Saturday, May 21, 2011

PAssion Run 25km at East Coast Park

The 25km event was broken down into 3 waves. The 1st wave started at 4:30pm, 2nd wave at 4:40pm and 3rd wave at 4:50pm. Couldn't get a parking space so parked my car along road side along East Coast Service road. Luckily did not get any summon ticket. I believe they allowed that due to this major running event. Wanted to join the 2nd wave but was late so ended up with the 3rd wave.

Did not sleep well the past few nights and body not in top form. Drank a glass of coffee, took an energy bar biscuit and 2 bananas.

One of the lady minister came to flag off the run. In the first few km, I was trying to pace after 2 runners of reasonable speed (about 10kmph). Did fairly well for the first 7km. Did not stop running while drinking  along drinking points. Lost sight of the 2 runners after 9km mark. Did fairly well for the first 10km.

After 10km mark, my body and mind got a bit "lazy" and did several "stop,drink & walk" at drinking points. The deceleration, stop, walk and acceleration took up more energy than usual.

Legs feeling a bit of cramp around 20km bear the knee muscle area. Started to focus on pulling the legs (pose method) instead of pushing the legs. Saw a good runner who was running upright with minimal body swing and at fairly good constant pace. It appeared so effortless for him (that's what I call equilibrium pace, a pace that you can almost continue to run non-stop almost effortlessly). So I paced after him. It helps tremendously... until I stop to drink at one of the water points and lost track of him.

Was quite please that towards the end of the race I was still able to dash at the last 200m easily. Carried along with me 2 GUI power gel but ended up consuming only 1 pack at 13km mark. Overall quite a tiring run. Stop my iPhone distance tracker software only after collecting my medal, finisher t-shirt and drink. My rough estimate is overall I took about 2hr 55 min or less.



Will stop running for whole of next week to let body recover in preparation for the 42km Adidas Sundown marathon event on Sat 28-May-2011. That will be a really tough one as I am not fully prepare or train enough for it this time round. But will attempt to complete it regardless, hopefully below 6 hours (my prior 42km run was 5hr 19min).

My run results and map using the iPhone RunKeeper software.

http://runkeeper.com/user/hcgan/activity/36306263