343rd Place Ain't So Shabby

The Singapore Marathon released the race results today, and I'm really kinda excited. Relative to the field, I did better than I previously thought. (no I still didn't win, but that's OK). They have a cool graphically-intensive way of looking at your running data, based on the electronic timing chip that was mounted on the shoe (I put it on my left shoe because that's my faster one! jk) Go HERE if you'd like to see the results directly from their website.

Taking a look at some of the graphics, the one at the top of this post first shows that I finished in 343rd place out of a total of 7,205 marathon finishers. That's in the Top 5%. (cool!)

Then, they break down the data by gender (I finished 303rd out of 6,317 male finishers):

Out of all males, age 35 to 39, I finished 47th out of 832:

Then, the data starts getting to be more than most of us would probably want to know. Things like pace (I averaged 8min, 50 sec per mile), speed (I averaged 6.8 mph), and even splits -- where you can see how your pace changed during the race. The chart below shows what my body was already telling me -- I was slowing down as the race wore on:

I also did a bit of research to see what the "papers" have been saying about the race. It seems that a whole lot of people thought the heat and humidity were severe. THIS article is just one example.

Probably most notable was THIS article about Olympian Mark Steinle, who was a top British runner making his long-awaited comeback. As you can read in the article, he suffered dearly and was reduced to walking the end of the race. Finished in 3hrs, 15min -- over an hour longer than his personal best. He vomited up water, thought about quitting a hundred times, and then kept shivering even back in the hotel. No, not a good day for the British champion.

Today is Wednesday, three days after the race. I've managed to get two recovery workouts in, just to try to work out the aches and pains that my legs are still exhibiting. I am actually moving around pretty well, and am looking forward to leaving Thailand tomorrow for good ol' KL. Chris is coming up from Singapore so that we can show him the town. How very fun is that?!

I'm glad that I crossed the line in 343rd place. Top 5% is something to be proud of. Now... back to getting some rest....

greg