Singapore Half Marathon (SIM08 21k, 7 Dec)

SIM08 started off on an ominous footing with a debilitating illness that interrupted training on the penultimate week. Three days after running the Penang Bridge fun run (12k?) as half-marathon pace simulation, I was suddenly overcome by a crushing fatigue which I mistakenly ascribed to over-training. However, the watery diarrhea that followed a day later pointed to gastroenteritis (food poisoning). Besides, purging 4x/day, my abdomen was loated and painful (which was why I initially thought I also had stress gastritis). Gripped by narcolepsy, I slept an unprecedented 18h/day. Then when I returned to work the next day, I needed a rest break in the nurse room for most part of the afternoon. Uncharacteristically, given my usual gluttony, I bare touched my meals. The weekly mileage was practically nil as a 10 min warm-up jog at a pedestrian HR < 100bpm left me too tired to continue.

The planned Friday night arrival in Singapore was scuttled by Air Asia’s flight rescheduling and take-off delay. I finally arrived at my relatives’ flat in Bishan after 2 am on Saturday morning. On race eve, I retired to bed at 9 pm hoping to make up for the preceding night’s lost sleep but was unable to fall asleep. Fed up with being wide-awake, I took ½ tab of antihistamine (piriton) at 11pm (7.5h pre-race) to induce sleep. I woke up briefly at 3am (3.5h pre-race) to eat breakfast and resumed sleeping soon after. When the alarm clock rang at 4.30 am, I was groggier than expected.

At 5.30 am, I joined the toilet queue after checking in my bag. I had the misfortune to pick the wrong queue with the most number of persons (1st mobile toilet from the left). By the time I realized there were many other toilets in the middle with much short queues, it was already past 6 am - usually, I will be doing warm-up at this point of time. There were still a dozen guys ahead of me in the queue 15 min from the start when my full bladder leaked. Unable to hold back any longer, I hastily left the queue and peed at the basement of an adjacent building. Resigned to having my warm-up nixed, I tried to salvage the situation by jogging toward the crowd at the starting queue.

Having learnt a valuable lesson from the time-robbing jam in SIM05, I determinedly wriggled past the phalanx to a few rows behind the front-line, where I finally managed a few seconds of insipid jogging in place before the gun. Due to the vantage starting position, I could cross the mat within seconds of the leaders and quickly reached the target HR (150 bpm, 86% max HR) after 10 min of running. However, I was unable to sustain the target HR – probable reasons being either the aforementioned illness-interrupted training, the course’s mild but frequent terrain changes, 3 hair-pin turns on the course, and/or reduced neural drive from the ½ tab of piriton taken 8 hours before race. After 30min at target HR, I reached the 1st drink station and afterward, the pace dropped to ~148 bpm (85% max HR). At 15km, I overtook two 1:45 pacers, probably because they slowed abruptly after realizing they were ahead of pace. Due to my unfamiliarity with the latter part of the route and the absent distance markers for 21k, I was unable to summon my nerves for the final surge until very late in the race; i.e. 15 min before the end vs. Ipoh 08’s 25 min. Nevertheless, this year’s finish time improved by almost 2 min over SIM07; the primary reason being the new 21k route which effectively isolated all the sub-3h marathoners and the obstacle-free path is best illustrated by the 1st placed lady marathoner overtaking me (very decisively!) only when the Padang came into view.

No long after completing the event, I was struck by intestinal spasms. The urge to empty my bowels compelled me to leave without taking the bananas or to visit the booths. Fortunately, I reached the toilets at the nearby Raffle City mall in time without soiling my shorts (the toilets had a 5-star hotel-like appearance to them and were equipped with computer-controlled bidets!). Bodily damages were confined to muscle ache on exertion around the buttocks, trauma to the left foot’s middle toe nails and uncoordinated walking for the rest of the afternoon.

Meals: 3 slices of bread (276cal, 52g CHO) & a glass of skim milk (80cal, 12g CHO). 5 minutes before the gun, I imbibed 500 ml of Sunquick (96cal, 24g CHO). Total calories: 452cal, 88g CHO; i.e. 1.4g CHO/kg vs. the 2.5 g CHO/kg that is reportedly optimal (Gatorade SSE108). However, performance shouldn’t suffer as isotonic drinks were supplied along the route.

Apparel: socks similar in material (thin nylon?) to ladies’ pantyhose (RM1 from Giant) and a minimalist-type Prospecs Marathon shoes (RM130). Vest with large gaping slots cut into the front and back for improved ventilation.


Race data:

Race                       SIM08    SIM07
Time (chip)            1:42:03    1:43:49
AveHR (bpm)             148          141
AveHR (%max)           85            81
MaxHR   (bpm)         164          154
MaxHR   (%max)       94            89
Cal                          1202        1115