Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Brooks Half Marathon Race Report

This is the 2nd race of mine in year 2012 after New Year Newton Challenge. I was so excited until I can’t sleep well on the night before. Waked up by 3:30am and decided to prepare myself for the race. The routine chores done and I left home around 4:30am. Reached the Stadium around 5:20am, but the organizer only open a small passage for ~3k runners to enter the field. Caused some delay in the flag off. Most of the participants only enter the field before the flag off at 5:37am.
The starting line is really packed, it took me 3 minutes to cross the line. The packed feeling continue until 4km when we heading back to the bus station next to the Stadium. I ran this part of the route before, kept a good sub-6 minutes pace all the way. Planned to go faster but the traffic and participants were really packed, some time I need to go outside the barriers in order to keep my pace. Hit the first climb in front of the bus station, the pace still maintained quite well. Still ok at the second climb entering the Happy Garden. After the climb, I charged at 5.5/min all the way to 11km. Then, flatten by the back to back 3rd & 4th climbs near the new apartment/condo project site. After that, my mind didn’t register any other significant climbs until the last km heading back to the Stadium on TPM highway. Good thing is, I didn’t walked on these climbs (though I ran at 9~10min/km pace).

Similar to PJ Half Marathon 2011, we entered the Stadium and ran the oval track towards the finish line. Completed the race by running into the Stadium really gave some difference feeling. Passed the finish line on 2:17 (gun time, net time 2:14). Although I missed my target to sub-2, but looking at the tough terrain on today’s route, I think I completed in a reasonable result. May be I can train harder and plan for my sub-2 HM again in PJ Dawn.
Leaving the field and rested at seat had a good chat with Nick. He ran with some injury on the tight but still completed in a decent timing. He is also doing the review of the very handsome running shoes from Skechers, click HERE to find out more.

Overall, this is a good event that I will be returning next year.
Pro,
1. Challenging route
2. Starting point and finish line inside the Stadium

Con,
1. Crowd control. Organizer need to consider the movement of the participants, pre & post race. Pre-race, we were entering the field by a single man passage. Post-race, we needed to walk up the seating area again via some narrow passage.  
2. Traffic control on the route. We ran on the main access roads to Bukit Jalil area, is there anything we can do to avoid holding up the traffic for too long? The exhaust from these running engines not good for runners too.

Btw, I ran with Garmin Forerunner 910XT. Will post some review about this unit later.

Next race, full marathon @ Energizer Night Race.

8 comments:

  1. You did excellent, my friend! And it was great to catch up much longer this time, pity Kah Yen missed us.

    And thanks for the mention. I'm actually loving the shoe :D

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  2. You did swell, Neoh!

    Congrats. After the tough route, running a sub-2 should be easy after this. Right? :)

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    1. No really leh... sub-2 need to run at 5.5min/km for the 21k, still tough enough to kick my ass :P

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    2. Pain is temporary Neoh.
      Glory is forever. ^^

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    3. No worry about the glory, I still have another 50 years in my running life to chase that target :P

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  3. The way I see it, the more we are off our target, the more incentive and motivation for us to keep chasing the goal we hv set for ourselves.
    Keep putting time and effort into it. Yet, don't forget to learn to enjoy it too along the way....

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Francis!
      I need to switch my mode back to enjoyment instead of chasing those timing target for now. Guess I am in over-trained stage. :P

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