Sundown Marathon 2016

It was a race of impatience.

I wasn't particularly excited about running this - though I had previously agreed to this free slot in exchange for a review. I didn't enjoy running at night due to the poor visibility, higher humidity (generally the case, in my opinion) and of course, my bedtime.

Therefore, in the days prior I was considering running the 10km in about 45-50mins - or perhaps squeeze in a tempo workout by running the first 5km slowly and the next 5km more quickly. All these plans amounted to nothing the moment I arrived at the race village.

I had arrived nearly 2 hours before flag off as I heard of the disastrously lengthy queues for the Late Race Pack Collection. Shockingly, I was immediately served upon my arrival. This left me with a tremendous window of time to occupy myself before the race started. Since I was early, when it finally got to 9.30pm and the race pen opened - I entered. That was the mistake that led to my downfall.

Don't get me wrong however - I think I ran this race pretty well in terms of speed. Yet I should have modified my expenditure of effort.

Flag off was at 10.00pm sharp. I started off a little quickly to avoid the crowd but subsequently ensured that I slowed down soon enough. During the first km, it felt as though a hundred individuals had overtaken me. I knew I'd catch a huge number of them though if I just stuck to my pace (4:17 for the first km - nothing too quick but way quicker than I had intended). 

One of the biggest dilemmas I have is when I'm running, I despise slowing down towards the end. Everyone hates that, just that I tend to be able to gauge my effort adequately to know that I have the reserves to speed up as the workout progresses. In this case, I had started significantly faster than I had intended - I didn't want to slow down. Hence I decided to stick to the pace, which probably made the run a less desirable workout than it could have been.

I'm glad to say I clung to a conservative pace for the first few km, covering the first 4km in just over 17mins which would be on track for a sub-43. Understandably I was overtaking many individuals who had previously sped past me in the earlier kilometres and perhaps consequently, I subconsciously sped up. The next few kilometres had me running at sub-4min/km (I only realised this in retrospect as in the moment, it didn't feel that quick). I could have continued at this pace had I wished, but thankfully I caught up with Jasmine (I always happen to meet her!) and decided to stick with her. On one hand, I was glad to provide some form of encouragement (I hope!), on the other hand, it was a good reason to tell myself to slow down.

And we come. Credit to Run, Don't f/Stop.

The kick. Credit to Marathon-Photos.com

Yet as part of my second big mistake for the day, I decided to sprint the last few hundred. I was probably about 300m from the line - it was a thrilling first hundred or so, thereafter I felt the delayed fatigue set in, but in my pride I wanted to finish strongly - hence I did. In the 40-odd seconds (I presume), I'm guessing I caught a handful of runners.

Credit to Marathon-photos.com

Credit to Marathon-photos.com

Impatience.

What have I learnt from this race? It seems that I lacked discipline, having treated this as a training/fun run. Perhaps I need to swallow my pride and ensure I slow down (if that's too difficult - at the very least I shouldn't speed up) if indicated, despite having plentiful reserves. After all, I'd like to think I'm in for the long-term gains - not the short, cheap thrills - echoing Philip's conservation with me during last week's National Vertical Marathon 2016.

Results very promptly released the next evening. The position is misleading because runners

in the Team category are not factored in (I'm probably closer to 30ish~ place overall).