Date: Su
18 June 2006 – D-DAY PJ Half
Target: 21 km race to complete
within 3 hours. Pessimistic forecast
2:50 to 3:00. Optimistic forecast 2:40
to 2:50.
Race
stategy: 8:2
galloway 1st half, 8:1
Actual: 21 km. 8:2 galloway 1st
half, 8:1 galloway 10k to 18k, 8:2
Time: Distance
marker accuracy suspect.
8k R2 water
station à 0:57:19
12k R3 water station à 1:20:25 couldn’t be 12 k
14k U-turn à 1:43:03
16k R4 water
station à 2:01:14
Finis à 2:35:54 *** 21k PR
Pace: 7:25 / km ****
21k PR
Time
of run: 6:30 am
Route: KJ stadium à subang road à federal hiway à freescale uturn à federal highway
à subang
road à terminal 3 uturn à KJ stadium
Weather: Fair. No winds.
Sunny.
Calburn: 1503 approx
Postrun
Wt: Dunno
Shoes: NB
765.
Mindtune: Shakira.
Comments. Vunderbar. Broke all expectations. At best was expecting 2:45, most optimistic
2:40. Never thought could touch
2:36.
Startup at 4:50 am. Tried to unload sommore
but oredi unload all last nact. Ate mein free choc-pbutter Powerbar, not bad. 5:20 am departed. Boboi tagged along
too. Arrived at Mas
office about 5:40 am. Used surau. Then together
with wifey & Boboi,
headed to KJ stadium. Cars started to
fill in. Reporting area filling with
runners of all ages. Found the 21 km
reporting counter, personnel just checked that I wore numbers properly. That’s all.
Atmosphere was kind of happening.
Much more electric than KLIM 2006.
Dragon dance started. Went inside
the stadium to see where the entrance is upon finishing, didn’t see
anything. Inside the stadium, warm up
aerobic session being conducted. Went
back outside to bench where wifey & Boboi are waiting.
Wait some more. 21k banner went
up, & runners started to concentrate there.
Cheerleading session in front of starting line. Announcement by race organizer on
obstructions on
Bang, race started. Kept to pack at the back, slow pace. Go along Mas road,
turned right. Runners started to speed
up. So much for starting slowly,
everybody was speeding up. I was
probably in the last 15, haha. At Subang road,
turn left, go uphill. Then reaching
clock tower reach 1st of obstruction, plastic road dividers. One guy went behind the divider & stopped
to pee. After old clock tower went down
ramp into Federal Hiway. Morning traffic not bad, but hv to negotiate the obstacles. Passed by bus stop with onlookers etc. Then the second wave, of 10k runners passed
thru. Leading the pack were a bunch of
Indian guys. At nearly 4km reached 1st
rewater stop near the Freescale
upramp.
Grabbed two cups of 100+ forgot to time.
Went upramp passed an uncle blue vest. 10km runners turned left into Freescale, 21k runners went right & u-turned to go
other direction on Federal Hiway. Carried on.
Oh BTW still faithfully stuck to 8:2 ratio at this point. Other runners went non-stop until panchit. At Subang Jaya lake, the untrained runners started to panchit already.
Started overtaking them. When mein walk break came, they overtook me back. Then came upramp
into Subang road.
This is where a lot of them panchit. But I just went steady pace. At about 8k reached second re-water
point. Turns out not all cups are
100+. At about 10-11km, just past the KJ
accesss road, saw the 2nd finisher running
full blast escorted by police car. Then
there was this flyover. Went over at
steady pace. By now runners are dropping
to walks like flies. Me? Haha, I dropped
walking voluntarily. At 12 k reached
third rewater point.
At this point I think I switched to 8:1 ratio. Seems to trade places with this other guy
wearing dark blue Pacesetters vest no A0145.
Came to roundabout, shift to inner lane.
Now along road at old Subang airport. Somewhere along this stretch during walk
break, this brader probably late starter, overtook me
& said “go brader, go”. Never saw this guy again.
At u-turn near terminal 3
building got a blue ribbon. After
U-turn, overtook more runners. Nearing
16k felt 8:1 ratio starting to get panchit. So at last rewater
stop at 14k, switched back to 8:2 ratio.
At this time kept trading places with this uncle in orange outfit. Nearing KJ road, start to SMS wifey to get ready for finish. Into KJ road was still running, somewhere to
the end rest break came. Walking as go
into stadium. Indian uncle in front
after cheers from fellow supporter started to run. Dunno whether got
energy at this point. At last near 200 m
to finish, start run & sprint. And
hey, still got enough energy to lift them knees high in the sprint. Couldn’t catch up with Indian uncle, but
overtook another Indian guy about 10m from finish. Hooray!
Looked at time, seemed
unbelievable. Yeah it was beyond cut-off
of 2:15 but hey, didn’t expect such a good time. Clearly this was a good run (and enjoyable
too). Enjoyable because started at the
back and overtook many untrained runners (probably most of them first timers)
Post finished walked around
see no more water available on track.
Didn’t know there are other re-water counters outside. After cooling down a bit, call wifey. Some
misunderstanding trying to describe location, keep spelling out t-i-l-a-m. After
saying behind goal post then only she understood. Joined wifey near
entrance, then cool down some more, then got Boboi
from VIP stand, then only went to 100+ rewater
station. It was there that I saw Ronnie
of PM1 fame, but did not intro or anything.
Overall, extremely satisfied
with today’s “race”. As usual, felt that
could do faster, especially if had done 8:1 ratio sooner. Couldn’t believe that had energy left to do
200 sprint to the finish. Haha… must be amusing for all the other elite runners to
watch.
The good: sponging stations for half. No such thing for half in PBR.
Route not so hilly
The bad: No medal,
no cert. The route - aiyaa… along the highway… hv to
keep watch for traffic. Cutoff time 2:15
(beyond mein capability at this point. No points even for PM community. Hahaha.. not to
their standards yet). Obstructions along
the hiway.
6:30am starts, preferred 6:00 am start.
Characters: Ronnie.
70-yr old uncle. Uncle at Freescale bridge. Mr pacesetter A0145.
Mr Go Brader Go with
green pedometer on left leg. Uncle with
orange outfit.
Postrun: Functional. OK all the way into the evening. Not like debut half where couldn’t walk
properly (haha… remember that?) Had heavy breakfast & heavy lunch, really
hungry. So no points for calorie
reduction.
Postrun + 1 day: Quads
feel sore. Feet feel sore. Worse than yesterday. But still functional. Wanted to go for easy evening walk/run to
clear all the lactic acid but design review finished 7pm. Then band practice. So, no cigar.
BTW, still high from yesterday.
Thinking of using Seremban Half as training
run for PBR2006 before tapering. No goal
this time except maybe if can meet 2:30 then would be a bonus, can get
medal. 300 medals for men’s open
category.
Postrun + 2 day.
Morning start felt worse than yesterday.
Haha delayed fatigue syndrome. Thinking should probably delay wifey rendezvous so that could watch the rest of the 21k
runners finish. BTW today sent form for
Seremban Half as training run. Goal is still PBR2006 finis. This week LSD is 12.5km recovery.
Next week start Damai hill