My marathon race — a first-hand account by Mok Ying Ren

By Mok Ying Ren

Mok Ying Ren was the fastest Singaporean marathoner at the 2010 Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore. Here, he shares with Red Sports an exclusive blow-by-blow account of the race which he finished in 2:38:28.

Sunday, December 5, 2010 — It was an exciting build up to the marathon. Three months before the race, a few of us started to do weekly East Coast Park long runs of up to 2 hours 45 minutes. The key runners in our group were Devathas Satianathan, Ramesh Palaniandy and me. It was good fun every Sunday and we really looked forward to these runs every week!

So when race day came, I was really excited for everyone and I could really feel the team spirit. My training though has not been specific for the marathon. My focus has been the ASEAN University Games (AUG) which will run from the 18th to 22nd December in Chiangmai where I will be doing the 5000m and 10000m. Thus, I have not been doing any marathon-paced runs but rather short and faster workouts balanced with the weekly long runs with the group. However, I was still confident of a good time in the marathon.

On race day, Devathas, Ramesh, Jason Lawrence (who just returned to Singapore after finishing his teaching degree in New Zealand), and I warmed up together under the beautiful Christmas lightings of Orchard Road.

I was amazingly relaxed as I knew I would definitely be doing a sub-2:40, especially with the help of Jason Lawrence whom I have trained with extensively. He was treating this as a glorified long run and he was going to run as far as he could with me as long as he was comfortable. In fact, my target was a 2:35 (a 3:40 per kilometre pace).

At the start line, Jason, Ramesh and I had the privilege to stand in front with the elites and the atmosphere was amazing. I was very excited and at the same time really calm. I could feel I was in good shape and I couldn’t wait for the fun to begin. I popped an SIS gel 30 minutes before the start to get my blood glucose levels high for the start.

Gun goes, everyone goes and surprisingly, many local runners shot to the front way ahead of me. Jason and I remained relaxed and it was really really comfortable. The first kilometre brought us through the tunnel and everyone’s GPS went haywire! I didn’t plan for this but I immediately pressed the lap button after the tunnel to get back in tune. After the first kilometre, Ashley Liew, the eventual runner-up, was a few hundred meters in front. It was just an early morning run with great company!

At 5km, we caught up with another local runner, Ang Chee Yong, who eventually finished fifth. We were in total control and were really comfortable. I popped another SIS gel at the 5km mark to start my nutrition plan early.

The route was rather winding in the city with lots of turns and corners though it did not affect us much. I must say the lack of supporters along the route really made the run dull, probably due to the very early start time of 5am.

At 10km, we finally caught up with Ashley. Here, I started to have the privilege of the elite water stations where we placed our own bottles of drinks along the course every 5km. Thus, I got my first dose of SuperHydro electrolyte drinks with my second gel of the run and third gel of the day. As Jason was not able to get elite status, I taped two gels to each bottle and he got one too. We were feeling amazingly good at this point and we were rolling!

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