it's within: April 2014

27th April 2014. The dark skies are cloudy and in fact a little hazy. Probably not the best sign as I roll out of bed at 5.00am sharp, awakened by the default Blackberry alarm tune.

As I have my breakfast (cereal, always, won't go wrong), the darkness is lit momentarily by a flash of lightning. A minute later, another flash. Hmm doesn't seem too threatening yet. As I continue munching while sipping my glass of milk, the frequency of illumination escalates. Not a good sign...

A quick check on the Run350 Facebook page reflects a delay in the flag-off for 21km. I hope us 10km runners will be more fortunate. The skies are thundering now. I pray for the best and confirm with Ben that we'll stick to the aforementioned plan - meeting at Paya Lebar MRT.

(I've come to realise that before about 6.30am, the circle line train is operated manually by the staff. After which, automation takes over.)

Ben informs me that it's storming. When we arrive at Promenade MRT, a heavy drizzle (for lack of a better word) greets us. After a quick prayer we head out into the darkness (no more lightning now!) and rain.

To cut the story short, the race begins at about 7.15am(I think?). I am thankful that it does begin, though my shoes are soaked even before the run begins. I don't like that.

We return just shy of 8am(I think as well, based on our timing). That's nice. Though I do think the route was actually a few hundred metres short of 10km.

The reason for my suspicion is how we passed the 5k marker sub-21 minutes. Though I did feel we were running reasonably quick for the earlier half (with 45 being the goal time), I would have expected us to be in the range of 22-23mins.

One realisation I had was that I had improved, most certainly, from my previous 10k. This was beneficial for me but I admit I probably started a bit too quick for Ben (we wanted to hit the 5k mark at 23mins). What was fortunate was that Ben continually fed back info of whether it was too fast. By making the adjustment early, it probably salvaged the situation for the latter half of the race. Though we did indeed slow down, I'm confident that the 'fade' was kept to a minimum.

Personally, I love finishing fast and running negative or even splits. I dislike having to slow down at the end when I'm in a training or racing mood. During the 2XU Compression Run 2014, though I suspected I started a bit faster than what I was confident of maintaining, I hung on till the end, leaving me so fatigued that I simply could not muster a sprint finish.

Reverting back to this race however, though we certainly ran a positive split, we stuck together throughout and that was heartening. Crossing the line as the clock marked 44:40ish, it was indeed a pleasant moment. Official results showed I passed with a Nett time of 44:27(Ben was a second faster), Gun time of 44:44(Same as Ben!).