Friday, November 6, 2009

Sabah Climbathon 2009 - DNF

As expected, I did not manage to finish the race. I was slower than last year on the ascent and trained less than last year. Dismal results aside the Sabah Climbathon is still my favourite race as it offers beautiful scenery, mostly serious runners and very demanding route. It is hard from start to finish. Yes I have to do a little of the loser's dance to console myself for not finishing. Yes, the main reason for my dismal performance is not enough training. However after a little thought, I am unsure if I have the genes to finish the race under the men's timing of 4:30. VO2 Max can only be trained to a certain extent and it is not like I am in my 20s anymore. I might just have to face the fact that I will likely only complete the race when I turn veteran. Anyway, it is not like I am not going to try anyway.

I even tabulated my last year's progress versus this year. I am not going to embarrass myself by putting the results out but I was about 12 mins faster to the 6km mark. I did remember last year my legs were already shaking by the time I got to Laban Rata. This year I took it easy and I felt fine at Laban Rata. With my time, there was no way I was going to make the summit by 2:30 hours so I turned back before the cut off time. I crossed the line around 4 hours but I did not take the medal because I did not earn it.

After the race, I did jot down some pointers for myself next year. Within the time span of a year, my mind tends to forget how difficult the race is. So I had to give myself notes on what I need to do to complete this race. For example,
1."Don't race with the person going downhill, go at your own pace."
2."Practice uphill. Go up faster as I am not very good coming down."
3."I need to clock up to 2 hours up on stairs and then go do a fast 10k trail run as part of the training."
4."Go for a recce trip to Mt K at least one month before. Do a one day to Sayap Sayap and another trip to the summit."
etc.
The plan is always easier than the execution.

For this year's race, I am rather disappointed that no Malaysian lady got a podium finish. Our best bet was Danny Kuilin. She's 40+ and still the best Kinabalu women runner Malaysia has to offer. Unfortunately, no one is giving her a run for the money. Where's the young blood?

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