First Medal of 2009

The Great Eastern 30k and 20k run began on the 18th of January. This is my first medal of the year 2009. Its been slightly more then a year when I first started to run in this sort of "competition".

It was scheduled to be flagged of at 6:00 am but the 30k was flagged of 15 mins late. I began my 20k run at 6:30 am. The people planning the route were either sadistic or just wanted to see the runners suffer physically and/or mentally when doing this run. The amount of hills that we had to cover is "challenging", and when we thought we were going home scott free, we were greeted with more hills and made to suffer climbs until the last 1km into the finishing line.

There were many pacesetter members who had kept motivating me to the finish line, but the motivator of the day must have been Alex (Powered by Jesus fame). He kept me company for the last 3 km to ensure that i finished in good time.

I was quite pleased with my time (ie shaving of 30 minutes from previous 20k run time) and completed the course in a comfortable 2 hours 45mins. For someone who is quite heavy set, fighting diabetes and water retention, i think i did fairly OK.

Statistics from my Garmin:-
Average Speed : 8km/hr
Pace: 7 min 30 per km
Average Heart Rate :160 (Max 173)
Calories : 2095