This was my final race of 2010. Actually, I'd planned the Malakoff as my final race, but something came up at work & I had to change my plans. The Asian Masters Athletics Championship was in town & I didn't know there was a road race. Then I got an email saying that the registration's been extended, so I decided to run the race. Some ppl told me that they couldn't get enuff participants, so they decided to open the race to locals so that it would be more of a race that it would've been. The registration & stuff was simple enuff & typical of any races organized by the FTAAA, everything was old school. There was no electronic timing chip, no numbers printed on plastic, there was a reporting card & ribbon system employed.
My preparation
I've been prepping for Malakoff by doing loads of hills, hill repeats & hill intervals. But when I knew I won't be going for Malakoff, I decided to do more speedwork. The route was similar to Larian Bomba, so there was still some hills to conquer. So I did 2 consecutive speed days. & 2 days before the race I had to go to Kangar, so I didn't do anything. I did a short easy run on Saturday evening, as I normally do before races, just to check on my equipment. All systems go.
The race
There was veterans up to 70 years of age, from Asian countries. But I guess not all of them was here. I didn't see anybody from China, there was a lot of ppl from India & Sri Lanka.. most of them ran barefooted. I got to the start pretty early. I decided to go with only one number, as I've always said there was no point wearing 2 numbers, it's not like I'ma get top placings anyway. The announcer kept saying tht those who ran with one number will be disqualified.. anything that makes U happy la...
I've set myself a pace of 5:15 - 5:45, slightly faster than my normal pace of 5:30 - 6:00. I started at the front to avoid the slower runners & I started off pretty well. I managed to maintain that pace up until the 1st water station. Then I started to get into trouble. I couldn't maintain the pace. Even on the downhills I was having difficulties. But the 1st 5K was pretty encouraging, covered in about 28 mins, which means I was still on course for a sub-60 mins finishing time.
After the 7K mark I decided that my stride was too long, so I shorten my stride & I was able to get into a manageable rhythm. I tried to maintain that rhythm to the end, but it proved difficult. At the end, I clocked 58:48, so it was okay, good enuff for #47. Out of how many I dunno.
Lessons learned
This race have again proved that I lacked speed. I had some speed but I couldn't maintain it. I need to do longer tempo. As long as 10K. So I must remember to put that into my program next year.
As I said earlier this was my final race of the year. It's been a long year, I ran 12 races, including 4 half marathons. I've definitely improved from last year. I've been able to run 2-3 sub-60 10Ks, with the best being at Nike 10K, but as I only recorded 8.8K at that race, the Asian Masters remained my best 10K performance this year. I didn't get to run on the track at all this year. I dunno if I can run on the track next year, becoz I plan to do more field events, including the long/triple jump. For the throwing event, I'd like to add discus as another event I'd like to try.
Nxt year I'ma stay with half marathon, with the ultimate goal of running sub-2hr half maras. & I wanna be more selective on the races I run nxt year, I wanna be more focused, maybe I'll still ran 4 half maras, but there must be ample time for me to prepare... I can't run back-to-back half maras in 2 months for example.
Hopefully I'll get lighter as well. Last year I put the target to get to 75kg, but I'm still at 83kg this year.
Till then, Livestrong.
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