2006 Bidor Half Marathon (Race Day)

My alarm rang at 5.15am. I was still lazing around. Looked at the alarm again and it was 5.30am and I told myself it is time to wake up. Washed myself and got all my things ready by 6am. While drinking my race beverage, I could not help but thinking how this race is going to be. I had surveyed the first section of the route last night but it seemed to me that I will do badly in this race. My thoughts started to drift towards finishing the race just outside 2 hours based on my current fitness now. However, the more I thought about it the more fired up I was because I refuse to believe that my timing is drifting back to my pre-July fitness where I was finishing half marathons outside of 2 hours. With this in fighting going on between my thoughts and believes, at last I chose not to have any expectations from this race by not expecting any finishing timing. So, I started out this race by having a blank time and I will run based on how I feel.

It was already 6.15am when I reached the starting area and had my car parked near the starting line. It was a simple affair and car parks were plenty during the early morning hours. I called Ronnie and he was also there by then. After a brief 5min search, manage to locate him and passed all the runner’s bibs to him. Chen was already there at the starting line when I passed him his numbers while commenting how cold the morning was. Indeed, the morning is as cold as ice and not even my jacket sufficiently insulate me from the chilling temperatures. Surprisingly, I wasn’t Kan Cheong at all most probably due to the fact that I had not attached any expectations on the outcome of this race. As usual, Ronnie does his business and I was already in the Kandang area. Rachel was there too and I met Ai Ling. I asked her how her stay was and she said it was great. She was surprised too by the hospitality of the locals and she refused to believe that anyone would have invited her into their homes to stay. Saw Draco too and he mentioned that he is carrying a camera to run. He is at it again.

Before long, we were ushered out onto the streets and into the starting line. Well, the number of Half Marathon participants weren’t many and the starting line wasn’t crowded at all. Met DK at the line and he mentioned that he had forgotten to obtain the bibs of his friends in which he had to run back and get them. From the way he sweats, I guess he is more than warmed up. While chatting, the countdown began and before I knew, all the runners were gone! There I was, starting from the back of the pack.

I slowly made my way through the tight corners of the road and before long, we were on the first section of the road. I took things easy and just let my legs stride by themselves. Slowly, I overtook the slower runners one by one and by the time I slowed down to conserve my energy, I was running against a lady. This lady is worth mentioning because of her pace. She was much shorter than me but then, her muscular arms shows that she is no pushover. Not only that, her strides looked strong and her running form are good. Slowly, I made my way running beside her and she must have sensed my presence where she pushed her pace further! Wa sai! This is only 4km or so and she is already pushing such a fast pace and so, I decided to follow suit. But then, I had always been following her rather than outrun her as I am trying to conserve as much energy as possible for the second section of the run. Just before long, there was a major incline (overhead bridge) and so, I decided to slow down in order for me to have a smooth transition from flat route to an inclined one. She was running ahead of me and so, I slowly made my way up to the inclines and leaned slightly towards the front to gain a greater momentum forward in order to chase her. By the time I reached the summit I started to power away overtaking her in the process. From what I had read in ‘the book’ (yeah you guys would know which one) whenever an opponent started to pull hard on the up hills they are actually spending a great deal amount of energy compared to running on flat route. By the time they reach the summit, they would tend to slow down to recover and this is when, we can make our moves to overtake them. I did that and it was true enough, by the time I had reached the flats, I was already more than 300m in front of her without spending a great deal of energy.

The route continued to be undulating although not a mind breaking one. Manage to see grace and fook also (after the u turn) and I cheered for them to go on. I just keep on focusing on my pace and guess what, ‘the lady’ overtook me from behind!! Wo hooo!!! She was powering away on the flats just to catch up with me! Wa Sai!!! This is one heck of a runner. By the time I reached the first u turn, I was already running neck to neck with her. She started to push her pace again and without realizing, we were overtaking many runners in the process. Again, we reached the same overhead bridge and so, she powered away on the way up. Shit, this time her gap was more than 400m away and by the time I reached the top, she was already trying to enlarge the gap by running even faster. I used the down hill to increase my speed where I powered all the way down just to close up the gap and when I reached the flats, I was around 100m behind her. This time, I decided to stay 100m behind her, waiting for her to get tired and it was when we were approaching the second section of the run, I manage to overtake her.

This second section of the run proved to be the most hellish I had ever done. There were very long inclines and not to mention, they are steep too. It started from the very beginning and already, a climb greeted us winding itself into oblivion. I could not even spot where the ending of the climb was and all I could remember it was endless. The lady that I had been mentioning was not seen at this point and most probably, she is trying to conserve energy to finish off this section. I maintained a constant ‘climbing’ pace and not trying to do anything foolish at this point. The road suddenly lead into a steep downhill and it was really difficult to maintain my form. Nevertheless, I kept to my tight principle of ‘running up hill slow’ and ‘make up all the time during down hills’. In a more simple term, run up slow and come down fast. Yes coming down fast is hard on the knees but then, it is only very brief if you run it fast. As we are heading towards the waterfalls, we were greeted by the longest climb I could ever imagine and to my estimate, it was several kilometers in distance. I think I would not be wrong to way that the length is somewhere 3km or so. Then there was a longgggg downhill and this is when I decided to slow down. It is getting harder on the knees as the distance is long and my ITB’s are hurting. Nevertheless, I just maintained my pace and the road ahead becomes narrow, only leaving enough space for two runners run side by side. Not long after, the u turn was in sight and there were sounds of waterfall. I slowed down considerably at this point to fuel up on liquids and isotonics. Already, Mr PR (LFS) was already 1km ahead of me...

As I was loading up, ‘the lady’ suddenly appeared out of nowhere and grabbed a quick drink on the way back up. Shit!!! I was overtaken by her again!!! This time, I gave chase and she was strong on the way up where she was maintaining a 200m lead ahead of me. Judging from the route, I decided against making my move so early. I persevered on the way up maintaining my pace but then, I was suffering too. It was a very long climb and the route is winding too in which, it throws my momentum out. There is nothing much left for me to do except to hold on to my pace and hopefully, my body could sustain the effort. Saw DK on the way back up too and I guess he too knew how hard the hills were. Then just as I was about to breakdown, relieve came at last. It was the downhill and I just powered down relentlessly pursuing all the runners in front of me. I overtook one by one and at last, ‘the lady’ was in sight. I pushed even harder knowing from her running form that she was getting tired too. By the time I reached flat road, I was again running neck to neck with her and manage to overtake her after pushing my pace a little further. But then, I had made a mistake of forgetting there was another hill to traverse through and that was when I broke down and walked for a good 100m or so. ‘The Lady’ overtook me and then just powered away. I manage to regain my composure and continued my run while maintaining a distance of 100m behind the lady runner.

After suffering for the last few kilometers, we are finally heading towards the town and by the time I reached the final turn, Ronnie was at the junction to see who the finishers are. I shouted at him and asked how many kilometers more and he mentioned it is about 1km or so. This time I just push kau kau lat at the final km, overtaking the lady at the same time and never let go of my pace. I was aware of nothing but the speed at which I was running and before long I was heading towards the finishing line. Rachel and Lai were there to cheer me and it was when I crossed the line, I only realized I had PR on this course with the timing of 1hr 52mins 54sec! My card had indicated my position no.27 and I was more than happy with the results. Before long, ‘the lady’ finished the race and I saw that she had a card hung around the neck indicating she is one of the top finishers.

I got my drink and walked towards Lai and Rachel. Not long after that, Fook finished the race strongly under sub2 while grace and Ai Ling followed suit. DK finished after that and lastly, it was Draco. It was a good race albeit I was very tired. After a brief chat, I headed back to hotel to clean myself up and had breakfast with the bunch of guys. It was around 11am when I decided to head back to hotel to sleep before driving all the way back to JB which is another 650km trip. All in all, this is one memorable race to me and also it gave a sense of renewed confidence to race well in Singapore Marathon.