Despite sleeping for
less than 3 hours, I woke up to the morning of AHM 2018 feeling quite fresh.
There wasn’t the lethargy that I sometimes might feel on some race days, and
yet there wasn’t the excessive pumping of adrenaline on marathon days. In other
words, it felt like a good day for a new PB.
The fact is, I was
also quietly confident of matching last year’s timing. Though I had not put in
enough training runs in the lead-up to this race, I had been able to meet a
5:40-pace during training runs consistently. Throw in the race-day adrenaline
and I would be able to match the PB achieved last year.
Let me first talk about the AHM shuttle bus service. The good thing about
the bus service, is that it left the meeting point on time, and
reached the drop off point before 3:30am. This allowed me ample time to visit
the loo twice to clear my bowels, which I felt was a contributing factor to a
good race. (In contrast, the SCSM 2016 & 2017 shuttle bus service never
left on time, and departed Eunos MRT to loop at Bedok MRT before making its way
to the start point, which would be near 4:00am.)
I always feel that the AHM
organisers are the gold standard in race organization in Singapore. They never
disappoint! There were ample portable loos around the venue, and there was no
lack of baggage counters and staff to handle bag deposits – making it a
hassle-free and fast process. I was all prepared and ready by 3:50am!
This year, the person
to flag us off was punctual, and so the race could start promptly. I was in the
first wave to start, and wasn’t too caught up in the bottlenecks (though at
some narrow points in the CBD and at Gardens by the Bay, my pace had to be
slowed down). The weather was fine and not excessively humid, which made the
21km quite bearable.
Fixated at trying to
complete the race in under 2 hours, I was looking out for the pacers. I passed
the 2:45, 2:30 and 2:15 pacers in the first half of my race. I thought I would
be fast enough to meet the 2:00 pacers before I reached the finish line, but I
wasn’t. But personally I felt it was quite something, to be able to sustain my
5:30 pace for most parts of the race.
I reached the 11km
mark at the 60th minute. At that point, I felt generally well and I
knew I could still sustain the 2nd half at the same pace. I even
toyed with the thought of trying a negative split for the 2nd half,
but thankfully I did not, as I wasn’t used to this strategy before.
By the time I reached
15km, it was just about 6km more to go. I looked at my watch and knew that a PB
was within reach, even if I did a 6:00 pace for the remaining 6km. I maintained
the 5:30-pace target and eventually finished with a 2-min improvement from last
year’s PB.
The new PB of 1:57:01
may not seem like a huge improvement from 1:59:00 in 2017, but I could feel
that the shaving of mere seconds from the race timing would take a lot more
effort and training. I was satisfied, of course.
While I was queueing
for the muscle rub after the race, a middle-aged uncle behind me was chatting
with another fellow runner. He lamented that his run was ‘jialat’ because he
took ‘almost 2 hours’. And here I was, already celebrating a PB that took
almost 2 hours. The uncle’s lament could well be an unsettling comment to my
ears, but on the contrary, I felt motivated and encouraged – that there’s still
so much room that I can improve. I’m now dreaming about a 1:45 race result in
the longer term and I now know that I’m a step closer to it than ever before.
-----------------------------------
Some race analytics:
- There were 13,070 finishers, of which 11,994 were male (92%) and 1,076 were female (8%).
- Median time for all finishers was 2:38:23.
- My net time was 1:57:01.
- Out of 13,070 finishers, I was ranked 1,105th (8% ahead).
- Out of 11,994 male finishers, I was ranked 1,043th (9% ahead).
- Out of 2,688 male finishers in my age group, I was ranked 313rd (12% ahead).
- I was ahead of about 94% of women runners.
- Average pace (per km): 5 min 33 sec
My past 16 Full Marathons at a
glance:
1. Standard Chartered Singapore
Marathon 2007: 5:06:14
2. adidas Sundown Marathon 2008:
5:07:58
3. Standard Chartered Singapore
Marathon 2009: 5:01:04
4. Standard Chartered Marathon
Singapore 2010: 5:13:35
5. Volkswagen Prague International
Marathon 2012: 4:53:22
6. Standard Chartered Marathon
Singapore 2012: 4:59:49
7. Standard Chartered Marathon
Singapore 2013: 5:17:47
8. Maybank Bali Marathon 2014:
4:48:08
9. Standard Chartered Marathon
Singapore 2014: 5:14:22
10. Maybank Bali Marathon 2015:
4:52:39
11. Standard Chartered Marathon
Singapore 2015: 4:43:41
12. 2016阿猴國興盃公益路跑：4:41:13
13. Maybank Bali Marathon 2016:
5:04:35
14. Standard Chartered Marathon
Singapore 2016: 4:30:15
15. Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon
2017: 4:26:56 (Best!)
16. Standard Chartered
Singapore Marathon 2017: 4:44:06
My past 11 Half Marathons at a
glance:
1. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2007
timing -- 2:14:29
2. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2008 timing -- 2:21:02
3. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2009 timing -- 2:17:38
4. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2010 timing -- 2:04:18
5. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2011 timing -- 2:07:33
6. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2012 timing -- 2:15:18
7. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2013
timing -- 2:24:41 (Huge bottleneck)
8. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2014
timing -- 2:14:44
9. OSIM Sundown Half Marathon 2016
-- 3:24:05 (With WL)
10. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2017
timing -- 1:59:00
11. SAFRA Army Half Marathon 2018
timing -- 1:57:01 (Best!)
人生是黑白的.
4:18 PM <3
>>>
