Accidental Winner

For my first ever race in Singapore, I decided to do Run-A-Movie 8K race at the East Coast Park this morning. Given I only arrived in the country 3 weeks ago and still acclimatizing to the hot/humid conditions, my goal is to run under 4:00 min/km for the whole 8k (sub 32 minutes).

I always know that races organized by charity groups typically have two characteristics: 1) the distance is normally inaccurate (typically short), and 2) average field depth. And it turned out that my prediction is right. The course was measured as 7.1k according to My Garmin 305. And I ended up the overall winner...accidentally that is !!

Arrived at the park pretty early and did 4k warm up incl several strides and lined up at the front. After the gun went off, I was probably in the 5th position by the first 100-200m. Then the runners began to disappear left and right and I was second by the 1k mark. The runner in front had a good gap of about 100m on me and I continued to tail him. Reached the 3k mark (according to Garmin) in 11:51 (3:57 pace). To my surprise, we turned around 500m later, meaning the course was short. I began to sweat heavily at this juncture as the temperature went up. Was clicking at 4:01 pace for the next couple of ks and maintained the 100-150m gap with the front runner. I then had a little side stich and the guy upped the ante in the last 1000-1600m, by increasing the gap to 200-300m. The finish line was behind a food court and I didn't see him again after that. I crossed the '8k' line in 28:21. But according to garmin, the distance was only 7.1k, hence my av pace was 4:00 - which is what I planned to run at.

Not a fast time given I did tempo training runs at this pace when I was back in Australia. But given the hot weather and high humidity, I am fairly pleased. There are still a lot of work to do in order to get back to my 'cool weather' PBs in Australia and to exceed them. The good thing is that I could run a bit faster today since I wasn't pushing super hard. The field was thin - the front guy was 100-200m ahead while the 3rd place guy was 400m behind me, hence I was 'safe' in the middle. Anyway, I'd call it a hard tempo run.

At the winners' ceremony, the organizer announced the 3rd place guy's name as the 2nd place winner. Was my number not recorded? A few seconds later, they announced my name as the 8k winner for the Open category and Overall. I was surprised and honestly told the presenters and the guest of honour that I am actually a second place finisher and not the winner.

A couple of possibilites exist: a) they guy's number wasn't recorded, b) he didn't register but decided to race anyway, or 3) he was doing a tempo training run and he didn't cross the finish line and ran to another route. To whoever this 'phantom runner' is, you are the real winner, mate !

For my troubles, I received 4 movie tickets + ryder sunglass + medal.

Training wise, this week was as follows:

Tuesday, 13/11: Fartlek
20:00 ez + 3 x 1k @ 10k pace with 2:00 rest (4:02/167bpm, 405/172, 3:55/175) + 4 x 200m with 1:20 jog (39, 42, 44, 38). Splits were all over the place again as Garmin had troubles receiving signals. Couldn't find a long stretch of road alongside the river, hence did the 1ks intervals on 500m section (turnaround). Felt crap.

Wednesday, 14/11: Recovery Run
A cruisy run along the river in the evening, 37minutes, av. pace 5:33, HR 143 bpm

Thursday, 15/11: Easy-to-Moderate Run
15:00 ez to Padang, then 3.2k @ Medium Tempo effort (4:18 pace/170bpm) on grassy field, 3 x 00:20 strides, 15:00 ez All up, 46 minutes, av. pace 4:52, HR 159 bpm. Nice to be able to run on grass again !!

Friday, 16/11: Recovery Run
30:00 along the river again, finishing with 2 strides, av 5:21.

Saturday, 17/11: Race
4k warm up incl strides, 7.1k 'race/tempo' in 28:12, 5k cool down. Total 16k.