16th Charity Midnight Run 2013 Review

The Charity Midnight Run is increasing its popularity each year, 7,000 were registered for this year’s 6 and 12 km races. Running through central Bangkok in the middle of the night can get messy and you have to be on the alert not to miss any turns. There were some incidents of runners make wrong turns, missing to grab the check point bracelets and so on, but I was fortunate enough to avoid any major error.

The 12 km (11.7 km to be accurate) race took off at a furious pace! My Garmin was probably exaggerating when it showed the first kilometer in 2.37 min, but it was a pace well under 3 minutes per kilometer. Even though I wanted a fast paced race, sub 3 min/km was a bit over the top. Pretty soon though, the pace went down to a more human level and I was comfortable taking over the lead, a lead I was holding on to.

I finished in just over 38 minutes (haven’t seen the official time yet), around 50 seconds ahead of the first runner up. The win never felt safe, I didn’t know how close the others were since it was hard to see/hear them in the bustling Bangkok City night.

It wasn’t an easy race to run fast in, but I’m really pleased with my performance, My pacing was far from perfect, partly due to the enthusiastic start and partly because it was hard to find the rhythm.

No big celebrations after the race, one small beer was enough as I had another race coming up just hours later…