Although I was busy the whole of Saturday, my mind was only thinking on the race itself. I had this nagging worry of the PJ Half 2004 episode revisited whereby I ran miserable 2hr 13++. At that time, there was an ongoing injury to my knees and coincidentally, this year was the same although the injury was less prominent. I had also looked back on my wrong use of strategy last year where I started too fast. At the same time, wrong use of shoes was also another contributiing factor. So for this year, I had decided to relax half of the way while as for the shoes, I chose my most trustworthy Asics Gel Cumulus. Nothing can surpass these babies in terms of cushioning and my knees would certainly need them to minimise the pain throughout the journey.
It was 4.30am and I was still in bed. I am supposed to be up by now and I slept all the way to 5.20am. Jason was at the front door!! I rushed and luckily we manage to get there in time. I think there were less runners this year compared to the last year and World Cup might be one of the reasons why. Manage to meet up with KNN, CM and Carboman at the toilet area. We while waiting for Tulangman to visit the toilet here. However, he is still no where to be seen and therefore I just proceed to the stadium to warm up. Runner's of all shape, size and age were seen all over the place. There is certainly an atmosphere of warmth and togetherness shown where runners with their families, friends, some with their young kids and small tots running around. It felt good.
Before long, I proceed towards the starting line and Shine was there. The strange thing was, the sense of feeling nervous was never present at all. Like previous years, I would usually be sweaty on my palms while feeling I was all turbo ready to shoot out to the front. The gun sounded and all runners just turboed ahead like bats out of hell. I started from behind while reminding myself to be relaxed. Before long, we were faced with first energy sapping climb towards the Federal Highway. I felt fine at this point and just tried to run a little faster but, never at a suicidal pace. Next, we were running along the federal highway and I knew a lot of runners would start to turbo around here as the route is flat. But I kept my pace in check because hell will be presented to unsuspecting runners after the Motorola Bridge. The first water station is in sight and I just took a gulp of 100Plus and plain water. Well, hell came sooner than I had expected. I suffered a stomach cramp for taking in cold drinks at this unscheduled period. Well, there is no choice for me but to carry on.
The first difficult part came when we had to climb the highway towards the airport and those whom had pushed hard earlier, they suffered here. Many runners were seen dragging their feets along while some were swearing obscenities for the pain that they had suffered. Then came the long and undulating road towards the airport. The undulation is actually not very visible if you are inside a vehicle but if you are actually running on the road, you would have certainly felt it. Not to mention, midway there were two overhead bridges that we need to climb and it is really mind
numbing. For the whole of this stretch, I just kept the turbo devil in me. Soon....it will be very soon...' these were the words playing throughout my mind during the course.
Then the U-turn was in sight. After taking the ribbon, I started to give chase to the runners in front. I pushed at a relax pace just hoping to catch some runners in front and I felt ok at this point. I spotted KNN he seemed to be suffering so I tried to cheer him on. However, I made an error at the last water station where initially I had not plan to stop but out of the thirst, I stopped anyway. At this point the lactic acid just accumulated in my legs and I never recovered from there. It was pain and pain and pain on my legs so I had no choice but to walk and run at some points. At this point in time, I had to prioritise on what is most important to me. Number one on this agenda were my knees. Nothing can be more important than them. Number two were my ITB's. They felt like exloding out of my legs. I just chugged along. Those whom I had overtook earlier made a fool out of me where I was then left smelling their smoke.
At last the stadium was in sight and in the Spirit of Pia, I made my last attempt to push hard. I ran and ran at heart bursting pace while keeping my knees and ITB's in check. Made a few pass of runners with 'A' category while reaching the stadium, I just had no energy left to push. My hands and legs felt as if they weren't mine at all.My mind wanted them to run faster but they just refused.
I crossed the finish line at last.
I was totally surprised when the official handed me a card indicating my 185th position. I got a medal as well. To me, during the start of the race, my intention was not to get a medal but just to finish the run. That would be sufficient for me. In my history of so many years running PJ Half, this is only my second medal. That makes it even sweeter.
After the finishing line, all the PM's met up and exchanged each other's experiences. But generally, the run was never easy. It was a hot day and according to Tey, there were mishaps as well. Just visit tey's photo album on what had happened. I would like to congratulate all runners that had gone through the course. Whether you ran fast or
slow it doesn't matter at all. It is the resilience and your willpower to finish that counts. I Love my home run!
1 comment:
congrats well done!
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