Half Marathon

Tomorrow, I'll join more than 50,000 runners in taking part in StanChart's annual run event; the Singapore Marathon.  When I first started participating in the run, it was in the modest 10 km category, which if memory serves, was in 2005.  Looking back, I was quite fit then because I clocked about 55 mins for the run, which translated to less than 6 mins per km.  For someone on the wrong side of 35 then, this was quite a feat.  But then again, I was training more frequently then and I had stopped smoking for a while.  But I stopped running thereafter and picked up smoking again when my life went through a bad patch.   And while I've written about starting to run again, I'm sad to say that I've never quite regained that level of fitness and stamina I used to have.

Anyway, fast forward to 2013, and I've been in a few more runs since, although not all organised by StanChart.  I did my first half marathon in end-2011 and clocked 3 hrs 16 mins and 10 secs.  Even for amateurs, this is nothing to shout about in public and insignificant to brag about even to close friends.  In fact, a decent timing would be within 2.5 hrs, and some of my friends managed to achieve this in their first attempts.  So, for this year, that's the target I've set for myself and I hope to achieve this or at least finished within 3 hrs.  One of my colleagues, Eliza, is also running the half marathon.  While I hate to be competitive, I hope to do as well as her as she's quite fit :)

The question, of course, is whether I've trained enough this time round.  I don't think so, but I believed I'm better prepared than in 2011.  So there's cautious optimism in my heart and I'm excited about stepping off the starting line tomorrow.  It'll be a gruelling run and I'm sure I'll ask myself at some point why I signed up in the first place.  But running builds fortitude and perseverance, at least to me, and I believe it'll stand me in good stead in life, both physically and emotionally.  So wish me luck and pray that I'll do well tomorrow.  Don't worry, I don't intend to push myself beyond what my body can bear.  I'm a married man and I've a wife to think about, so I'll be mindful of not doing something stupid like testing the threshold of my physical limits.  In any case, this should be done gradually in a way that one's body can get used to.  It shouldn't be tried on a whim and certainly not when one's reaching the 4th cycle of his zodiac sign! 

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