A good weather on the 3rd December 2023 Sunday morning, as we flag off the SCSM 2023. A delay of 15 minutes and the elite runners (mostly from Kenya) were flag off at 4:45am.
I started well as plan, with a 6:34 minutes/km pace. But I couldn't keep pace after the 15km mark and felt the need to go to a toilet to ease myself. At 18km, I walked for a short while (about 300m) and found a toilet to urinate. Thereafter, I jog slowly till the end point.
The finishing was weak, but I didn't feel any pain or loss of appetite as it would always happen after a poor 42.195km marathon run.
Some lessons learnt from this run:
(1) Able to run a good 10km or even 15km at below 6 minutes/km, doesn't mean that I can carry on a good pace or even complete a 21.1km. I need to really run the complete distance during training to be count worthy of completing. This is because I am not strong enough to extrapolate my running results at a shorter distance and add another few minutes to it.
(2) I need to consistently do more half marathon run or even longer for the next race. At least one or twice a month and a total of more that 4 before the race. My body need to adapt to the distance and pace at such a distance. This is unlike my younger days, when I need only to do one run at the actual distance and come race day, I did better than that run.
(3) Need to strengthen the body and rest well. On most run, the body is slow to recover and so it is lacking in power, which results in slower pace at the at of the race.
I already started some running, yesterday I did a 5km run. Today I did a 7km run at 5'48"/km pace.
Mentally, I need to be able to bear pain on the leg, abated to slow run if need to to avoid injury.
Overall, thank God for the SCSM2023.
