road 2 irongirl: pj half marathon 10km

after way too much eating and way too little training in sabah, i didn't want to run this race. i could barely hold a 5 minute 30 second pace for a 10km when I did a 10km before my tmbt, i knew i was off form. plus, the race was merely a week after my tmbt 50km. i probably would not have recovered fully, possibly aching in muscles i never knew existed. and not to mention, i have an injury on my right leg which has been bugging me for 3 weeks. so, running this, was not an option. it was a categorical no. i offered my bib to sinyee to run. unfortunately she was not feeling well. so, as destiny probably had it, i ran the race.

sunday morning, i picked everyone up - coach, sinyee and limin. and i headed towards kelanajaya stadium. you know, when they said pj half marathon had a new route, i expected new route, not new starting location. driving there, we were met with complete silence. last year, the race start of pj half was in the kelanajaya stadium, so expecting the same start venue, i confidently drove there. but there were barely a few people (there were a few lost puppies like us, high five), there was no music, there was no start/finishing arch, there was no emcee, and there were no lights. we kinda figured something was off. so we turned to mister google, and sped off to the correct starting venue. it was 450am when we were still in kelanajaya stadium and flagoff for the 10km was at 530am. so yes, i sped off. the unlucky 21 km-ers flagoff was at 5, so they were definitely pretty damn late to the race start.

we parked. and my warmup was essentially running to the race start. i excuse me-d myself to the front of the starting point with barely a few minutes to spare. i saw khiiren at the start line and went over to him. i don't really know how to describe how i felt. i haven't done a speed race in over a month. my last one was on the 26th of july. so, for me, i kind of expected the worst in terms of performance.

for me, it was just to run at a comfortable pace and hopefully score a new pb. i saw many female runners zooming pass me, including a couple of kenyans but i decided that i should run my own race. in my mind, i was not on form. so in my mind, the race should not be against anyone else, but myself.

the good thing was that i was able to hold the pace i was going at and chase a couple of female runners on the leg. i surprised myself by catching up with 4 of the girls, placing 7th overall, with a new personal best. i was so happy at the finishing line. sinyee and limin were back from their walk, waiting for me at the finishing line flashing big smiles. coach as well. he thought i would be back at the 47th minute mark, so to see me come back almost 2 and a half minutes earlier, was surprising for him. he was mad proud. the joy of the race for me was not in placing, but getting a personal best. i accomplished what i went there to do.