sync - this also has an option to delete the file from the origin (mobile) once it has been synced (I've not been daring enough to try this out yet)

It also has an encryption feature to secure the transfer. I'm not sure how secure the encryption is, but I've never really been too concerned about it.

The User Interface used to be much friendlier until it was upgraded few weeks ago. Nevertheless, it's still fairly manageable (considering you only need to configure it once). Following are brief steps to configure the sync :

1. Go to 'Accounts' menu and register Google Drive account

2. Go to 'Folderpairs' menu and configure the folders on both ends and configure the sync options

3. Go to 'Sync Status' to commence the sync

Overall, FolderSync is a great, handy app. Google will need to really convince me to move to it's upgraded Google Drive auto sync app if/when it decides to release it.

I also came across another handy app to use with Google Drive - Mail2Drive
This app creates a file from an email message. You receive a secret email address when you sign up. All you need to do is to forward an important email to that email address and a file is created on Google Drive with that email. Again, not a bad little app to help you with storing any important emails in a location other than your mailbox!

Google Drive has a lot of potential but hidden features already. Looking forward to exploring them and automating it as I wish!

Sundown Marathon 2012 Race Report - It's a 32KM warmup run for a 10KM race

I had no specific plan of attack for the build-up at the time of signing up. All signs pointed to my regular DIY training program which includes few good weeks of running, few bad weeks (to undo all the hard work from the good weeks), a couple of unjustifiable purchases of running gear (to make me go faster! – ofcourse), a ridiculously long or short taper. All in all, it was leading towards a race day plan to run 28-32km and switch the survival mode for the last 10KMs. I didn’t know what I could do differently..

ENTER “Operation Nighthawk” by Team FatBird. Some googling had got me to the Team FatBird and their link to the Sundown marathon training program – “Operation Nighthawk”. I registered and joined their weekend long runs. The group 3 (the 5hr marathon group) had runners of similar ability and fitness level ,which certainly made the Friday night and Sunday morning 30+km long runs much more enjoyable and bearable.

Race Day

After what seemed like a long wait, the gun finally went off at 12.30AM. I was with the sub 5hr pacers and we started in the second wave. I’ve never really cared about gun time and was going to base my race on my net/bib time. I was happy to avoid the initial rush and let all the sprinters go past in the first few KMs. I had the pacers in sight about 200-300 meters ahead of me and made the decision to not catch up with them yet.  After keeping them in sight for about 8KMs they continued to increase their lead on me and I eventually lost them. I thought I was running a steady sub 5hr equivalent pace. So I was surprised and saddened to see my sub-5hr dream vanish away so quickly... By then I knew how this story was going to unfold – A continuous battle to run upto about 32-35kms followed by long walks, hating yourself for repeatedly registering for marathons, promising yourself to train harder before you sign up for the next one, thinking of alternate passions and hobbies and then to forget it all for a few minutes and sprint to the finish line holding the world’s best running posture and enjoy another marathon finish despite the slow time. I’ve mastered this in the Singapore marathon 2011 and was already thinking of my list of excuses by the 12^th KM.. The sundown race organizers had done a tremendous job with the logistics, water stations, KM markers and the very enjoyable route for us to light up the city of Singapore at night – So all of that was ruled out from the usual excuse list! However, Singapore weather didn’t let me down.. a balmy 28 degree with 85% humidity at that time of the night seemed like a valid excuse for another slow race.

I decided to forego my sub 5hr goal and run my own race with the much wishful plan of “catching up with the pacers (and going under 5hrs) in the latter part of the race” – Ahh! This is runners’ answer to the pyramid scheme!! You agree to not see any results in the short term and expect to get all you wanted and more by running faster towards the end of the race! I’ve never even thought that’s possible in a marathon! This is always a trick I usually use to fool myself temporarily so I don’t run too fast too soon and to save enough energy to run as long as possible before the painful home stretch.

Few minutes before entering East Coast park, I saw the 35KM marker on the opposite side of the road for the return trip. I promised myself that I’d run until that before my first stop. That itself was going to be a battle in itself considering I was soaked in sweat already even before the half marathon point. I wasn’t even how that was possible but it certainly got even warmer and more humid! There was no breeze either.. It certainly seemed like it was going to be a very long night and if I ran all the way to the 35KM marker, I was going to be very satisfied and thought the last 7 Kms will be my victory walk/run!

I’ve been in Singapore for a year now.. I’ve had to adapt in many ways to suit the Singaporean lifestyle. Most changes, I love: About 15% max tax-rate (hell yes!)!!  $10 cab ride from town or to work! Quick 1-2 hr flight to some of the many exotic locations in Asia! 1% crime rate! And the list goes on..

Some, you struggle to adapt to - Durian (One day I will try it… no hurry though!)

And then there are others that you were never given an option but to accept – One of them was reclassifying what “perfect running weather” is.

In Sydney, a 18-20 degree sunny day is my perfect running weather – It’s nice, cool and the sun is out to keep you warm. You’ve done about 5 KMs before you break a sweat and you never bother carrying any water when you head out on a 10KM run. Singapore’s “perfect running weather” made an appearance about 2 hours after the marathon started. It was a nice cool breeze with a light drizzle and the temperature dropped a few degrees. That was the best any runner could ask for!

I crossed the half-way point (21.1kms) in 2hr25mins. In the past, I’ve faded quite badly in the second half of the marathon. Even in Sydney Marathon 2010 (My 4:34 PB), I was about 15 minutes slower in the second half. So I decided to be sensible and wanted to get to the finish line in less than 5hr 10mins. The 5 hour pacers were long gone and setting 5:10 as the goal with a 5 minute buffer will get me to the finish by 5:15 – Perfect logic! :)

..and so the return trip began..

About half an hour after “perfect running weather”, in true Singapore fashion, the weather decided to change again! – The cool breezes turned into very strong winds and the light drizzle was now a heavy downpour with thunder and lightning. Few minutes later I was running in water logged shoes and stepping on big puddles of water! I found out later that it was a Category 1 storm.

The quickest way to end all this was to get to the finish line, so I kept plodding along. Strangely, I was feeling very good even after 25Kms of running. About a KM later, I decided I was going to pick up my pace. It was a big gamble but I was ready for my mind to take over proceedings from my body for the rest of the race!

It is always a great feeling to be running strong and feeling good in the second half of the marathon. I was running and passing runners as if it was the first KM of the marathon! I knew this feeling may not last and things could turn ugly within few 100 meters but I was enjoying it too much to stop. The faster I ran, the more runners I was passing. I'd later find out that I passed about 175 runners in the last 10KMs and only 15 passed me. My goal of 35KM was in sight and I was still feeling good.

It was time to distract my body with a new game – chasing moving targets! The rule of the game is simple.. Pick the next street light, next turn, next KM marker, the water station or whatever you can see in the next 500-600meterss and plan to run that far.. When you are almost there, forget about that target and aim for the next one. Point of this game is to ‘eat the elephant, one chunk at a time’ and it worked well with distracting me from the throbbing legs and upper body pains!

By 40KMs my mind and body had enough of games and tricks.. Each step hurt much more than the previous one. I could’ve walked for a minute or two and still got to the finish line in well under 5 hours.. but I knew I would regret it forever if I stopped running, that close to the finish line. Couldn’t stop thinking of a quote I saw few days before and that kept me going :

I was determined to keep running despite my body running on an empty tank and every bit of it hurting. Running past 41KM market was a huge relief and excitement. There was no stopping now. I decided to pick up the pace and pass as many runners as possible and finally got to the finish line in 4hr:51mins!!

I had ran all the way in marathon for the first time ever! I’d run an almost even split and the last KM was my fastest KM of the whole race! I wasn't even close to breaking a PB (17 mins off) but this will be one I'll be proud of for a very long time to come...

How to Sync all your Calendars - Part 2 - Facebook & Tripit calendars

In my last post, I explained details of the following:

·         Set up a common calendar

·         Linked it to my Android phone

·         Linked it to Shyamala’s phone (iPhone)

·         Have a common calendar on our PC at home 

 In order to have a complete all-in-one calendar linked to our phones and the PC at home, I had to include events from facebook and travel itineraries from tripit.

Automatically include our travel itineraries including flights and hotel bookings

Tripit is a really handy website to organise travel plans into an itinerary. This is especially useful if you are a DIY traveller like me who organises and purchases your own flight/hotel/tour bookings from various sites. Once you receive the confirmation and receipts from a travel site, you simply need to email that to plans@tripit.com and Tripit is smart enough to pick up all the information from the email and build your itinerary.

Tripit has its own iPhone/Android app. However, I was determined to add these schedules to my calendar. Tripit has the details for this on this link - http://www.tripit.com/uhp/calendarInfo

• Get your iCal feed .
• Copy the URL.
• Open a new browser window and go to Google Calendar. Click on the dropdown button (or the "Add" link in the old Google Calendar version) in the "Other Calendars" section on the left-hand side.
• Choose "Add by URL".

• On the pop-up, paste the URL in the selected text field.
• Click "Add Calendar" to finish.

Once setup, the travel itineraries show up on Google Calendar:

Automatically include Facebook events

Last step was to make sure my facebook events are included in the calendar.

• ·         Go to Facebook events
• ·         Click on drop down menu next to the “Create event” button and select “Export Events..” 

 

• ·         Copy the URL

• Go to Google Calendar and add the above link following the similar steps to the above tripit-Google calendar addition. Once done, your facebook events show up on your calendar:

Once done, your facebook events will be displayed on your Google calendar (and your mobiles via Google Calendar)

Google is smart enough to colour code various calendar - In my case, Facebook events are highlighted in Orange and Tripit in Green.
I am still not happy with all facebook events including declined facebook events showing up. I'm in the process of checking how this can be fixed.
 Unfortunately, the facebook and Tripit events dont flow through to the Windows Live Calendar widget on my desktop (explained in my previous post). The reason for this is the Google iCal output does not share the events from external calendars. In order to fix this, the iCal URLs need to be added directly to the Windows Live Calendar widget as per my previous post. Any suggestions to improve these techniques will be great! Enjoy! :-)

How to Sync all your Calendars - Part 1 - Google, iPhone, Android and Desktop calendars

Lately, I have been on a mission to set up a common calendar for Shyamala and I to share and to integrate our personal calendars, Facebook calendars and travel itineraries so it’s all in one common calendar . With some research and Googling, I’ve managed to do the following:

·         One common calendar

·         Link it to my Android phone

·         Link it to Shyamala’s iPhone (clearly I have a better phone than Shyamala :) )

·         Have a common calendar on our PC at home

·         Automatically include our travel itineraries including flights and hotel bookings

·         Automatically include Facebook events

Not sure if this means I’ll manage my time better, but it certainly does help with it and with planning our schedule. Now for the details:

One common calendar

I needed a fairly straight forward calendar with good integration with phones and other apps. The choice was fairly obviously. I signed up for a Google Calendar account. This was a fairly straight forward process.

Syncing with the Android Phone

Android users are in luck. The setting up of a Google account/calendar is quite straight forward. If your Google calendar account is the same as the gmail account you used when you set up your phone, all of your calendars will automatically sync with the phone. In my case, the gmail account I use on my phone is different to the common calendar I set up recently.  So I had to add the new calendar.

To make life easier, I’ve also added two of the below HTC calendar widgets: 

Syncing with the iPhone

Unfortunately, this is a little more complicated than Android! (Another reason to use Android :) )

Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars, click Add Account and create a new Microsoft Exchange Account -- not the Gmail option (yes!!! Weird!). Leaving the 'Domain' field blank, enter your Google account details in 'Username' and 'Password,' tap 'Next,' and add m.google.com as the 'Server' field on the following screen. Next, you'll be prompted for the services you'd like to sync. If this is your first time setting up mail, contacts or your calendar, go ahead and select all three.

If you are using multiple calendars open Safari to choose which Google Calendars you require. Use your account details to log in to m.google.com/sync on your phone, and select the device you're using. Tap the button next to each calendar you want on your phone, and press 'Save' once you're satisfied. Wait a few seconds, boot up the iOS Calendar app, and your Google calendars, now fully editable, will download from the Web.

If you are assuming multiple iPhones or iPads, you just need to follow the above steps on all of it. You can customize your sync settings on each device.

Have a common calendar on our PC at home

I wanted the calendar to be setup on our laptop at home. Ideally, I was looking for a desktop ‘widget’ that will load at startup on my Windows7 laptop and display the calendar... that is exactly what I found here (Not sure what Microsoft was thinking when they removed Windows Calendar from Windows7!!)

This Windows Live Calendar Gadget allows syncing from Windows Live, Google Calendar or any other calendar (including Facebook and tripit – more details below). It also allows you to sync more than one calendar! – Just what I needed.

1. Go to Google calendar > settings > Calendar tab and select the Calendar you wish to sync:

2. Under ‘Private address’, click ICAL and copy the URL:

3. Go to the Windows Live Calendar Gadget > options and paste the URL.

You can choose various the sync interval, reminder options and pick one of the three skins currently available:

Once it is setup, it sits really nicely on the desktop:

I hope this helps someone..
I've also linked my facebook events and travel itineraries (via tripit) to the above calendar (and the phones). I'll explain how I did that in the next blog.