MPSJ 10k

Start of the race. Yours truly at the left of the picture, in a predominantly white vest
with single blue stripe across the torso, behind dude in cap with green vest. Wearing
my Nike Waffle Racers!

Timing for MPSJ 10k held on 5/11/2006- 42:38. Position- 16th

My timing was some 52 seconds slower than last year's run, but I still managed to be in 16th position. Reason- many of the runners decided to go to Bidor instead, thereby improving my chances, and that of other runners.

After a less than fitful sleep, (I was tossing and turning the night before on my bed in Subang, but my thoughts were not dwelling on the race itself, mind you)I woke up at 6am; had a cup of coffee and a giant serving of honey. Received a call from AP Tan who was supposed to collect HWL's bib. He wasn't too sure how to get to my house, so Id decided to meet him at the nearby Shell petrol station instead. I cycled there, and passed the bib to AP Tan, lo and behold- I saw Kelvin Ng and wife. We exchanged some pleasantries, before I headed back to my house, where Ryan and friend were already there. Ryan was there to collect his bib as well. Adam arrived shortly after to collect his bib as well. After relieving myself we took a leisurely walk to the MPSJ stadium.

We saw a few other better known athletes there- Kimberly, Stephanie, Dino- (all triathletes)among them.

The race itself started 5 minutes early, at least on my watch.

The gun went off, and off we went. I was running with the first batch of front runners in the 1st kilometer, and I knew that I started too quickly. My stopwatch confirmed the timing- 3:16 for the 1st kilometer!!! I slowed down significantly after that, and settled into a pace which I felt was comfortable enough- running at a decent pace (at least in my opinion) with a slight discomfort in breathing. If I could describe it, I was running at slightly faster than my planned half marathon pace.

Nothing really exciting happened in the subsequent 4kms. I was rooted to my position although I managed to overtake a few runners (who were possibly inexperienced, started too quickly and were paying the price for the folly; or simply, they were just not running well?). At around the the 5km mark, I managed to catch up with a skinny Malay dude with a square top haircut, who was wearing a vest with lycra leggings. I dunno his name, so let's just refer to him as The Dude. Anyway, thus began a mini battle between him and me. Everytime I attempted to overtake him and ran up right next to him, The Dude simply increased the pace and went ahead another 5 meters or so. I decided to try again; to which he responded again by pressing the pace, but not enough to lead by more 5 meters. I decided to be patient after each move; I would wait for a minute or so, and then try again. This went on until about 2.5 kms to the finishing line, when I made my move again and this time, The Dude could no longer respond. I think he succeeded only in tiring himself.

At the final turn leading towards Taipan I passed Stephanie (who was running one heck of a race! She is fast!) and passed a Caucasian runner who has overtaken me around the 3km mark. I was encouraging him to go and he asked how much left of the race there was, to which I replied, "less than 1km". I looked at my stopwatch and saw that I was running a decent time. After making the u-turn past the traffic lights, I decided to press the pace to the finishing line.

I finished in 42:38, 16th position.

Again, I ran fairly comfortably. More speed work is needed.

I have started my speed work last week, but I'll definitely need to do more. Lactate threshold workouts are already done once week anyway.

It's only 3 weeks left to Singapore!!!

After the run Adam, CM & friend, Kelvin Ng & wife congregated at my house for some teh tarik. Overall a great way to start a Sunday morning.