I have surprised myself with an unbelievable / unexpected January 2011. As I had mentioned in my previous post, I was expecting to labor through January just trying to get a whiff of my earlier days of running when i was decidedly more fit than i was at the start of Jan this year, what with 3 weeks of vacationing and binge eating behind me. :)
So 155kms in Jan wasnt bad at all, especially considering the fact that about 105kms of that came in just 2 weeks alone. The month could have ended better though - i was in Jakarta on work, staying at the Shangri-La and i decided to run a quick 8-10km on the hotel treadmill before leaving for dinner. When i had come back to my room earlier, my lunch had sat terribly with me and so i knew i was taking a risk trying to run in that condition. So after 1 km at 6:00 pace, i was feeling far too much discomfort that could take it no more and had to get off the TM. But then again, with an average of only 40kms the previous 3 months, i will take Jan 2011 anytime! :)
I ran a 10km today in a shade over 53 minutes - gives me confidence that disciplined training can do a world of wonder to a talent-less wannabe-athlete like me. I hope to get faster this year, a whole lot faster. 3 more weekends to Tokyo !!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Ramping it up ....
In Nov-2010, i ran a grand total of 38kms.
In Dec-2010, i ran/walk once, a grand total of 42kms (Dec 5th, no runs rest of the month).
Soon after that, i was on a 3 week vacation of constant binge eating and gawking at nature's nest. Significantly, my shape became smoother (aka well rounded). :)
So when i ran my first run in Jan-11, a couple of weeks back, i had accurately likened the experience to that of a pregnant pachyderm scorching the tracks. Nevertheless, my weekly mileage for the past 3 weeks has been, 13.5kms, 34kms and now 55kms !! I have completely violated all laws of gradual mileage increase and all that but still dont have (luckily enough) any ill effects to show for it. Of course, when i was running consistently a few months ago, i was hitting the 40km weekly mark often and that i guess, helped the ramp back faster than i would have targeted.
The last couple of saturdays, i have been doing a long run (16kms and 21kms) with some of my running friends (all insanely more accomplished runners than i am) from McRitchie reservoir (but not trail though). While i would not like to admit it, its an irrefutable fact that running with friends, and more so, with better runners does a lot of good to your own running. So a big thanks to you guys - you know who you are !! :)
Today is 24th. If i can make this a 45km week, i should be able to touch the 150km mark for this month. Now, wouldnt that be nice !!!! Especially with Tokyo looming large ....
In Dec-2010, i ran/walk once, a grand total of 42kms (Dec 5th, no runs rest of the month).
Soon after that, i was on a 3 week vacation of constant binge eating and gawking at nature's nest. Significantly, my shape became smoother (aka well rounded). :)
So when i ran my first run in Jan-11, a couple of weeks back, i had accurately likened the experience to that of a pregnant pachyderm scorching the tracks. Nevertheless, my weekly mileage for the past 3 weeks has been, 13.5kms, 34kms and now 55kms !! I have completely violated all laws of gradual mileage increase and all that but still dont have (luckily enough) any ill effects to show for it. Of course, when i was running consistently a few months ago, i was hitting the 40km weekly mark often and that i guess, helped the ramp back faster than i would have targeted.
The last couple of saturdays, i have been doing a long run (16kms and 21kms) with some of my running friends (all insanely more accomplished runners than i am) from McRitchie reservoir (but not trail though). While i would not like to admit it, its an irrefutable fact that running with friends, and more so, with better runners does a lot of good to your own running. So a big thanks to you guys - you know who you are !! :)
Today is 24th. If i can make this a 45km week, i should be able to touch the 150km mark for this month. Now, wouldnt that be nice !!!! Especially with Tokyo looming large ....
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
2011 - Where do i wanna be ...
Happy New Year folks.
The last few months have been dismal for my running and superb for everything else. Therefore there is no better time than now to set some firm goals for this year although i have flippantly mentioned wanting to do this and that ...
Some very basic objectives:-
0. Enjoy running. Feel the passion every day.
1. Run atleast 4 times a week, attempt a monthly mileage of 180kms every month
2. Have a systematic running plan preferably from one race to the next if that helps.
3. GoalSeek: Push for a 4:30 at the Tokyo Marathon on Feb 27th
4. GoalSeek: Push for a 4:15 at the Gold Coast Marathon on July 3rd.
5. 10k PR < 47m, HM PR < 1:50, FM PR < 4:00
Hopefully through proper training, i can get to a stage where i no longer worry about the statistics .. :)
The last few months have been dismal for my running and superb for everything else. Therefore there is no better time than now to set some firm goals for this year although i have flippantly mentioned wanting to do this and that ...
Some very basic objectives:-
0. Enjoy running. Feel the passion every day.
1. Run atleast 4 times a week, attempt a monthly mileage of 180kms every month
2. Have a systematic running plan preferably from one race to the next if that helps.
3. GoalSeek: Push for a 4:30 at the Tokyo Marathon on Feb 27th
4. GoalSeek: Push for a 4:15 at the Gold Coast Marathon on July 3rd.
5. 10k PR < 47m, HM PR < 1:50, FM PR < 4:00
Hopefully through proper training, i can get to a stage where i no longer worry about the statistics .. :)
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The North Face 100km duo Race Review
Started writing the below on 13th October:
Its been 4 days since I participated (not competed) in the brutal, grueling and difficult North Face 100km duo challenge. My legs are yet to forget that experience. When I did the 50km in HK at the GreenMile race in Feb this year, the weather was awesome while the course was tough. I had trouble during that race when encountering the hills but thankfully, there were long stretches of flats in between hills and that allowed for some recovery. This time, the weather conspired with the route to chew me proper and spit me out mid way into the race. After that, it was sheer desperation to see what the finish line looks like that made me come home in 8:36 approx, with 24 minutes to spare for the 9hr cutoff.
Going into the race, I knew that Chacha, my partner in crime in the previous edition of this race wouldn’t be able to make it due to ITB issues. So I was prepared to do a 50km solo. Mentally. Physically, I was in such a pathetic shape that it’s a laugh looking back now that I even tried to do this race. My longest run in training for this was about 22kms and that too about 8 weeks before the race. After that, I just hadn’t got back to running longer distances and so was setting myself up for a world of trouble. And sure enough, there were no surprises there. I went into the race thinking I would “wing it”, sure enough after 3 hours, any wings I might have had were deafeningly clipped.
The start line saw several of the SGRunners friends milling around and it was good to see quite a few were running the distance. At 7am sharp, the race kicked off, and we settled into a very relaxed effortless jog knowing well that the later kms would be killers. Throughout the race, I was yoyo-ing with a few other SGRunners (Aplelite, Yankee, Joanna, Tiwazz, Yeehua) and so that kept a lonely journey seem a lot more bearable.
Edit 12th November: I don’t have the enthu to complete the race report I started above so will conserve my writing energy for future races! To cut a long story short, I am at a point where I am feeling disgusted by merely “completing” races where I am not putting in my best effort at all, or even a self-respecting effort for that matter which needn’t even be a very good one. So my plan for next year is to do fewer races but of higher quality of performance.
Its been 4 days since I participated (not competed) in the brutal, grueling and difficult North Face 100km duo challenge. My legs are yet to forget that experience. When I did the 50km in HK at the GreenMile race in Feb this year, the weather was awesome while the course was tough. I had trouble during that race when encountering the hills but thankfully, there were long stretches of flats in between hills and that allowed for some recovery. This time, the weather conspired with the route to chew me proper and spit me out mid way into the race. After that, it was sheer desperation to see what the finish line looks like that made me come home in 8:36 approx, with 24 minutes to spare for the 9hr cutoff.
Going into the race, I knew that Chacha, my partner in crime in the previous edition of this race wouldn’t be able to make it due to ITB issues. So I was prepared to do a 50km solo. Mentally. Physically, I was in such a pathetic shape that it’s a laugh looking back now that I even tried to do this race. My longest run in training for this was about 22kms and that too about 8 weeks before the race. After that, I just hadn’t got back to running longer distances and so was setting myself up for a world of trouble. And sure enough, there were no surprises there. I went into the race thinking I would “wing it”, sure enough after 3 hours, any wings I might have had were deafeningly clipped.
The start line saw several of the SGRunners friends milling around and it was good to see quite a few were running the distance. At 7am sharp, the race kicked off, and we settled into a very relaxed effortless jog knowing well that the later kms would be killers. Throughout the race, I was yoyo-ing with a few other SGRunners (Aplelite, Yankee, Joanna, Tiwazz, Yeehua) and so that kept a lonely journey seem a lot more bearable.
Edit 12th November: I don’t have the enthu to complete the race report I started above so will conserve my writing energy for future races! To cut a long story short, I am at a point where I am feeling disgusted by merely “completing” races where I am not putting in my best effort at all, or even a self-respecting effort for that matter which needn’t even be a very good one. So my plan for next year is to do fewer races but of higher quality of performance.
Monday, September 13, 2010
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.
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.
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