Pre Marathon Blues

Had a real experience of enjoying the outdoors while collecting the bibs for the run. All in all, I really agree with a lot of other runners that this ranks high among the worst bib collection organized by a "oku-nizer".

Standard Chartered really needs to be careful on who they pick to organize the event as the ground staff seems to be lost on what they are supposed to do.

Sure, the rain didn't help but any event organizer worth his salt prepares contingencies for most, if not all situations. What more if it's raining, in Malaysia!!!

Fingers crossed, hopefully they improve it tomorrow and have a smooth event on Sunday....

KPAC Half Marathon Run (Murphy's law?)

Place : Setia Alam, Klang?
Time : 0630
Date : 7 June 2009
Race distance : 21.41km
Target time : sub 1hr 50min for 21km.
Weather : Pleasant due to early start.
Terrain : Not too undulating, less than Bidor half marathon route.
Attendance :1,500? So so lah...Due to many distances and categories, I don't think my cat (Veteran Men) had more than 200 participants.
Organization : Good

Pros : Plenty of water stations (5), 1 power gel station.
Plenty of portable toilets! A must have for such events.
Punctual!
Wide open roads and less participants, allowing a quick getaway!
Timing - Earlier better, with weather being cool.
Many categories, prizes and lucky draw...better chances for everyone to take home something else other from a medal.
Cons : Couldn't find registration counter (too dark and no signage, or I didn't see one at least)
No mileage markers...(if you don't have a GPS watch, you would be cursing)
No goodie bag after the run, so sad.
No makan, like hot dog or sandwiches, or nasi lemak...only tauhu.
Lights for the portable toilets. Didn't know whether you were hitting the target, except by listening to the sound. Also, I wasn't sure how to flush as I couldn't find the lever. I only found out that you can step on a pump which releases the water into the bowl, after the event...

You know, sometimes your mind plays tricks on you, especially when you've had a few hours sleep and you're awake at 4.30am.

You know what they say, "what can go wrong, will go wrong". I was packing up everything into the car and mentally going through the must take items. Somehow, taping up, applying vaseline and "CHECKING WHETHER I WAS BRINGING THE RIGHT SHOES" didn't occur to me this morning.

We reached the Welcome center at 6.05am with 25minutes to spare. As I opened the boot, to my surprise, I brought the right shoe of my Asics and the left shoe of my son's New Balance. I couldn't help but laugh at the situation. A friend later remarked to me when I told him this "better to half 1 left and 1 right, rather than both left or right". How true!

Anyway, knowing that the shoe will fit, it was just a matter of any discomfort, or blisters forming towards the end of the race.

They were giving away half cut Power bars and some other stuff. Most of the runners were milling around, looking for free makan, minum and anything else free...hmmm maybe it was just me.

Anyway, my wife wandered off to look at the stalls as her event started 45 minutes later (at 7.15am). I did my 1km warm up run, some stretches and lined up at the starting line with 5 minutes to spare. No pushing or shoving as the starting area was wide and the participants were not that many.

3,2,1 Bang! Off we went. I managed to work through the crowd with minimum fuss and completed the first 2km at 11.8km/hr.

I knew I was going too fast but I was somehow sucked into the "racing with others" mode, with guys passing me left and right...

By 5km, I was more settled down. I still felt pretty strong with my pace settling down at 11.6km/hr. I wanted to get to the half way mark at about 55min to at least have a negative split.

By 11km, I was bang on target and was starting to pass quite a number of runners. I checked my times and it definitely wasn't me speeding up.

By 15km, I knew I was where I need to be to meet my target time. The pack was thinning out, until we joined the 4.5k and 11k runners on the route. At that time, I was using the runners in front to keep pace and held on pretty strong until 19km.

For some reason or another, my pace for 20 and 21km dropped off by 7 seconds. Maybe, at the back of my mind, I knew I had the time in the bag and there was no close competitors to chase.

I was also aware that the total race distance would be more than 21km as we had to loop back across the flyover. Coming down the last 800meters, I caught with another guy who was slowing down to a jog and told him "Just a bit more! Time to push for it!" He smiled at me and said "OK, let's go!" He definitely had a lot of acceleration in him as he shot off at had gained about 10m in a 100m distance. He, however, slowed down again towards the last 200m and again, I caught up to him.

"Last 100meters! Come On!". He happily picked up the pace and I gave chase. I think I need to do more speed work if I want to catch up with this guy. He finished about 5m in front of me but both of us were happy that we finished the race in style. We patted each other on the back and went our separate ways.

Looking at the time, 1:50:48, I was a bit deflated, but checking the distance, I knew I managed to do what I set out to accomplish. I was 1min 54sec better than my previous run in Bidor for the same distance of 21km.

My wife was waiting at the finish line with tau foo fah in hand, and surprise surprise! She was 2nd in the fun run.

I do all the training and she wins all the prizes!!

Anyway, we ended hanging around until the prize giving ceremony and the 2nd prize in the the fun run was..... a bicycle!

Well, looks like the investment paid off. With my daughter's birthday being tomorrow, looks like there's an extra present for her.

All in all, it was good run and it's a taper period from here on out until the Biggie! on 28 June 2009.

SCKLM - The Loooong Run

Place - Bukit Rimau, KK and Kemuning Utama
Distance - 42.2 km
Time taken - 4:40:25 (At least I have an easier target time to beat for PR in KLIM)
Time - 6.00 am
Date - 30 May 2009
Weather - Beautiful with a refreshing breeze and cloudy....until 9.45am.
The plan - to try completing the full distance, regardless of time.

I had this run on the books for this week and was originally planning to do it on Sunday. However, with a special trip planned for the kids, I decided to give my Saturday golf a skip to this round.

Not a good idea. I came back from Singapore at 9.30pm and didn't really get a good night's sleep, probably only about 4 hours.

I was up by 5am to go through rituals of preparation with the food, drink, plasters and what have you not. I prepared 2 750ml bottles of 1 can Red bull + 1 can of 100 Plus each and filled them up to the brim. I'm not a big fan of 100 plus due to the gas but that was what we had at home.

I was feeling pretty sluggish but I was more or less running on auto to just try and do the run. Priority was not too get injured and not to suffer cramps. The one I suffered last Sunday, coupled with the slight sprain took almost the whole week to recover. Even now, there was a slight soreness.

With procrastination taking precedence, I only managed to step out and start my run by 6am.

By the first 2km, I got all the kinks worked out, especially on my right achilles tendon. I added the loop around the Kota Permai golf clubhouse to get the mileage up by the time I got back to the house.

By 10km, I completed the 2 loops around the lake, with an eye out for those "missing" tiles (once bitten, twice shy).

As it was a Saturday, traffic was much heavier compared to Sundays. I had to keep in mind not to get mowed down by maniacal motorists.

I completed the first 20km in good time (within the 2 hours target). I finished the gel pack by 21km mark and felt pretty good at that point.

After passing Chung Hwa primary school, some fatigue was beginning to settle in. Some doubt on whether I could complete the 42km crept up as some pain was developing in my ankles, especially the right.

By the time I reached back home to get my refill, the fatigue level was rising quicly. I finished the 2nd gel by 32km and was falling back to the power bar just in case I needed it.

After 35km, it went all wrong. Pain was developing everywhere and twinges of cramping were coming on more frequently. By 37km, I was already walking more than running and it was more of a mental battle by then.

The suffering went down a notch when I walked and jumped up 2 notches when I started running again. The last 5 km was probably the slowest I've ran since a year back. Come to think of it, they were probably the slowest 5km I did EVER!!

With the last 500m closing in, I hobble, shuffled and finally jogged to complete the distance. I was satisfied that I did it, although the time was way below expectations.

The real suffering began after reaching home. I tried very carefully not to maneuver, bend over or make any sudden move that may result in a cramp (that's what happened last week). With 2 ice cold 100 plus in the fridge and my wife having prepared ice in the freezer, I spent a good 20 minutes soaking my feet and gulping down the cans of 100 plus. For good measure, I took rehydration salts with 2 cups of water.

I made a point to weigh myself and I lost about 3kg in water and what have you not for that run.

Guess all of that worked as I didn't suffer any headache or light headedness, and at this point, after 2 hours of completing this run, still feel pretty good.

I'll probably be a sotong for the rest of the day. I can only thank my wife for supporting me with this "habit" and take care of things for today.

From now until the BIG day, I've only have 1 more long run which I plan to do with der Pacemakers on 13th June.

Looking forward to next week's KPAC half marathon. Not sure whether I should take it as a race for PR or just part of marathon's training...hmmmm

From this day onward, I'm a self certified masochist...er (unofficial) marathon runner

SCKLIM 7 wks to go 69km for the week

Runs for the week

Mon - Off day (fogging in the area)
Tue - Morning around the house 12km
Wed - Day off again (meetings and dinner)
Thur - Morning Sofitel 11km
Fri - Morning Copthorne Sg 12km
Sun - Morning KK 33km in 3:24:21

Legs were still sore on Monday from 1 May run, followed by the 19k on Sunday.

I had to live with early morning runs this week to get around the busy work and traveling schedule. I had to be up by about 5am for almost all of the runs, especially with the distances getting longer.

Anyway, it was all still manageable and it was spaced out well enough at least for me to get the miles in.

By missing Wed's run, I was short 3km for the week, but I'll live with it.

Coming to Sunday's long run, I was a bit apprehensive on my form and had a little trouble getting to sleep on the night before.

I was up by 5.05am, had 2 spoons of oats and 1 spoon of nestum and a cup of coffee, vaseline and plaster up and did the long call before heading out. Took me a good 50 minutes to get out of the door to start the run.

I will have to make a note to prepare whatever that was possible the night before. Hopefully, I can get all this done within 30 minutes the next time.

For the selection of route, I chose to do the loop round the SK Bukit Rimau school before heading out to the lake. The weather was pretty warm as it did not rain the day or night before. Running around the lake, I felt a nice breeze swirling around, so I decided to do 2 loops before pushing to Kemuning Utama housing estate.

I ran down the Kemuning Utama stretch and noticed that the road headed towards some water towers near to the highway. I turned around halfway but I took note that I could stretch that by another km if I headed all the way to the water towers.

Turning back towards the apartments, I felt pretty steady at km 16. At this point, I decided to save the power gel until km 21. The weather was getting a bit warmer by then, with the temp hitting 30deg C by then. I gulped down half the gel at km 21 and got that small boost.

At km 22, I was deciding whether to turn left and try and loop around the Bukit Kemuning golf course or turning right and head back and reload on the drink.

Feeling reasonably good and with about 300ml in my bottle, I decided to go for the longer route back. I thought it would be about km 26 or 27 by the time I reach back home.

With some fatigue coming on, I finished off the gel and had just enough to stave off the fatigue for a bit more.

Turning towards BR from the golf course (I decided not to go down the housing estate the other side, otherwise I would be about km30 before having a chance to replenish), I polished the rest of my drink as it was only about a km before I reached home.

Point to note, I rehydrated at km 5, km 8, km 12, km 15 and km18. After that, I had to increase the frequency to km 21, km 23.3, km 24, km25.2, km 27 and km 28. After that I had 2 walk breaks. Sign of fatigue?

Coming to the last 5km, the fatigue was building up. With the sun in all of it's blazing glory, the going got tougher. With 4km to go, I needed to push a bit but I was very confident at that point that I would be able to finish not only the balance 4km, but also the marathon. In fact, I felt better for this run than the previous 2 (1 May 27km [tough course] and 19 April 30km).

All in all, a good run and looking forward to completing the last 3 long runs. Hopefull, I will be able to complete 36, 39 and 42k, scheduled to be completed by 14 June, then the taper period of 2 weeks.







Feeling some of the fatigue by km 24

8 wks to go SCKLIM Easy 19km

Where : Kota Kemuning
Time : 0619
Weather : Great, even when the sun came out, it was pretty cloudy.
Hydration: 500ml mineral water only.

I wasn't very confident if I could do 19k today, what with the calf cramp I suffered after trying to drive without properly warming down on Friday.

I started off cautiously, thinking it would be better to be safe than sorry. After the first km, I felt no pain at all in the left calf, which was great. Still, I opted to keep it steady at about 6:15 min/km pace until the 10k mark.

The weather was wonderful, as it rained until up to about 4.30am in the morning. It was a cool 26 deg (I think!) and did not get past 28 deg when I finished the run.

After the 10k mark, I picked up the pace to about a 5:50 pace, and with no problems cropping up, I maintained a 5:40 pace until the last km, where I finished it off with a 4:48 pace.

I felt great after the run, and it was really out of my expectations. The hours of training on the longer distance seemed to be really paying off. A massage on the calves by my better half was icing on the cake!

My thoughts fell back to 9 months ago, when I was literally crawling back after a 15km training run....

All in all, I logged in almost 66k for this week, 3k more than the highest logged 2 weeks ago.

However, I'm still a long way from finishing a 42km strongly, but I might be able to eke out a sub 5 hour marathon under the current circumstances.

With another 4 long runs in the pipeline, I hope to steadily increase my endurance over the next 6 weeks.

Food for thought

- Longer distance running does help in the shorter distance events - as what I've seen in the 10k Orange run (5 min pace) and the Bidor half marathon (11.4km/hr pace). I will hope to maintain 30k runs after the SCKLIM.
- I haven't done much sprints or tempos - I need to incorporate these workouts if I would really like to speed up to a 13km/hr for the 10k by end of year. Don't think I need it for the marathon though.

Anyway, I've scheduled 72k over 4 runs next week, with the LSD at 32km. As I will be traveling to JB and Sg over the week, I will need to get up pretty early on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday to get the mileage in.

God willing, I'll get this done....

Der Pacemakers SCKLM CR1

Where : Lake Gardens
When : 0720
Weather : 0720-0800 28deg 0800-0900 30deg 0900-10000 - 33deg (by feel, not measured)
Terrain : First time training with staircase included. Definitely challenging!
Elevation : 33m per round, 1 of the toughest so far.

As with most events with Der Pacemakers, the number was kept small, it was quite easy, logistically speaking it was very easy to park close to the starting point.

Not having run this particular course before, I had no idea what I was in for. The incline was pretty sharp in the beginning, with about 25 steps of stairs as part of the course. The course was pretty well shaded and I didn't feel the heat until a bit later.

Started pretty well, despite some lethargy from previous week's race in Bidor. However, when the sun was up and shining by 0900, the going got tough. I took half a gel at 18 km and it seemed to help. By the time I was on 22km, the battery was running dry and polished off the remainder.

I felt worse towards the end and I couldn't running so I took up a walk run strategy to finish off the last few km.

At the end, I was very much spent and it probably was more punishing than the 2 30km training LSDs I did earlier.

I'm planning to finish off the week with a 19km run...hopefully as my body is still aching from the exertion.

30k LSD run (SCKLM 11 wks to go)

Time : 6.30am
Place : Kota Kemuning
Duration : 3hr 9min
Weather : Sunny after 8.15am

I was feeling quite ok in the morning with a minor ache in my right heel. Probably due to golf yesterday.

Didn't have breakfast, only a coffee. Packed a 500ml bottle of mineral water and my usual mix of Red Bull (250ml) and 500ml of fruit juice. I was guessing it would be sufficient to carry me through. On top of that I had another bottle outside the house just in case I need it for the final loop.

Mechanically, everything was in their proper working order, so I decided to stick to the plan and go for 30km, with no particular pace as a goal and focus on finishing the run.

Things went well until 23km at a 9.8km/hr pace, when the fatigue started to set in. I held on until the 25km, then the energy levels started to wane. Guess I was hitting the famous WALL. Still managed to run/walk to complete the 30km, but the pace really fell off quickly.

I finished my water supply by 24km and headed back home to have a drink before heading out again to complete the last 2km.

All in all, it's good experience and looking forward to the next LSD run 2 weeks from now. The plan was to cap it at 30km at this point.

The increased mileage to 55km did really pay off as I could maintain a 10km/hr without too much trouble.

Next week will the Orange Run (11km), so I would need to complete a couple of longer runs during the week, probably 10k for Monday evening, 15km for Wednesday morning, 10k for Thurs evening and an easy 8k for Saturday evening.