I had some pretty quick runs at the beginning, overtook the 5 hrs pacers. I had two splits that are at 5 mins pace. But paying the price later down the race. I adopt the run/walk strategy. The field is a bit packed at the beginning and make it difficult to run smoothly. It takes a few km before the field started to spread out a bit. The waterpoints are a little bit crowded at the beginning but it is still well organized. I consumed my first pack of gel at 10km. My 10km split is 1:09:01 which is right on the mark. My run/walk strategy stopped at around 17km when I had my first cramp on my right foot. It is around the lower part of the right hand side of the shin. I knew that it is vulnerable point. I have a similar cramp in the Realrun and recently had some involuntary muscle contraction on it even in resting time. The initial fast pace possibly make it worse. I had to switch to pure walking. My initial plan is to use the run/walk till 25-30km in order to catch the 5 hr 30 minutes finish time. But now, have to settle on 5:45 finish time. I pop the second pack of gel at 18km.
My half marathon split is at 2 hr 36 minutes. Only 6 minutes off the schedule pace. I collected another pack of gel distributed by the race organised which I consume it at 24km. I like the taste of the Gu Gel, both the strawberry banana and tri-berry are nice. The chocolate is only so-so. At the 30km mark, I stopped at the sgrunners group for about 3 minutes. Have a biscuit, a drink and another pack of gel. When I hit the stadium link at around 33km, fatigue started to hit me. I can no longer keep the 7km/h target pace and slowed down to 9 min to 10 mins. My back also started to have fatigue and painful. The body is telling me to stop and lying down but I just continue, counting the step, targeting runners to pass. I was still possible to finish at 5:45. I consumed my 5th pack of gel at 34km. When I was on the Crawford Lane and the underpass of Nicoll highway, I saw Esther. She has a real problem in going up the slope. I slowed down the joined her. She supposed on a 5hr 30mins target but her back pain started to slow her down. It was only 4km from finish line. I walked with her and chat with her at a slower 11mins pace. She stopped for some deep heat rub for her back and right foot. After that, she feel better and started running again. I try to re-start running, but just 200m, the cramp on my right foot came back. I just brisk walk to the last 250m and run to the finish line.
Overall time is 5:51:19 according to my watch. Gun time is about 5:53. It is an improvement from teh 6:01 time that I had last year. But I really need to sort out my right foot problem. Otherwise, I may not finish within the cutoff time in HK marathon.
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