Running in Sukhothai (and two 10k races)

I journey back to Southeast Asia, the one place where I have enjoyed sports glory in recent years.

This year I enter two running races on consecutive Sunday mornings - the first -Bangkok’s Rama VIII Bridge 10k and the second event the Chiang Mai Mini-Marathon.

Between the events I travel the 700 kilometers between Bangkok and Chiang Mai  by train and bus, spending several days in Thailand’s original capital- Sukhothai.

Sukhothai was the center of a vast empire in the 13th century, but now it is a sleepy rural town, way too far off the track to attract hordes of tourists. This makes it an absolutely superb training destination. The historic park area is a sprawling collection of ancient temple ruins surrounded by well-groomed lawns – perfect for bounding and strides.  

The ancient city walls make for nice long contemplative runs on soft surface – especially in the hours around sunrise and sunset.





I just wish I was not so tired -- tired from my paranoid finishing kick over the final kilometer of the Rama Bridge 10k..

The Rama Bridge race, along an expressway in the hours before dawn, is flat, fast and relatively cool for this region. With so little to distract me up on this expressway, I find myself locked in an internal struggle to stay positive. I hit the turnaround in 18:44 and am told that I am currently 3rd in my division. Knowing that only the top three receive awards, I obsess with fear of being overtaken.  I am so paranoid, that despite my mounting fatigue  I somehow summon energy for a desperate surge with well over a kilometer to go, accelerating my pace to under 3:30 per k for over 800 meters.  The final 500 meters is an agonizing slog.

I manage 9^th overall and 2nd place in my division, which means

big prize money— 4,000 baht (well, big money for me anyway given my impoverished financial situation and low costs in Thailand). With my race times slowing down and always one other guy seeming to show up and blow me away every race, I look for triumph wherever I can.

My official chip time for the 10-kilometer? distance is a respectable 37:16. But upon seeing the results afterwards I wonder if maybe I should have been more tactical -- and saved energy for running in Sukhothai and for Chiang Mai. 

So then during the weeklong journey north I sleep 10 hours per night to fight off a cold and to ready myself to defend my age group title at Chiang Mai. 

This is my 4^th time running the Chiang Mai 10k, but this year the kilometer marks are short which makes me believe that I am running much faster than I am – this helps give me a confidence boost early and makes the race more enjoyable than the stressful, mental challenge of the previous week. I am only slightly disappointed as I note the rather slow time of 40:45 for 10.5-kilometers? when I cross the finish line. Most any disappointment is dispelled when finish line volunteers put the division 1^st place tag around my neck. 

At Chiang Mai I win 3,000 baht of prize money

and, even better -- this funky elephant tower trophy:

At the awards ceremony we discover that we are not the only athletes traveling and working the Thai running circuit.  We meet Kindu Swemehon who had also competed in both the Rama Bridge and Chiang Mai races.  However Kindu competes in the half-marathon and full marathon and is the overall winner of both of them.  So as rugged as we might claim that our week of travel and racing was, it is relaxing compared with Kindu.  For now I will hold off on leaving my day job and joining the Southeast Asia Running Tour full-time.  

2019 training summary - Long, slow running makes me feel slow

I struggled to return to running form after all my races last May.  My summer "off-season" was dismal - I can't seem to fully shake a series of aches and pains, and never truly feel strong and smooth and comfortable -- especially on longer, steadier runs (which I did more of as you can see below).  I consistently feel worse after long runs than after much harder shorter interval sessions. 

Moreover, I fall back into the slower group at Wednesday night intervals and lose hope of ever rejoining the fastest group as I age farther into my twilight years and decrepitude takes a cruel and bitter toll.  I find myself envying all the less injury-prone runners who can handle greater volume.  

Here is a summary of the massive (for me) increase in volume over the July-October period:

My one consolation is my improvement in chin-ups -- I receive endless kudos whenever I record 5x20 chin-ups on Strava.  I am tempted to set up a chin-up a bar next to the track and challenge people to chin-up contests in order to counter the dispiriting impact of my desultory running. 

Finally in November I scale back on the volume as you can see above.  I also decide to start "racing" the Wednesday night intervals again - hanging on at the back of the fastest group in sub-3:30 pace and enjoying the fact of being back up with my younger teammates. More importantly, the visceral pleasure of the sport returns - I sense more endorphins, especially on my intervals and my weekly session at park alternating between running and calisthenics.   

Autumn 2019 Races

I have have generally entered some sort-of race almost every month of the year.  But this year I go almost 6 months without entering any real events (as much as I like to consider my Murph Test a major milestone event). 

I enjoy treating the training sessions as ends in themselves. But, alas, I need to be able to answer the question "what is your next race?" which is the most common query at my clubs.  So I sign up for the Tsukuba 10k, a reportedly flat and fast event. With all the time leading up to the event my expectations naturally build.

But then after all the build-up I have a inexplicably poor run.  I go out in a reasonable 3:45 pace, but proceed to fade dramatically from there, finishing in about 40:30.  

Like my first race coming off long break at Nagareyama, I feel weak and I feel that I surrendered under duress.  But at Nagareyama I had the sensible excuse of self preservation in the unseasonable heat.  At Tsukuba, (like any event), there were plenty of little challenges: wet shoes, limited warm-up, sleep issues leading up to event, niggling injuries prior to the event, 180-degree turnarounds, etc., but none that justify such a pathetic showing. 

Fortunately last week there is a 5k time trial at the track and I manage to crank out a respectable 18:16 restoring some semblance of confidence and a willingness to enter races in the future. 

Athlete's Heart Followup (Plant based diet)

After my recent post mentioning all the hamburgers that I could potentially eat after hearing the cardiologist’s feedback, I am barraged by angry messages from all my plant-based diet triathlete teammates. They objected to my selfish disregard for the impact of beef production on the environment.  

So in order to mitigate the climate impact of eating hamburgers, I fly to the US where the plant-based Impossible Burger has suddenly become ubiquitous.  I am able to stop by a nearby Burger King after a training session and experience the genetically modified burger that my teammates have been endlessly talking about.  

At $8 for the Whopper and a small coffee, it is not a bargain - economies of scale have not kicked in yet on what I assume would be large potential savings from lab-based production.

As far as the taste test?  Well, it totally tastes like any other Whopper as far as I remember.  I am not saying that is good or bad  (one thing I would definitely say is the BK Cafe coffee was surprising good).

As far as the long-term nutritional trade-off?  I have no idea, that does not seem at all clear, or the point of the Impossible Burger anyway (the objective was helping the environment).   But I do have to think that if you go to a fast food restaurant and default to the accompanying fries and large soda meal plan you are compromising your training regime.

But now after eating the plant-based burger and then followed up by watching the popular new Netflix documentary, Game Changers, I have to feel a bit more hopeful about this week's 10k race.
   

Athlete's Heart

The primary physician at my annual health check gravely informs me that my electrocardiogram shows a T-Wave Inversion, suggesting a possible myocardial ischemia, which is apparently a bad thing.   He recommends that I visit a specialist.

Days, then weeks, go by.  I procrastinate on scheduling the appointment with a cardiologist.  Maybe I am in denial, but I do know that the recent years of exercise do not make me bullet-proof — all the years of stress and lack of sleep and eating breakfast cereal for dinner must have taken a toll.  Some research suggests that excessive endurance training is in fact bad for the heart.  

Then in September I meet one of my seemingly indestructible endurance teammates and am stunned when he tells me that he recently had a stent inserted in his coronary artery.  This guy is a horse — he constantly bounced back nonchalantly from races and workouts that left me shattered.   My attitude has always been to avoid any medical action unless it is clearly necessary — in this case I recall reading that one should not get a stent unless you are actually having a heart attack, doctors often feeling compelled to do something, anything - even if something was likely to lead to worse outcomes.  

More than that, I am certain the specialist will recommend draconian changes — no ironman distance triathlons, no sprinting up hills, no coffee, certainly no heavy cream in my coffee.

Finally I schedule the appointment and in days leading up to appointment I become increasingly morose.  I wake up feeling terribly distressed on the morning of the appointment and trudge to the clinic with a heavy heart (so to speak), the scene from the movie Bohemian Rhapsody where Freddie Mercury receives his terminal diagnosis fills my head.  As I sit waiting for the doctor, I envision asking him to be straight with me and tell me exactly how many days I have left. 

Then the specialist strolls in, takes a cursory glance at the electrocardiogram, looks at me for a moment, and says: “So, can I ask about your lifestyle… for example, like, do you exercise a lot?”  

I pause, wondering what he means by “a lot”

On the Strava Leaderboard for my triathlon club I have logging maybe 6-10 hours of weekly training,  this is only half of the hours of weekly training versus, say, Stan or Jean Marc.  

“Well” I begin to answer, “I only do about 7 hours per week during the base season, but that does not include the core and strength work, and though my recent half ironman time was slow...”  

He abruptly cuts me off as soon as the words “half-ironman” leave my mouth. I was keen to fill him in on the details of my Spartan training exercises, my weekly ratio of volume vs. intensity, and the progression of how many chin-ups I have recently worked up to.

He proceeds to tell me that I likely have what he characterizes as an “athlete’s heart” and I shouldn’t worry.  We do an (expensive) ultra-sound test which seems to confirm his diagnosis.  

I am relieved, but still have one question - the primary physician had also pointed to my high level of bad cholesterol as a warning signal I should take heed of and make big changes in my lifestyle.  I hand the cholesterol test results to the cardiologist and ask if I should be concerned.  

"Naah"  he says dismissively waving off the document like some worthless scrap of garbage, "In your case I wouldn’t really worry about that at all".  

OK, so much for my nascent motivation to embark on an ascetic, vegan diet — I guess I will continue to put full-fat, 40% cream in my coffee and continue to eat hamburgers.

I still don't think I am "bullet-proof" because of all the endurance sports training, but at least there are no immediate, obvious adverse cardiovascular impacts.

I manage to touch my toes! (My return to stretching and triumph over injury)

I never completely abandoned stretching, but all the bad press on stretching meant that for most of the past 10 years it was a very low priority.  Reading various studies showing that stretching is correlated with injury, and seeing grisly descriptions of the microscopic stress to muscle fibers made it easier to finish a workout and go straight to showering and drinking.  The book on recovery I recently mentioned goes so far as to ridicule athletes mindlessly following stretching rituals they might have learned back in a high school physical education class without any evidence whatsoever of physiological benefit.  

Yet each and every one of the half-dozen visits with a physical therapist or for acupuncture or sports massage, the therapist without fail has said to me emphatically something along the lines of: “DUDE - YOU NEED TO STRETCH”    

Apparently  evidence suggest that both very high and very low levels of flexibility are higher risk factors for injury, and clearly as the years had gone by my limited range of motion had only grown even more narrow.   I had become something of an outlier in terms of low flexibility — I could hardly bend and stretch must past my knees.   

In February the physical therapist tells me that my heel pain is ultimately rooted in the extreme inflexibility in my lower calf and achilles.  Either I work to become more flexible or I face the terrible fate of painful and debilitating plantar fasciitis. Before I had maybe at most stretched once per day.  Now I was told to stretch EVERY FEW HOURS. 

Moreover now I was carefully measuring my progress.   In the past when I did yoga faithfully every week I never saw progress.  But now I am laser focused on reaching a tiny bit farther each day.  As I found with push-ups and the Murph test, there is nothing like having a goal and measurable feedback to turbocharge exercise activity.    

 It is an effort just to reach down and touch my knees, but each day I see gradual progress —  I take deep breaths and push myself farther and farther.  Within a month I am able to do something I have not achieved since childhood — I can keep my knees perfectly locked and reach down and touch my toes.   

Eventually the heel pain vanishes and now I am trying to remind myself to stretch every day —  many times per day. 

Murph Test

Last weekend I did my “A Race” of the season.  The focus of my training this summer has not been a glamorous Ironman-branded triathlon a famous big-city marathon or an impressively long ultra-distance trail race, but rather a series of basic exercises on a quiet morning at a nearby track  — a series of calisthenics known as the Murph Test

The Murph Test is comprised

of a one mile run followed by 100 chin-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and then another 1-mile run.  The idea is to test yourself by doing the Murph as fast as you can.  There is an elite version entailing wearing a 20-pound weight vest and doing each set of calisthenics consecutively.  I do a more normal version and break up my sets into rounds of 10 pull-ups, 15 push-ups and 20 squats.  

I was originally inspired to do the Murph Training about a year ago after listening to an episode of the Endurance Planet podcast and hearing the podcast host, a burned out runner/triathlete, talk glowingly of having just accomplished a Murph.  I have long been very keen on maintaining strength through goal-oriented calisthenics and I was seeking some sort of incentive to do strength work outside of the gym.  The Murph Training inspired me to find chin-up bars on my running routes and power through long sets of pull-ups. .  The 4-year old children were delighted to see me jump on their monkey bars and start doing sets of 10 pull-ups, but I got strange looks from the fathers accompanying them to the playground.  

I would encourage everyone to train for the Murph Test.  Unlike the Spartan Races, the Murph poses limited risk of injuring oneself, which is the excuse other aging triathletes and runners keep giving me when I try to persuade them to join me for obstacle races.    But I seriously doubt I will convince many of my endurance sports teammates to embark on something so unglamorous, painful, and tainted by its association with Crossfit.  In fact I was very surprised that I was even able to talk a half dozen of my obstacle course teammates into joining me.  Their presence proved a big help versus trying to do it all on my own. 

We started together, and thanks to the group dynamics I go out briskly on the run and complete my mile in just over 6-minutes, not wildly fast, but fast enough to leave me with an elevated heart rate and out of breath on my early rounds of calisthenics.  I have to think that maybe 30 seconds slower on the first mile would have resulted in more than 30-seconds of gains on the pull-ups and push-ups.   Still I am able to maintain the pace of 10/15/25 reps until I hit 80 pull-ups at which point my arm strength suddenly fades and I can only manage to finish off the pull-ups with sets of 6 reps, 6 reps and then a last gasp 8 reps.   My arms feel too tired and heavy to swing as I start my second mile, and I am surprised I am even able to hit 98 seconds on first lap and 6:40 total for the second mile with a big finishing kick.  

I complete the Murph Test in 38 minutes 40 seconds.  I understand this is a respectable time -- according to some unofficial Murph websites, beginners should try to break one hour and breaking 40 minutes represents an "advanced" effort.  Now I just need to do the Murph Test in the same time wearing a 20-pound weighted vest (which typically adds ten to twenty minutes to the time) and my mark would rank among the top in the world on the Murph Challenge Leaderboard.     

And presumably in my advanced age group I would rank ever higher. I am not aware of any age-adjusted Murph Test ranking, but according to an informal survey on Bodybuilding.com roughly a quarter of all US males could do 10 pull-ups. The President’s Council on Physical Fitness recommends men be able to complete 8 pull-ups and the minimum pull-up threshold for Marines is 3 reps.

Not that I am competitive of course....  I just like having benchmarks as I train for another Murph Test next month.

Good to Go - Striving to optimize recovery

Gauging recovery has always been a challenge for me — in the past when I have paid close attention to whether or not I am fully recovered and sought to wait until I am totally “good to go” - my training has dwindled to almost nothing. 

Last month was particularly difficult.  I had to deal with preparing for the three races in three weeks in three different sports and incorporate several dedicated, weekly obstacle course training sessions on top of my usual swimming, cycling, hill repeats, and track intervals.   Plus I needed to recover from the stress of the events themselves.  Moreover I had some travel and work issues to deal with.

So in an effort to better assess whether I am sufficiently recovered,  I try RestWise, a “fatigue monitoring system”

I sign up for a month of RestWise and every day I input various objective measures such as resting heart rate, oxygen saturation, sleep quantity along with subjective assessments of mood, muscle soreness, energy level, appetite, etc.

The RestWise app spits out a Recovery Score which informs me whether I should exercise that day:

You can see from the output how I struggled with recovery throughout May and early June.   I was already worn out from doing a variety of training during the Golden Week holiday in early May.  Then, while at first I seemed to have recovered well from the 10k on May 12th, the obstacle race and probably the anticipation of the triathlon took a toll.   Then once fatigue hits it takes a while to get back on track.

I am influenced by the new book “Good to Go” which had positive things to say about RestWise.   And Good to Go takes a very skeptical view of most recovery products.  Good to Go’s focus is on the billion dollar sports recovery industry that has sprung up to accomplish something that is basically just the passive process of resting.   The "active" recovery things we all love (foam rollers, massage, hot/cold baths) do seem to really work and make us feel better — however most of this benefit isn't a direct effect of the treatment, but the fact that the treatment simply helps you relax more.  

I find RestWise helpful.  But unfortunately the process of inputting this data on muscle soreness, sleep quality, appetite, mood, etc, seems to lead to me dwelling on my fatigue and creating a negative feedback loop. 

May 2019 Race #3: Korea Half Ironman Triathlon

Ten members of our triathlon team travel to Korea to compete in a half-ironman event, my third race in three weeks in three different types of endurance event.    

I feel less than “heroic”  — I am the weakest triathlete among our highly driven, focused and competitive group.  Obviously I am not “focused” on triathlon, but this is my best chance in 2019 to test myself, and I want to make the most of it.  

Essentially this is a repeat of my experience last year going into the Cebu Triathlon,

• I am drawn by need to do at least one race per year and identify as a triathlete
• I am more interested in opportunity to travel than race itself (in this case visiting the surprisingly impressive beach in Busan along with the southern Korea dinosaur country) 
• My preparation is strange mix of track intervals, Spartan workouts, short swims at Spa and short indoor trainer rides
• Even though this is my longest race of the season, I don't really consider it my "A" event  
• Getting my bike to the venue is terribly stressful and tiring - this effort strikes me as being more demanding than the actual triathlon

 

The big difference from last year is that in Korea I don’t have the excuse of running in tropical heat, swimming in strong currents and cycling on a tight, crowded course.  Conditions are perfect.   The run is on rolling hills which allows me to mentally break up the effort.  The cycling course is scenic.  The swim is in calm water, albeit roiling around me with other swimmers

I am kicked in the face early in the swim, struggle a bit with water leaking in my goggles, and spend the rest of the swim on the outside edge of course.  I feel like I am making up ground on the bike, managing to maintain what feels to me like a very fast pace through the whole 90k (although I just fail to hit my goal of breaking 3 hours).  

Ultimately I am happy simply to complete the course and be able to legitimately identify as a triathlete for another 12 months.  But I finish well behind 8 of the 9 TiT teammates and 306th among the 1,455 finishers.    Here are my splits:

Swim  - 43:30 

Bike -  3:00:18

Run -   1:38:27

Total -  5:32:35 

May 2019 Race #2 - Obstacle Course Event

The second event of my 3 consecutive races over three weeks is my “A race”  — an  obstacle course race encompassing  25 obstacles over 13 kilometers on a relatively runnable course (versus the earlier obstacle event). 

This is my third obstacle course race, and I am determined to improve on earlier efforts.  

Unfortunately I don’t get off to a flying start — as you can see here I am a bit boxed in and unable to take advantage of the early runnable section of course.  

I come off the first few obstacles gasping and struggling to get back into a running rhythm.  Things improve as I conquer the plate pull, the Hercules hoist and the Olympus -- obstacles I struggled with in my previous events.  I overtake numerous “gym rats” on some long, flat sections of the course and am feeling pretty chuffed.  

However the long bucket brigade takes a toll on my forearms, not to mention the general fatigue of constantly needing to surge and summon "explosive strength" to get over the obstacles, and toward the final third of the race I find myself trudging behind some slower runners on some narrow twisting climbs.  Then I am completely flummoxed by the Twister obstacle  -- which I have obsessed over in the weeks since the event.  

Every other Spartan “warrior” seems to be holding hands and smiling for pictures as they hurdle over the fire jump photo-op at the course finish.  Not me - as I approach the final 500 meters I spot another old looking guy, and feel compelled to sprint until crossing the finish line.  

It turns out this guy was 10 years younger than me and like last September’s Spartan race, there are few other geriatric athletes competing - only 9 guys among the 500 age-group competitors are in my age division.  I manage to outrun all 9 of them and win the division by close to 30 minutes — my finishing time is roughly 1 hour and 36 minutes.  

You can see how jubilant I am to win the prize — a box of laundry detergent - a very suitable prize for after a muddy obstacle event…

…however my box of detergent is still serving as a trophy on a bookshelf.

May 2019: 3 races in 3 weeks

I enter 3 races in 3 different endurance sports over 3 consecutive weeks.  This is not the sort of race scheduling that a coach would recommend, but as always, my plans are largely driven by social factors.

First up is Fuji-Susono, the hilly 10k race which has become the one constant in my annual race schedule.  

This year Fuji-Susono restores my love of mixing it up in running races.  After the increasingly stressful winter training runs and discouraging winter race campaign, Fuji-Susono is pure endorphin-producing outdoor joy in the sun — more like the days of play during childhood.  

I know that might seem improbable given that we are talking about an event that entails running 4 kilometers steadily uphill.  But I was telling myself to hold back and simply seek to be on the podium — meaning I just needed to be in the top 10 among guys wearing numbers 3500 to 3650.  In the final part of the race I let myself pick up speed and start knocking off these targets like in a video game and in the final 500 meters I open up a frenzied kick - zapping two more 3500s - and ultimately finishing 4th in my age group.  

That my finishing time is a desultory 41 minutes is of limited importance.  What matters is the fine weekend out with friends, the moments of being in the run - and that I avoid trashing my legs for the following week's Spartan Race.   

Winter 2019 Run Training & Races

It was a rough winter.  

My run volume drops even further in early 2019 - from already low monthly levels in past years I drop below 200k in November and then to a meager 70k for entire month of February: 

Skiing, snowboarding cut into training.  And short almost daily swim sessions, indoor cycling and daily strength work make up even higher percentage of my weekly routine.  A niggling injury fuels a diminished desire to add volume.   

Surely I have maintained overall fitness, but running stamina seems to have suffered.  Foolishly I lose sight of my long-term perspective on enjoying the process and get fixated on clocking a fast 10k time.   This does not happen.  On two flat, fast courses I only manage to run 38 minutes for 10k - in both cases fading over the last half of the race.  

  

But now thoughts turn to obstacle course training 

Plank Streak - Now at 58 days in a row

A few months ago one of my teammates talked glowingly of his “running streak” (consecutive days of running at least one mile).   Another teammate created a Strava support group designed to build peer pressure and camaraderie around the shared goal of maintaining a daily run habit).    Given my long history of injuries, all my efforts to cross-train, my emphasis on recovery-based training and trying NOT to run when I am tired - I immediately reacted with a sense of disdain.  Moreover I was simply puzzled by the need for this effort since I have not gone an entire month since 1980 without running -- the activity is so baked into my life that I feel like I might just as well tabulate a “breathing streak” (hey - I am up to 365 x 56 days of taking a breath).   

This immediate sense of disdain  is only amplified a few weeks later when I am listening to the Endurance Planet  podcast and the coaches absolutely disparage run streaks - pointing to a obsessive compulsive athlete whose flu only worsened after his dogged determination to keep a streak going. 

So I start annoyingly pontificating about the foolishness of run streaks.  Around the holidays  I scornfully bring up the topic with other teammates who are long-time triathletes and who I expected to share my dark contempt.  In both cases it turns out that they happen at the moment to be enthusiastically adhering to run streaks and they extol the streak's motivating force.  At this point I feel like I am a jaded, mean-spirited, supercilious curmudgeon.  

I decide not be so narrow-minded and embrace the power of streaks.  While I obviously have no plans to start a run streak - instead I note just how lazy I have been about doing core exercises.  The powerful reality is that I should do these exercises every day, but far too often the day slips away and for one silly reason or another I don’t make time to do them.  

So on January 6th in the spirit of  exercise streaks I begin keeping track of how many days in a row I do a full 4-minute plank routine.  My plank routine entails side plank, leg lifts and push-ups — to qualify, each day I must stay up in plank position with knees off ground for 4 (now 5) minutes.

I find the power of recording a daily streak to be remarkable.   Whenever I realize the day slipping away I make sure to do my 5-minute routine no matter where I might happen to be — on train platforms, in the small space in front of the airplane restrooms, on pool decks, elevator lobbies, wherever.   As of today I am up to 58 days and still going strong and becoming an evangelist for (at least some) exercise streaks.

Chiang Mai 2019

After a string of second place finishes I am just so pleased to receive this big "Winner" banner, especially amidst a splendid award ceremony with such fine photo ops.

I managed to overtake a 50-year-old German guy leading the age group at the 4k mark and add 50-second to my winning cushion. 

This is my 5th time doing the Chiang Mai event which always starts as just an excuse for a low-cost, runner's reunion in northern Thailand.  While the trip starts out as a leisurely winter escape, when the starting gun goes off, I have always raced with full intensity.  

This year all kinds of aches and pains leading up the race forced me to hold back a bit at the start.  It turns out that a jam-packed starting line with hundreds of runners crowded in front of me meant that I had no choice but to start slowly -- 4:06 for my first kilometer (compared to 3:37 at last month's Toda 10k).  

The slow start means that I pass other runners throughout the whole race and means that I feel strong and comfortable.  I felt fast, so much faster than the agony of hanging on during the middle of recent races like Toda.  

As far as my time is concerned, well, I guess the slow start means that as good as I felt, I never really get up to goal 10k speed. Conditions were certainly ideal. But it is difficult to even gauge my performance exactly since the organizers are more interested in staging an elegant run around the walls of the Old City than a precisely measured 10,000 meter race.  I was perfectly fine with this -- in fact I was absolutely delighted when I saw the finish line and knew I won the age group and could stop running, no matter that my GPS watch indicated I had only run 9.4 kilometers (in 36:25). 

The 7-year old daughter at the family-run guesthouse where I stayed was the person most impressed with my being the "winner".  She was particularly charmed when I gave her my very precious "Winner 3,000 baht" banner  (which admittedly was not such a generous gesture since this bulky cardboard placard was too big to carry home....)

Meanwhile I envy my running mates with their more reasonable competitive outlook and team spirit who are picture here finishing the race together -->