Bareno Run 2011

It's almost 6 months since my 1st serious practice in Sept 2010, so many runs have passed by with almost 500Km mileage done. Bareno is my 1st official half marathon, eventhough I did the Putrajaya Twilight 22Km but it wasn't an official one for me, it was more a trial run ( ya, end up walked 3km for the final 4km). But Twilight run gave me an idea on how I should pace myself to complete a half marathon, how I run 10-12km will not work for 21km coz I would have drained out all my energy by 17th-18th km.

For Bareno, luckily I managed to get a friend to pace me for the 1st 7km, he was a veteran that has completed full marathon before and he is not a fast runner, just nice for me to pace myself not to run too fast in early part of the run. Well, he is not the guy in this photo, this guy is another run buddy that I look forward to complete the race together but only saw him as the finishing line. :D

I brought 2 energy gel pack for this run, eventhough the advice from runners is not to try new things in any race, but I did it anyway. The 1st pack was an apple flavor gel, started to consume it at 8th km throughout the next 1km and 2nd pack was chocolate flavor which I had tried b4, that was consumed around 11th km. Surprisingly ( or regretfully ?), I skipped the energy gel provided by the organizer around 14th km.

Like Twilight run, my legs started to experience numbness at 18th km but the feeling was not that strong, at 19th km , my right thigh started to feel cramp that I had to give a few punches to keep it relaxed...lol!

I survived through the 19th km up hill and managed to give a push sprint towards the finishing line at 21th km. The result of 2:20 is not too bad eventhough my target for 21km this year is 2:10 or below, hopefully coming Standard Chart KL Marathon I will be able to reach that target. Energizer night race I shall try to push to 2:15.

In conclusion, Bareno is a nice run with plenty of carpark, nice breakfast provided after run and most importantly, a very nice blue finisher t-shirt that can wear for daily run or teh tarik session, :D

Lesson to take home, need to do more 15-18km practice to make sure I am gear up for a nice 21km finishing next time.

What's next ? Kidney Day run 5km which I shall try to attempt for a sprint to win top 5, hopefully no professional runner on this tiny event....lol