After taking a long break from work to travel New Zealand for 6 months (from Aug 2011 to Feb 2012), I decided upon my return that it was time to train for a sub4 (under 4 hours) marathon. I have always had it in the back of my head that I wish to run a sub4 marathon but I never did put in any effort to get there yet. The closest I got to that was the Blackmores Sydney Marathon in 2010. I ran it in a time of 4:09. At that time, I was just training to hit 4:15 so the fact that I ran it 6 minutes faster was a real bonus.
I am going to divert a little to say a few things about the Sydney Marathon. It's not the biggest marathon in Australia although Sydney's the largest city. You can nicely save a lot of money by registering as Australian PR. All you need is an Australian address. The run is great just for the start, in which you get to run over the Sydney's famous Harbour Bridge and the finishing, running towards Sydney's Opera House while throngs of people cheer you on. The middle is mostly loops through Centennial Park which can be quite dull but there are people there to cheer you on there so it makes up a lot for the dullness.
When I was in NZ, I ran two marathons, the Adidas Auckland Marathon (4:52:10) and Buller Gorge Marathon (4:44:35). I ran them just for fun and at that point I have not even been running for 3-4 months. I just wanted to experience some marathons in that beautiful country. Seeing the state of my current fitness and my most recent marathon times, I knew I had a lot of work cut out for me if I wanted to hit my target. It was many months of hard training and sacrifice to firstly, get back my running fitness and then to get myself close to my goal.
I decided to choose Penang Bridge Marathon as my sub4 marathon because it was a hometown race and I thought it would be nice to hit a sub4 there. I think the choice of marathon may not necessarily be the wisest seeing that PBIM runs at an unusual hour of 2am when your body is supposed to be resting and it has been known to be an extremely humid marathon. Those who know me as a runner know that my body just tanks in heat or humidity. However, I justified to myself that if you train hard you can achieve a sub4 marathon anywhere. Heat or humidity are just things you can teach your body to overcome.
Fast forward 9 months and I am standing at the starting line of the marathon. Before the marathon, my last race was Putrajaya Night Marathon in which I ran a half in 1:53:46. I thought it was good time and could get me to a sub4 marathon. However, the weather in Putrajaya had been cloudy and cool during the race. Conditions that always favour me. The weather for the past 2 days had been scorching with hardly any rain and I was very concerned. Even at lunch the day of the race, the heat was just beating down on my skin. I prayed for some rain, just to bring the humidity down but it wasn't to be and as I jogged from Lie Wei's house to the start of the marathon, I decided to wear only my sports bra and Skins tights to run in attempt to expel more heat (if it is even possible). I was a bundle of nerves on the week leading up to the race but as I stood at the start line, I was calm. "Whatever will be, will be". The training was done and now it was just time to put that training to the test.
I snagged a bottle of water before lining up behind the start line and started to use it to cool my body down. The Chief Minister fired the gun and we were off! My marathon strategy was to run a 5:30 pace for the first two hours. I would have hit 22km at the end of the 2nd hour if I ran according to plan. I kept to that plan for all of 11km. As we hit the ramp to the bridge, I noticed my pace was slowing down, but then I thought to myself, no worries, it's just a steep uphill and you can get back the time on the flats and downhills. The problem was I was only to get slower and there was no getting back time from then onwards. It became a quest of chasing my end goal more than anything else. For the next 10km, I averaged 5:35-5:40 and I still thought that was alright. I hit the turnaround at the toll with much difficulty but I was still quite close to my target pace.
I looked drenched as I was constantly using water to cool my body down.
Photo credit: Cheong Wah Yeap
Unfortunately, after the turnaround things started to go downhill. I hit the 21km on the dot at 2 hours, which was still great which means I had to managed another 21km in around 5:40 pace in order to hit my goal. At that point, I was running more or less at 5:45 pace and it was a struggle to get to the midspan again. I was starting to suffer and my pace even dropped to 6:06 at the midspan. It was torture to be running with so much pain with so much more to go. I soldiered on but by 29km, the pace had dropped again to 5:50. I was slowly losing the margin I had built in the first half of the race. I hit the last turnaround point at 33km at a time of 3:06. With 9km to go, and 54 minutes to run it I just needed to managed slight below a 6:00 pace to get a sub4. I still had hope and with I covered the next 5km in under 6:00 pace. I hit the 37km mark at 3:30 and with 5.2km more to go and 30 minutes I was optimistic I could just make it.
Looking pissed as I make my way to the finish line
Photo credit: Chen Zhee Long
Finally finishing!
Photo credit: APBIM 2012
However, my first attempt at a sub4 is out the window. I will not point fingers but to only say that more training is needed to get closer to my sub4 marathon. I was disappointed that I was so close but I just lost it in the last 5km. Nevertheless, what is done, is done and the past is what it is.
Lie Wei and I looking happy about 1-hour post run. I spent 1-hour after the run on the ground in agony.
Photo credit: Sandra Leng
It is time for a post mortem on what went wrong and what could have been done to do better next time. Right now, I am just going to enjoy some downtime from running.
- Chin Chin -
P.S: My next marathon will be Standard Chartered HK Marathon. Cold but hilly and sub4 attempt #2.
