sundown

My first marathon for the year of 2008 didn’t turn out too well. The sundown marathon was flagged off at 12mn of Sunday morning and from my watch I took a 5 hours flat to complete the whole course.

I started with a pretty good pace and I felt really high spirited. However, my energy dwindled down significantly after the 25km mark and the rest just fell into a spiral whirlpool that sucked me downwards.

How my body responded in Sundown:

1. my soles hurt. I’m not sure if it was my shoes or I was just plain fatigued. I never had that issue with saucony and mizuno. My first marathon with the asics gt 2120 and it didn’t seem too pleasant a run with it.

2. my hamstrings pulled. For a moment I wondered if it was my itb that was causing my left leg to be unable to bend, but as I limped on, it felt more like the hamstring than the itb.

post mortem with dearie revealed the following things I have done wrong:

1. I shouldn’t have gone shopping all over town before the race, causing insufficient rest. Should have rested and best get more sleep.

2. I shouldn’t have ran and do gym the night before the race.

3. I shouldn’t have picked up pace so fast into the race. I think I went out too fast too soon.

4. I should have tried running at that time of the night, at that kind of pace for a distance close to actual race day. At least my body would be more prepared to handle the sleepiness and pace.

5. I had itb problem just prior to the race. I didn’t do anything wrong on this. It’s just unfortunate.

6. I lost my temper and got frustrated because I was hoping to do better.

On retrospect, the things I felt I done right:

1. I did not give up, even when I had to limp through the run. I almost gave up because the muscle pull was breaking me..but I told myself I must hang on..especially when dearie has been running beside me through the entire course.

2. I remembered coach’s words and I picked up on the last 4km. he said that’s the point we must pick up because that’s when we can kick ass. I did so as told and I really overtook quite a number of people at the end.

3. mind triumphed over body. As I picked up my pace, I told myself, “pain is relative. If you don’t think of it, it doesn’t exist.” And as I just gathered myself to move into momentum of that we’ve done during training, the pain vanished. I recalled how I hung on to the track training when my itb hurt, and I knew if I can hold through that, I can do it once again.

Picking up the pieces from here, the next race up is mr25’s cross country marathon. This is the targeted race I was hoping to do instead of sundown. However, as the cross country race will have a cut off 5 hours, I am hesitant at this point if I am capable to achieve that. Yet, not giving a shot leaves me sore and unjustified; like why am I not even trying. A least having tried and failed is better than not trying and say I give up.

First on the agenda is to recover fast and get my muscles unknotted. I have arranged with iggy today for a sports massage. Apart from that, I’m staying off running for the next 6 days. The only activity I’ll do is swim and aqua running. I am desperate to recover and I hope my efforts will enable me to run the cross country.

However, should i not recover on time to be racing, i will be there to cheer my dearie on..=)