Market Market 10- miler (May 17, 2009) - Post race

SUCCESS!!

We crossed the finish line at a time of 2:03 hours. This was Per's second farthest run after the 15km RUNew race a few months ago so she was a bit apprehensive about this race. All throughout the week she was afraid on whether she can finish it or not. In my heart I know she can finish it. What I don't know is whether she will finish the race strong or struggle with it.

My goal was not only to get a new Couple PR in this race but to finish it strong so as to build Per's confidence that "yes, I can run this far without actually hating it!" In the RUNew race, my strategy was to do the 10km as quickly as possible (like an ordinary 10km race), then run - walk the remaining 5km to the finish line. She was fast at her first 10km but I can see her burning out on the 3rd part of the race as she was walking more than she was running and having a really hard time during that day. It was then that she vowed never to run longer than 10km again. And although we finished the race, she didn't like the experience.

I changed my strategy this time around. There will be more walk breaks even at first part of race and we will walk at some of the uphill portions. Each water station we would stop at and do about a minute of walking before resuming the race again.

PRE-RACE WEEK

With not enough preparations, we basically crammed for today's race by doing a 10km easy run at Ultra last Tuesday, and another 8km easy run at Fort Bonifacio last Friday. Both done at comfortable pace. Prior to that week, she was able to run only 7km.

Saturday afternoon, we both bought new New Balance shoes for use in today's race. I wore mine immediately to break it in. Per couldn't wear hers because of her get up.

That same night, we drove to Mall of Asia to watch the David Archuleta/ David Cook concert and ended up getting home around 12 midnight. Wake up call for me the following day at 3:30AM and for Per at 4:00AM. Definitely not enough sleep!

With the "cramming", lack of sleep and not "breaking in" the new shoe purchases, I have doubts on how well we are going to do in the Market Market race. We seemed to defy all the right rules that come with proper race training !!

RACE DAY

We got to Fort Bonifacio around 4:45AM, to which I did a 3.2km jog around Serendra area to test my shoes and look for the starting area. At about 5:20AM, we walked to the Starting Line, which was located on the road in between High Street and Market Market. There weren't that many runners for today's event but we did see a lot of familiar faces here.

Christy doing her 10-miler with her husband Vener as her photographer/ supporter for today. He was kind enough to take pictures of us as well. Most of the pictures here would come from his camera. Thanks RunUnlimited!

5 minutes before the race start!

Getting ready! It was 5:30AM but looks like the sun is coming out already.

The race started on time and we were off! Per wanted to chase the runners. Good thing I looked at our pace and saw that we were going out too fast. So I told her to slow down and just ignore the fast runners. It was hard to do, not only for her, but for me as well, as we both had the feeling of being left behind. But we had to stick to our strategy of finishing strong for this race! I kept asking if she had a finish time and she always reply, "None. I just want to finish." That meant we didn't have to run hard as there was no time constraint for us. So less pressure. :)

Being Per's "shadow" for the entire race, I decided to bring my camera with me and snap some pictures of her in the running mode. I would run ahead of her and stop a few meters away to take some pictures. It wasn't easy as it seemed as camera was still focusing by the time she reached and went past me. I had to do this a couple more times before I got the hang of it. See below for running shots:

There were enough water stations for this hot day and that was a nice thing. Route was simple although I fear there were some runners who went inside Heritage Park and ran in it. I wasn't sure if they were part of today's race or just joggers but at that point, Per wanted to go in too.

Lesson #1 - always look at race map before the race to get some familiarity on where you are running and avoid any confusion.

Good thing I was prepared by doing Lesson #1 so we kept running on the road for the turning point back to Fort Bonifacio area.

We were still running at a good pace of 7:30 - 8:30 minutes/km and taking walk breaks at each water station. Slowly, we were overtaking other runners and remained focus at our race pace. After the halfway mark, we weren't slowing down even with the scorching sun above us.

At 12km mark, Per was walking at some point but still smiling and at a good mood. I told her that if she wanted to walk, she should do so at shaded areas so she won't feel the heat. I was counting down slowly the last few kilometers as we head into and out of British School.

At the final turning point, we saw the finish line and I told Per to speed it up so we can finish below 2:03. She did so and our Garmin registered at 2:02:59 with a distance of 15.45km. Our average race pace was at 7:58 min/ km.

For comparison sake, in the RUNew race we did a couple of months ago, our finish time was at 2:03:04 with distance of 15.35km and average pace of 8:01 min/km.

This garnered a new PR! And the important thing was that Per finished strong! She was confident enough during the entire race. She didn't complain and now sees a half marathon as a doable race.

Now, she doesn't mind joining long races. So I guess our strategy worked! PHEW!

In terms of this race, I had hoped it would be closer to the 16km distance so we could appreciate our achievement more...

We did it! YAAAAYYY!

So what's next for the Runner named Per? Only time will tell....

Not to be outdone, good friend Neil also finished his first 10-miler yesterday. Great job! His wife Mylene had her first 5-miler as well. They can be spotted after having some post-race carbo replenishments at Old Spaghetti House in Market Market.

POST-RACE

There were booths for upcoming Botak and Auto Review races. We got a copy of Menshealth (Obama cover) and announcement of another Menshealth race in June. We got some sports drinks, vitamins and even conditioners.

2 miles and 5 miles results were posted on race site! That was a surprise as the organizers were quick in coming out with it. Neil was able to get a finisher certificate as well.

All in all, even with the very hot day, we had an awesome time in this race! :)