Happy week this ..

This week has worked out rather well for me .. i was quite eager, at the start of the week, to allay my fears that cutting back on mileage the previous week (as was my plan) would prove to be beneficial and not adversely affect my fitness. I am quite happy with the way things turned out ...

1. On Monday, i started out from my house, feeling a bit lethargic and toying with the idea of just running a slow 5kms. ABout 10 minutes into the run, i changed my mind cos i was feeling alright and decided to run a tempo run. The next 40 minutes of running was one of my better efforts, and also included the fastest km (4:38 pace) i have ever run (race or otherwise).

2. On Wednesday, i ran with Sorepalm to explore a part of the MR trails that i have very rarely run before. It was good to get my bearings right and he showed me several paths that i never knew existed. And it was quite a relaxed run as well. I will be back at these trails as part of my training for my 50km run with Cha Cha for the TNF100 in October.

3. This morning, i managed to wake up at 5.45am as had been my intention (i wanted to start running at 6.30am). This was probably the first time in a few months that i managed to get up early on a Saturday morning. As has become habit over the past few runs of 1.5 hours or longer, i started my run with just water, and did not want any calorie intake over the course of the run. Starting early and running the Old Upper Thomson Road, into the M&Ms and Aircon route was just a fantastic way to get your weekend going. Such lush greenery is hard to come by in Singapore and running through it all makes for a very enjoyable experience. Once again, i ran by feel not pushing the pace at all and cleared the M&M (called so because of the undulating terrain, quite a bit of ups and downs) and Aircon route, after which i took a couple of minutes off to top up my water bottle and then continued on with my run. Ran into the faster group (Sorepalm and co) coming down into the M&Ms and kept going. As i neared MR, i saw that my Garmin was only showing 18.6kms so i ran a further 700m up Lornie road and back to make for a total of 20kms run in 2:00 flat (6 min pace).

Weekly mileage: 66kms. Rounds up a pretty good effort. Next week should be similar and then i will back off, as part of taper to running the AHM on Sep 4th.