Well, some of you would be aware I took part in the half marathon on Sunday and so did some friends. My training this year was intermittent due to various reasons but I kept up the aerobic end of the bargain by doing a lot of cycling. So as I neared the run day, I put in some runs (8-10K) and was happy I was clocking decent timing (6:15 min/Km). However, I know since I have not trained my legs for running, I am going to have modest targets.

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I set my targets (optimistic 2:15 hrs, realistic 2:20 Hrs and pessimistic 2:34 Hrs) before the race day. My initial target of doing a 2:06 (21Km at 6:00 pace) seemed too far fetched and 2:34 is what I did last year. The target seemed achievable if my legs did not complain. I started with a nice trot – felt like I could keep going for a long while at the pace (about 6:15 after a few km). since I knew the route sketchily, I set some intermediate targets:

1. Entering ECP
2. Starting Benjamin Shears bridge
3. Fort Road
4. East Coast park (U turn) – my domain
5. Fort Road
6. Start of Nicoll Highway – my domain again
7. End point

As I was reaching the Fort road end, I figures that the route along east coast park was about 8 Km. That was the usual route I used to run and enjoyed the run as the sun came up. The problem however was that east coast park is a narrow road (as compared to the 3+ lanes along ECP / Nicoll highway) and the human traffic was pretty heavy. Motivation was easy to come by – I look for some pretty babe and keep pace with her (yea I sound sexist, so sue me). So I cycled for a while between green top, tight white, short pants, great legs etc… Too may to list down here. Suffice to say, these events are great to bump into very fit girls in tight outfits.

Well I guess I got into a bit of problem around the 17 Km point and had to stretch, apply muscle relaxant and walk for a while. That slowed me down quite a bit. I was almost on target for a 2:18 finish but the walking slowed me down considerably and I finished up at 2:23. Better than last year but I suppose I can improve a lot more. May be a 2:06 or even a sub 2:00 next year is not too far fetched. I suppose a more disciplined training routine would help.

At the end point, the crowd was pretty heavy and I skipped on getting the isotonic (fearing the queue). But as luck would have it, as I was heading out, there was this pretty babe who probably took pity on me and offered a 100Plus that she got after queuing up. Thank goodness, for such nice people still exist

Related posts:

1. obligatory marathon report

This entry was posted on Monday, August 27th, 2007 at 4:39 am and is filed under race report, run, Singapore. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.