This was my 1st time racing in Seremban. I wanted to do it last year, but I forgot why I didn't come. Seremban has always been close to my heart, having spent a couple of years there to finish my diploma back in 1997. A lot have changed since then, it's a booming town with highways, etc.
Preparation
As I was still carrying an injury, my preparation was less than ideal to say the least. Nevertheless, I managed to complete one LSD the week before, a crucial element in my preparation. Since I can't really run everyday due to my injury, I had to make every session count. So I upped the intensity of every training. I didn't do any intervals, but focused on tempo training. After my last training on Tuesday (10K), my left foot hurt so bad that I didn't run at all until the event day.
Raceday
I just bought a new cellphone & I dunno why but the alarm didn't ring. I'd earlier set it up to ring at 4am. When I got up it was already 5am. I knew I had to leave by 5.30 or I'll never make it. I got to Seremban at 5 mins to 6am, practicaly flooring the pedal all the way, driving at 180km/h, hitting 200 at times. If there was any speedtrap camera along the way I was sure I got caught in at least a couple of them.
I was lucky I found a parking spot very close to the start. I performed my Subuh prayer next to my car. The start was right in front of the Majlis Perbandaran Seremban building. As I made my way to the start I found Choi. He said that the course is a fast one, he did 1:45 the last time he did it. Well, I wished I could do it too. My primary goal was to do better than SCKLM & to break the 2-hr mark as a secondary target.
The race started at 6:45am, very late by Malaysian standard. As a comparison, SCKLM started at 6. Nevertheless I decided not to wear any headgear, although the weather forecast stated a clear & sunny day.
There was less than a thousand participants for the half marathon category by my count. It's not unusual for a local race. U have to be extra careful with local races like this, traffic control normally is less than adequate. Ipoh International last month was one bad example when runners need to manoeuvre heavy traffic with buses, etc.
About 3km into the race we encountered the 1st major climb of the race. Although it was nothing like the one in Malakoff Penang route, it was pretty long. After that it was pretty much flat throughout. I had set a benchmark of 6:00min/km for the race. My left foot didn't give me much problem thankfully. I hit the 1st 10K at 58mins, the 1st time I did sub-hour for a 10K in a half marathon. It kinda spurred me to go faster.
At KM12 I had side stitches bad enuff to hamper my breathing. Maybe I was going too fast. I tried to shake it off but it stayed there for a good couple of kms. My feeding & hydration plan was on track. So I was quite puzzled by the emergence of the stitches. The water stations was adequate, I guess the low number of races made it easier for us at the water stations. Plus I was among the front pack, so all is well.
The route took me through some familiar places, like Taman Koperasi Guru, where my aunt used to stay. Paroi was of course a familiar place, but once we got into the residential areas and the villages, I was kinda lost there. I never knew some of the places during my time there, but then again, I didn't really explore all of the places in Seremban.
I was kinda stuck in no man's land alone for quite sometime. There was a group in front of me & there was another a few minutes back. But I was alone. Once we hit the road towards Lake Garden there was heavy traffic with all the fun runners. Most of them are schoolkids & they were walking instead of running & they occupied one whole lane sometimes. It was so packed I had to shove a couple of kids outta my way. Unfortunately I hit the 2hr mark at the MPS building, with some 500m to go. Nevertheless I pressed on & hit the line at 2:01, a new PB.
Lotsa firsts
I had broken the 6:00/km average in this race by going 5:59. I also did the 1st 10K in 58 mins, another first. The medal we got was quite nice. Although I didn't break the 2-hour mark in this race, I was pretty darn close & to achieve it running with an injury, breaking the 2-hour is not impossible. I plan to go for the Penang Bridge International Marathon again this year & I hope that's where I'ma do it. I'ma give myself time to recover from this injury during the fasting month & I hope it won't be a long-term injury. Until then.
Livestrong
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
End of the road
The past 2 weeks I went to watch sequels to two of my favorite movies : Transformers & Harry Potter. Those sequels were the last in a very long movie sequence, especially Harry Potter. They've been in the movie since they were kids & now they've all grown up.. must've been difficult ending such a long journey.
We watched both movies in 3D, the 1st time we watched any movie in 3D. But I'd have to say that the Transformers was a better 3D movie, maybe becoz it was shot in 3D. I felt that HP was just a normal movie then converted into 3D, hence the 3D effects wasn't that revealing.
Transformers : Dark of The Moon was a very long movie, 2 hrs 40 mins, & maybe becoz there was so much to tell. There was action from start to finish, typical for a Transformer movie & even with a new babe, well, the babe was in the action as well. & I dunno whether there will be any spin off movies after this, like the X-men movie, there was no rumor about it. The movie was great, story was great albeit very illogical. & the ending was .. well.. the end. That was what I always look for in a movie of this nature. How the director ends the end of the movie. The LOTR trilogy's end was good. This one was good as well.
But the HP's ending was like... well, in the end I was like,"That's it ? That's all ?" After 7 movies altogether, I was expecting a more dramatic ending. But of course, it ended well enuff, all the characters in the movie ended up with their respective love interests & their kids went to Hogwarts, exactly just like them. But really, that's it ?
Visitors from abroad.
The Malaysian football team is having the time of their lives this couple of weeks. 3 EPL teams, Arsenal, Liverpool & Chelsea are making a visit to the country & play friendly games with the national team. Like what K.Rajagopal said earlier, even Brazil dun get to play 3 EPL teams in 2 weeks like we do. Yeah, but maybe there's a reason for that. Anyway, those players must be living a dream.
I went to watch my favorite team of course, Arsenal. The last time they came it was in 1999 & I didn't have any money to buy the very expensive ticket back then, I was still in university. So when the news got out that they're coming this year, I couldn't let this opportunity pass by. Armed with my new 125th anniversary jersey, I went to the Bukit Jalil stadium for 2 straight nights, to watch them train & play. Sure enuff, the national team was no match for the Arsenal & got thumped 0-4. Nevertheless, we were behind the national team the whole time & I thought we were cheering more for the national team than the Arsenal.
Against Liverpool we managed to score 3 goals, unprecedented for a team of our ranking. Safiq Rahim confirmed himself as Malaysia's dead-ball specialist by scoring from a freekick. Safee Sali scored twice.. the stadium erupted. Good morale-booster for our team ahead of the Singapore tie.
Watching Arsenal in their training session.. they still do a lot of drills.. passing, stopping the ball.. drilled set plays.. Our team dun really do that. Which is why they're so good the Arsenal. Even at that level, they still practice drills religiously.. practiced set plays until it's embedded in their brains & they can do it by memory. Try telling our youngsters, even at state level to do that & U'll be met with a somewhat confused stare from them.
Our athletes, they dun like to do basic, fundamental things. Why ? Becoz they tend to believe they're good enuff already & to progress they need to learn more advanced, difficult moves. But when they fail to do the more difficult moves, they get frustrated & upset & eventually stop playing whatever game they're playing. Seeing Arsenal players, who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars weekly, try to work on their passing, dribbling countless times, to make them perfect... was just an eye-opening experience. I hope those youngsters watching, or even parents of aspiring youngsters will take note of this & keep this in mind. Practice makes perfect & dun get satisfied easily.
Baby coming
My wife's into her 35th week of pregnancy & we're getting pretty much restless waiting for our baby to come into our family. Next week we're gonna have the last check up with our doctor & then it's just a matter of time. I'm on a flexible dateline here at work, I need to get everything settled before I go on leave, so that I can go with a piece of mind.
Seremban Half Marathon
I didn't manage to register for the last race before Ramadhan, the Men's Health Shape Run. My fault really. So to make up for that & for my very poor SCKLM, I decided to go for the Seremban Half Marathon on the 24th. That's gonna be my last race before Ramadhan. I'm not really interested to run phantom at Men's Health. I'm still carrying my plantar fasciitis, but the shin splints seems to be okay for now. I keep telling myself to go all-out for this Seremban, even with my injury, & then I can have a month's rest. I dunno if I can improve on my PB, I dun really know the course. Hopefully I can run a better race than SCKLM. That's all I want.
Livestrong.
We watched both movies in 3D, the 1st time we watched any movie in 3D. But I'd have to say that the Transformers was a better 3D movie, maybe becoz it was shot in 3D. I felt that HP was just a normal movie then converted into 3D, hence the 3D effects wasn't that revealing.
Transformers : Dark of The Moon was a very long movie, 2 hrs 40 mins, & maybe becoz there was so much to tell. There was action from start to finish, typical for a Transformer movie & even with a new babe, well, the babe was in the action as well. & I dunno whether there will be any spin off movies after this, like the X-men movie, there was no rumor about it. The movie was great, story was great albeit very illogical. & the ending was .. well.. the end. That was what I always look for in a movie of this nature. How the director ends the end of the movie. The LOTR trilogy's end was good. This one was good as well.
But the HP's ending was like... well, in the end I was like,"That's it ? That's all ?" After 7 movies altogether, I was expecting a more dramatic ending. But of course, it ended well enuff, all the characters in the movie ended up with their respective love interests & their kids went to Hogwarts, exactly just like them. But really, that's it ?
Visitors from abroad.
The Malaysian football team is having the time of their lives this couple of weeks. 3 EPL teams, Arsenal, Liverpool & Chelsea are making a visit to the country & play friendly games with the national team. Like what K.Rajagopal said earlier, even Brazil dun get to play 3 EPL teams in 2 weeks like we do. Yeah, but maybe there's a reason for that. Anyway, those players must be living a dream.
I went to watch my favorite team of course, Arsenal. The last time they came it was in 1999 & I didn't have any money to buy the very expensive ticket back then, I was still in university. So when the news got out that they're coming this year, I couldn't let this opportunity pass by. Armed with my new 125th anniversary jersey, I went to the Bukit Jalil stadium for 2 straight nights, to watch them train & play. Sure enuff, the national team was no match for the Arsenal & got thumped 0-4. Nevertheless, we were behind the national team the whole time & I thought we were cheering more for the national team than the Arsenal.
Against Liverpool we managed to score 3 goals, unprecedented for a team of our ranking. Safiq Rahim confirmed himself as Malaysia's dead-ball specialist by scoring from a freekick. Safee Sali scored twice.. the stadium erupted. Good morale-booster for our team ahead of the Singapore tie.
Watching Arsenal in their training session.. they still do a lot of drills.. passing, stopping the ball.. drilled set plays.. Our team dun really do that. Which is why they're so good the Arsenal. Even at that level, they still practice drills religiously.. practiced set plays until it's embedded in their brains & they can do it by memory. Try telling our youngsters, even at state level to do that & U'll be met with a somewhat confused stare from them.
Our athletes, they dun like to do basic, fundamental things. Why ? Becoz they tend to believe they're good enuff already & to progress they need to learn more advanced, difficult moves. But when they fail to do the more difficult moves, they get frustrated & upset & eventually stop playing whatever game they're playing. Seeing Arsenal players, who get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars weekly, try to work on their passing, dribbling countless times, to make them perfect... was just an eye-opening experience. I hope those youngsters watching, or even parents of aspiring youngsters will take note of this & keep this in mind. Practice makes perfect & dun get satisfied easily.
Baby coming
My wife's into her 35th week of pregnancy & we're getting pretty much restless waiting for our baby to come into our family. Next week we're gonna have the last check up with our doctor & then it's just a matter of time. I'm on a flexible dateline here at work, I need to get everything settled before I go on leave, so that I can go with a piece of mind.
Seremban Half Marathon
I didn't manage to register for the last race before Ramadhan, the Men's Health Shape Run. My fault really. So to make up for that & for my very poor SCKLM, I decided to go for the Seremban Half Marathon on the 24th. That's gonna be my last race before Ramadhan. I'm not really interested to run phantom at Men's Health. I'm still carrying my plantar fasciitis, but the shin splints seems to be okay for now. I keep telling myself to go all-out for this Seremban, even with my injury, & then I can have a month's rest. I dunno if I can improve on my PB, I dun really know the course. Hopefully I can run a better race than SCKLM. That's all I want.
Livestrong.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Week in, week out
SCKLM 2011
2 weeks ago I ran my 2nd half mara of 2011, despite a less than ideal build up & very minimal training. Reason being, I was still hampered by injury. Plantar fasciitis & also shin splints. The shin splints was showing some signs of recovering though. Despite all that, I chose to go ahead & run SCKLM. I didn't run the race last year & this year I've actually made it my target event.
The day before the race, I went for a picnic with my colleagues to Sg Tekala. It was my 1st time there. Maybe it was a mistake. I took a dip in the very cold river (not ice-cold, but very the cold nonetheless). I felt fine after that, & even slept for almost 2 hours there ! I just tried to rest as much as I can. When I went to bed that nite everything was fine.
But when I woke up at about 4:30 Sunday morning, I felt stiff. I had a slight temperature to add to my list of injury. It didn't feel all that bad before the race, but it got worse as the race progresses.
Overall I felt really bad. I couldn't push the pace. I was scrambling for isotonic drink at every water station, with the hope of getting some sort of relief. But it wasn't to be & I felt really bad. About 30 mins into the race there was drips of rain, but it stopped after that. With my condition that day, rain would've been disastrous.
The route was great. Great for breaking records or doing PBs. It was flat, especially the stretch in Cheras. As with any event of this magnitude, it was well-supported. Water stations was good. There was even a small tunnel with cold drips of water to cool the runners. But I was feeling really, really bad. Just another bad day at the office I guess.
I finished the race in 2:18, my 3rd worse time in half mara. I thought I could emulate Penang, but I just couldn't. As soon as I got home I crashed & slept.. I haven't felt this way for a long time. Hopefully things will get better, soon.
Livestrong.
2 weeks ago I ran my 2nd half mara of 2011, despite a less than ideal build up & very minimal training. Reason being, I was still hampered by injury. Plantar fasciitis & also shin splints. The shin splints was showing some signs of recovering though. Despite all that, I chose to go ahead & run SCKLM. I didn't run the race last year & this year I've actually made it my target event.
The day before the race, I went for a picnic with my colleagues to Sg Tekala. It was my 1st time there. Maybe it was a mistake. I took a dip in the very cold river (not ice-cold, but very the cold nonetheless). I felt fine after that, & even slept for almost 2 hours there ! I just tried to rest as much as I can. When I went to bed that nite everything was fine.
But when I woke up at about 4:30 Sunday morning, I felt stiff. I had a slight temperature to add to my list of injury. It didn't feel all that bad before the race, but it got worse as the race progresses.
Overall I felt really bad. I couldn't push the pace. I was scrambling for isotonic drink at every water station, with the hope of getting some sort of relief. But it wasn't to be & I felt really bad. About 30 mins into the race there was drips of rain, but it stopped after that. With my condition that day, rain would've been disastrous.
The route was great. Great for breaking records or doing PBs. It was flat, especially the stretch in Cheras. As with any event of this magnitude, it was well-supported. Water stations was good. There was even a small tunnel with cold drips of water to cool the runners. But I was feeling really, really bad. Just another bad day at the office I guess.
I finished the race in 2:18, my 3rd worse time in half mara. I thought I could emulate Penang, but I just couldn't. As soon as I got home I crashed & slept.. I haven't felt this way for a long time. Hopefully things will get better, soon.
Livestrong.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
SCKLM build up
Yesterday I broke the monotony of my training by going for a volleyball game with my officemates in Pancarona. I decided to see how my legs are doing, so I ran to Pancarona. If I'd taken the direct route, it'd took me about 10 mins maybe, it was less than 2km away from my office. So I took a longer route, the route used during PACM NB 15K earlier this month. The problem is, it was my 1st time to Pancarona & I didn't really know where it was. I just thought I went by that place during the race. So I had to gamble a bit & got there after about 17 mins. My legs felt okay, I'd use my Newtons & calf sleeve, just in case. & it was okay. So I guess Sunday is a go.
The volleyball game was great. The only thing bad was that while diving to retrieve a ball I'd scratched my Newtons a bit. My bad. I shud've known better than to use my race shoes for a volleyball game. I ran back to the office after the game. Good workout overall.
At home I was feeling some pain again. My plantar fasciitis. This really puzzles me. I just dunno what else to do. Maybe some ibuprofen would help. But I dunno where to get it.
Well, as a build up to the race, which is this Sunday, I'm drinking lotsa water. This is important to stay hydrated. Just wanna keep myself hydrated & well-oiled for Sunday. I've some pace options in mind. & I'll see how I feel in the 1st half of the race. My target is to break 2 hours of course.
Death of a marathon runner.
Earlier this month Sammy Wanjiru, 2008 Beijing Olympics marathon gold medalist was killed in an apparent suicide. But that's got nothing to do with cardiovascular weakness or anything, he jumped off a corridor in his house. The death I wanna talk about is one that was brought up in LYNet forum this morning.
A friend of a forumer died of heart attack. He said that the deceased was a marathon runner. So he urged everybody to do medical check up & dun assume that becoz U run marathons, Ur in perfect health.
What he said makes perfect sense to me. Sometime ago I read a study that found marathoners who run too much, they have weaker blood vessel. The reason was that those marathoners run every race there is & they dun allow sufficient recovery time. I know of some runners who runs one race in KL at nite & then drive all the way to JB for a marathon in the morning. & she's a senior vet. I thought that was just too much. Sometimes U feel fit, but nobody knows what's underneath, especially if U haven't done any medical check ups.
I've signed up with a healthcare provider for annual medical checkups for the next 5 years. My wifey & I did our first one last year. So with that I hope I can detect if there's anything wrong with me at an early stage. Maybe all marathoners, or athletes shud do the same. When I was cycling with the Selangor team, we had medical checkups every year before we start the season.
The thing is very active ppl, they sometimes believe becoz they lead a healthy lifestyle, nothing can happen to them. That they're immune to cardiovascular diseases like heart disease & all. They shud really take a deeper look at that matter. Athletes consume a great deal of isotonic drinks & those drinks contain lotsa sugar. We run like there's no tomorrow & we dun allow our body to recover from that effort. As the saying goes, too much of anything, even good things can be bad for you. We live in denial just becoz we think we're healthy & nothing can happen to us.
I've been more selective in my choice of races since last year. Last year I ran 12 races (or was it 14 ?) & I think that's too much. But some ppl ran like 20-25 events, half of them are 21km or more. I ran 4 half maras last year. & this year, even in June, I'm only running my 2nd half mara, although I did run the Malakoff 26km in March. I think 4-5 half maras is my max. 10-15km races is different becoz they dun exactly exert that much effort from our body. I've been more selective in terms of events that I use as training, events that I really wanna do well in.
Sometimes things that we thought is doing us good, is actually doing more harm to our body & health than we thought it would. So, it's actually a virtue to live in moderation.
Livestrong.
The volleyball game was great. The only thing bad was that while diving to retrieve a ball I'd scratched my Newtons a bit. My bad. I shud've known better than to use my race shoes for a volleyball game. I ran back to the office after the game. Good workout overall.
At home I was feeling some pain again. My plantar fasciitis. This really puzzles me. I just dunno what else to do. Maybe some ibuprofen would help. But I dunno where to get it.
Well, as a build up to the race, which is this Sunday, I'm drinking lotsa water. This is important to stay hydrated. Just wanna keep myself hydrated & well-oiled for Sunday. I've some pace options in mind. & I'll see how I feel in the 1st half of the race. My target is to break 2 hours of course.
Death of a marathon runner.
Earlier this month Sammy Wanjiru, 2008 Beijing Olympics marathon gold medalist was killed in an apparent suicide. But that's got nothing to do with cardiovascular weakness or anything, he jumped off a corridor in his house. The death I wanna talk about is one that was brought up in LYNet forum this morning.
A friend of a forumer died of heart attack. He said that the deceased was a marathon runner. So he urged everybody to do medical check up & dun assume that becoz U run marathons, Ur in perfect health.
What he said makes perfect sense to me. Sometime ago I read a study that found marathoners who run too much, they have weaker blood vessel. The reason was that those marathoners run every race there is & they dun allow sufficient recovery time. I know of some runners who runs one race in KL at nite & then drive all the way to JB for a marathon in the morning. & she's a senior vet. I thought that was just too much. Sometimes U feel fit, but nobody knows what's underneath, especially if U haven't done any medical check ups.
I've signed up with a healthcare provider for annual medical checkups for the next 5 years. My wifey & I did our first one last year. So with that I hope I can detect if there's anything wrong with me at an early stage. Maybe all marathoners, or athletes shud do the same. When I was cycling with the Selangor team, we had medical checkups every year before we start the season.
The thing is very active ppl, they sometimes believe becoz they lead a healthy lifestyle, nothing can happen to them. That they're immune to cardiovascular diseases like heart disease & all. They shud really take a deeper look at that matter. Athletes consume a great deal of isotonic drinks & those drinks contain lotsa sugar. We run like there's no tomorrow & we dun allow our body to recover from that effort. As the saying goes, too much of anything, even good things can be bad for you. We live in denial just becoz we think we're healthy & nothing can happen to us.
I've been more selective in my choice of races since last year. Last year I ran 12 races (or was it 14 ?) & I think that's too much. But some ppl ran like 20-25 events, half of them are 21km or more. I ran 4 half maras last year. & this year, even in June, I'm only running my 2nd half mara, although I did run the Malakoff 26km in March. I think 4-5 half maras is my max. 10-15km races is different becoz they dun exactly exert that much effort from our body. I've been more selective in terms of events that I use as training, events that I really wanna do well in.
Sometimes things that we thought is doing us good, is actually doing more harm to our body & health than we thought it would. So, it's actually a virtue to live in moderation.
Livestrong.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Moment of Truth
Pacesetters NB 15K 2011
I realized today that I haven't wrote anything about my last race, the PACM NB 15K. The race was just about 2 weeks after PSP2011 & my preparation for that race was far from ideal. I had plantar fasciitis just after PSP, so I took a week's rest, just swimming & doing weights. I had to attend a course in Melaka, so I took that opportunity to rest summore. The hotel I stayed in had a swimming pool & a gym. I ran on the treadmill for 45 mins & felt good. Not that the injury had gone away, but it seemed that it didn't really gave me any problem anymore.
I haven't done any long runs in May, as I prepared for PSP. Thus my mileage for May was less than 60km, less than half the previous month's mileage. But the NB was only 15K, & it's in Putrajaya, so I guess it was gonna be fine. About a week from the race, the organizers scrambled an email to participants telling that the race will start at 6.30am instead of 7.00. I guess the hot weather nowadays made them think twice.
I wanted to take the race as training, becoz I didn't really train for the race. But these days, I guess I can run any distance below 21km without so much of a training. I know I can finish, the question is just how fast. I'd set my target pace to be between 6:00 - 6:30, good enuff to finish the race in 1:30 hrs.
LYNet runners had planned to meet up before the run, although I got to the start pretty early, I didn't go to the meet up point. I struggled with my Garmin at the start... sigh. 3 months already & I haven't mastered the usage of this seemingly complex device. Even during the run, the target pace alarm seemed to not functioning correctly. I'm really puzzled by this.
Well, the run went well. I maintained my target pace throughout & didn't really feel that bad. Only with 2km to go did I really put the hammer down becoz I knew where the finish line is & I know I was able to sustain that pace, about 4:30 - 5:00, for that distance. & I hit the line at 1:30:00 flat. Not bad. Given my conditions. Not bad at all.
Workload
I'm currently handling more workload at work, more than before. But it was to be expected becoz I was recently promoted & also becoz I was among the most senior PSU at my section, I was given some extra tasks. I dun mind all that. But what bothers me is the "lain-lain tugas yang diarahkan dari semasa ke semasa" thingy. U know, we oughta remove that clause from our job description. Becoz that gives the opportunity for our bosses to give whatever task to ask without us having any say on it. Heck, it seemed like that is my main task nowadays. & worse, if U get a hard time from Ur boss from Ur perceived inability to focus on that job. Which job exactly ?
My baby
My wifey is now almost 8 months into her pregnancy. That means in a little over a month's time, I'ma be a father. I really hope & pray that the baby would change some of the aspects of my life, for the better. I dun really know what's gonna happen of course. How the baby would change me. Change my life. All I know is that I can't wait to have him into our family.
Livestrong.
I realized today that I haven't wrote anything about my last race, the PACM NB 15K. The race was just about 2 weeks after PSP2011 & my preparation for that race was far from ideal. I had plantar fasciitis just after PSP, so I took a week's rest, just swimming & doing weights. I had to attend a course in Melaka, so I took that opportunity to rest summore. The hotel I stayed in had a swimming pool & a gym. I ran on the treadmill for 45 mins & felt good. Not that the injury had gone away, but it seemed that it didn't really gave me any problem anymore.
I haven't done any long runs in May, as I prepared for PSP. Thus my mileage for May was less than 60km, less than half the previous month's mileage. But the NB was only 15K, & it's in Putrajaya, so I guess it was gonna be fine. About a week from the race, the organizers scrambled an email to participants telling that the race will start at 6.30am instead of 7.00. I guess the hot weather nowadays made them think twice.
I wanted to take the race as training, becoz I didn't really train for the race. But these days, I guess I can run any distance below 21km without so much of a training. I know I can finish, the question is just how fast. I'd set my target pace to be between 6:00 - 6:30, good enuff to finish the race in 1:30 hrs.
LYNet runners had planned to meet up before the run, although I got to the start pretty early, I didn't go to the meet up point. I struggled with my Garmin at the start... sigh. 3 months already & I haven't mastered the usage of this seemingly complex device. Even during the run, the target pace alarm seemed to not functioning correctly. I'm really puzzled by this.
Well, the run went well. I maintained my target pace throughout & didn't really feel that bad. Only with 2km to go did I really put the hammer down becoz I knew where the finish line is & I know I was able to sustain that pace, about 4:30 - 5:00, for that distance. & I hit the line at 1:30:00 flat. Not bad. Given my conditions. Not bad at all.
Workload
I'm currently handling more workload at work, more than before. But it was to be expected becoz I was recently promoted & also becoz I was among the most senior PSU at my section, I was given some extra tasks. I dun mind all that. But what bothers me is the "lain-lain tugas yang diarahkan dari semasa ke semasa" thingy. U know, we oughta remove that clause from our job description. Becoz that gives the opportunity for our bosses to give whatever task to ask without us having any say on it. Heck, it seemed like that is my main task nowadays. & worse, if U get a hard time from Ur boss from Ur perceived inability to focus on that job. Which job exactly ?
My baby
My wifey is now almost 8 months into her pregnancy. That means in a little over a month's time, I'ma be a father. I really hope & pray that the baby would change some of the aspects of my life, for the better. I dun really know what's gonna happen of course. How the baby would change me. Change my life. All I know is that I can't wait to have him into our family.
Livestrong.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Dealing with injury
Here we go again. I've got a week to go before my target race, the Standard Chartered KL Marathon.. & now I'm down with shin splints so bad that just to squat in the toilet is a challenge for me. Now I've to find a way to train for the half marathon, with a target time of sub-2 hour, without running. I'm not quite sure where I am now in terms of fitness, I haven't done a long run for 2 months already. Why ?
Well, first, some background. After PSP, I was down with plantar fasciitis that I decided to take a week off. But everybody knows that my week off isn't exacly "off". As long as my other limbs are moving, I will do some training of any sort, just to keep things moving. If I can't run then I'll swim, bike or lift weights. If I can't do all three then there's something really wrong with me or my body. That means I'm really down. Okay, after I decided that my plantar fasciitis was okay, I began to run, just to accumulate mileage so that 21km won't come as a shock. But I guess at my level now, I know I can finish 21km, the question is how fast ? So I did lotsa 10km tempos, race-sims, etc. But then my shins started to give me problems.
For me, the shin splints comes & go. It never really did go away. I'm very much puzzled why is it so. Shin splints normally happens to very heavy runners, those with less than efficient stride or those who run with shoes with bad cushioning. I dun belong to any of those categories, albeit, I might be a little on the heavy side. I ran PACM 15K without any problems, & managed to clock a respectable time, despite my taking it somewhat easy. & 2 days ago I did a great 10K tempo without so much of hint that I had shin splints. But on Friday, on an easy run, it hurt so much that I had to walk the rest of the way. Why ?
& yesterday I was supposed to do a 2hr LSD, my last prep for SCKLM. I had to call it off after 4km, & had to walk back. I was wearing my compression tights & to have that kinda injury even with compression wear on, that's serious. The first person I called once I got back to my bike was my friend Hardy, a physio who works with MSN. Unfortunately he was on his way to Singapore, so I had to wait for him to come back next week. I really need an expert opinion, I'm scared that the injury might be more severe than I thought. Worse, a fracture.
So now I have to resort to riding my stationary bike, go swimming & lift weights. Or all three at once. Hopefully it'll heal before Sunday. Last year it was the same situation before Putrajaya Night Marathon. Let's hope I can come away unscathed from this one.
Livestrong.
Well, first, some background. After PSP, I was down with plantar fasciitis that I decided to take a week off. But everybody knows that my week off isn't exacly "off". As long as my other limbs are moving, I will do some training of any sort, just to keep things moving. If I can't run then I'll swim, bike or lift weights. If I can't do all three then there's something really wrong with me or my body. That means I'm really down. Okay, after I decided that my plantar fasciitis was okay, I began to run, just to accumulate mileage so that 21km won't come as a shock. But I guess at my level now, I know I can finish 21km, the question is how fast ? So I did lotsa 10km tempos, race-sims, etc. But then my shins started to give me problems.
For me, the shin splints comes & go. It never really did go away. I'm very much puzzled why is it so. Shin splints normally happens to very heavy runners, those with less than efficient stride or those who run with shoes with bad cushioning. I dun belong to any of those categories, albeit, I might be a little on the heavy side. I ran PACM 15K without any problems, & managed to clock a respectable time, despite my taking it somewhat easy. & 2 days ago I did a great 10K tempo without so much of hint that I had shin splints. But on Friday, on an easy run, it hurt so much that I had to walk the rest of the way. Why ?
& yesterday I was supposed to do a 2hr LSD, my last prep for SCKLM. I had to call it off after 4km, & had to walk back. I was wearing my compression tights & to have that kinda injury even with compression wear on, that's serious. The first person I called once I got back to my bike was my friend Hardy, a physio who works with MSN. Unfortunately he was on his way to Singapore, so I had to wait for him to come back next week. I really need an expert opinion, I'm scared that the injury might be more severe than I thought. Worse, a fracture.
So now I have to resort to riding my stationary bike, go swimming & lift weights. Or all three at once. Hopefully it'll heal before Sunday. Last year it was the same situation before Putrajaya Night Marathon. Let's hope I can come away unscathed from this one.
Livestrong.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
PSP2011 post mortem..
The 2011 Pesta Sukan Perbendaharaan was concluded recently, with my personal medal tally at 0-0-3.. 3 bronze medals from 4 events. That means I failed to medal only in 1 of the event that I signed for. How does that compare to my performance last year, with 1 gold medal ?
Javelin
I kicked off my PSP2011 campaign with the javelin. I was the defending champion of course. I felt that I've made significant progress since then. Unfortunately, I wasn't happy with my performance in the javelin, I got 3rd with 33.15m, which was shorter than my gold-medal winning throw last year of 35m. But the winner threw a 36m & the 2nd-placed thrower had a 33.80m. But the difference between us could've been a mere 1mm & still that would've separated between gold, silver & bronze. What went wrong ?
For starters, out of 6 regulations throws, I only managed to register 1 good throw, that was my 33.15m. The rest was either fouled or purposely fouled by me, due to lousy distance. But I wasn't happy with that. Last year all my regulation throws was over 30m. I think that had to do with my technique. If I wanna maintain this event as my pet event, I gotta train more, get a coach to correct my technique or something.
U see, in javelin I was considered the favorite, even before the PSP started. I'd bought a javelin spike before PSKK last year, & my warm-up routine would send shivers down my opponents necks... half the battle was won before the event started.. it was me who failed to live up to their expectations. Shame on me. I also felt my body, even though it was stronger than last year, wasn't strong enuff. There was no power. Maybe the reason was that my weight program didn't really included power exercises. I did do some power-specific workouts about 2 weeks before, but it wasn't enuff. It was even more evident during the discus event. I'll come to that later.
This is what I wanna do next year. I'ma use my contacts at MSN & SSBJ to find a javelin coach. I just need the coach to tell me whts wrong with my technique & form so tht I could fix it. I wanna do javelin-specific training at least 2 months before & I wanna throw farther than 45m. That's a big ask. But I wanna do it. I must do it.
Medley
This is one event that I didn't even expect to run. Even Pengurusan wasn't supposed to run it becoz we couldn't find anybody to run it. We managed to put together a team out of nothing & we had to ask permission from managers of the rest of the team becoz we didn't register. I think they thought our team was just making up the numbers. I also thought the same. In fact, I was thinking to run in my jeans even..
Then Diana made a great start & managed to pass the baton to En Wahid in 3rd position.. En Wahid surprisingly managed to hold 3rd, but the gap was growing. Then Hazizi was further left behind & the 4th placed runner was making up ground. I received the baton & ran the last leg of 400m. I've never run 400m before. I just ran as fast as I could on the bend when the other 2 runners was already entering the back straight. Surprisingly I felt really fine & I was able to hold my speed & saw that I was gaining ground on them & was increasing the gap on the 4th placed runner. I managed to enter the home stretch & increased my speed even further, but failed to catch the front runners. If there was another lap I would've been able to catch & even passed them.. I was very sure of that, judging on my speed & my ability to hold that speed.
That event was an eye opener of sorts for me. I had the speed & the endurance to run 400m at a competitive time. I might do that event next year, I was confident enuff to think that I can even run the 400m relay.
10,000m
I had to skip this event last year due to a calf injury. During my absence last year, a guy from Keselamatan got 2nd with a pretty good time of 54++. Before the event I wasn't sure how I'd do.. at the previous week's Larian Bomba I managed to do 58 mins over almost 11km. So I was confident I repeat that in the track. There was one issue : the discus event will be held about 2hrs right after the 10k. So that would put me in a difficulty. Discus was a new event for me.
There was only 7 ppl in the starting lineup. Only 4 looked like runners. There was a new threat, Kimi from Housing. I knew he played football & he has good built of a distance runner. Afri from Keselamatan was also there & of course the defending champion Amri was ever-present. I've always said that in this event we're only fighting for 2nd place.
We started off late, at 8am. My goal for this event was just to improve on my previous best, I ran a 59mins in 2009, the 1st time I did this event. I followed Amri as long as I could & lasted 3 laps behind him before I decided to peel off. Kimi was able to stay almost halfway before Amri decided to up the pace. I couldn't find Afri until he went past me at maybe lap 10. I kept him within striking distance.
At one point I felt like quitting so that I could conserve my enery for the discus. But with 7-8 laps Afri was slowing down considerably & I was right behind him. I was thinking whether I shud just stay behind him until about 2-3 laps to go before going past him. But I could see that he was really losing speed so I surged past him with 5 laps to go. I wasn't sure if I could maintain the pace all the way to the finish, so I just kept on pressing. After a while I could no longer here anybody close to me from behind, I crossed the line at 3rd with a new personal best of 54:50.03. That gave me my 3rd & last medal of PSP2011.
Discus
I've never did the discus in my life. But I've always imagined throwing the discus & I felt that I was able to do the event quite well. During training I never did get a grasp on the discus technique, it was far more complicated than it seemed. Nevertheless, becoz I've committed myself to the event, I went on with it.
The event was just after I completed my 10K, less than a couple of hours. I had prepared for this as soon as I saw the schedule, so I made 2 bottles of Endurox instead of the usual 1. But my strength never did came back & I did only 1 throw of over 20m. The rest was rubbish. & the winner got something like 25m. I knew I was already out of it, so I skipped the last throw. I guess that was gonna be my very last throw indeed.
Choices....
I really need to make some serious choices. I'm doing 4 events of a completely different nature. I need to lighten up for the 10K, but if I was too light then I couldn't generate enuff power for the throwing events. But I really have some bulking up to do. This PSP also served as an eye opener that I could actually do middle distance events quite well, the 400, 800 & maybe the mile. I guess I'ma need to do more gym & field work at least 6 weeks before the actual event. & I'm gonna drop the discus event, there's no point competing just to make up the numbers. I'ma try more events next year, insya Allah.
Until then, Livestrong.
Javelin
I kicked off my PSP2011 campaign with the javelin. I was the defending champion of course. I felt that I've made significant progress since then. Unfortunately, I wasn't happy with my performance in the javelin, I got 3rd with 33.15m, which was shorter than my gold-medal winning throw last year of 35m. But the winner threw a 36m & the 2nd-placed thrower had a 33.80m. But the difference between us could've been a mere 1mm & still that would've separated between gold, silver & bronze. What went wrong ?
For starters, out of 6 regulations throws, I only managed to register 1 good throw, that was my 33.15m. The rest was either fouled or purposely fouled by me, due to lousy distance. But I wasn't happy with that. Last year all my regulation throws was over 30m. I think that had to do with my technique. If I wanna maintain this event as my pet event, I gotta train more, get a coach to correct my technique or something.
U see, in javelin I was considered the favorite, even before the PSP started. I'd bought a javelin spike before PSKK last year, & my warm-up routine would send shivers down my opponents necks... half the battle was won before the event started.. it was me who failed to live up to their expectations. Shame on me. I also felt my body, even though it was stronger than last year, wasn't strong enuff. There was no power. Maybe the reason was that my weight program didn't really included power exercises. I did do some power-specific workouts about 2 weeks before, but it wasn't enuff. It was even more evident during the discus event. I'll come to that later.
This is what I wanna do next year. I'ma use my contacts at MSN & SSBJ to find a javelin coach. I just need the coach to tell me whts wrong with my technique & form so tht I could fix it. I wanna do javelin-specific training at least 2 months before & I wanna throw farther than 45m. That's a big ask. But I wanna do it. I must do it.
Medley
This is one event that I didn't even expect to run. Even Pengurusan wasn't supposed to run it becoz we couldn't find anybody to run it. We managed to put together a team out of nothing & we had to ask permission from managers of the rest of the team becoz we didn't register. I think they thought our team was just making up the numbers. I also thought the same. In fact, I was thinking to run in my jeans even..
Then Diana made a great start & managed to pass the baton to En Wahid in 3rd position.. En Wahid surprisingly managed to hold 3rd, but the gap was growing. Then Hazizi was further left behind & the 4th placed runner was making up ground. I received the baton & ran the last leg of 400m. I've never run 400m before. I just ran as fast as I could on the bend when the other 2 runners was already entering the back straight. Surprisingly I felt really fine & I was able to hold my speed & saw that I was gaining ground on them & was increasing the gap on the 4th placed runner. I managed to enter the home stretch & increased my speed even further, but failed to catch the front runners. If there was another lap I would've been able to catch & even passed them.. I was very sure of that, judging on my speed & my ability to hold that speed.
That event was an eye opener of sorts for me. I had the speed & the endurance to run 400m at a competitive time. I might do that event next year, I was confident enuff to think that I can even run the 400m relay.
10,000m
I had to skip this event last year due to a calf injury. During my absence last year, a guy from Keselamatan got 2nd with a pretty good time of 54++. Before the event I wasn't sure how I'd do.. at the previous week's Larian Bomba I managed to do 58 mins over almost 11km. So I was confident I repeat that in the track. There was one issue : the discus event will be held about 2hrs right after the 10k. So that would put me in a difficulty. Discus was a new event for me.
There was only 7 ppl in the starting lineup. Only 4 looked like runners. There was a new threat, Kimi from Housing. I knew he played football & he has good built of a distance runner. Afri from Keselamatan was also there & of course the defending champion Amri was ever-present. I've always said that in this event we're only fighting for 2nd place.
We started off late, at 8am. My goal for this event was just to improve on my previous best, I ran a 59mins in 2009, the 1st time I did this event. I followed Amri as long as I could & lasted 3 laps behind him before I decided to peel off. Kimi was able to stay almost halfway before Amri decided to up the pace. I couldn't find Afri until he went past me at maybe lap 10. I kept him within striking distance.
At one point I felt like quitting so that I could conserve my enery for the discus. But with 7-8 laps Afri was slowing down considerably & I was right behind him. I was thinking whether I shud just stay behind him until about 2-3 laps to go before going past him. But I could see that he was really losing speed so I surged past him with 5 laps to go. I wasn't sure if I could maintain the pace all the way to the finish, so I just kept on pressing. After a while I could no longer here anybody close to me from behind, I crossed the line at 3rd with a new personal best of 54:50.03. That gave me my 3rd & last medal of PSP2011.
Discus
I've never did the discus in my life. But I've always imagined throwing the discus & I felt that I was able to do the event quite well. During training I never did get a grasp on the discus technique, it was far more complicated than it seemed. Nevertheless, becoz I've committed myself to the event, I went on with it.
The event was just after I completed my 10K, less than a couple of hours. I had prepared for this as soon as I saw the schedule, so I made 2 bottles of Endurox instead of the usual 1. But my strength never did came back & I did only 1 throw of over 20m. The rest was rubbish. & the winner got something like 25m. I knew I was already out of it, so I skipped the last throw. I guess that was gonna be my very last throw indeed.
Choices....
I really need to make some serious choices. I'm doing 4 events of a completely different nature. I need to lighten up for the 10K, but if I was too light then I couldn't generate enuff power for the throwing events. But I really have some bulking up to do. This PSP also served as an eye opener that I could actually do middle distance events quite well, the 400, 800 & maybe the mile. I guess I'ma need to do more gym & field work at least 6 weeks before the actual event. & I'm gonna drop the discus event, there's no point competing just to make up the numbers. I'ma try more events next year, insya Allah.
Until then, Livestrong.
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