I was hoping for Craig Alexander aka Crowie to win his 3rd world championships and he did! Not only did he win it, he broke the race record with a time of 8:03:56. Last year he came in a disappointing fourth, with the best run then.
For the ladies race, I was expecting Chrissie Wellington to blow it away although I read in her tweet that she suffered a crash while training a week back. There were no elaborations about the severity of her injuries through her subsequent tweets but there were some pictures in her blog. And as it turned out, she had to run her way to the crowning of her 4th world championship with a time of 8:55:08 since 2007, with a no show in 2010 due to bad illness. I saw the live video between her run and Mirinda Carfrae’s aka Rinny blistering pace and was worried that the latter would overtake at the last minute, despite the commentator saying it wouldn’t happen as long as the world champion continue at her pace. I must say that I totally enjoyed the footage! The grit and determination in both athlete’s faces and body language, especially from Rinny, was such an inspiration!
***
Before I went for the Charity Swim in the afternoon today, I did a 20 km run with my mentor. Was meant to be a reduction mileage in preparation for The North Face 100 km duo but he said it had to be a faster paced one. He decided to run with me for this round as my pacer. Frankly, 5:30 is too easy a pace for him. I ran the 1st half in 53:45 and negative split the return in 51:06. 1:44:59 in total. A PB again! A tougher terrain than running track because of the rolling slopes in the middle of the run.
Encouraging words from Andrew: training was still ongoing over the past week and an almost 100 km bike on Saturday, a 1:45 for 20 km showed that I was in good form for a good marathon at the end of the year. By good, it is meant to be a 4 hr run by December.
SAFRA organised a charity swim meant to raise funds for disabled athletes from Singapore Disability Sports Council (SDSC). The target was 5000 laps. Our Trifam Monday Night Swim pledged a total of 2200 but some went beyond and clocked over 2700 laps. I pledged 100 laps (5km) and that will be the longest I have even done in my life. Even at training sessions for ironman, the furthest I had gone was just over 4.7km. Swim lanes were crowded with all types of swimmers and was congested at many times. After lunch, we filled a lane and had a good time taking loads of pictures with Dennis’ waterproof camera. When I left in the afternoon, I heard number of laps swam in total was over 7000! Great stuff!
*Photo credits: Dennis Quek
Tri-4-Life 