Home slopes ... and misc

Ran a hard 12km this evening (without water) on the slopes near my home - was a very good run for different reasons least of which was the fact that i was able to maintain my stride in the second half of the run without killing myself. Also i think the slopes became "easier" (actually it wouldnt have) the 3rd time around or i had become numb to the pain; either ways, managed to get through the workout without too much trouble. Original plan was to run 17-18kms at M&Ms but that got canned due to a combination of reasons (couldnt wake up on time in the morning as i didnt sleep too well the night before etc).

Weighed in after the run at 70.5 which is good and bad and not surprising. Definitely beats being 74.5 from just a few weeks back. I think weight is stabilizing around 72kgs or thereabouts - its from here that the weight loss is going to be an uphill battle. Will i ever see 68 kgs again? :)

Also got my supplies of whey protein and BCAA today so unlike last time where i had to throw 60% of the contents due to expiry, i hope to fully utilize all that i have bought thus far. Also got Endurox R4 yesterday only to come home and see that i already had it from sometime before and had just forgotten about it. Picked up Glutamine as well to experiment with some supplements.

My training plan to Osaka is just a melting pot of whatever i want to throw into it. The only thing i want to do is to keep the broad structure in place and then play around whatever is inside .. maintain good aerobic volume (easy runs, high volume); do a weekend long run, atleast 1 speed workout (usually tempo) during the week and run as many recovery runs as i want to. Hoping to run atleast 25kms every weekend in October but thats a pipe dream at the moment (need to build towards that in September). 

Also, god willing, "Up" should happen next year.

And the road goes on and on ...

I find myself in a familiar place in my running life as i write this piece .. Not knowing what to focus on after prematurely achieving the Sub-4 target for this year resulted in an absolute degradation of running discipline and lacklustre outings on the road the past few months with total mileage across May-July being less than 140kms. Given that Osaka is only a few months away and given the pathetic shape i am in now, i decided to take things up seriously starting August and just start running consistently.

I wanted to do things right from Aug 1st but didnt manage to run the first few days and that wasnt very motivating. The one thing that i started doing after that was to get out of the door everyday .. run slow but run nevertheless. So, having done that consistently for the last 20 days or so, is bringing back the psyche i maintained when i was training similarly in the run up to the Tokyo Marathon.

Still its a long way to go and this is only a small step.

Whats happening with the anachronistic posts ...

I was going through my blog's settings and saw that i had some very outdated drafts that were meant to be posted after some refinements but i see no point in doing that now so i just posted them anyway just so that the effort of having typed them doesnt get wasted. :)

Thats all ..

In anticipation ....

I was wondering where have i got with my running since i started a year back (regularly, that is). Aug 2009 can count as the starting line for me and it wasn't much, given the fact that i only ran 300kms until Dec 31st 2009. Still it was a beginning, humble as it may have been .. and was but a small step, literally, in the right direction of falling in love with the sport of running.

1030 kms later, 8 months past, i find that long distance running is more than just an experience. Its an education. Its a very delicate tug-of-war between mind and body, sometimes forcing decisions, and at other times pulling in the same direction.

Singapore AHM 2010 race review

The day was finally upon me. 1 week after a great 10km race at the YRPR, I was going to test my ability at more than twice that distance. The AHM in 2009 was my first timed run on my Garmin 305 – and I fared miserably under the circumstances back then, fading to a 2:51 finish caused by several reasons, not all of which were related to running! So I was quite eager to set the record straight this time around. Once again, for the impatient, I timed 2:06:16 per my Garmin 305 which is a PB improvement of about 6.5 minutes. For those with time to kill, thanks for stopping by and do read on.

Buoyed by a 49min 10km race at YRPR, and the encouragement of several of my good running buddies, I set a target for 2hrs for myself for the 21.1km. As usual, I could barely sleep the night before and managed I think, just about 3-4 hours of sleep before waking up at 3.15am to get ready and drive over to the venue by around 4am as any later would mean that I would get no parking space whatsoever close to the venue. I downed a banana at home, and then a PowerGel at the carpark at the venue as pre-race nutrition. The pasta I had the day before for some reason was not agreeing with me much and I was hoping that it wouldn’t cause any serious problems during the race.
After wishing Sumedha a good run on her part, at around 5.08am or so I started making my way towards the start line when much to my consternation, the race was counted down and flagged off, well before the scheduled 5.15am start. I knew that if I didn’t take the first couple of kms down quickly, I would be sandwiched amongst runners who would be ambling and thus eat seriously into my time. So the first few kms was spent rapidly weaving in and out trying to find the fastest route out (not necessarily the shortest), and in retrospect, might have cost me in the later stages of the race. My race plan was to hit 10km at 55min, 15km at around 1:22-1:24 and then take it from thereon. For some reason, I just couldn’t shake off the feeling of lethargy I felt in the early kms. It wasn’t encouraging at all running with heavy legs and having to make extra effort in getting a move on. Imagine my plight when at around 4kms, I see a horde of runners casually running in the opposite direction, and I was thinking “I must be really slow, for these guys have already U-turned and going back”!! Then I realized that, actually this (i.e. the opposite side) was the start line and these guys were 15-20 minutes behind me and just started the race!  To make a point here, I did my first km in 6:24 which was ok, but the next km in 4:50 which was quite stupid.

The first 10kms also had 2 long slopes at the MBS Bridge as well as the Sheares bridge, and I used both as a phase to gain some time on the slower runners on the upslopes and make up for the time I lost due to the early dodging. Until then I had not stopped at any aid station as I was running with my 4 bottle fuel belt and I hadn’t drunk any of my own supplies too, so I think the combination of lethargy, tiredness and lack of hydration brought me to a standstill just before the 10km mark at ECP. That was a big blow to my confidence that I would finish sub-2 hrs, even though I did manage to cross 10km in 56 minutes. I walked a bit, stopped to stretch myself and mentally kept a dialogue going on how I would do the remaining distance and still come in under 2 hours. Wisely, I re-hydrated on the walk and began running again, only to come to a stop a km later. I just couldn’t figure out why this was happening and while I debated about it, I chose to not have an energy gel until much later. I would go on to not have any gel at all during the entire race, and that sure is an area of improvement. I started feeling a little bit feverish at this point but just blocked the negative thought out of mind, and sure enough it did go away and I caught my second wind, going through 15kms in 1:27. And sure enough, just when I thought I could hold on a push for my target, I bonked again. And again. And again. All through this, why I didn’t have my energy gels (I was carrying two of them) completely escapes me. My 20th km took me more than 7 minutes to finish!! By the 18th km, I had given up hope of beating 2 hrs and just wanted to make the overrun as low as possible. I can’t believe now that I even walked in the last km of the race, which can only mean I didn’t pace myself properly. In the end, while it was a minor consolation that I have a new PB, it’s a disappointment because 2hrs was eminently possible. I can only make amends by running my next half marathon 1:54 or below (to go below 2hrs by as much as I went over it this time).

Areas of improvement:-
1. Get to the start line earlier (aim for start delay of less than 20 seconds)
2. Hydrate earlier in the race
3. Use the energy gel when I have to
4. Lose the belt, carrying an extra 1kg for the first 10kms isn’t off much help at all
5. Maintain a steadier pace in the 2nd half of the race.
6. Go hell for leather in the last 3kms (this one is easier said than done!).

Have to now shut this out of mind and look towards the 100km duo at the North Face challenge in 4 weeks time.