10km Time Trials

With the feasting during this CNY, I am still up by 2kg...hovering around 66-67kg. Wow, and we are already tapering for HK marathon...haha. Well, with the CNY holiday mood still in the air, there weren't many runs for this week...so decided to go do my own 10km time trial in my kampong. The sun was up and it was glaring even at 6.30pm...so I slapped on my sun-block, put on my Gel Speedstar, and off I went. It was 4min+ when I turned into Lorong Ah Soo...still on track, and 11min when I hit the billboard at the end of the road...about 2.4km mark. I hastened my pace to try to push myself further. The shoes were really slight, and provided just about the right cushion feel for such a run.

Reached Kovan MRT area around 20min+...hmm, normal timing. Reached entrance to Braddel Road in 33min+...good, gained some seconds. Increased the speed since I felt quite strong yet, and reached the nursery along Upper Paya Lebar Road in 40min+...wow, PB timing. Wasted about 15 secs crossing the road, then maintained speed for the remaining 1km. Touched the home gate in 45min27sec...gotta be the best timing for this route...yeah, another PB...haha. Could it be the shoes or the increased weight/power? hmm...will investigate into it later. Meanwhile, will do another 10km time trial at SAFRA MF tomorrow...

Distance: 10km__Time: 45min27sec__Pace: 4:33min/km


Turned up early for the SAFRA MF 10km Time Trials on Thursday, as I was still on CNY vacation :). As I was early, did a short warm-up was spotted a few runners coming in for the run. Quite a smallish turnout...the runners could still be in holiday mood...haha. A brief of the 10km route (Clubhouse -> Henderson -> Harbourfront -> Kampung Bahru -> MF hill -> MF loop -> Morse Rd -> Harbourfront -> Telok Blangah Rise) was conducted by Trainer Ong, with chairman taking timings. This was to be a test for all to prepare for the 10km MF Hill race sometime in June.

I started off a little too fast, drafted by the many enthusiastic runners 'chionging' to the front. I decided to slowdown once I turned towards Harbourfront to maintain a constant, steady pace...I had to be careful not to exert myself ahead of the HK Marathon next week. My breathing was steady throughout, and the legs were ok, despite the previous evening's personal time trial. Maybe I wasn't pushing it, as Bug mentioned when he passed me near to Kampong Bahru (he was doing his 5km recovery run). I climbed the slope to MF from Kampong Bahru with caution, but still felt very 'chuan' when I reached the top. From there, it was downslope and I took care not to be too 'loose' else I would lose control and have my legs take the beating.

I was a little surprised to see Kumaran when I exited out from Morse Road. I found out later he had slight leg pains and was taking it real easy. I too decided to tag from behind Kumaran for a while, before overtaking him at Telok Blangah Rise. I opened up my stride to do a relatively strong finish in 47min According to trainer Ong and chairman, not a bad effort by me. The rest of the runners did even better, with Teck Hou breaking the course record in 40min, Ong doing 42min, Melvin 43min, Jimmy 44min, Derrick 45min, just to mention a few of the front-runners. The final person came in 1hr4min, which was respectable for this quite hilly course. After a good stretch-out conducted by our in-house 'stretch therapist', I had my favourite Red Rice Wine Chicken for dinner....yummy!

Distance: 10km__Time: 47min43sec__Pace: 4:46min/km