Race review : TM Fan Run 2016 21km & Reach Out run 15km

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri, maaf zahir & batin!!!

Alhamdulillah, looks like I managed to make it through the 1st 2 weeks of the festive season without much impact on my physique & performance. In fact, my body weight has been lower than during the fasting month! I've started training during the 3rd raya, & managed to do 3 training sessions in my wife's hometown of Kg Amer. So all is well. Bcoz of the lateness of these race reviews, I'll put reviews for both TM Fan Run & Reach Out run in this posting.

TM FAN RUN 21K

My first race, 10 days after raya is 21km. Usually I will stay away from this kinda distance, this early after raya. Why? Bcoz normally fasting month is my rest period. Well, as I've stated in my previous post, this year's Ramadhan was different. But alhamdulillah, although I continued training at normal intensity, I didn't miss my terawikh & managed to khatam my recital of Al-Quran. 

I had to collect the racekit at TM's office in Bangsar. The racekit itself was very plain, with just the tshirt & the bib. The tshirt design itself was pretty much the same as previous years, I've ran this race since 2012. Well, it's not like I'm gonna wear it in the race anyway...

My performance

I've always planned to treat this race as training. I was pretty late to the line as me & a bunch of other runners did our solat Subuh which was just 15 mins from the designated start time of 6:00 am. I took it real easy in the 1st 12 km or so & my plan was to do tempo in the last 9km. 

So after I got to the water station at KM12, had my gel, I began to press a bit harder. Shortly after that the course became crowded with the slower 10K runners, so I had to run in the outside lane. 

I couldn't really push the speed up & by the time we hit the bridge before Galeria I was already in trouble. So much trouble in fact that I had to stop to catch my breath. This is not normal for me, to stop in a race. After a short breather I continued running & hit the line in 2:06, good enuff for no 66 in my category. 

This race showed that I've yet to hit my form period. I still have problems holding pace faster than 5:40 for longer than 5km. The course was also a bit under distance at 20..8km. Nevertheless, 2:06 was a pretty good time, given the way I ran. There's another race in a week's time, the 15km Reach Out Run & after that I'll begin my tapering period. 

Ratings

Route (Challenging, unique) : 4/5

Organizer (Overall organization of race) : 3.5/5

Runners welfare (Water station, pre & post race facilities) : 4/5

Goodie bag (Content) : 3/5

Race tee (Quality, aesthetics) : 3/5

Medal (Quality, aesthetics) : 4/5

My performance (execution of race plan, finishing time) : 4/5 


REACH OUT RUN 15K

The reason I went for this event was that I missed the registration for Newton's 30K. But come to think of it, it was probably a good thing bcoz I dun think I can recover on time for SCKLM had I ran 30K just 2 weeks prior. 

The racekit collection was at IM4U Sentral in Puchong. It used to be known as 3R complex & way before that there was a football field & a hindu temple at the site. I was quite impressed with the facilities at this place, there was even a hostel & quite a number of indoor courts. But the place was very quiet. Quite a waste really. With the new LRT station just next to it, this could really be a focal point for youth activities it was meant to be. 



I was quite disappointed with the quality of the race tshirt. Well, first of all, I dun think the tshirt was even a genuine New Balance tshirt. I know how a genuine NB tshirt looks like & this is not it. I know that with a fee of RM50, I can't really expect much, but I've been to cheaper races that gave out better quality tshirts. Better still, just take out the NB stamp from it & it would be just fine. 

Since this is just a 15K race (which will be my last prep race before SCKLM), I decided to wear my other Mizuno vest, bcoz it matches my shoes. For shorter races, I can go with just about any vests. 

My performance

It rained before the race. & it was still raining when I got to the start. I did my warm ups on the corridors for Perbadanan Putrajaya building. & I decided to put my arm sleeves on, a decision that I will regret later. 

There wasn't that many people at the race, probably bcoz there was 3-4 other races on the same date. But there was a problem before I even started running: my Polar wasn't working. I had some problems syncing it the day before, it got mixed up with my friend's Polar which I was helping to setup. My sports profile didn't show up. Even the default running profile was missing! That cost me some time. I just settled for elapsed time recording & it couldn't even do that! The GPS didn't work either. So I had to rely on the official timing. 

I started off the back & settled into a pretty fast rhythm. The wet road was quite slippery & my Hitogami 2 was struggling to find some traction. Bcoz of the problems with my Polar, I didn't know exactly how fast I was running. But I knew I couldn't get near 1:25. The course was similar to TM's run, only shorter. The rain had stopped, but it was still quite cold. 

At the end, my time was 1:28:55, good enuff for no 26. None of my splits was registered, I was really running blindly. & to make it worse, I suffered quite a bad burn on my ribs bcoz of my arm warmers. On a positive note, I was able to hold a faster pace for longer & I was focusing on my backlift. I was really grateful that my decision to revert to shorter strides has yield excellent results & I was able to run injury-free.

Ratings

Route (Challenging, unique) : 4/5

Organizer (Overall organization of race) : 3.5/5

Runners welfare (Water station, pre & post race facilities) : 4/5

Goodie bag (Content) : 3/5

Race tee (Quality, aesthetics) : 2/5

Medal (Quality, aesthetics) : 4/5

My performance (execution of race plan, finishing time) : 4/5

Livestrong, run stronger.