Run With Us Race Report

"It is only 30 seconds off my 12k PB! It has never been this close!"

11.93km, 49:18! Some said 12km!

No PB and no podium but Run With Us was definitely a very significant race to me. I usually run pretty badly in the first half of the year and things get better when I start picking up in the second half year. It usually takes quite long for me to get back in shape, and for this year, it seems worse. The peaking process seems taking a little longer than what I expected. Sign of aging. Sigh!

As usual, I treat the races before the goal race as tune up races. They are there for a purpose which is to test my form. I thought I could have peak much earlier but it didn't. I ran badly in the Seremban Half Marathon 4 weeks ago and it was quite a big hit to me. So, this Run With Us race was my 8th race this year and it was 7 weeks left to the SCKLM. By achieving a close to top form timing, it definitely gave me a boost in my confidence level.

I arrived quite early on that day as I had to pass the bibs to a few people. The excitement kept growing as the crowd got bigger. I headed to the starting pen after a long warm up session with Angel and Adele. This was a 12km race; I wasn’t quite sure about my form so I couldn’t give myself a hard target time. I decided to race as per my heart rate which I should start with about 170 and end with about 180.

Only 2 of us

The race flagged off at 6:47am. The 2 minutes delay was caused by our Prime Minister. No! 2 minutes late was not OK! Don’t fucking tell me it was OK! What’s the problem with him as he could have arrived earlier! No excuse! I stood right behind the starting line and I could see his shameless face. He arrived late and walked slowly as if everyone was there for him.

The race flagged off and people sprinted off. I tried to control my pace to have the HR stayed below 170 for the first 2km. As usual, I started relatively slow. Everyone who were around my standard disappeared from my sight, even the top girls like Annie, Michelle, Adele, Angel and Kah Mun also far ahead of me. Only Jessica started slow as usual. It took me up to 1km to overtake these girls. Was I really that slow? No! I was on 3:59 pace for the first km. Started off with this fast pace is not my choice of strategy. I always believe to maximize the performance I need to run with somewhat even or maybe slightly positive or negative splits. People often say it’s alright to sprint a little in the beginning. I agree with that and I do that too but I only sprint for the first few hundred meters not the entire 1~2km and I do that is just to get myself into a better runway which is not blocked by slower runners. Once I get into that zone, I will slow down.

Not only the girls; almost all the people around my standard started faster than me. I believe they could have performed better if they were on a more even or better pacing strategy. Well, I couldn’t comment much because they didn’t have to do that to win the race and I knew some of them didn’t even care about the pacing strategy at all! They probably didn’t know what a pace is. Haha! Life isn’t fair. Only slow runners like me DDLY. :P

No one overtook me in the entire race, the feeling was so good! Some people thought I did super negative splits but I wasn’t. I seldom run a race in negative splits. The most is even splits and mostly positive splits including this race. It just that my positive splits is relatively low positive than others. My 5km splits for this one:

24:42, 4:07 pace, first 6km
24:35, 4:09 pace, last 5.93km

You can see that the second half is indeed slower. Everything was as planned until km-9. I couldn’t bring my HR up any higher to 177~180. It stayed constantly at 175~176. I believe it could go higher because I had achieved a much higher HR before. My breathing was heavy and body was in pain but still bearable. I could still hold that pace and speed up a little in the end. This was actually where my confidence got boosted! It was not my all out. I just didn’t want to do it yet. I could maybe break the record but 12km is not a proper distance for me. Haha! No hope of winning top 10 too so I didn’t max it.

I finished 16th in the men open category, right behind Jasni 15th and Chris PCK 14th. I had done right for this race and I achieved what I wanted to. It was a 12km with 4:08 pace. This number meant that I could run a 10km with 4:04 pace and a 21km with 4:19 pace which would be the reference for my next few races. It also told me that my training was so far on track!

LOL! Good or bad? So so? What do you want?

My splits!

Congrats to my friends who won the race and who did their PB!

Congrats Angel on breaking her PB and won 7th! Chris got men open 14th too!

With Ray, May and their friend.

5th in her comeback race! What more to say!

Now I know where my standard is. Quite confident and ready for my up coming races!

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