Putrajaya Night Marathon (PNM) this year is indeed a race against time. Last year I did my first Half Marathon in PNM. Stories here. Yuth passed his bib to me as he couldn't make due to attending his little sister convocation. Without any training last year, I finished at 2 hour 35 minutes. I've plan to finish this event with a timing better than last year's.
I'm pretty much confident in finishing tPNM this year faster. I did came early on the race day. Taking a half of Power Bar at home for the race. Packing as usual my 2 Power Gels. Drinking a lot of water a day before the race.
I manage to squeeze my self close to the starting line. The race it self starts sharp at 8.20pm, 20 minutes after Full Marathon flag off. I started slow and Salman already rushed through the runners right after the Half Marathon flag off. I plan to start slow and increase my pace towards the end of the race. I was doing fine until the 6km mark. As arch nemesis, the side stiches keep attacking me. I walk almost a kilometer and continue running after that.
This was the moment, I felt I would not improve my last year's timing.
My plan before the race was to run most uphill and taking it easy downhill as my left knee are still hurt from IJM Land 2 weeks before.
From the splits above its seem I actually did not slow down during the start of the race. First 3 km was done in average 11km/h resulting to my side stiches on KM 6. Slowing down after that the pace was quite even untill the KM 15 mark. My body started to feel the fatigue and slowing down. I tried to kept going but still having problem maintaning pace. I took my 1st Power Gel here, at Presint 2 near TPM official residence area and tried to soldier on.
I felt better and towards KM 17, I saw Salman already making his U -Turn at Presint 17. The worst part running towards the U- Turn was the hills, It was a run uphill, making a U- Turn and ran uphill again towards Presint 18.
I glanced through my watch and its seem I could actually improved my timing this year.
I push hard uphill knowing it will be the last hills for this route. This is where the 1st runner for FM category ran past most of us HM runners.
I was in to 2 hours timing on the last 3km of the race. It felt like forever to running towards the finishing line. I push hard and still unable consistently run till the end. I took my 2nd Power Gel here, right after the 2nd last water station at Presint 3.
Finally I did reach the finish line at 2hours 26 min, unofficial time. PNM 2013 was my PB on my half marathon run to date. The best part it shaved off 9 minutes of last year timing.
I was ecstatic with this result as this will be the close of my competitive HM run of this year. Even though I have another HM coming up in November during PBIM, I've plan to take it slow and run with bunch of friend during PBIM.
I was so happy with my HM timing, I wore the finisher T the whole day on Sunday.
I have a great race on Saturday and planning to run PNM 2014 again, in HM category of course.
Thank you PNM 2013 for giving me something to smile about that evening.
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