Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon 2007

Posted On Sunday, December 2, 2007 at at 8:07 AM by warriorsofwind  

This is my third Marathon race.. but my 4th time participated in Singapore SCM.

Feeling not well, I took some medicine before the night of the race. As usual, I couldn’t able to fall asleep the night before any of the race event. The effect of medicine had caused dizziness in my head. I could feel contraction in my hands and left leg muscles at 3am and my heart was pounding.

Nevertheless, I still wanted to give a try for this last SCM race held in Singapore. The bag deposit section was having a long queue. I was ten minutes late for the flag-off time and the distance between the starting point and the deposit area was one street away..
Having no sleep, my mind was detached from my physical awareness. I tried to keep a consistent pace along the way. After 10km, I would feel the impact from the lack of sleep and the pain coming from my right kneels. At 14km checkpoint, I was totally famished and took a banana to refill my energy.. At 16km, I had to took a muscle spray on my right kneels. No good!! The spray was not effective. At 18km, I took a muscle rubbed hoping it might soothe the pain. Well.. It did help a little.. but the most effective still coming back to the deep heat applied at 22km. I jogged slowly and be careful of the pressure exerted at my right foot landing then after.
The sun had risen at 8am and the weather was getting hotter. The East Coast route had always been the most demoralizing route in the entire race. One-step after another, I kept telling myself “not to stop” at least till 30km. After 30km, I couldn’t let myself to halt. In my mind, I said “I must get out from East Coast!!”. Kept repeating the same statement to inspire myself to continue.. I did not want to stop. At every water point, i snatched a cup of drink and ran with hand holding on it and drinking at the same time. At 32km, I strapped my Patella Brace at my right kneels to reduce the pain.
Yes!! I have done it!! Running non-stop for 34km!! With a last drawn of strength, I had 1.10hr left to complete the race within 4.30hr. Unfortunately, my body condition had failed me. At 35km, my two thigh muscles cramped. I told myself that no matter at what costs, I still could make it. At 37km, my head felt dizzy and my eyes could not be opened. Finally, my mind began to give up and the world seems spinning around me. From a pace of 5mins to cover 1 km, it had reduced to 10~12mins. I walked a little bit but most of the time kept jogging at a really slow pace.
After 30min, I was about to reach the finishing line finally. The time was registering for 5.00hr. I knew I had failed my attempt to do sub 5hr.. Nonetheless, I won’t give up. I had to run faster before the clock ticked to 5.01hr.. 100m before the finishing line, I gathered my last every strength and dashed towards it bearing all the pains at my right kneels and two thigh muscles.. The time - 5:00:49..
Although I had slight improvement over the previous year attempt, I was still very glad with the result. 2 reasons: (1) I was continuously running for the entire race; (2) Despite my body condition, I had managed to finish the race without going the hospital. Haha..
The next one?? Ultra-Marathon.

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