LS(S)D Run (Long Slow (Short?) Distance Run)

Event : Long Slow Distance Run
Place : Around Bukit Rimau and KK
Distance : 16km
Time : 7:00 to 8:30am, there abouts.
Weather : Good

Had a wonderful Saturday, with weather pretty mild, with scattered showers in the evening.

The family did have a good time at the KK pacers potluck bash near KK Lake, with good food, good company and something for the kids to do. The weather was holding up, although there were intermittent drizzle.

Tried to come up with a good number for this morning's run, and more or less settled on 20 km, depending how I felt. No particular pace in mind. I was more concerned on both my achilles heels and left hamstring.

The last thing I needed was starting off my marathon training for SG with injuries...

As usual, I took some time before I could get out the front door. With a cup of coffee down the chute and some Red Bull diluted with water 1:3, I was off for my run at exactly 7:01am.

The first 5km went smooth, and at a fairly easy pace. The joints were doing ok. After completing the 1st round at KK Lake, the hamstring and knees acted up a bit.

With the sun coming up and temperatures rising, I decided there and then to cut it short to 15k.

Heading towards the 2nd roundabout, I almost got run over by a lady driver, who seemed to either have dysfunctional right signal indicator, or have adopted the high driving standards of Malaysia :-

"RUNNERS BEWARE! MOTORISED VEHICLES HAVE ULTIMATE RIGHT OF WAY, ESPECIALLY MINE!"

What can you do? Anyway, I deftly swerved to dodge the 4 wheel drive and continued on my merry way, and none the worse for the experience. Little does one know what was going through my mind...

Getting back to the neighbourhood, I decided to do a mini loop before finishing at a round 10 miler, good to be considered an LSD but not really long by most standards. Bumped into 1 of our KK pacers. Didn't know she was staying there and vice versa. Strange, huh... Maybe timing issue lah.

Wrapped up the run in good running form and feeling good. No major aches and pains, and at this time of writing, 7 hours after the run, I'm only having some tightness in my right achilles tendon and a wee bit tired. Great, compared to the condition I was in after the Adidas KOTR.

The next race is at end of this month, and a short one at that; the PAR relay event with the KK Pacers sending 5 teams.

I'm thinking about my training program for the SG marathon, hoping to kick it off latest 1 September.

For the KL marathon, I did 900km in 16 weeks, with 700km in the last 12 weeks for a 4:29 finish, and the wall hitting at 35km.

I hope to log at least a total of 1000km within the 16 weeks, with 850km in the last 12 weeks. My target for this round - 4:15 and push out the wall a few more km. However, breaking a leg to go sub 4:00 is something I will have on my mind.