Malakoff 12k

Thanks to Runwitme for the photo. Ran the Malakoff 12k this morning. Well, that was what the organisers have promoted the distances, although I'm reliably informed that the actual distance covered was 11.17km.

I had fully intended to treat this run as a training run, but not too relaxed and easy paced either. The plan was to put in an "honest effort" in the race, which, under the circumstances, I think I did. The night before, Mrs Rabbit and me went to Cheang's house for a Christmas party. Thanks for the invite, Cheang, great party! Despite going home fairly early in an attempt to catch some precious shut-eye, Mia had some stomach pain and she kept us awake with her semi-cries. I describe it as as semi-cry because it isn't exactly a full, lung-busting screech of a cry, but neither was it a whine either. Managed a grand total of probably 2 hours of sleep (at most) when the alarm rang at 515am to wake me up. I was tempted to sleep in but soldiered through the (painful) waking up process, hauled myself into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and out on my running gear, before heading to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. I arrived at Taman Rimba TTDI yawning my head off.

Although this was a relatively smaller race, there was a big group of the more serious runners that I knew personally or merely by name, including Ronnie, Frank, CM, Jamie, Kit, Anil, Kenny, Jessica, Shahrom, Wong Ah Thiam, Lawrence, Kei Ming, Gerladine, Lynn, Michelle, Cheong, RunWitMe, Raymond, Richard, Stanley, Chen.

Was with Kenny at the start, and once the horn was blown, I settled into my own perceived effort of decent pacing. Once out of the Taman Rimba, we were greeted by a long climb on a sufficiently steep incline (approximately 300 plus meters, I think), which was alright during the start of the race (since you get pretty amped up and excited the start), but by the time it was time to negotiate that incline again on the 2nd loop, pretty much knocked the wind out of me, sending me into deep, deep oxygen debt and reducing my strides to a mere choppy shuffle. It took me almost 4 minutes to regain my breath.

Throughout the route I might have mistakenly heard people calling out to me, but if come of you out there did call out to me and I didn't acknowledge, my apologies. I was just too beat to respond!

The u-turn back in the 2nd loop was easier, and perhaps safe in the knowledge that the race was already ending soon, I pushed the pace on the way back and ran pretty hard (if I may say so myself). I finished strongly, in 55:48.

Over the races, I've identified a certain trend- I start fairly strongly, die in the middle miles, and finish very strongly. I need to work on the middle miles.

Otherwise, it was a good way to spend a Sunday morning. It was great to mingle with like-minded individuals.