Sunday, December 25, 2005

My longest run in my life: MR25 12hrs ultramarathon

Note: This is a super long event and I do not have the memory to remember evey single details...below are wat is in my memory at the point of typing It was early morning 610am and was pouring rain and dogs. TheLonelyRunner and his parent came to picked me up in the wet morning. As we travelled along PIE...the rain came heavier and heavier....we was thinking what will happen to the MR25 Ultramarathon which is starting at 7am....we reached MR25 carpark and saw runners pouring carrying umbrella and raincoat...the run will go on...we registered ourself and waiting for the event to start. Meanwhile, run.run.runaway, astrogirl, WS, ultraman, tiwazz, sotong, philips and many other familiar faces came by....at 7am sharp when the sky is still pouring, the run was flagged off.... I was still not ready and started a minute later with run.run.runaway, astrogirl and WS on my Salomon Techamphib. And here, 4 of us started our first ever attempted on ultramarathon. It was an annual finale event organised by MR25 running club which runners was given 12hrs to finish as many rounds as possible. 10 fastest and most number of laps will have prizes and runners completed 5 runs of 52.5km will be given an exclusive event tee. after running about 100m, we were shocked to see a big group of sgrunners doing stretching and warmups...we joined in a while and started off after a few minutes...it was very wet and the ground was water-logged....basically, we were all wet and soaked in the morning rain. after a few minutes of running as a group, we started to break off slowly and each of us went at our own pace. As usual, I will adopted my run/walk strategy. The slopes was a killer to my strategy as i have to adjust accordingly. After my first round, not feeling so good as the body was still unadapted to the wet terrain and weather...but the cool environment did help to keep the body cool. lucky i was wearing my Amphib shoes, my socks and shoes was dry when i reached the end point. After finishing first round, i decided to take a banana and hold a powergel eat at the waterpoint about 3.5km away. I did not rest more than 3 min before i take off again. The second round was still a wet run but the weather started to calm down. I ended strong after 21km. This time, I took 2 bananas at the start/end point for my 3rd round and held on to a powergel for the waterpoint and went comfortably away. I met quite a few familiar runners at my third round...but but i have forgotten what has happened. So not going to elaborate more...remember meeting gentle and also YankeeII who complaint to me after run.ruin.runaway running too fast and he has to give up. Finished my 3rd round strongly and i believe i might be able to go beyond 5 rounds. taking 2 bananas and holding on to the powergel, i did not rest more than 5min before i went off again. I feeling great during this round mainly becos my body has warmed up. i even felt second wind during the last 3km part but i decided to hold my ground for more rounds later. The ground is till wet and muddy. Luckily, I wore my Techamphib, my socks and shoes was able to dry by the time i reached back the start/end point. I decided to change my shoes after my 5th round if i was OK to carry on,...I finished the 4th round which is a full marathon distance at a decent time of 5hrs 30min which my fastest lap time. still feeling good, i only stopped for less than 5min after eating all the necessary food and drinks. The 5th round was quite a torture as my legs started to feel the strain, i decided to take more walk breaks....still feeling good and push on, i slowed down my pace so that i still feel comfortable..in less than 1km after start, run.run.runaway suddenyl came by with choonwei and dasher who were accompany her....as usual, she was going with a fast speed...cannot see her minutes after she past me. I pressed on and on and finished the 5th round feeling strong. Decided to push on for 6th round, i changed my Techamphib to my salomon XA pro 2 which has more support and fresh cushioning. I took a longer break of about 10min. Took the necessary food and drink, pushed on for my 6th. the legs started to get heavy for a start but after the midpoint, my legs were able to flow smoothly..finsihed my round feeling a bit lousy but with 3.5hrs more to cut-off time, i decided to go for the last 7th round...maybe i will walked for the whole 10.5km which will take about 2hrs. I started for a while before i met gentle. He finished his 3 rounds in the morning, went home for christmas lunch before coming back in the afternoon to finish the remaining 2 rounds. he was walking and he said he just take stroll...but he decided to follow me and we can keep each other company....he told me that astrogirl was in front and he wanted to overtake her. As my previous 5 rounds, i continue to do run/walk and gentle try to follow....i slowed my runs and actually we walked a lot chatting all the way...very comfortable and interesting last lap for me....saw astrogirl at the golf course and we decided to catchup up slowly...finally, we past her at the last 2.5km from the end. Gentle and myself was doing a very good pace and we finished strongly with astrogirl finishing behind us. I managed to finished 7laps of 73.5km in 10hrs 12min. having my alst 7th lap as my slowest lap of 10min slower than the average of my first 5 laps....a great achievement for my 1st time doing distance longer than marathon with no special training for it...just a light maintainance run and tapering after my Singapore Marathon. After reporting, i was told that I was within the top 10!!! a big big surprise for christmas this year!!! my 1st marathon finish is a great accomplishment...but this is even a greated achievement than that..... I must really thanks all the sgrunners who supported me during my 10 hrs run. Without them, i doubt i was able to complete 7 laps comfortable. below is my 10.5km lap timing for every run including rest time: lap 1: 1hr 24min lap 2: 1hr 19min lap 3: 1hr 21min lap 4: 1hr 21min lap 5: 1hr 27min lap 6: 1hr 38min <- 10min rest lap 7: 1hr 39min total time: 10hrs 12min total distance: 73.5km position: 8th for my 8th position, i got the following prizes: 1) extra MR25 Ultramarathon 2005 polo tee 2) a NIKE backpack 3) a NIKE waistpouch 4) a pair of NIKE socks 5) a pair of NIKE Free shoes (got both right side of the shoes 8-( ) Photos: I've fall in love with ultramarathon. I can't run fast, but i can run long. Cheers.....................

6 comments:

Philip said...

what is this secret pair of shoes that wont get wet, you must share with me leh.

Muggs said...

great job!! well done, I would say! You're great!

run to live said...

philips:

is not that it does not get wet, it just that is dry quite fast....Salomon amphib series...and also very important is my coolmax socks

muggs:

thanks for the great support and encouragement during the run....will not complete without you around that day

Janice_O said...

This is really YOUR run Taz! Fantastic, two thumbs up! :)

The DreamRunner said...

taz,

superb placing for rookie ultra-marathon. You were solid that day!

Rgds,
Dream

astrogirl said...

You were superb! Am proud of u. Hehe do get some tape for next year though...

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails