Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2009 (Half Marathon)

I’m having three days off from work starting tomorrow and it indeed has come at a right time. Stress from several sources has creeped so much into me that I have been having some level of insomnia every night since last Monday. I would typically wake up after sleeping about four hours for some or no reason and would have difficult falling back to sleep. It was no different for the night prior to the SCKLM half. So quite clearly, my race was severely affected. I finished in 1hr 42min 20 sec, more than seven minutes from my PB.

Well, knowing that insomnia has been hitting on me every night for a week, I wasn’t feeling bad about the time. But it didn’t hide the fact that my nervous system wasn’t functioning properly, especially after the race. As such, I didn’t have the energy to look for the likes of Niki, Yin, and Beef *moo moo moo* Keef after suspecting I probably have missed their finishing. Most of my post-race was just spent cheering the finishers with Choi and Andrew Chan at the finishing up till around 10am before heading back home.

Sorry people, I wasn’t at the finishing between 2hr 50min to 3hr of the half marathon as I HONESTLY didn’t expect you all to finish before three hours.

So how did the race go for me? Well, even with a week of insomnia, I started faster compared to my recent Klang-Pacers Half Marathon race where I got my PB. I also had this group of four to pace with for the first 12km. The pacing was really fun and exciting as we were all going very fast and taking turns to lead the group. Although there were no distance markers for the non-full marathoners, I estimated from the full marathon distance markers that I came to the 12km mark at around 52min, which was at PB pace. After this estimated 12km mark, I began to pull away from the main group. But I started slowing down when the human wall from the 10k runners came. With that drop in pace, I hit 16km at around 1hr 10min. By this time, the effects of sleep deprivation caught up on me and I was forced to start walking just before 17km. It was then a walk-jog all the way to the half-marathon “short cut”. Coming to here, I knew the finishing was near, and thus upped my pace. Yes, it was thanks to the filming last week, where Yin remarked the “short cut” with all the chicken and pork chop chop chop chop (say it as fast as possible). In any case, it was still a very weak kick to the finish.

The first Standard Chartered Singapore (2002) and KL (2009) marathons - Front View

Back View

Insomnia taking its toll on me

Cheering the finishers (Photo not from my camera)

Now as I attempt to recover from my sleep problems, I think I’m going to stop running for a week or two and play other sports for now. But more importantly, I need to ease up and stop thinking so much.

Lastly, a big congratulation to all who completed their maiden 10k or half/full marathons and to those who came back with their PBs or targeted times :D