SCSM Breakdown

(How I'm going to do this is look purely at race data from Garmin and Strava first, and then annotate it with thoughts along the way)

We flagged off at 0438hrs. Pushing all the way to the front of Pen C was genuinely okay and any sort of crowd kind of cleared up within the first 500m because everyone was running decently fast at Pen C. I started off behind Nicholas Rachmadi and some other folks who were aiming for 1.40, thinking that it'll be nice to try to break 1.40 together. Saw Deyuan at the start too.

KM 1 - 4.33 / 165 avg / 175 spm. I think my watch was a little short throughout the whole thing, but it was accurate enough. First km felt smooth, clearing crowd.

KM 2 - 4.42 / 177 avg / 173 spm. At this point I was a little concerned about my heart rate and my body made the subconscious decision to slow down.

KM 3 and 4 - 4.47 / 181 avg / 174spm, 4.44/ 181 / 172. Ticking off the kms, still concerned about my heart rate but ATP was running behind this guy doing the full and just tagging along with him. Felt fine, just decided to focus and tick the kms off. No big hiccup. Saw RIXC junior Jonny zoom by me.

KM 5 - 4.54 / 182 / 171. still didn't feel too bad. Went by 2 aid stations grabbing minimal amount of water (1 cup) and even less isotonic drinks, which was a bad idea (read on). Saw Jonny stop to stretch by the road side and had the energy to cheer him on. Pace was dropping off but wasn't too concerned, b/c it was still early in the race. 5k split officially at 24.01, so right on 4.50 pace.

KM 6 - 4.53 / 182 / 172. Chatted with the guy I was running with to find out that he was way off pace too, way faster than what he'd planned. Couldn't find some guy that I wanted to run 1.40 with (and true enough he was definitely way ahead in terms of pacing when I looked at the results later) and was pretty disheartened. First few thoughts of not making 1.40 crept in, but was okay. Told myself to still carry on.

KM 7 and 8 - 4.55 / 183 / 171, 4.54 / 183 / 169. Started to get passed by other runners whom I'd passed earlier. Definitely demoralising and fatigue started to set in, could no longer hold my pace.

KM 9 - 5.12. Not going to record HR and splits here b/c I think there no longer is any point in doing so. I started getting confused -- my body wasn't responding to efforts in trying to up the pace, perhaps because I knew that there was Sheares coming up. More people started passing me.

KM 10 - 5.14. When I saw Sheares, I knew immediately that I was cooked. Terribly demoralising. I fought against the thought of walking up part of it, but folded and walked for 2 mins up the damn bridge. Rationale was to recoup losses and refocus for post-Sheares climb, and since struggling up at a jogging speed wasn't going to make much sense either. Saw Kien Mau (ex-coach) halfway up the bridge. Official 10k split at 49.29. Goal had now shifted to sub 1.45. Was cooked.

KM 11-16: 6.29 (bridge), 5.24, 5.26, 5.35, 5.53, 5.48. These splits were difficult and I didn't get why I was slowing down that much. My ability to push and maintain sub 5 splits were just completely gone. What made it worse was that I was still rushing through the aid stations within this stretch (i think) and was more concerned about why I was not being able to hold my pace, with a ton of other people overtaking me.

The first few niggles of cramps started coming in at around 16.5km (if I recall correctly), with my left lower calf flaring up first. I stumbled a little and then decided to take it easier for a bit.

It just went downhill from there. The first time I realised how bad they were was when I had to stop along the long Marina Barrage straight because my left quad completely seized up. Then it just got worse and worse, until the point that I couldn't move (at 18-19k) and had to wait until all the cramps had subsided before stretching because any movement will just cause the cramps to flare up again.

It was excruciating, having to do a cycle of walk / jog / stop / stretch / hold-the-side-barrier-in-complete-agony before repeating. People were huffing and puffing and blowing past me but how I'd wished that I'd be suffering in that aspect -- I'd experienced it so many times in cross country races, the only limiting factor was now my legs that were literally immobile. Aerobic pain sucked, but muscular-shearing pain is way more debilitating; there was absolutely nothing I could do.

The last 2km felt extremely long. Yea. That's where I'll stop recounting (and reliving) the horrors.