Runners line up at the start, running in the rain, and the winner showing his stride.
All my marathon training has got me in good shape. I placed 229th out of 962 participants, 21st out of 180 women, and 6th out of my respective age category for women. My official time (not chip time) was 47:26.
I awoke at 5:20 am for my normal but kinda slow routine of getting something to eat and getting ready. I was downstairs getting a taxi by 6:15 am and on the MTR by 6:30 am. I got on at Admiralty, transfered in Mong Kok and then Kowloon Tong before arriving at Tai Po Market MTR station around 7:15 am. Then, I followed the pink directional signs and walked 15 minutes to the Tai Po Waterfront Park. Hong Kong is great with having English signs all over the place that can direct you to where you need to go. Also, the site of other runners also helped me figure out where to go. I used the toilet at the small park as directed by the race pamphlet, about 800 meters from the start because there would not be one closer to the start.
The race start was located along a bike path adjacent to the Tolo Harbour in the New Territories. The sky looked dark, but there was no rain coming down. I got my bib and chip and proceeded to put in on. The sky got darker and darker and there was no doubt it was going to rain. Suddenly, the rain poured down and I rushed under a shelter that was being used to pass out registration materials. Five minutes later, the junior 4k race began in the pouring rain! Our race was scheduled to begin at 8:45 am. After the first brave youngsters finished their race, I finally braved the outdoors (thank god I brought my umbrella) and jogged back to the toilets and figured it would also be part of my warm up, but I was still carrying my bag as I did not yet want to give it to the bag drop attendees. I saw lots of runners warming up, so I shouldn't have stayed huddled in the shelter for so long. I came all that way to run a PR! So I needed to get warmed up! But, it was like, this sucks! Why is is so wet and slightly nippy?
They moved the bag drop, which had been outside, down under a subway tunnel. (In Hong Kong they call these underground sidewalks that traverse under roads subways. They are not like New York train subways.) So, I put gave my bag to the attendants and rushed up to the start, did 3 striders, and then got in the pack.
The race started during a break from the rain and my goal was to go 7:30 per mile. I was wearing my new Garmin Forerunner 405 for the first time, having only received it on Friday and never running with it before, but only testing it out a little on Saturday walking around. I had a beautiful first mile. Then the second mile the rain started coming down again. And with that, the Garmin started acting crazy. Many reviews said the new 405 model is not good in wet conditions. Indeed, I had to ignore it for several miles as it was obviously inaccurate. After a while, I looked at it and noticed periodic accuracy...kind of annoying, but I shouldn't be so reliant on it anyway and should run more by feel.
I liked that this course was one of the flattest courses I have ever run in Hong Kong. That was a nice change. The course went out 2k to a turnaround, then back to the start (4k mark), then back out along the same path, but this time out 3k to the 7k point for a turnaround, and then headed home for the last 3k. I started feeling around what must have been 6k that this race was so long! I guess I was getting tired. Finally on the home stretch I saw my Garmin looked more accurate, but I didn't like the slow splits! I said, hey, you're here for a PR, don't ruin it! So, I picked it up on my last mile back to my goal splits. In the end, I finished at 47:09. I didn't get the 46:30 I wanted, but I'll take it, it was a PR! Here are my splits: 7:29, 7:24, 7:31, 7:39, 7:48, 7:30 and 1:46 for the last 200 meters. (Amazingly once the race was over, I saw the Garmin did record accurate splits through AutoLap, but it's just the display during the run was often wrong due to the rain). I wish I could redo miles 4 and 5, but I can't. I just hope I can learn to be tougher in the future. It's always my quest and the challenge of the sport.
The only thing that was irritating was that after the race, the Hong Kong people were so patiently queued up for their bottle of water and Tshirt. I took some time to do a short warm down jog, thinking, I don't want to be in some dumb queue, and thinking the line would die down. After a while, it didn't die down. I went underground to go get my personal bag, where I also had a bottle of water, since I hadn't had a drop since you had to stand in this long queue, and lo and behold, there was a long line also for the bags. That was frustating and I was getting quite thirsty when half an hour after my race ended I had nothing to drink. I finally got my bag then went back to the upstairs queue for the Tshirt and water bottle, and the line was still so long!
Finally, I headed back to the MTR station and on my way, saw a bus for Central. Lucky find! I didn't have to walk all the way back to MTR and take 3 trains! I just got on this bus and it was actually faster than the MTR since I didn't have to wait for the bus and it was just there. Got back to Admiralty and grabbed some McDonalds, which I have not had ever since I think I got food poisoning at a differnt McDonalds a bunch of weeks ago.
The race start was located along a bike path adjacent to the Tolo Harbour in the New Territories. The sky looked dark, but there was no rain coming down. I got my bib and chip and proceeded to put in on. The sky got darker and darker and there was no doubt it was going to rain. Suddenly, the rain poured down and I rushed under a shelter that was being used to pass out registration materials. Five minutes later, the junior 4k race began in the pouring rain! Our race was scheduled to begin at 8:45 am. After the first brave youngsters finished their race, I finally braved the outdoors (thank god I brought my umbrella) and jogged back to the toilets and figured it would also be part of my warm up, but I was still carrying my bag as I did not yet want to give it to the bag drop attendees. I saw lots of runners warming up, so I shouldn't have stayed huddled in the shelter for so long. I came all that way to run a PR! So I needed to get warmed up! But, it was like, this sucks! Why is is so wet and slightly nippy?
They moved the bag drop, which had been outside, down under a subway tunnel. (In Hong Kong they call these underground sidewalks that traverse under roads subways. They are not like New York train subways.) So, I put gave my bag to the attendants and rushed up to the start, did 3 striders, and then got in the pack.
The race started during a break from the rain and my goal was to go 7:30 per mile. I was wearing my new Garmin Forerunner 405 for the first time, having only received it on Friday and never running with it before, but only testing it out a little on Saturday walking around. I had a beautiful first mile. Then the second mile the rain started coming down again. And with that, the Garmin started acting crazy. Many reviews said the new 405 model is not good in wet conditions. Indeed, I had to ignore it for several miles as it was obviously inaccurate. After a while, I looked at it and noticed periodic accuracy...kind of annoying, but I shouldn't be so reliant on it anyway and should run more by feel.
I liked that this course was one of the flattest courses I have ever run in Hong Kong. That was a nice change. The course went out 2k to a turnaround, then back to the start (4k mark), then back out along the same path, but this time out 3k to the 7k point for a turnaround, and then headed home for the last 3k. I started feeling around what must have been 6k that this race was so long! I guess I was getting tired. Finally on the home stretch I saw my Garmin looked more accurate, but I didn't like the slow splits! I said, hey, you're here for a PR, don't ruin it! So, I picked it up on my last mile back to my goal splits. In the end, I finished at 47:09. I didn't get the 46:30 I wanted, but I'll take it, it was a PR! Here are my splits: 7:29, 7:24, 7:31, 7:39, 7:48, 7:30 and 1:46 for the last 200 meters. (Amazingly once the race was over, I saw the Garmin did record accurate splits through AutoLap, but it's just the display during the run was often wrong due to the rain). I wish I could redo miles 4 and 5, but I can't. I just hope I can learn to be tougher in the future. It's always my quest and the challenge of the sport.
The only thing that was irritating was that after the race, the Hong Kong people were so patiently queued up for their bottle of water and Tshirt. I took some time to do a short warm down jog, thinking, I don't want to be in some dumb queue, and thinking the line would die down. After a while, it didn't die down. I went underground to go get my personal bag, where I also had a bottle of water, since I hadn't had a drop since you had to stand in this long queue, and lo and behold, there was a long line also for the bags. That was frustating and I was getting quite thirsty when half an hour after my race ended I had nothing to drink. I finally got my bag then went back to the upstairs queue for the Tshirt and water bottle, and the line was still so long!
Finally, I headed back to the MTR station and on my way, saw a bus for Central. Lucky find! I didn't have to walk all the way back to MTR and take 3 trains! I just got on this bus and it was actually faster than the MTR since I didn't have to wait for the bus and it was just there. Got back to Admiralty and grabbed some McDonalds, which I have not had ever since I think I got food poisoning at a differnt McDonalds a bunch of weeks ago.
1 comment:
Nice pic of you at the top of the page!
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