Yesterday was the 21km Singapore Bay Run Challenge aka Army Half Marathon. I have managed to complete the run in 2 hrs 58 mins. I have took more time than I have anticipated as I expect myself to run within 2.5 hrs. However, I can say it’s a great run with lots of cramps happening in terms of legs cramps and human traffic cramps. haha.

As usual like the previous 16km run, I am going to share with you what I have noticed during the run.

- Something that I have learned through this run is to have sufficient rest before the run. I did not have enough rest before the run as I reached home late and this resulted to lots of cramps I experienced during the run.

- Keep on looking at signs board around to motivate yourself to run further as normally there will be banners put along the road sides by marathon organizers to motivate you to reach your destination.

- Put on your mp3 to run as it will keep you moving forward. Previously, I have mentioned about the mind chatters that want to stop you from moving forward during my 16km run. During this 21km, I have actually put on my mp3 player to listen to audio book on Napoleon Hill’s Your Right to Be Rich and I can say my mind did not have much other thoughts as I am focusing on moving forward and listening to the principles listed in the audio books.

- Pain is temporary. If you focus your mind on the pain, you will really feel the pain but I choose to focus on finishing the race. This really move me towards the finishing point and although I felt the pain of the cramps during the last 3km, I managed to finish the run with lots of relieves. When you managed to bear through the pain, what is left is the joy of relieves and experiences you have gained.

- Spraying of muscles relieve solutions really helps to relieve my aches but it brought cramps to my legs instead. During the last 3-4km, I was having aching feelings in my legs and I saw medical post helping people spraying muscles relieve solutions. Initially, I was thinking I should just carry on without spraying it but I can’t stop the urge of trying it out and in the end, after a few steps of run immediately after spraying it, my legs started to cramp and I think I should have just carry on instead of having instant relieve. This kind of instant relieve is just like instant gratification in life where you may feel relieve temporary but right after that, you will feel the pain of getting the instant gratification.

- Do more stretching along the way when you feel cramps as it really do help.

- You can definitely achieve more than what you think if you push yourself further or setting a higher limit point. Just nice I saw a posting by one of my online mentors about EXACTLY what you SETTLE FOR!

Cheers
Javier

P.S. Just a disclaimer, what I have experienced may not be the same as what you have in your own run so make sure you make your own decision before carrying out any of the suggestions mentioned in my blog. Anyway, hope it helps.

I have completed my 16KM North East Run Marathon with a great success as my personal timing was 1:36:19 which is 1 hour, 36 minutes and 19 seconds based on the finishing board with running tag number 1450. Why do I say that completing the 16KM marathon is a great success to me as I have never run 16KM before at one shot and I have observed and learned quite a lot of things during the run.

I am going to share with you what I have noticed during the run.

1) Always arrived earlier (about half an hour) to get yourself mentally and physically prepared for the run as you may want to visit the washroom or save keep your belonging. Most important is not to miss the warm up exercises before the run as I have noticed some of the runners have leg cramps during the run and have to stop to stretch their legs or some even can’t continue the run due to the cramps.

2) Try to follow your usual own pace and try not to follow other people paces as it will interrupt your whole running momentum. Start the run with your own pace and as you build up your momentum, you can start choosing someone as your target who is about your pace to run with as you will be able to remind yourself to keep moving forward and not slow down yourself due to your mind chatters of asking you to rest.

3) Focus your mind while you are running and observe your mind chatters. There will definitely be times where your mind will tell you to stop running and asking how many more kilometres do I have to run to reach the destination. Always keep postive thoughts and keep on moving forward and tell yourself that you will definitely reach the destination faster if you keep on running. Focus on your run instead of the floor marking or the surroundings as those will distract your running momentum.

Most important of all is keep yourself hydrated before and during the run as water can give us energy to keep on moving forward. One more thing that I noticed after meeting up with my mastermind group one day after the run to review our progress is that I tend to think too much about the small stuff and become paralyse in taking actions to solve a problem. I have read books in this area before and was not awared that I am caught in the analysis paralysis stage. After thinking through it, I realized that I should make use of my running strategy of keep moving forward and stop the mind chatters to take more actions in order to see the results.

Hope this post has bring you some great tips too in your running or even your own personal growth to success.

Cheers
Javier