It was a tough marathon for me this morning. What started as a decent pace soon degraded into a race to finish it! I met the 21K mark at 1:43 and 30K at 2:25. At the 32K mark, my pacer Melvin How said that our chance for a 3:24:59 BQ was fading, so that was that. By then, my pace has slowed down appreciably with some short walks thrown in to clear my nasal passages of phlegm, re-fuel and re-hydrate. My strong ego, mental programming and my desire to complete what I started were my driving forces of my achievement. As I wrote earlier this year, DNF is not in my DNA (unless it is due to a serious injury).
On hindsight, it would have been useful to skip the race altogether. A bout of stomach flu, cough and cold in the last three weeks with negligible training mileage, is not a proper way to do well in a race. However, I wanted to complete it regardless of my convalescing condition. I just did the right thing – slow down my pace and plod on. I would not recommend that you adopt this competitive mindset, as there is a risk of incurring further disease.
My final gun-time of 3:41:09 was one of my personal worst in three years. I had wanted to crack my best Singapore Marathon time of 3:36 set in 2009, however the course was different and conditions were more challenging. A persistent, overnight rain provided initially cool conditions, yet the heightened humidity made it harder to finish in fine form around 8.00am when it was sunny. The only consolation is that I matched my timing with two of our top-10 local elite female runners. May of the veteran male runners lapped me at the final quarter, but they were awesome. I hope to be as good as them in the coming year; they trained hard and are committed.
I posted on the Facebook forum that my score-line for today was: Flu bug: Me = 1:0. As my friend, Caroline stated: If there's anyone who can take this ‘loss to bugs’ in his stride and use it as a positive learning experience it would be me. I agree with her for I will bounce back, be fitter and healthier, and achieve better results the next time. I am sure I will.
Photo-credit: Adeline Tan & Clifford Lee
2 comments:
well done Enrico despite the conditions and the bug.I seemed to have picked it up so timing wasn't the best . Hard day yesterday .Had to really dig deep .These are the races that count. will catch up soon
Thanks, Cookie for yours. You did very well, mate. I sensed that you were digging deep into your marathon. Like you said, we regard the toughest races with respect. Our race at IM Lanzarote was one example. You are hitting double-digit for IM completions, and go for it! Rest up. Love to hear your insights and hindsights soon.
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