Monday, August 17, 2009

SAFRA Bay Run & Army Half-Marathon 2009

This year's race was an interesting one. As usual, had a good time racing with good friends! What was a little disappointing for me was that we arrived on time only to realise that the race had started 5 to 6 minutes earlier than it should have. This was disappointing for me because I have always enjoyed the sense of anticipation before any race and the adrenaline rush when the race is flagged off. Not only that, we had to "fight" our way through the crowd to maintain the desired pace and to squeeze through bottlenecks. So this year, the starting of the race was a bit of a non-event and disappointment. Notwithstanding the earlier than expected start, I had a good race overall. The route was interesting and I enjoyed running through the F1 track and paddock area.

This is my second attempt at this event. I started with the goal of achieving sub 2 hrs timing having achieved 2 hrs 6 min last year. However, it was not meant to be. I finished the race at 2 hr 3 min. I was not upset with my timing at all because I did try my best and it was an improvement over last year's timing. The lesson learnt is that sometimes I have to set realistic targets.

When I reviewed my race data on Runpix as well as my Garmin 405, I realised that I had a pretty good run after all. The captured data is shown below.


My Garmin showed that I actually maintained a pace of 5:49 min per km! To me this is not too shabby at all. This means that throughout the 21 km race, I ran at a pace I would normally have run for a 10 km race! I also managed to remain quite consistent pace, of 10 to 10.5 kph, throughout the run as shown in the Section KPH.


Well, lesson learnt! I must learn to set realistic targets and appreciate what I have achieved so long as I have tried my best :-)

There is always next year's race!

Next race, RunNUS 09!



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