It has been a year since the last AHM. I remember writing last year about my disappointment of not achieving a sub-2 hr timing for the half-marathon. Deep down inside, I really wanted to achieve this target, although the odds were really against me.
For one thing, I was not getting any younger. As each year passes, I could feel the ravages of time working against me (sound so drama... haha).
I also did not do well at an earlier 21km race in July, clocking my worst ever timing.
Days leading up to this year's event were also fraught with challenges. Not to mention stress from work, I also sprained my left ankle last week while running at Macritchie Reservoir. Associated with that injury, I also pulled a muscle at somewhere that I could not say in this blog.
Therefore, I did not have high hopes of achieving my target of a sub-2 hr run today. I decided to simply enjoy the run and enjoy the company of my friends.
However, everything seemed to go right this morning. For one thing, my ride to the race came super early and we were there well ahead of the flag-off time (last year, we were late by 6 minutes). Even my GPS watch worked without fuss. When the race started, I felt relax and did not feel any pain at the various places. As a result, I could maintain a good pace. According to my GPS watch, I was averaging a pace of 5:30/km. I started to feel ambitious sensing that I might be able to hit my target today. I came up with the strategy of trying to hit sub-hr at the 11km mark thinking that if I could hit 1 hr at the 11km mark, I would be able to hit sub-2 so long as I maintain the pace (with some allowance for slacking...). Well, this strategy worked very well. At the 11km mark, I was exactly at 1 hr. This raised my morale and meeting a friend at this point also helped as he paced me for the rest of the race.
To cut the story short, today, I achieved my target and I finished the race in 1:56:56!
I was ecstatic!
Above is a picture of my GPS watch capturing the time, distance and pace for today's race. As you can sense, I am still basking in the joy of achieving my target!
This bag of old bones still have what it takes... haha...
Next Race: North Face 100 (50km Duo). This is going to be a painful one!
*****
The official race results are out!
