PD Half "Swim"athon 2007 Race Report

Breakfast - 1 PowerBar Triple Threat at 4.30am
Race Start - 7.05am
Weather - constant rain, sometimes heavy. Windy.
Race nutrition - water @ 5, 10 & 15km, 1/2 PowerGel @ 10km and 1/2 2 or 3km later
Average HR - 158bpm (same as KLIM 21k 2 weeks ago).
Post-race weight - 78kg (after re-hydrating and food)

Thanks to Ronnie & gang for this photo taken before the start...


I finished in a suspiciously fast 2:01:09. That's over 13 mins faster that KLIM 2 weeks ago. Even if KLIM is 21.9km as reported by der pacemakers, it still would have taken me 2h9m for 21k. So todays run would still be an 8 minute or >1km improvement. I'll keep it as an unofficial record until I see what der pacemakers have to say about the route distance.

The entire run was done in rain, mostly heavy, with rivers of water in the road - hence "swimathon" post title. So I carried another 0.5kg of water with me, mainly in my shoes. Last 5km I had a bad non-muscular pain in the outside of my left knee. This left me limping a bit at the end, but fortunately the pain went completely after the run. Interestingly enough it actually disappeared in the last 100m of the run, which was on wet grass or sand, as opposed to the tarmac for the previous 20.9km.

Ronnie, Ah Fook, Nezz and Azman were there. I started seemingly slowly, as planned. I passed Nezz after 3km. There weren't too many runners so even after only a couple of km there was no pack - just individual runners now and again. This was very good for me as I tend to keep the same pace for entire races, meaning that I overtake lots of people and rarely get passed by anyone - this feels good! At the u-turn at about 7.5km Ah Fook was 2m10s ahead of me and my target was to catch him. For the next 8 or 9km I kept going, passing other runners every few minutes. At 16km I finally caught Ah Fook! Just after this my left knee began to hurt and my pace slowed. At 18 or 19km another carrot appeared before me - it was one of Pacesetters "cover girls", walking and running. She's normally faster than me so I was pleased to be in sight of her. I struggled on for the last 2km, limping a bit, but in the end the Finish line came quite soon and it was all over. Half-marathon #2 - been there done that!

I felt good throughout the whole race, even the usually difficult first 30mins. I think that the rain helped by keeping me cool. Also, I haven't run at all for the last 2 weeks so perhaps my running muscles were relatively fresh, but my fitness still kept in shape by cycling and swimming.

I spoke to Nezz after the race - first time I actually spoke to her for more than 30s, which was nice. Good luck at A'Famosa next weekend Nezz! I saw Azman finish towards the end of the prize-giving ceremony. I think that Azman deserves a bigger medal than everyone else for having the balls to do these 21k runs. Well done Azman! PB today??

Here's my cert. and particularly heavy medal! It's not often I get a medal so I'm well pleased with this one!


My travelling chums Wendy (in red) and Bee Hoon (yellow). They were 4th and 2nd respectively in their category of the 11km run.

More to come!