The first half marathon on the mainland of Penang. Waking up at 3.40am in the morning to go for the run since the run starts at 5am. The challenge is not to finish the race as I have already done a trial run two weeks ago before my trip to Bali.
Andrew has organised a trial run and invited a number of us to test the route before the actual race. For the trial race we started at 5.20am and he has invited experienced runners and those who smoked me immediately the run started. I could hardly keep up with their pace and I was already running my fastest pace. So I decided I will just do my own pace and not run at their pace. The only problem is that you are lagging so far behind them and it is pretty dark in the early morning. You can't even see them in front. A thought crosses my mind. "It is a mistake to come" since I am a much slower runner comparing to them. They have actually prepared a car in case you can't finished the trial run. But I am not going to quit since I know that I can finished the race.
So I just continue with my own pace and eventually they stop at the plan first water stop and I don't know whether they actually waited for me. Fortunately they get a cyclist who followed me along the whole route as it was pretty dark at the certain sections of the route. At the end, I still managed to finish at 2hours 30mins for a 20.4km distance. Slightly under mileage for a 21km race.
The event of the place, MPSP. The collection of running vest and bibs.
Coming to the race day, they started assembling us in front of main building of MPSP at 4.50am and flagging us off at 5am. Since we do not have a timing chip, we are just using coloured wrist band. But it was nice cool weather in the early morning without the haze. The runners just started off pretty fast. You can easily get caught up with the euphoria of the race in trying to keep up the pace. I have trained myself well enough to listen to my body when I run and just pace myself especially in the first 2 km. As I take 2km just to warm up !
You keep getting people overtaking you in the first 3 to 4km. As I am about to reach the first water station at 5km a guy just run up to me asking about the time. Then we reach the first water station. After drinking...that guy start making strange noises."Argggghhhh". Gosh ! And he is just running next to me and it is really getting annoying. So I pick up my pace getting myself away from him. But he caught up again and the strange noises continue again. I was just thinking how long I will have to bear with him as he was trying to pace with me. Fortunately after a short while, he just couldn't keep the pace he slowly drop behind. Thank God !
I realised if you can maintain the pace after 6 or 7 km, you will finally start to overtake a lot of runners. Because after 7km a lot of runners cannot maintain the pace due to lack of training. The other problem of this route is in the first 5 to 6km of the race, the smell of rubbish from rubbish truck is really stinking. After that you get to smell the mangos and the paddy field. Also look out for the cowdang ("Shit Happens")! After 10km, a lot of runners start to slow down and you enjoy overtaking them one after another.
I have not been looking at my watch for pacing or time. I was just trying to know the distance covered. I planned to pick up my pace when I hit 16km and run all the way at 18km. But when I started to look at my pace at 16km mark, I realised that I have been running at my fastest pace at 6.5min/km. Oh, never knew I could run at that pace for such a long distance. My previous trial run I finish at about 7.24min/km. However, I just try to run a faster pace after 18km and overtaking a few more runners at the end. Eventually finishing in 2hours 23mins. A 7 mins off my trial run and 47mins off my previous half marathon at Penang Bridge Marathon last year which I finished at 3hours 10mins. A proper training and fueling strategy really help ! Another good thing about this race is that it has a galore of lucky draw prizes.
The finisher's medal, running vest and a carton of sports drinks from lucky draw
I realised I could run a faster pace but I will have to train to run faster during my training for the next two months or so for my first full marathon in November. 12 more weeks to my first full marathon ! The Penang Bridge International Marathon on 18 November 2012. Looking forward to it.
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