Without Expectations - PJ Half Marathon

It's interesting to know that for once, I am not devastatingly disappointed with my time / performance. Normally I would be mentally beating myself up for not pushing hard enough!

I couldn't and didn't expect myself to be in tip top condition since I was kinda sick for the past 10 days or so, but not entirely 100% so. Not forgetting the low mileage for the past week due to many rainy evenings.

I was instead, quite amazed that I was running a sub 6min pace for about 16km before I slowed down due to tiredness and thirst, no thanks to the blazing sun. I was so demotivated that I wanted to give up.

Of course, I had to mentally berate myself for being such a quitter, "Why must you always give up without a fight?"

I did stop to walk a while whenever I could but also did my best to keep my feet moving.

Nevertheless, I managed to shave off 5mins off my last half marathon time, which makes it a personal best but I honestly didn't feel like it was my best! The route was under distance by 300-400m.

So there goes my 2nd last chance for a 2 hour half marathon time. Argh! *pulls hair*

almost didn't recognise myself here. check out my gnarly hands! ugh.

But thank you to those who were kind enough to say that my 2:04:4x was a good enough achievement. I have the PBIM as my last attempt for the year and I really do hope that I'll be able to train hard to achieve it. =)

*frowns*

Unfortunately, my running buddy is a bit of a tired fella these days. All he can ask me is, "What's for dinner?"

He cringes whenever I pounce on him the minute he steps in the house with a "Are we RUNNING tonight??"

My comments on the event:

1. 630am is too late to start-

a. especially when the route uses major roads like the Federal Highway and Jalan Lapangan Subang. There were a lot of unhappy motorists and you honestly can't blame them - they might have had a flight to catch at Subang Airport.

b. because the route is not very shady, all the runners were exposed to the blazing sun for a very long stretch. I swear my face is 2 shades darker now. And we could have collapsed from heat stroke!

2. It was a boring route - I didn't enjoy listening to the sound of car/lorry/motorcycle engines go by while I was running. And we also had to run on the motorcycle lane along Federal Highway. Seriously.

3. The water stations were too sparse - I think it should have been situated at every 3km. I was pretty much dying of thirst after the Ara Damansara! There was a sponge station at 18km, and YB and I had the same idea - we contemplated drinking the cool water from the sponge. Ughhh. I think there should have been a water station, too.

4. The 16km marker after the u-turn at Terminal 3 was very misleading. It was only 14.5km into the run, if I'm not mistaken.

5. The 3 sponge stations were a good idea.
6. So were the Milo and 100plus stalls.7. It was nice to see family with kids participating.