Ruiyong's London marathon post race bits and thoughts.....

Ruiyong had this to say about his London marathon race:

"Challenging experience. Raced London Marathon today worrying that every step could be my last. 2:37 wasn't what I was hoping for but I'm happy with my race today. Did exactly what I wanted to do for 32.2km, but having barely trained since being injured a month ago, the lack of fitness really showed in the last 10km when I struggled with cramps and white vision all the way to the end. After running at 34min 10km pace for the first 32.2km, I took over 50min for the last 10km.

When I do my next marathon, I'll be better trained, hopefully without injuries, and have a stronger finish.

Thanks for all the support! Still a step forward. Staying positive and looking forward to the next one."

We have all along mentioned Ruiyong's London marathon race was specially setup for failure, in light of all the recent events that has occurred surrounding him, which we do not want to waste our breath repeating. Those 'events' have been painstakingly analytically explained to everybody in a series of blogposts since March, so review them again if you will at your own time and leisure.

Ergo, there was nothing surprising with Ruiyong's poor performance in what was fantastic arctic weather and gentle breezes for running fast and well. His obvious lack of training in the 1 month since the world half marathon championships was telling when the race began at 30km! He had no energy or fuel left, consistent with either 1)lack of specific training 2)started way too fast for the amount he lacked in training. Ruiyong's splits have been posted on the London marathon live tracking website, with a halfway time of 1:12:27, but everybody knows halfway in a marathon is virtually not even the start of the race itself! 30km is where it all begins, and Ruiyong slowed not gradually, but exponentially, very much like how outlier performances behave! Except this outlier was a performance so bad rather than so good that it is likely the worst, or one of the worst performances out of all bad performances of runners who hit the wall and implode, by a large margin! The stats say it all, Ruiyong slowed to 4:51per km average in the segment 35-40km, and then 5:36 per km in the segment from 40km to the finish. Elite professional, semi-professional and even amateur runners, male or female, about the standard of Ruiyong do not implode so badly(drastic exponential) from 30km to the finish, because we have seen so many results list after another from year upon year of marathon majors and we know what are the trends and statistics regarding pacing, performances and just about anything and everything at the back of our minds! What is more alarming is that 4:51 and 5:36 are just averages for 5km segments, the reality would be Ruiyong had way slower than 4:51 and 5:36 per km paces from 30km all the way to the finish, perhaps, by our rusty mental calculation 5:30s and 6:10s per km anyhow for the majority of kilometers from 30km onwards.

For those of you who thought his slowing down was within the realm of acceptable standard deviations, I am sorry to disappoint you people, because I have just advised that his slowing down totally demolished almost all acceptable standard deviations in statistical history for slowing down due to hitting the wall. You may ask how in the world that is possible? Answer: Ruiyong didn't just hit the wall, he was the wall itself after 30km, and therefore probably also one long before the race started, in the one month he took to nurse a plantar injury and a few adhoc and insipid workouts later. If he was supposed to be a walking wall for all of one month, then this was the reason why we had very accurately predicted that the London marathon race was specially setup for fools(ie failure!). Because how could a wall even think of starting the race? It pains us to call him a fool, because he is Singapore's precious 'talent' by local standards only. It pains us to see him eschew our team of guidance from great knowledge and experience to force his own path of self-deception--which he dogmatically rationalizes every now and then as something more noble such as self-belief or 'chasing your dreams with all your heart and mind!'. How foolhardy can such a belief be in light of the background of knowledge and experience we offer? In let's say a random Shakespeare example, Romeo and Juliet chased their dreams with all their hearts and minds and what happened? They offered up their lives on the sacrifice! There is a fine line between "chasing your dreams with all your hearts and minds MORALLY/ETHICALLY AND WITH WISDOM", AND, SELF DECEPTION/DELUSION!

We want the lessons gleaned from Ruiyong's career, with the help of all the analysis done in our 10 blogposts, to be a warning to all young and aspiring Singaporean teenage/youth runners, and even elite Singaporean adults in their 20s and 30s, that all the running, training and racing you are doing is inherently selfish or self-serving, first and foremost! Why? Because none of you belong in the category of Eliud Kipchoge and tons of other East Africans running by NO CHOICE OF THEIRS! These guys run for the most unselfish reasons---they run to make a living, feed families, and just generally upgrade to a better standard of living. They run to give! Give life and hope! You and I probably run, charity aside, to consume! You consume time and so many resources more than you can give time and resources back to mother Earth! So in general you consume! Those guys give more than they consume time and resources so in general they give! Can you see the difference between what your running stands for---at best a hobby and at worst a VAIN PREOCCUPATION(!), and what theirs stand for---LIFE AND HOPE! Ponder upon these carefully, we urge you! We are not saying to immediately ditch running or any hobbies from this point on, we only want to create first and foremost a stepping stone of social awareness about the hobby that you might have been too heavily invested(possibly obsessed) in, and hopefully our words and advice can subsequently down the road produce changes and effects in your life in the direction of ethical and moral living! No change is immediate, no rational mindset gets switched from one frame to another in a couple of hours, days or even years. As they say, it takes a generation to have any type of social awareness finally producing concrete and actual patterns of behavior!

Finally we hope the outcome of the race can bring closure to Ruiyong's yearning to become an olympian. Though it was foolish of him to run the race on the back of a plantar episode, he mentioned it was the only way he could gain spiritual ease. We take that, because that alone sounds reasonable by itself, but unpardonable based on knowledgeable wisdom.

For those of us who think he is over and done with his plantar issues just simply by his lack of mention in his facebook race report, I urge you not to jump so quickly to such a conclusion. The lack of mention doesn't equate to NO FLARE-UP. It could mean 1)NO FLARE-UP 2) FLARE-UP but dun dare to report 3)FLARE-UP and forgot to include in report 4)FLARE-UP but finding an opportunity to report in the coming days or even weeks!

All in all our top local coach Lexus always reminds his athletes to 1) BE HUMBLE 2) BE REALISTIC(NO DECEPTION) 3) ALWAYS LET YOUR RUNNING DO THE TALKING, NOT YOUR MOUTH!

Till next time :)