adidas King of the Road 2009

With my buddy BP near the finish line of adidas KOTR.


I achieved my personal best in half marathon in the adidas King of the Road 2009. I finished the 22km race in 1:58:48, under 2 hours.

My buddy BP finished under the qualifying time of 2:20:00. He just missed out on the medal by a minute. Only 350 medals were given out for the Men Open category. I heard from him his knee didn't give him problem, which was a good sign. It was our first race after the SCKLM09.

I set out this morning (when I stood on the starting line) to try to dip under 2 hours. It was a long shot as I've never done it before. In Bidor Half Marathon, I only managed about 2:05. Also this route looks hilly on paper as I remember it.

Anyway, I just pushed myself as hard as possible. Especially after 13km mark, when KC Leong was side-by-side with me. There were several climbs including one steep one near the end. I was glad I trained a lot in Taman Bukit Jalil. The steep climbing became not so punishing, even at closing stage of the race. I managed to overtook many runners climbing on the hills.

The last climb before the finish, there were many 11km runners blocking the way. Many of them were walking up the hill. I decided to go to the right side of the road near the divider. I was chasing time and I stayed as near as the divider as possible as the cars were still moving along the right lane of the road.

Finally, I managed to come in to the stadium and was beaming with big smile on my face. Not sure anyone got my finishing photos. Sayang if nobody took any photo of me.

Thank you Tey for this photo!

Anyway, I met some of my online friends today. Chuah and Kwang Leng were there. I talked to them briefly after introducing myself. I also congratulated Julia, who trained in Taman Bukit Jalil too. She finished the race about the same time as I. But I know very well, she can do better.

I managed to took some photos with my DSLR only about 9:30am. I took more time to warm down and rested. I pushed myself to almost my limit I think.

My race log:

21.97km (from Suunto GPS POD), 1:58:48, average HR 160 bpm (wah lau!), peak 173. I ran almost the entire race with my HR above 80%! Split time at 11km was 58:05.

The other point is I lost 2 kg when I weigh myself after the race. Calories burned was 1502 calories in just 2 hours!

Ok, I will write more on this later. I have to pack for an overseas business trip this evening.

You can check out the photos in my Multiply site or Facebook.

Updated 8/8/09:

My split time here:

km, split time, lap time, ave HR
1 00:05:18 00:05:18 143
2 00:10:08 00:04:50 158
3 00:14:59 00:04:51 159
4 00:20:00 00:05:01 160
5 00:25:17 00:05:17 160
6 00:30:44 00:05:27 159
7 00:35:47 00:05:03 159
8 00:40:48 00:05:01 163
9 00:46:15 00:05:27 161
10 00:52:26 00:06:11 157
11 00:58:05 00:05:39 160
12 01:03:26 00:05:21 161
13 01:09:12 00:05:46 162
14 01:14:41 00:05:29 159
15 01:19:57 00:05:16 163
16 01:25:10 00:05:13 163
17 01:31:13 00:06:03 158
18 01:36:48 00:05:35 159
19 01:42:26 00:05:38 162
20 01:48:08 00:05:42 163
21 01:53:40 00:05:32 165
21.97 01:58:47 00:05:07 167