Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore Medal 2010Medal showing CK Tang building at Orchard Road, Sentosa starting point for the half marathon runners and the Singapore flyer.
Completed my 5th full marathon on Sunday, finished with a personal best. I'm glad that I managed to cut around 30 mins off my 2009 timing and achieved a PB, with the goal of finally finishing a marathon under 5 hrs.
The race starts at 5am, wake up at 2:30 am had my breakfast at 3am. Left home at 3:30am, took a cab down to Orchard with 2 other friends. We are about 45mins before the start just went to the toilets in Orchard.
Standing under the Christmas lights at Orchard was wonderful, in the last 5 mins to the start time, the music Final Countdown was being played. Looking at the lights I recalled the training and the build up to this marathon, wishes my friend good luck, we start to walk towards the start line.
Sticking to my marathon pace everything was good, after running 4km into Chinatown area, saw the 5:15 official pacers in front, overtook them shortly. At around 8 km mark I saw the 5 hrs marathon pacers in front about 500m, overtook them.
A Caucasian runner dressed as superman shouted to the pacers "Is this the 4:45 pacers?"
One of the pacer replied " No, 5 hrs pacers, if you want to catch them you got to fly in front."
In order to run under 5 hrs, it is important not to let the 5:15 & 5 hrs pacers overtook me.
After running 12-13km, we moved into East Coast Park, I told myself to maintain my pace and survive this East Coast route (mentally I'm prepared as we had run in Newton 30km), 13km into the Park, come out at 28km (a big loop). At 14km, the medic provided deep heat, I applied on my right knees, it did help to ease some pain.
Along the way at 20 -22km, I met my friend Hong, catching up from behind, he told me he started 30mins late as his bib number was in the 6hrs pen, "good work, very good pace, keep going" we encouraged one other and he overtook me. Shortly I met my friend Adam at the East Coast Lagoon 23km, the one-armed runner (1armrunner.blogspot.com), he was struggling, we encouraged each other and I just moved ahead.
Seeing the 28km mark I survived the East Coast road, people around me are feeling the strain & stress. My pace slowed, however I continued running. 29km, 30km, 31km, looking forward to see the distance marker and knowing I'm closer to the finish....
At 30km upslope at the Marine Bay Golf course, my friend James run from behind and called me, he was in very good pace, we jog together for a while complaining of the weather, it was about 35 degrees now.. it is hard to run in this weather. But we pushed on and I tell him to go ahead.
31km, 32km, 33km, the distance marker was a welcoming sign now, was running for almost 4 hrs and I knew I can improve on my 2009 timing. There are still some strength in me, my knees are alright, the biggest discomfort was the hot weather. Finally reached 35km, finishing soon, been running for about 35km, the ambulance siren was all around me, that is the only sound I heard.
At 37 km we had to run uphill on the Sheares Brigde, this is it, just walked for the next 2km. The 10km & half-marathon runners blocked the whole lane, there is no way to carry on running now, I'm just too tired too. The 10km runners had just ran 5km, half marathon runners about 3-4km to finish when all of us reached the bridge creating a huge bottleneck, I had run for more than 35km, damn and now we are in this big jam. I saw suffering and pain around me, the super hot weather at around 10am was hard to bear, everyone had their heads down.
Finally upon seeing the 40km sign, I started to run again, but just 5 mins into the run my left thigh cramped. It was bad... walk for 5 mins or so and I carry on running. The finishing was near, today I will achieved a personal best.
Everyone was blocking my way. Both 10km & half marathon runners, I pushed my way, elbowed to the finish line.. 2km more.. and last 1km. Waka Waka was played near the finished line, you can hear the cheering (reminded me of Newton run), the final push and it was all over.
Crossed the finish line. VICTORY! DAMN 42.195km.
This will be my last full marathon in Standard Chartered, the race course is no longer good to run in my opinion. The orgainser was more interested to make a profit with increase participants rather than for us runners, an increase of 10k to 60k this year.
today's ST
"There's a lot of potential to grow this race. I think maybe 60,000 is not the limit" Teo Ser Luck, MCYS Senior Parliamentray Secratary, he ran in 10km.
"But so far so good. It was great weather, a great crowd and the mood was good, so it's been a wonderful morning." Comminity Development, Youth and Sports Minister Vivian Balakrishnan who ran 10km.
The organiser will like to take into consideration of the followings for some improvements:
60k runners was definitely too large.
At 37km we had to run uphill at ECP and faced a bottleneck. For runners (full marathon) with bag deposit, they had to walk 2km to collect their bags at F1 pit. Full marathon runners walked 2km after finishing, while the others had their bags at the Padang (at the finish).This was poor planning.
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