MPIB Run 2013: Race Review

Disappointing. Lacking. Painful.

That clearly sums up my horrible race start at the MPIB Run for the new year. I'm not going to beat myself over it though and will just move on and work on improving what I've lost. The past four weeks has seen me doing very laughable mileage, not intentional but due to injuries and it clearly showed in my fitness level which was also laughable.

The wife and me got to the race location early cos with the closure of the Bukit Aman car park, we knew parking was going to be a hot commodity. In fact we were a little late cos the moment we got a parking bay at the Lake Gardens car park, the place filled up instantly. Another 5 minutes too late and we would have been in trouble.

What?!! You took how long to finish a 12K?!!

Took a short warm up run at Lake Gardens and headed to the race start location with the wife who was there to lend support cos she opted out of this run. The race started on time and I opted to go into a conservative pace and pick up later on in the race. Save the energy for the hills, that was my plan but fate had other plans.

Right from the start I knew my race was in trouble when I couldn't even get up to speed. Trying to maintain my regular start pace was an effort and I wasn't even 2km into the race! By the time we hit the first set of hills, I was panting like a pervert on steroids! Damn, I've still got 9 freaking kilometers or so to go, with a lot more inclines thrown in and I was in trouble already.

I had little choice but to push on. The pace was all over the place and it was basically like that for the entire race. By that time, all I wanted to was to finish the race, to hell with timing, not that I had any choice in that matter. Though suffering, things were going okay until around the 8km mark when I was struck by cramps in my right thigh! I was flabbergasted, I'm getting cramps at the 8k mark of a 12k race and I knew at that point my race was officially ruined. No way in hell could I salvage any semblance of a decent race time.

I just struggled along with the run/walk method for the last 3km and prayed that the finish line would appear soon. And after 1:12:41, a whole 7 minutes off last year's timing, I finally crossed the finish and hobbled over to collect my medal.

The pain is clearly evident on my face ... pix courtesy of Lina.

A lot of work needs to be done to make up for loss training time and this drop in fitness level. I don't have any races signed up till March and I'm going to use the time to get back to proper speed and fitness. The training proper restarts from next week and I'm going to put my entire being into it but of course not to the point of getting injured again, something that happens easily to me. Getting injured was the culprit for this dip in form in the first place.

After the race, I met up with Ivan and Adeline of Skechers Malaysia, together with Yvonne and chit chatted about, what else, but running shoes ... LOL! A congrats goes out to Yvonne for 4th placing in her category.

I also gave the Skechers GOrun 2 its first race test and while my race outcome wasn't so good, the shoe on the other hand worked well. Though a tad bit narrower in fit and I had to lace them a little looser to cater for feet expansion, I hardly felt the shoe on my feet. For a lightweight shoe the cushioning was awesome and the grip on the downhill stretches, some of which were pretty steep, was excellent. Now if only my results had done justice to the shoe.

Took some photos with Lina before taking the long walk back to Lake Gardens to meet the wife who was doing her training over there while waiting for me to finish.