Singapore Marathon!

HOW is it mid-March? Seriously. Time needs to just chill out a bit. I've never lived anywhere where time went quite this fast. Maybe it is a function of getting older, but I'm also pretty sure that something about the fairly consistent weather and hours of daylight in Singapore make time appear to move more quickly.
That's my take, anyway.

So I ran the Singapore Marathon...like, 3+ months ago. Right after my race, I did start a blog about it but never posted it. So even though this is late, I'm posting it - as much for my own records as anything! (This blog partially functions as our family journal, and I want to remember this).

(Imagine...it is December 6, 2013...*memory-inducing-harp-noises*)

I completed the Singapore Marathon!!
That was 6 days ago, and I'm pleased to say I'm officially no longer sore. I'm even going down stairs like a pro!

I can't really believe it is over - I registered for it 5 months ago and trained seriously for about 3 months. I'm really happy to say that the training paid off - the race went so well! I had had trouble settling on a goal time for the race, since there were so many unknown factors - especially the weather - but I ended up going much faster than I'd even hoped! I broke my second highest goal - to run a Personal Record (PR) and to average less than 6 minutes per kilometer.

Final time: 4:11:56 - a 3 second PR over my Twin Cities Marathon 3 years ago. And looking at my split times, I also ran much more consistently through this race. I ran the second half of the race only about 4-5 minutes slower than the first half, and my last 2.2 km was my fastest!

The weather completely cooperated and I think it was the best possible conditions I could have hoped for in Singapore. The temp hovered around 79 degrees the whole time, there was cloud cover, and even a light rain around halfway. That said, the humidity was about 90%, and I could tell - I was thirsty at every single water point (of which, thankfully, there were plenty - 16 or 17!). In past races I would take water at every other water point or so, but I heard that for this race even the elite runners take water at every opportunity!

I also hadn't run the course at all - too far from my apartment, and I'm much to gross to ride public transit after I run - but had heard it was pretty flat and easy. We started on Orchard Road, which is the fancy shopping street. It was all decked out for Christmas, so the lights were beautiful. We ran through parts of the city, past Marina Bay Sands, the Singapore Flyer, and other landmarks, then set out along the East Coast Parkway, which follows the shoreline for many miles. We ran a long, straight out-and-back - it was fun to see the elite runners going back the other direction, even though it made you realize just how much faster they are! I think I saw the lead runner around his Mile 17 - my Mile 9. Jeez.
I was not prepared for the one loooong uphill over a bridge - starting at Mile 23. It was especially daunting because you could see it a few miles before you reached it so you knew it was coming and that it would hurt. This was also where the full and half marathon courses converged, meaning a lot more congestion and requiring a lot of weaving between walkers. A bit frustrating, especially when people walked in groups and you're like, 'hey man, I've been running a few more hours than you, could you get out the way!?' I managed to run the whole way up though, and got all excited when I finally crested the hill. Yay! Downhill! And then I actually started running downhill, and realized how much more painful that was! By this point though, everything hurt already so it didn't matter. With 3km left, the 10km race also joined in - this was the only part where I felt like the race was poorly managed, as the 'runners' at this point were really walkers...slow ones. Lots of dodging - eventually I stopped caring and just sort of started clearing my path however I needed to (gently...ish...come on people, you don't need to hold hands or walk four across in the middle of a race!)

All throughout, I felt pretty strong. I was nervous for the first 10km, having doubts when I thought about running for another 3+ hours. But as the kilometers ticked by, I realized I was feeling pretty good and actually picking up speed, running the 2nd 10km in 57 minutes (which was probably too fast...) I'm not sure if I ever exactly 'hit the wall' - at least not as bad as in previous marathons. It got tough around Mile 22, but I got it back after walking through a couple water points. There weren't a lot of spectators - and it seemed like most of them really only cheered for the people they knew. Of course, there were some good cheerers - including Jacob, who covered several miles himself trying to get around the course. He managed to get to the course right after that long uphill, which was a great pick-me-up!

The final 200m of the race was really exciting for me - not because I was racing anyone in particular, but because I was SO close to my PR, I knew it, and I truly, actually gave it everything I got. I was sprinting as much as I could sprint after 4 hours of running, and I'm positive that I was making noises reminiscent of a dying animal, but it was such a great feeling. In regular life, you rarely get to feel like you are pushing yourself to the very limit, and that is pretty awesome!