seremban half marathon 10km

to go or not to go:

'are you sure you should even be running this weekend?' - definitely the most asked question of the week. so many people posed this question to me, so much so, even i began to question myself.

i debated with myself. but before i knew it i found myself at the starting line of the seremban half marathon. so i guess i found more reason to go. i guess what pushed me to deciding to go for the race was the fact that quite a few of us were going, and i didn't want to miss the post-race-breakfast with everyone. yes, i'm such a foodie. but seriously, i guess it was because it was an out-of-kl run and quite a number of us were going, so i didn't want to miss out. so i packed my suitcase, and off i went. 

pre-race:

honestly, i was pretty nervous for this race. in the past month or so, i ran shorter distances, so 10km all of a sudden seemed really really long. 

the night before, i packed my race gear and went to bed early. i think i was asleep by 1030 ish. but when my alarm rang, i still felt like i could use a little more sleep. when i managed to pull myself out of bed, i took a hot shower and pulled on my race gear. its pretty much the same pre-race ritual. 

oh wait, the other part that always worries me pre-race is whether i can shit. and i could not. however, upon arrival at the race site, i suddenly wanted to shit. but there weren't any toilets at the race start. drove to the petrol station but the dude said their toilets only open at 7. my flagoff was at 650, so that was not going to work for me. i was stressing myself out already. i only had 30 more minutes and i needed to find a toilet, shit, get back to the race venue, warmup and get to the front of the start line. all of a sudden, that felt like a huge long list to do in too short a period of time. 

thankfully, managed to find a kfc. and managed to shit. rushed to the race venue, and managed to catch the gang doing their warmup. only managed to stride about 200m, stretched a little and headed up to the start line together with sinyee. well, i made it in time so can't complain about the lack of warmup, because at least i made it in time hehe. got to always look at the bright side of things. 

race:

i went steady in the beginning. i like to not go too fast in the beginning because i always prefer to have some reserve energy for the last 1-2 km. but this time my strategy kinda failed on me. approaching the 6th km, i had a side stitch. stitches are still bearable because i can still do a 5 minute pace or 450 pace. but approaching the 7th km, i had a cramp sensation under my rib, right below my heart. this - was unbearable when running. i really wanted to stop and walk because every stride i took, i could feel the pain. i couldn't take deep breaths because the pain did not allow my ribs to expand for deep breaths. so i changed to shorter breaths, tried to put pressure on my rib and notably slowed down my pace. i dropped to almost a 630 pace. so my strategy to go strong on the final kilometres kind of failed. 

you can see the pain in my face and my hand indicating where the pain was. 

it was quite a hilly route. admittedly, in the beginning, i felt that i was going at a good sustainable pace. i wasn't pushing myself too hard. 

despite the major slow down, thankfully i managed to still come in 3rd. i was so relieved to complete the race. 

it was a bad run for me, but on the bright side, i have to commend myself for persevering and pushing through the pain. the easy option would have been to give up and take a stroll back. 

post-race:

i learnt quite a few things from this run, in terms of the importance of my pre-race breakfast, in terms of what my strengths and weaknesses are when running, and of course i need to utilize this information to better my performance. 

we all went to pasarbesar seremban for breakfast. it was quite funny, because i ordered my wantanmee and went to get more food. so when i came back jeff was like, 'this one ah, order food already, disappear to go get more food.' because the uncle brought the noodles to our table and insisted the table ordered one but noone was there to claim it. nyehehe. such a foodie. 

congratulations to superwee who placed 9th =) also to don who bagged 2nd runner up, khiiren who placed 5th, zanehyyy who placed 9th and of course jeff, who did a superb run. 

major thanks to everyone who believes in me and supported me for my run, whether it is from good luck messages, to comforting messages assuring me i will do fine, to congratulatory messages, to people who actually came to watch me race. you cannot imagine how much the support means to me.