Penang Run 2013

Due to my knee injury, I wasn't sure that I would go for the run until the evening before the race.  Eventually, due to the urge to run, I had decided to go.

During the warm up run, my left knee wasn't as normal as before.  Anyway, my target was just to finish the run within the qualifying time of 2.5 hours.

I was at the very last of the queue at the starting point.  I started up the run very very slowly and carefully.  At the 1st uphill, I was feeling okay and started to pass other runners very comfortably.  I was very careful during the downhill.  I was almost "limping" during downhill as I know I still have a long way to go.  Unfortunately, the pain started again right after the downhill.  It was ~ 4km.  It was the distant that I ran before I experienced the severe pain.

I then decided to walk.  During that time, I noticed a lot of runners that I overtook earlier passed me by.  I was a bit upset and almost wanted to quit.  I told myself that I would try until the very last minute.  So, I continued walking for 1~2 minutes before I decided to run slowly and softly again.

When I started to run again, hey, I didn't feel any discomfort this time.  That's good.  I continued with a very slow pace for awhile.  Unconsciously, my pace became faster and faster.  I only noticed that I was running at normal pace at around 8km.  I was very surprise.  So, I continued with the same pace until I reached another uphill.

I decided to slow down although I didn't feel any discomfort of my knee.  I was running at that slow pace again until the next and final uphill.  When almost reaching the peak of the final uphill, I started to walk again so that I will not hurt my knee.

At that time, I knew that I would finished my race before the qualifying time and thus I did quite a lot of walking especially during the downhill.

Finally, I finished the race with 1 h 59 minute (525/973 overall; 141/212 on my category) which is pretty good despite of my knee problem.  More importantly, I just felt normal tiredness of the knees after this run.

I guess I can start running again but at lower millage to start up with.