Abridged Version of KLIM + Official Results

The weather conditions were awesome to run a marathon (or half mara in my case), except that the urban settings contributed to lots of gradual up-ramps and road banking (in the physics sense, not the finance bit). The middle part of the route had absolutely no shade at all since it was mostly highway. The last 2km was deceiving because we had to loop the finishing point (it gets quite demoralising when you have that almost-there-but-not-there-yet feeling). Road conditions probably contributed to my ITB acting up on my left leg. ITB is the pain one gets on the outer side of the knees when running. You'll know it's ITB when it's excruciating to do downhills or walk down stairs. It's not the bone or anything major. It's just a !@#$%% painful thing to have on a long distance run and it's very different from cramps.

It happened around the 10km mark and then I had to manage the pain by engaging on a run-stretch-walk strategy just to complete the run. Fortunately I had my Polar to monitor my speed and pace. When I was walking, I could maintain my pace at about 7.4kmph speed. When I felt like I could do a run, I'd compensate lost time and gain mileage by going beyond 10-12kmph. In all, my average speed was 8.4kmph, so by the law of averages, I was hovering at brisk walking speed for most of the time. Oops.. i meant hobbling and limping. There were times when I had to search for a lamppost just so that I could lean my body weight on it to stretch my ITB but it only gave temporary relief. At the aid stations, there were red crescent medics with muscle ointment. I knew it wouldn't help because the ITB is technically not a muscle (or is it?), I just needed temporary relief in whatever means available. I also made it a conscious effort to only allow my left hand to massage my ITB with the ointment while allowing my right hand for other duties like wiping sweat and taking water and gels. There were many times when I walked faster than some runners. hee hee....

Finally completed the run at self-timed 2hr 33min 54sec. My stanchart timing last Dec was 2hr 33min 36sec! (must buy some more 4D!)

Post race massage was the worst! I thought I could alleviate the ITB pain but I was screaming bloody murder at the poor masseuse when he massaged my left leg. Interestingly, I have absolutely no idea why I was screaming in bahasa melayu when it was so damn painful! "Adoi! Adoi!!!!" I mean, I could have just screamed OUCH or ARRGHHH!!! I just dunno why I could garner enough vocal energy to scream a foreign language which has 2 syllabi in a word that describes excruciating pain! I swore that the pain was so bad I would have preferred running another 21km if I had a choice.

Well, that was my somewhat brief report. The pain is NOT going to stop me from taking part in more endurance races. No pain, No gain. :)

But of course, in moderation, progression and within my sanity limits.

Overall Men's Half Marathon Result:
Gun Time - 2:35:30
Chip Time - 2:33:50
10km Time - 1:05:57
Category Position - 446/594
Overall Position - 862/1139