Adidas Sundown Marathon 2010

Another marathon done, another marathon under my belt. This year's adidas Sundown Marathon marked the completion of my 7th marathon. This was also the first marathon that I finished relatively well. Well, not in terms of timing (I was more than 15 minutes off my personal best timing) but in terms of the state that I was in when I completed the race. When I crossed the finishing mat at 4:43, I was surprised that I was left relatively unscathed. There was minimal pain and I could move about quite normally. This was good :-)

This year's Sundown featured a new race venue/start point and a new route. Personally, I liked the new race venue as it offered plenty of parking. Concerning the route, it was completely flat. Gone were

the days when runners had to risk life and limp to cross roads and climb over pedestrian bridges. However, this year's route was a relatively boring one as it was up and down Changi Coastal Road and East Coast Park as compared to the old route which allowed runners to break up the whole route into chunks (Changi Coastal Road, ECP, Siglap, Bedok, Tampines, Pasir Ris, Loyang and finally Changi Village) so that the race seemed more interesting. Personally, I found the new route ok as it was my regular LSD route anyway. The only problem was I lost motivation from 27km onwards. This was made worse by the monotony of the Changi Coast Road park connector and fatigue due to sleepiness. This might explain my worse than expected timing. However, this (as well as the flat route) might also explain why I came out of this marathon relatively well as I did not really push myself for the PB.

This marathon also helped me realize that I might have reached my potential in terms of performance. I have not been able to achieve any breakthroughs since last year's SCSM. Well, I guess from now onwards, I shall focus on finishing marathons well in a healthy and pain-free state so that I can go waddling on for many more years of my life.

I also take my hat off to all who attempted and completed the 84km Ultra-Marathon! These people have my utmost RESPECT! I really cannot imagine how can anyone go through the torture of a full marathon not once but twice consecutively!

Next race: Standard Chartered KL Marathon

Passion Run 2010

This year's Passion Run was an interesting one. It has adopted a new format. It was held on a Saturday afternoon at 4.30pm instead of the usual Sunday morning race. The race has also included a new distance category 25km. I signed up for the 50km duo category with a good friend each having to complete 25km. I liked the timing of the race as by the time we were finishing, it was already past 7pm and the weather was nice and cool.

This proved to be an enjoyable outing as personally I saw it as preparatory run for next week's Adidas Sundown Marathon. Therefore, there was no stress of setting personal best timings. I just wanted to clock the milage and to have a good run with my duo partner. Honestly, I did not even know how well we fared as we started off in the 3rd wave (late as usual) and I actually forgot to start my stop watch!

The route was a familiar one. Up and down east coast park... nothing unpredictable.

Another bonus for this run was a finisher T-Shirt for those who attempted the 25km race and it was of good quality (dri-fit). Somehow, I am still a sucker for finisher Ts :-)

Overall it was a positive experience made better by good company. It would have been boring otherwise...

The result is just out! Not bad actually for a leisurely run... haha.

Next Race: Adidas Sundown Marathon (Next Week!)