31. süderelbe halbmarathon, hamburg

it was the worst running condition i've ever experienced. on top of that, all the stress that had been lingering around since a couple of days didn't cheer me up. i wasn't in any great form to begin with. my day started as follows :

i was busy with work till late in the wee hours cos the project has to be submitted on monday (pressure! pressure!). at 2:30 am i've decided to call it a day/night. then i realised that today is the beginning of winter time, that means, the hour turns back an hour. at exactly 3 am the clock moves forward/backward to 2 am. my funkuhr (clock) was the first to bring "good" news to me - it just died at 2:58 am (low battery). and i couldn't find any aa battery at all in the middle of the night! wish i could turn back the clock (johnny hates jazz). just my luck. talking about luck, it also means that i have an extra hour to sleep tonight. wishful thinking. couldn't sleep well, not because that i'm nervous for the run later, it was just that my stomach was making a din. no such thing as carbo loading for me - i had eaten only 2 frozen tunafish croques last night cos of the damn work - no time to cooklah. anyway, i can't cook :-)!

woke up at 7:45 am and the weather was wonderful outside - lightning and thunderstorm. should i stay or should i go (clash)? ahhh... maybe the weather in southern elbe is better. so after the usual procedures, i packed up my stuffs and drove to harburg - a 25 km journey. i was right. the weather was better here, the sun shines.

runners running to the starting point

as i arrived, we were being marshalled to park our cars. great. as i stepped out of the car, my fear came smacking on my face - windy, very, very windy. urrggghhh... due to the sunshine most of the runners decided to wear short tights and t-shirt. i had my long tights and long-sleeve running t-shirt. i hate wind! even if i were to feel too warm, that could be a good training for the coming scsm. so went to the school hall to collect my bib number. it was like a family reunion, seeing all the familiar faces again and again. met my running mates in the hall and it seemed as if all of them weren't that eager to run in the windy situation.

at the start, a running mate asked me how fast do i want to run today? i told him i don't know and i won't be as fast as him anyway. he stills hallucinating that i could run at his tempo becos during interval trainings, he would always be overtaken by me (note : 200 - 400 m only). the start began at exactly 10 am. i had my mp3 (as usual) to guide me through the run. it was okay for the first 3 km and i thought that i ran a bit too fast for the start. after catching up with one of my running mate, we began running together for the next 4 km. each and everytime that we overtook someone, that person hanged behind us (if he could) and sometimes do the leading. at 6 km point, we were a bunch of 7 guys and a lady running together.

running at this area (orchard) was an adventure. the orchard is few hundreds years old already (or was it thousand?) and it is the biggest in europe. the asphalt path is almost impossible. with lobangs almost everywhere, you have to be careful not to sprained your legs or get stuck in horse dungs. and it is somehow slanted! you have to be alert. and the weather? just perfect - strong winds blowing either from the side or front.

the energy trying to run against the wind was enormous. apart from that, keeping pace with my colleague was not really a good idea cos at 7 km point i had to slow down a bit due to stitches. so i let my colleague and the rest ran away from me and did my own tempo till the turning point. fun thing was that you could see who's the first guy and his competitors. i gave thumbs up to all my other running mates (they were much faster than i was, well almost all :-)).

on way back my stitches were gone and i felt better. i started to put up a little tempo and managed to overtake a few. moment later, it started to drizzle and then poured heavily. wah... suey! i was wet, i hate it again! by the way, the wind was there all along, blowing from the sides and back. did i mention about the temperature? it was around 12° celsius. not to mention the slanting asphalt path! i soon caught up the lady from before and i decided to accompany her for a few kilometers. then she told me to go ahead but i wasn't able to run any faster! but i did run ahead, not because i'm faster, it was just that she slowed down.

for the last 4 km i managed to overtake only two person but stayed close to the guy in front of me. after 18 km point, i was gasping for oxygen. only 3.1 km to go, relax! i told myself. unfortunately, i couldn't find any km marks anymore, so i had to run blindly - follow the guy in front. es war wirklich zum kotzen! after turning left and right, i finally saw the letters 100 m to the finishing lines. right at the end, a young guy (18 yrs old) sprinted away and overtook the both of us. as i crossed the line, i stopped my stopwatch and was sooooo happy that i managed to do a sub 1:34 hr. i didn't realised that behind me were few guys and two ladies battling for the places, all within seconds from each other. who cares! i did it despite all these "bad" conditions.