Marathon: Anne Qi Hui wins 5th title in 3:07:30; Mok Ying Rong finishes 2nd in 3:19:12

By Romaine Soh/Red Sports

Anne Qi Hui finishing as the fastest Singaporean in a time of 3:07:30. (Photo 1 courtesy of Spectrum Worldwide)

Padang, Sunday, December 1, 2013 – Despite having to stop to vomit several times along the race, Anne Qi Hui was the fastest female Singaporean marathon runner for the fifth year running at the Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore. She completed her race in a time of 3 hours 7 minutes 30 seconds, a massive improvement of 10 minutes over her 2012 time.

Coming in second was Mok Ying Rong, who clocked a time of 3:19:12, with Rachel See rounding off the top three with a time of 3:28:29.

“I was running with Russell and Joshua for the first 25km, but subsequently lost them when I started to feel unwell,” Anne recounted.

Anne’s personal best for the marathon is 2:50, set at the 2008 Berlin Marathon.

“The first half was run at a 4:10/kilometer pace, which would have allowed me to go under three hours, but slowed to a 4:27 pace due to the vomiting.”

Although Anne was slated to represent Singapore at the South-East Asian (SEA) Games for the marathon event, she pulled out due to personal reasons. But she remains hopeful.

“When the next SEA Games comes to Singapore, I hope I will still be fit enough to qualify!” Anne laughed.

While Anne is an experienced marathoner, it was not the case for marathon newbie Mok Ying Rong. She had just graduated to the half marathon last year, placing second in the open category, before making the bold decision to upgrade to the full marathon this year.

“The half marathon is quite hard to win, since there is no local category for that event. This pushed me to train for the full marathon,” said Mok.

“I went at 4:45/km for the first 10km with Kenny (Han), (Sia) Chuan Han and Joshua (Lee), before increasing the pace to 4:40 for the next quarter. After that, I burst away from them and just ran all out.”

Asked how long her recovery would take, Mok, who lay flat on the Padang with a towel covering her face throughout the interview, replied: “I’m going to hibernate for a whole week!”

“But I’ll still do the marathon next year,” she said determinedly. “The longer the distance, the better!”

Full Marathon Singapore Women (Top 10)
1st Anne Qi Hui — 03:07:30.38
2nd Mok Ying Rong — 03:19:12.69
3rd See Rachel — 03:28:29.94
4th Kaifen Ong — 03:31:30.67
5th Jasmine Goh — 03:33:43.24
6th Jie Shi Neo — 03:36:38.85
7th Sumiko Tan — 03:37:57.16
8th Itsuko Tanaka — 03:38:25.45
9th Lei Bing Tan — 03:38:25.54
10th Zhilei Chen — 03:38:49.14

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