Mizuno Run 2009

It was a very productive week both in work and running.

I managed to get the mileage up again and hopefully can maintain it there for the next 3 weeks despite the knee problem.

My knee started acting up again after the 10k run on Monday. I managed to run through the slight pain throughout the week and the good thing is it didn't worsen.

The problem shifted to the right knee this time and it's quite different from the injury I had before SCKLM. This time the pain occur every time I stretch out my leg. So in order to prevent the pain, I have to land my leg as softly as possible and push it back further than usual to compensate.

Luckily this hasn't caused any big imbalance to the running style so far.

At first I wasn't quite sure whether this style of running will enable me to run at 6 mins pace until I tested it out in the Mizuno Run this morning. I has tested it at 7.5 to 8 mins pace before and it was working fine.

More about the Mizuno Run.

I started the run this morning among the big crowd and wasn't even aware that the race has been flagged off until I saw the front runners sped off the starting line.

Then it was 2-3km of runners sardine. I had to run off the road many times to get ahead of slower runners. The track started to clear out after 3km and that's when I started to pick up the pace slightly into my cruising speed.

According to my GPS, I reached 5km mark at 28:38 with average pace of 5:43 per km. Way beyond my initial expectation:)

I reached the 8km mark at 44:56 and average pace improved to 5:37 per km after the crowd clear out.

The route become more hilly after that. Despite that I managed to maintain the steady pace and reached the 10km mark at 56:43, still keeping the pace up at 5:40 per km.

The biggest challenge of this run is the last 1km before returning to the stadium. I think the organiser meant to make it the "heart-break hill" for this run. I had to walk some 200m up this hill to catch my breath before speeding all the way to the finishing line.

My race time: 64:14. Average pace 5:43.

Total mileage this week: 46km