Sunday, July 15, 2007

The day the hills have the upper hand

Today was the Seremban 1/2 Marathon which I ran (after a lapse of a long long time). So I can considered myself running it for the very first time. Reached the race site one hour earlier and got a parking lot just about 300m from the starting point.

While doing my warmup, saw Ah Beng and Cheong. Was surprised both of them are here for the run. Then we went to take some shots by Cheong's wife and headed towards the starting point. There met up with Womg sifu and Geraldine.


The race started on time at 6.45am. I was pacing myself slowly and try to warmup before going on a faster pace. Was running with Ah Beng for the first 5k before I make my move. Turn on the turbo a bit and increase my speed. Was running at around 5m15sec pace.

At the 10k mark caught up with Geraldine and I past her. I believed she shud be able to follow my pace and that will probably put her in a good finishing position. I pushed on and still feeling OK. At certain stretch especially on the downhill I am running under 5min pace. I hope this will make up for the finishing which I was told by Loco Lai that its very hilly from the 16k mark onwards.

Was slowing down a bit from the 16k mark because of the hilly terrain. The pace that I was running in the first 15k is starting to take a toll on me. Some runners which I potong sayur earlier is now overtaking me again. I was not too concern about it as I just wanna finish the race under 2hrs and a bonus if I can do it in 1h55mins.

As I hit the 18k mark, I am already a spent force. The hilly terrain is getting worst, up and down and as I slowly maintain my pace, I took on every uphill that came. Now I knew my pacing for the early part of the race is out ~ I ran too fast not conserving enuf for the final 3k to finishing.

I started my last climb towards the final 1k to finishing, the traffic both human and vehicles are taking up all the space of the road. Have to run with the school children till the finishing. Luckily the final 900m is downhill and that gave me some momentum to increase the pace again.

When I crossed the finishing line, my Garmin 205 showed 1h56m41sec. Distance was 21.46km slightly over 21k. It was a good run for me and the timing give me a benchmark for me to work on my speedwork again.

















How I stack up pacing myself for the entire race




















The elevation of the course....hilly I would said

5 comments:

CP Waterman said...

Bravo for your daring attempt to go fast. The hilly terrain from 16th km sure has "done you in".
But I don't think the timing will make a good benchmark for you to work on speed training paces.You went too slow in the 1st 5k and then too fast for the next 10k or so and then those unruly hills.
A better benchmark would be to run a 5k course (not too hilly) to the best of your ability and then gauge from there for your training paces.I expect too see sub1hr45 soon from you!hehe
All the best!

-H2O
Paris

CP Waterman said...

Oops! would luv to see your Garmin charts on tis race.
Thks!

Keipo said...

ccube:

check u yahoo mail..got u pia fotos...

C-CUBE said...

h20, thx for the advise. saw ur report on speed trng and will follow it for my speedwork trng.

tey, thx for the photo. once again u r the offcial photographer for this event. was surprise to see u there since u mentioned u wont be coming for the race.

Dr, i shud be better prepared for the hills if i run again in Seremban next year.

lifemou said...

now there're benefits to pace with you... cinya high tech report... didn't know I did 11.9km/hr for the 1st 5k..no wonder pancak tyre.