HK Race II: Results

The results are up from Sunday's race at Repulse Bay, Hong Kong.

The results were posted along with this picture of the start, which I also posted on Sunday's race recap entry. When I look at the picture, I realize my start wasn't as good as I thought it was as I see what look to be a lot of novice runners around me, grinning and having a fun time. I wondered what happened, because I remember being in the third layer of people from the starting line. Then, I remembered...the start line was really full, so a lot of the people began lining up perpendicular to the start line, on my left. This new starting configuration would have looked like a big "L" from above, with me being on the horizontal section, and a lot of the late-comers to the line being on the vertical one. As soon as the race started, they must have all collapsed in on me, and I became surrounded by more bodies than I expected. So, it looks like it was even more important for me to be aggressive off the gun, and I'm glad I was.

You'll also notice that everyone seems to be wearing a red and white racing singlet. These are the shirts we got in the race packet at registration, and the race organizers recommend that we wear them to appease the race sponsors. I feel that wearing the race shirt of the race you're running is not only tacky, but bad luck too! The race I do that I'm sure to injure myself. It's like buying a concert t-shirt before the band takes the stage, then putting it on and wearing it during the show. Bad move! I needed to wear my lucky yellow Brazil soccer jersey instead, since it's been my racing shirt for quite a few years and I must wear it if the conditions are right. Plus, I don't care so much about making race sponsors happy...I paid my $200HKD ($27USD) to race, so I'll wear my own shirt.

My training and decision to take a few days off prior to the race must have really helped (along with my decision to wear my lucky racing shirt), because I turned in a better performance than I did two weeks previously at the Sai Kung race.

The races were different distances and different courses obviously, so they're not easy to compare. I looked at the results, and found a few racers that finished around me, and compared their times to mine for both races. I'll also compare my finishes relative to the runners in my age group, and in the whole field.

In the first race, I was 23rd over all and 6th in my category, with a time of 1:34:10. There were 159 total racers two weeks ago, 33 in my category.

On Sunday, I placed 22nd over all, and 8th in my category. My time was 1:33:33. This time, there were 224 total races, and 46 in my category.

The results look pretty similar so far. But when I compare my times with other racers' times from both races, I'm happy to see I did much better.

Two weeks ago, I out-kicked Wong Wei Chuen in the final stretch to beat him by seven seconds. On Sunday though, it looks like I finished 9 minutes ahead of him, as he finished in 1:43:17. In the first race, I was beaten by a runner named Shek Kong by more than three minutes. This time, he took me by 80 seconds. A Ron Tupac beat me by one place and 45 seconds in the first race, but on Sunday I had him by a solid 5 minutes and six places. So, judging by the runners around me, I had much better performance this week!

The next race happens in two weeks. It's on an island, and I'll need to take a ferry to get there. Apparently there is a cargo net that needs to be climbed somewhere in the race, so that will be a new experience for me. Hopefully I can keep up on my training and turn in another solid performance.