Bidor Half Marathon

I must say this is the best medal in my collection so far.

For people who don't know where is Bidor, it's a small town 130km away from KL city. Travel there takes about 1.5 hours.

Technically this is my first half marathon race even though I have completed several 21km trainings and a couple of 28km and 30km training.

CP and me reached Bidor at about 7.30pm last night. After taking the bibs, we proceed to survey the race route. It involves two 10km routes. One towards the south and one to the north. We have to u-turn back after hitting the 5km point in each of these routes.

Since we stay overnight in Slim River, we had to wake up at 5.15am and start the journey to Bidor at 5.45am. We reached Bidor town slightly earlier than expected at 6.10am. There are already a lot of runners ahead of us.

Before the start of the race, CP asked whether we should set a target for this race. I told him we should just treat this as a training run and go with the comfortable pace.

All these were forgotten the moment the race starts. We were pacing close to 5.5mins for the first km. I told CP we were going too quick and need to slow down. The 2nd km is relatively slower but still it's at 6mins pace. The funny thing is I felt comfortable with this pace. So instead of trying to control and slow down, I just continue with the pace as long as my body feels comfortable with it.

I reached 10km marker in 56mins. This is my personal best for 10k.

In the 2nd half of the race, we have to go through some hilly terrain, also some gravel road towards the end of 15km. Another factor is the scorching heat when we reached 17km mark. I can barely keep the running pace after that.

At 2km from the finishing line, I abandon the run all the way to the finish plan. I started to walk and run. I realised this method didn't really slow me down. When I run, I can run faster after the walking break. In fact, I have the reserve energy to out sprint a few runners to the finishing line:)

Last 100 meters dash

My timing: 2:03:10