At The End Of 21km

SAFRA Singapore Bay Run Army Half Marathon 2009 finisher medal 225x300

Yeah I did it! I finished the whole of 21km despite my initial worries about the SAFRA Singapore Bay Run and Army Half Marathon 2009.

SAFRA Singapore Bay Run Army Half Marathon 2009 timings

It is my very 1st time participating in a public mass running event (The Big Walk doesn’t count right?) and the very first time at attempting to run a distance of 21km.

I did predict that I would probably finish the race in 2hrs 30mins – 2hrs 45 mins and my timing is very far off from the predictions but I didn’t expect it to be a painful one! My body started to breakdown at the 14km mark and I had to adopt a run-walk-run method to be able to finish the race.

I knew I was putting in too much effort when my heart rate monitor told me that my heart was beating at 189 beats per minute which is the highest I have ever seen from all the runs I did before in my training runs. The over-exertion was also confirmed by the chills running through my body when my heart rate was that high.

There was mostly sweaty men surrounding me and no babes around me to attribute the high heart rate to and so from the 14km – 15km mark, I decided to run based on my heart rate which was probably the smartest decision made that day. I stopped to walk when my heart rate started to hit a high and started to run again when it’s lower and stabilized.

At the 17km – 18km mark, I started to develop cramps on both of my lower quads and eventually my left ankle. It was very punishing to walk much less to run but I told myself to ‘finish strong’ and I made myself run the last 1.5km – 2km through the finishing line.

I don’t have the experience of running other races to compare how well the organizers did for this one but I think I enjoyed it pretty much. The water points are plenty and nicely spaced out; there were many musical performances throughout the route that provided morale boosting beats; queues at the end of the race for the medals are almost non-existent.

Other runners also provided great entertainment. There was a runner whose watch beeped constantly throughout his run. In my head I went, “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPP…….”. There was an uncle who let out a pretty wet fart when I was jogging right behind him though it could have been the sound of his turbo boost as he sped away after that.

Much thanks to KuKuNehNeh for waking up early with me at 3am to prepare breakfast and to drive me there where she waited a good 3 hrs and more for me to finish the run.

*MUACKS*!!!!

I am quite looking forward to the full marathon in December despite aching from head to toe right now. Now pardon me as I end this post to get up painfully from this chair to get a drink by walking like a guy with swollen testicles heading for the fridge.


Related posts:

  1. 11 Days Too Little To The SAFRA Singapore Bay Run and Army Half Marathon 2009
  2. Running with Science
  3. Run Faster And Stronger With Negative Splits
  4. Getting Longer And Faster With Lesser Heart
  5. The Running Curse

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This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 6:15 pmand is filed under Events, My-Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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