Adidas King of the Road 2007

As much as I'd like to give the event thumbs up because my good friend, Mori, was apart of the organizing committee, I really have to say that I've seen better races. Though, in his defence, he wasn't exactly dealing with the technicalities of the race. He was in charge of the banner, the booths, the overall publicity of the event...i think. =)

The race could do with more water stations with plain water served instead of semi-chilled 100 plus. And the marshals should have been taught to give out the ribbons in a more organized manner rather that struggle to un-clump them. And the prize giving for positions 1-10 (not that i was involved in this) was so badly done, with medals missing, and making the winners wait for over an hour...

But perhaps my impression on the race could be partly marred by the fact that I wasn't having a very good race day. The reset button on my watch decides to jam up, so i couldnt reset the timer, AND I was abruptly disturbed by my tummy's erratic behaviour just around the 7 km mark. Yup, the history of last year's SJ10K repeats itself. My stomach began to churn around the 7 km mark of the race. I tried to will it away and the pain subsided for a while. I managed to move on pass the u-turn, and a little further on until I came to a Caltex station just 1-2 km away from the "5 km to go" sign. The moment i saw an opportunity to get a toilet break, all the pain came rushing back and the need to go bombarded me with such urgency that i could not ignore it any longer.

anyway, i went...even used the Gents no less...because the Ladies was occupied. After that I seemed to have lost my momentum. A momentum which I had built up to a pretty good height while running alongside Adrian and Jason. I could've sworn I would've completed that race in under 2 hours had i not gone through all of the above. So the last 6 kms or so was completed in a partial run partial walk fashion, much to my disappointment. I had really bad stitches in my sides, hence the walks.

I came in at about 2 hours 2 minutes. Which would be an amazing time if i had run 21 kms. But sadly, it was a measly 19 km race. Therefore, the promising sub 6 minute/km pace plummets disgracefully to a 6.45 minute/km pace. *heavy sigh*.

And to top off my rather "eventful" King of the Road race, I lost to my dad. Which, doesn't really come as a surprise since he trained ran every single morning since many many months ago. I reckon his fitness level is about 5 times better than my fitness level. but yea...hurts the ego nonetheless...

but...all's fair in love and war...and I enjoyed the race in the end. I have 2 sore knees and a bruised ego, but it was a good run. NPE is now on my conquered list of highways on foot...=)