Singapore Marathon 2011 - CAN!

With the preparation and training I’ve had in the lead up to this marathon, I almost felt like I shouldn’t have been there at the start line on the Singapore Marathon 2011 on 4^th December, but having crossed the marathon finish line thrice, it was going to take a lot for me to turn down the opportunity to miss this wonderful experience.

Timeline of event leading upto this was:

Jan to Jun 11 – I had the best (half) year of running. I was constantly seeing sub 5min pace on my garmin. I was very much on track for a sub 4:15 Sydney Marathon & eventually to run one sub 4hr marathon in my life!

Jun 11 – Was offered a role in Singapore. Decided to accept it and move to Singapore with Shyamala.

First week of work in Jun – Got a corporate ‘invitation’ to run the Singapore marathon 2011. Shift + Deleted it and assumed I would never receive such junk mails anymore.

July-August – Learned some basics of living in Singapore. I now know:

*It is normal to look like you came from the Sauna after a 5 minute walk to the station

*At some point, you need to start pushing into the busy train if you ever wanted to get home on time.

* The STOP sign and pedestrian crossing are more of an optional sign for the drivers - If you request them to stop and if they can be bothered, they’ll stop

* CAN is the national phrase. It indicates “it can be done”

* Pack of tissues on an empty table in a busy food court means that the table is reserved by someone. Substitutes for pack of tissues are – umbrellas, wallets and hand bags!

Late August – Got a ‘reminder’ for the Singapore Marathon registration. Couldn’t resist it this time – I decided to sign up for it and ‘forget about it’.

August – October – Very stringent carb-loading regiment has already commenced thanks to East coast fresh seafood, Lau pa sat satays and little India curries of Singapore. Every now and then, a few runs were also done, along with (a more frequent and structured) muay thai training.

Early November – GAME FACE ON! I have a marathon to run in about 5 weeks. Plan was simple, I continue my muay thai training 2-3 times a week and fit in a long run in the weekends. This worked well for the first two weeks.

Third week, November – This was supposed to be my longest run weekend. Instead I was at Koh Lanta, Thailand with Shyamala. That was the beginning of my tapering. There was no running there at all.. not even to get to the room (we had golf buggies for it) or to walk to the seafood restaurant on the beach (why walk when we have our own scooter!). Only interval training that was done was the naps between the meals, pool, beach, bars and snorkeling :)

4^th Dec - “While Singapore is sleeping…”

The race start was at 5am. I got there around 4.40am hoping to get to the “sub 6 hours” starter group. My goal time was 5:15 with a dream time of 5 hours. A sub 6 hour starter group and/or the pacers were nowhere to be seen. I was confident that as the race progresses I would either catch the pacers and they’d catch me. (Lesson learnt – Plan to get to the start atleast an hour earlier. Singapore marathon has about 10 times more runners than Sydney runners – approx. 20000+ runners)

The start and the first few KMs were fairly uneventful with runners everywhere, very active water stations and active bands. The stand out was the enthusiastic families and supporters at that time of the day and the magnificent sights of Singapore’s China town, the esplanade, marina bay sands and Singapore flyer. We continued our run on the F1 race circuit and headed out towards the East Coast Park.

East Coast park is about 1.5 KMs from our house. It’s my training ground and known territory for me. This “popular beach” is a lot different to what most would expect – it takes a few months to get used to the sights of large containers ships few hundred meters off the beach and the lights from some island in Indonesia. I really surprised myself as I ran to the half-way turnaround point and continued running all the way down east coast.

“Respect the Distance”

The trick to run all 42.2kms in a marathon is simple – You need to do your long runs! There really are no short-cuts. Short runs, cross-training, weights training, muay thai, soccer, reading books, watching marathon videos on youtube, talking about running a marathon on facebook, may help you get to about the 28-33km point if you are reasonably prepared but ‘the wall’ will get to you at some point if you’d skipped the long runs. This time, I was one of many who had not done enough long runs in the lead up. By the 30^th KM, I’d well and truly hit the wall. The sun was out and the heat was unbearable. There were no KM markers, there were no pacers in and my garmin wasn’t getting good satellite signals!! I had no idea where I was on the course.

With some running and a lot of walking and almost feel like passing out, I finally got to Padang to cross the finish line of my 4^th Marathon. As always, Shyamala was there to receive me. Being there for almost an hour longer (thanks to her husband being over-enthusiastic about his goal time) might not have been much fun, but she certainly did not show it as she continued cheering me on as I ran towards the finish line.

I don’t usually don’t bother joining the post-race bandwagon of people complaining about the race. This marathon had a lot of complaints and most of them did not bother me. I wasn’t concerned about not having the right finisher t-shirt size (luckily I had my size this time!) or not getting a printed certificate or the recovery area being muddy! I almost don’t even mind the long gaps between the water stations in the final 10kms or them being really muddy and was a DIY station! But not having KM markers or properly organized pacers on an iconic race like the Singapore marathon is ridiculous. The heat may still have got to me – But I would have definitely tried my best to keep up with a pacer and/or keep a steady pace as I ran past KM markers to achieve a faster time.

It was interesting to note that my PB at Sydney marathon 2010 (4:34) still had me at the back of the pack with only 18% behind me.This marathon had a whopping 59% runners still behind me - despite the slower time of 5:54. I wonder how much of that relates to the sweltering Singapore heat.

That was my 4^th marathon done ! :) I’ve now done at least one marathon a year, since my first marathon in 2009.

A sub 4:15 (and eventually a sub 4hr marathon) is still on my bucket list.. but as my priority have temporarily changed, I don’t planning on waiting for the “perfect buildup” before lining up for the next marathon or half marathon. I hope to continue racing for fun. If work, studies, Singapore and the sights and beaches of Asia don’t get in the way at some point, I hope to train harder to achieve a much faster time :-)

SMH Half Marathon 2011 – A sorry tale!

This was my second year at the SMH half. Having not done too many races in the last few months, I was really looking forward to this race. My last years' time for this race was 2:00:34 and my current half marathon PB is 1:56:x. Training has been going really well and I had definitely got faster since last year. My last half marathon race was the Sri Chinmoy half marathon in late march. Despite being a cross country half and lack of long runs in the build up, I managed to run it under 2 hours (01:59:04). Since then, I'd done many longer runs and averaged at least 6min/k over 22-25km runs. Taking all that into consideration, I was convinced that this was going to be a day of a new PB. Physically, I was ready as I could have been. Mentally, I've had a couple of major decisions to make (mostly exciting ones J ) and have been quite distracted with it all – but was confident this wasn't going to get in the way of this race. On a day when all goes to plan, I thought I should be able to run under 1:53. On a really good day, 1:50 didn't look too far away to at least dream. On a bad day, well….

The race start was at 6.45 am and I was happy to get moving like most others there as it was quite chilly! As I crossed the line, Pat Carroll announced "13,500 runners!!!! - You are all going to be part of Australia's biggest half marathon". That was very exciting. After all, that cannot be a bad thing.. Right?
The first few KM's had the standard traits of most long distance races. Most runners settling in slowly to their comfortable paces, some runners dodging and weaving the slow ones, (some) training groups and partners forming mobile human road blocks as they decide to stick with their own groups, some personal trainers beginning their commando style training regiment in the midst of a packed half marathon etc. etc.. The first few K's didn't bother me and I wasn't really concerned about my pace. Just when I thought the runners had spread out enough and I may be able to catch up on some lost time and start running at my planned pace, we entered the tunnel off Cahill expressway. This was the first bottleneck of many to come. All runners had to slow down to an almost walking pace for a few hundred meters and continued running. This was my first hint of how the rest of the course was going to be.
In addition to the congestion, (very unexpectedly) my HR was extremely high and my mind started wandering about many things. From my experience, the mind beginning to wander when running isn't necessarily a bad thing (even in a race) but on this particular race, it decided to negatively impact me. I tried my best to not get distracted and focus on the race but this wasn't really working. The congestion didn't help with it either. The course did have some good long stretches with very minimal interruptions, specially around the 15-17km marks and I made good use of it with a 5:00/km and 4:56/km (i.e. they are fast for me especially after 15ks of running!) but that wasn't good enough to catch up on my planned pace – not even close J The time on my watch ticked over 2:00:00 and then 2:00:34 (my slowest half marathon to date) as I sprinted towards the finish line...I crossed the finish line in 2:00:49.. I'm happy that this isn't far off from my previous time a year ago and I've kept up with my fitness regime to be able to run a very similar time to last year, but this was the first time that I crossed the line and felt like I 'lost' this race!!

Am I disappointed? Yes. Extremely! I am aware I am not a fast runner but I'd trained for this and hoped to beat my own planned time. It is disappointing that I couldn't beat that due to both congestion and my mind not really willing to give it 100% on race day.

What I did learn?
1. Mind plays a much bigger role in training and races (and in general) than I thought it does - A clear mind would've certainly helped with a lower heart rate and a little quicker time.
2. (Well done to everyone who got a PB on Sunday but personally..) SMH half is not a 'fast'/pb course for me - Last year, my final thought on my race report (and congestion) was "Not sure if that is what slowed my overall time or if it in fact helped me pace myself and gave me the PB!". This year, I found out that it did in fact slow me at least a few minutes.

Onwards and upwards from here J

Sri Chinmoy Half @ Centennial Park – My first cross-country run/race

Yesterday was race 2 of the Sri Chinmoy Series at Centennial Park. I did the half marathon. Waking up for a Sri Chinmoy race is always made a lot easier by the thought of guilt-free post race pancakes provided by the race organizers. I had stuck to my training (almost with a 100% completion rate of all planned sessions) and have been running well... I had only done two long runs at a 'steady' pace as per the plan and the most I did in those runs were about 18.5kms. However, with sufficient taper, I was convinced I could run the 21.1 KMs in under 2 hours (and most probably, under my PB of 1:56).

The race was scheduled to start at 8am. Weather-wise, it was perfect running weather. It was slightly chilly in the morning and the occasional drizzle which acted as a constant threat that there could be a down pour at any minute. I got to the park by 7.30. I decided to park the car outside assuming the park is either closed or will have too many restrictions because of the race. My assumption was the run course will be the same as the centennial park part of the Sydney marathon course – which was all on-road (Note to self – Research the course well before working out a race plan!). Only difference I expected was that it will be 3x7km loops. The park was packed with cars, horses, bikes and other walkers and runners – none of them looked like they were leaving the park in a hurry to clear the road for the race. This was when I vaguely remembered reading on the Sri Chinmoy site that this was a cross-country course. The description was:

"an ever-changing cross-country course over dirt, grass and gravel takes you alongside pretty ponds, across playing fields and through lush groves of natives. With the occasional horse idling by, it's easy to imagine you're out in the countryside – until you look up at the imposing city skyline, which you can almost touch."

The race started just after 8 and we started running on grass and then onto a dirt track filled with very fresh horse manure! I was still convinced that this "cross country" wording was a marketing stunt by the organizers to attract some trail runners and we'll get on the road for most part of the loop. If anything (in true Sri Chinmoy race fashion), I expected we'd have to share the road or bike path with other cyclists and walkers (Most of them are usually nice and supportive!). We continued running on the dirt track and got on to a muddy gravel road. I wasn't concerned about my pace at all as I was more focused on where I'm stepping and trying to avoid horse manure, some tree branches and mud. After about 2-3kms of running in a 7k loop, it was time for me to accept that it was indeed a cross-country course. Unlike road running, it was extremely hard to control my pace or heart rate and get a rhythm going. I decided to stick to a pace that I could manage (given the high HR) and continued running. The race organizers' description was quiet accurate and we did run along "pretty ponds, across playing fields and through lush groves of natives".

My highlight of the whole course was running through the 'Centennial park pine forest'. When running outdoors or cycling, every now and then, you witness sights such as a sunrise, sunset or a random act of a stranger, which sticks you forever and makes you realize that it is all worth it !!.. This was one of those moments – It was a pine forest filled with black pine trees and the ground was filled with wet brown tree leaves and small branches. There was an occasional ray of sunlight coming through and it was a chilly morning. The little red signs with the arrows to direct us were barely visible – we instead followed the trail on the ground created by the faster runners... Having never run off-road before, this seemed like a glimpse of what I was missing out on.

I managed to find a photo on the net of this pine forest...

Rest of the loop was (almost) equally entertaining. My pace wasn't entirely going to plan but I couldn't have expected much considering it was an x-country course and I have always run on roads before. I was still on track for 1:56 finish as I did 16kms in 90minutes. However, I think I paid for my lack of long runs at about the 18-19km point. I didn't have much left and plodded along in just under 2 hrs (Time on my watch - 01:59:04). My immediate post race thoughts were that it was a 'slow' race and I was slightly disappointed. But having talked to few people in the last 24 hours, it seems like there was going to be no way I could've run anywhere near the time of a half marathon on the road. This race has certainly introduced me to the world of trail / cross-country running, which I would like to explore further one day. But for now, my goal is still the Sydney Marathon in SeptemberJ... Next stop will be the SHM half marathon on May 15^tt!!