But all these did not stop me from signing up because, after all, it's a national marathon :) I liked the tag line - Race As One.
I had up to 12 weeks to prepare for Sundown. However, due to holidays and unforeseen circumstances, I had a crash course to prepare myself for SCMS. Did mainly squats, leg drills, sprints and lunges to prepare the legs. The race plan for SCMS was different from Sundown.
Things I did differently for SCMS:
- I did not clock any long run prior to the race. The longest distance I did was 10km a day, which I did consecutively for 3 days for a charity run.
- I did a lot of leg works to strengthen the legs. If I cannot run fast, I needed to make sure that, at least, my legs could carry me for 6 hours.
- I ran with a HRM. I usually only wear my Garmin for time and pace, but this time I decided to let my HR lead me.
- I ran without music.
- I stopped and drank 2 cups of water at every aid station. My usual run would be 2 cups every 10km. But I knew that I would need that extra water later in the run...
- I applied sunblock on my face :) Yes, you heard it right... I usually ignore the sunblock part... But knowing that the sun might be merciless, I decided not to take any chances.
The day before the run, a friend sent me the weather forecast! I was excited to see "thunderstorm" and "mostly cloudly". That was good news :) Running in the rain would be fun!
Sad to say, the weather forecast failed... The rain came but too late...at about 12.30 p.m. But I guessed for anyone that endured the sun till noon to complete a marathon deserved the rain more :)
I only had 3 words to describe SCMS; HOT! HOTTER! and HOTTEST! SCMS 2015 concluded my race plan for this year.
Whether you ran sub-4, sub-5 or sub-6... Whether you were decked out in full 2XU gear or just plain run tee and shorts... The tagline for this year was Run As One. I probably forgot how I suffered under the hot sun because somewhere inside of me was looking forward to SCMS 2016 :)
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