Army Half Marathon 2005

Another early morning. I woke up at 3:45 am, consumed a banana and a cup of fresh milk with cereal, and then at 4:15 am, proceeded to the bus-stop outside my house to wait for Balasing and Carine to come and pick me up. The taxi showed up on time, but there was only Balasing and the cab driver. Balasing told me that because Carine's side stitch problem had not receded, she had decided not to run in today's half marathon.

We both alighted at the Fullerton, and made our way over to the Padang. Other than DreamRunner and Skyvers, we didn't see any of the other SgRunners. The two of us went round to the back of the Esplanade to do a warm-up jog followed by stretching, before moving to the Starting Point on the Esplanade Bridge. There, I bumped into my DSTA kakis, Chee Keong and Wilson, as well as my Mt Faber SAFRA Running Club friends. :)

At 5:45 am, the Guest-of-Honour gave the flag-off, and off we went. Skyvers sprinted by us, and it wasn't long before The Lonely Runner steadily overtook us as well. I tried to pace Balasing, and managed to follow closely behind him or run alongside him in the early stages of the race. However, when we reached East Coast Park (~7 km), I stopped at the water-point for a drink, and lost sight of Balasing who had continued forging ahead. By the time I made my exit from East Coast Park, I had been overtaken by DO, BrokenRunner and some former DSTA colleagues, including Chee Keong, Chee Kong and Mak. I felt that I wasn't really pushing myself hard enough, but I wasn't able to go any faster and kept my pace between 5 to 6 min/km.

Before long, Kallang Stadium came into view. I was beginning to feel rather tired and thirsty, and yearned for a good refreshing Gatorade drink station, but I was only served plain water or extremely diluted version of the isotonic drink. :( In the last few kilometres of the half marathon, I was only able to run at a pace between 6 to 7 min/km. I couldn't even muster the strength to sprint the last 400m. In the end, I finished the race in 2 hours 3 minutes 57 seconds, which was 12 seconds slower than my performance last year. But at least I finished the race, so that's a good reason to celebrate! :)

Post-race, I met up with the other SgRunners, including Fd, Sotong, Meteor, Philip, Ah Chuan (who ran the full 21-km in 1 hour 27 minutes!!!), Commando, Tiwazz, Kops21, IronManDreamer and many more. The Lonely Runner distributed the SgRunners Dri-fit T-shirts, and we took many group photos, including a few with our SgRunners banner. I also said "hi" to my friends in Y-Runners; they had tried running with a donation tin in this half-marathon as a trial before the actual 42-km marathon at the end of the year.

For lunch, I went to Funan Centre Food Junction. I had a bowl of banmian and a bowl of almond jelly for dessert. Yummy :) Then, I took the bus back home.

The SgRunners @ AHM 2005
(Can you spot Sotong? He's 1.97m tall...)

My AHM Bib

My stats for the race today (my foodpod measured a total of 22.2 km, which is an error of 5%):

Lap 1 (Starting point to East Coast Park ~ 7.5 km)
Time taken: 37 min 46 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 209/181
Average Pace: 5 min 02 sec / km

Lap 2 (Entry point for ECP until turning point ~ 3.0 km)
Time taken: 16 min 37 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 213/187
Average Pace: 5 min 28 sec / km

Lap 3 (The 14-km signboard ~ 4.3 km)
Time taken: 23 min 28 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 199/182
Average Pace: 5 min 30 sec / km

Lap 4 (The last 7 km ~ 7.4 km)
Time taken: 46 min 04 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 206/179
Average Pace: 6 min 11 sec / km

Total
Time: 2 hr 03 min 57 sec
Distance: 22.2 km
Average Heart Rate (bpm): 181
Average Pace: 5 min 34 sec / km
Calories Expended: 1689 kcal