After going through my blog on the 14 weeks schedule of trainings, which by the way was side tracked a couple of weeks by a pulled hamstring and hip adductor, I seem to have done pretty well on some points but not others;
Good points;
1. LSDs were completed as planned.
2. Most week day runs and LSDs were on target pace.
3. After implementing key points of 'chi' running, running form and speed has improved significantly, as well as issues with the ankle and hamstring.
4. Mileage was pretty good.
Not so good points;
1. Total mileage was much lower than planned. I was hoping to hit 825km in the last 12 weeks, but it looks like I'll be hitting slightly more than 600k by end of next week's race.
2. 2 weeks considered gone, due to the hamstring/hip adductor problem. Has gone away for the last month or so, and didn't act up during the last 3 LSDs, though.
3. Not enough speed training, no hill training, and a tad too much tempo.
4. 10k pace will not be hitting close to 13kph by end of the year, more likely 12.5kph. Anyway there is always next year.
5. Got the flu the last few days, maybe due to running in the rain for most of my runs for the last 3 weeks, and also going into the taper period. I ran only 31k this week compared to 66k. Suppossedly, I was supposed to cut last week's to something like 45k (just had to squeeze in that last LSD!), so the drop off may have triggered the 'lower immunity syndrome' due to tapering.
Hopefully, I will be able to recover by mid week, and I will be running very minimal mileage this week, mostly due to travel. By Saturday, I should have done only 20k max, with 5k on Monday, 30min Tuesday and Wed, none on Thur, maybe 20min on Sat morning. Hopefully, all this will be done on a interval of 12-13kph for at least half the time.
Keeping my fingers crossed, I hope I will at least get a 4:15 for this run. Until then....
Showing posts with label marathon training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marathon training. Show all posts
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 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
Sunday, May 10, 2009
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
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
Sunday, May 3, 2009
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....
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....
Sunday, April 19, 2009
SCKLM 10 weeks to go 30km LSD
Place : Home
Time : 6.23am
Distance : 30km
Woke up quite early 5.20am but was on the verge of dropping off back to sleep, when my better half pinched me with her toes to remind me that I was a man on a mission and a task at hand this morning.
I prepared two bottles (750ml) mixed with Red Bull and 100 plus. The plan was to do the lake side, Kota Kemuning circuit, come back and switch bottles and head out towards the Bukit Kemuning, Econsave side. Target time was about 10km/h on average, 3 hours in all.
It took quite a lot of time to get ready, getting some oats and coffee in me, settling the morning business, plastering up my toe and lubricate areas that would likely chafe.
It took me a good 40 minutes before I was out the door.
The temperature was perfect, no aches or pains, and everything was good to go.
I did the first 10km slightly below an hour, feeling good. The scenery at the Kota Kemuning lake was beautiful as the sun came up. Noticed that there were quite a number of regular participants in the races turning up at the lake for training.
As I was returning times slightly below the target pace, I decided to slow it down a bit as my HRT was above 160.
My 2nd 10km was also below the target pace, but I took shorter and less walk breaks that I had in the previous LSD, as I felt pretty good.
Coming towards the 20km mark, I was slowing down. The temperature was slowly rising as the sun was blazing with nary a cloud in the sky.
By the end of the 20km, I decided to stick as close to home as possible and dumped my belt at home and returning every time I finished a round to take a drink off my 2nd bottle. Also changed to my sports glasses as the sun was really, really bright.
After the 25km mark, things started to go downhill quickly. With the proverbial wall looming, I was struggling to maintain my pace but pushed on only 1 outcome in mind. Finishing the 30km run at whatever time.
I decided to finish the final 5km without stopping for hydration. Feeling the pins and needles in the legs, I was guessing I was hitting the "WALL".
Pushing through the the final kilometers, it was apparent that the "mind over matter" thing was not all BS.
I packed on the ice on my right heel just in case the Achilles flared up again. Rested the sore muscles and took a nap later to recuperate as I had to leave for Singapore in a few hours.
All in all, a fine run and looking for to the Bidor run. Hopefully, I can get in a couple of runs in Singapore and taper to about 30km before the trip up north.
Finally, I clocked in 3:01:31 and the sense of relief washed
Time : 6.23am
Distance : 30km
Woke up quite early 5.20am but was on the verge of dropping off back to sleep, when my better half pinched me with her toes to remind me that I was a man on a mission and a task at hand this morning.
I prepared two bottles (750ml) mixed with Red Bull and 100 plus. The plan was to do the lake side, Kota Kemuning circuit, come back and switch bottles and head out towards the Bukit Kemuning, Econsave side. Target time was about 10km/h on average, 3 hours in all.
It took quite a lot of time to get ready, getting some oats and coffee in me, settling the morning business, plastering up my toe and lubricate areas that would likely chafe.
It took me a good 40 minutes before I was out the door.
The temperature was perfect, no aches or pains, and everything was good to go.
I did the first 10km slightly below an hour, feeling good. The scenery at the Kota Kemuning lake was beautiful as the sun came up. Noticed that there were quite a number of regular participants in the races turning up at the lake for training.
As I was returning times slightly below the target pace, I decided to slow it down a bit as my HRT was above 160.
My 2nd 10km was also below the target pace, but I took shorter and less walk breaks that I had in the previous LSD, as I felt pretty good.
Coming towards the 20km mark, I was slowing down. The temperature was slowly rising as the sun was blazing with nary a cloud in the sky.
By the end of the 20km, I decided to stick as close to home as possible and dumped my belt at home and returning every time I finished a round to take a drink off my 2nd bottle. Also changed to my sports glasses as the sun was really, really bright.
After the 25km mark, things started to go downhill quickly. With the proverbial wall looming, I was struggling to maintain my pace but pushed on only 1 outcome in mind. Finishing the 30km run at whatever time.
I decided to finish the final 5km without stopping for hydration. Feeling the pins and needles in the legs, I was guessing I was hitting the "WALL".
Pushing through the the final kilometers, it was apparent that the "mind over matter" thing was not all BS.
I packed on the ice on my right heel just in case the Achilles flared up again. Rested the sore muscles and took a nap later to recuperate as I had to leave for Singapore in a few hours.
All in all, a fine run and looking for to the Bidor run. Hopefully, I can get in a couple of runs in Singapore and taper to about 30km before the trip up north.
Finally, I clocked in 3:01:31 and the sense of relief washed
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