The Energizer Half (Sufferding!)

Event : Inaugural Energizer Marathon (Half)
Date : 26 March 2010
Time : 8.00pm
Climate : Very warm!
Course : Quite hilly.
Time : 2:00:40 (PW)

It seems these night runs in Putrajaya have some things in common. Warm roads due to the wide exposed roads and a lot of irate motorists!

The race for me was okay, and I didn't set any particular targets. I hadn't been doing distances beyond 10k for the last 2 months, so I was half expecting the going to be pretty hard in the 2nd half.

Although the achilles issue has elevated quite a bit with the orthotic that I bought from a pharmacy in Subang (RM89- cheap and good?), I doubted that the heel had recovered sufficiently to last the 21k distance.

I was a pretty good pace up to km5. But after I went for a short toilet break, everything seem to go downhill pretty fast. Mainting a 11.5kph pace was a struggle, and when I reach the 13k, I was really demotivated and had walked a good part of that and the next 3k.

After a nice cool sponging at km15, I felt the inspiration coming back and when I joined the 10k group, it became easier to continue running. I even quite a bit left in the tank to do the last 3k in a sub 6 minute pace, so I guess it might be something to do with my head, rather than my body.

With a time of 2:00:40 at a distance of 20.99km, this is my worst time for the 4 marathons. It was 8 minutes off my Putrajaya half. I guess the lack of mileage also shows. Hmmm, no wonder my water belt felt tight. Less mileage = more waist!

On the organization, following are my thoughts.

The good parts;
1. The route had pretty wide roads, and most of the part pretty quiet.
2. The goodie bag for half marathoners was definitely interesting;
a. 1 medal
b. 1 shaver
c. 1 tube of salon spray.
d. 1 button badge from the 'fish oil' sponsor
e. 1 sachet of men facial wash
f. 1 small strip of salon pas
g. 5 tablets of multivitamins
h. And not to forget - a nice looking headlight which has a pretty bright white
and red lights.

As the venue seems pretty new to the Pacesetters, there were several big hiccups;

1. Ample parking space within the campus, but everybody who wasn't a student was made to park a distance away and use the shuttle bus.
2. The start line and the end was not at the same spot. As there were no clear indications or signs where the start line was, even on the arches themselves, I would guess there were quite a few who missed the starting time. Yes, it is noted in their mail and yes, there were quite a few reminders online to those internet savvy participants.
3. The route, although indicating the direction, did not clearly note which distance nor direction for whom, so further confusion for some people.
4. The long queue for the 10k would have been a big issue with those participants in that category. I guess it would take a good 30 minutes just to pick up their goodie bag.

Hopefully, the Pacesetters will use this lesson to improve their next event.

If my heel condition improves, I guess this will be the start of my marathon training for the KL marathon come June 27.