Sunday, January 31, 2010

Big trouble in little Putrajaya...

It was 6.40 am.. my new Philips MP3 player haven't even finished playing the 2nd song in my playlist.. I haven't even get into my first kilometer.. just before Masjid Putra... disaster struck... the thing all athletes preparing for something fear most... injury with less than a week to the big day.. arrghhhhh !!!!

The problem started on Tuesday.. I was doing my intervals, 5 x 800m .. I decided to do it without my 2XU calf compression sleeve.. just as I was finishing my last rep.. I felt a slight pull in my left calf, just a very slight one. I wasn't going really fast, about 5:00-5:25 pace.. & the slight pull stayed there throughout my warmdown run. When I was doing my stretching it was gone.. so I thought.. okay..

Maybe the biggest mistake happened on Wednesday. I went to the gym. I haven't lifted weights for about 3 weeks, & I decided to do the full body Spartacus workout, currently my favorite full body routine. I only managed to do 2 sets instead of the usual 3. The next day my body was sore all over. It was my rest day anyway, so I thought.. okay...

Then on Friday I was supposed to do about 8km tempo run. There was where I felt all the problems.. the slight pull on my left calf didn't go away.. the injury on my shin bone made a rerun, & I had a back pain. A back pain !!! I've never had those.. never, ever. I mean, during my runs la... So I cut short my program to just 4K of tempo. Then I went to play badminton.

& now. Sunday. Today I was supposed to do my long run, at least 16K. It was to be my last long run before the Putrajaya Nite Marathon. All the injury, sans the back injury, came back to haunt me. I couldn't even walk right. The walk back to the office from Masjid Putra took me half an hour. Slow by any standards.

Injury is not new to me. I've got injured before. I've had worse than this. But not with less than a week to my first half marathon, ever. Injury frustrates me. Even worse when U dunno what caused it. Was it the gym ? Was it becoz I decided not to wear my calf sleeves ? I tried not to rely too much on the sleeves. But it seemed now that I couldn't run without it. The last time I got injured bad.. was when I tried to break my 5K PR with my new Adizeros, without the calf sleeves. How's that ?

How do I fix this ? RICE ? With 6 days to go ? I wish I could just go to the hardware store, buy a new pair of legs, take this one off & bolt on the new one. I wish it was that easy. What I'm worried about is not getting enuff mileage before I do the race of my life. I mean, it's gonna be my 1st ever half marathon, of course it's a big thing to me. I know I can complete the run, but I dun wanna just complete it. I've got goals to achieve, targets to meet. & how would I know that this injury won't return during the race. It would've been worse.

All I want is to run pain-free. & I've been able to do just that for the past month or so. Why this injury choose this very moment to come back is really beyond my understanding.

Haih.... as strong as I am, there's only so much I can do. Right now even walking is painful, let alone running.

I hope I can fix this ASAP. Steroids anybody ?

Livestrong.

Monday, January 11, 2010

6 days to go...

6 days to go to what ? Well, I've finally managed to get a new rented house in Bandar Saujana Putra, about 20km from my office. Now I'm waiting for the agent to prepare the agreement, sign it, pay, & we're ready to move in. I'm gonna be on leave from 14/1 to 20/1, proly the longest I've taken a leave since I started work in 2006. We plan to move in by Sunday, 17/1. That is, completely move in. We're gonna start moving the smaller stuffs by 15/1. I've decided not to run in the Pacesetters NB30K race on the 17th. So, my first race of the year is also gonna be my 1st half marathon ever, the Putrajaya Nite Marathon on 6/2.

I hope the owner will have completed some of the fixes I've asked for before I sign the agreement. There are quite a number of things to be done, as the previous tenant left the house in quite a hurry. Most of the bathroom showerheads were missing, some plug points need fixing & I've requested for a proper door for the kitchen extension.

This week will also be the final week of my daily 160km commute to work. Well, my final trip will be on the 13th (Wednesday). From 21/1 onwards, I'll travel just 20km to work. That means I can get home sooner after my evening workouts, I dun have to do my Maghrib prayers at the office no more & I can eat early dinners. That is especially important. After doing weights, I shud eat within an hour of finishing my workout. Since my trip home alone will take me an hour, normally I'll end up having dinner at 8.30 or 9pm, which is not good. Now I can have dinner before 8pm, provided that my wife can be home by then. Hmm... maybe it won't be possible after all, I doubt that my wife can find jobs within 15 mins travel like before. Well, we'll take care of it later. I'm just glad that I can be home within 20 mins... or less..

I've travelled 160km daily to & from work for the past 3 years.. & this shortened commute will certainly have an impact to my schedule, in a positive way of course. The 75-minute journey (55 mins in recent weeks) have given me some valuable experience. I've only had 2 flat tires in the whole 3 years plus. I've used 3 different bikes. My 1st bike was Yamaha Ego, which was more suitable for short trips to the market than 160km trips on the freeway. I broke the Ego's belt once, forcing me to push the bike for more than 5km, on the 1st day of Ramadhan in 2007. The highlight of it all was of course my crash in 13/7/2008. I've crashed 3 times in that 3 years (including that fateful crash). Rain or shine, I've almost always made it to work on time. I've travelled alone on that spooky Guthrie freeway at 11.30pm countless times. I'me just proud to say that I've never, ever used that as an excuse for coming late to work, or not staying back at the office. So I guess all that is gonna be history from next week onwards. It's been quite an experience.

Sunday's long run

On Sunday I did a long run, almost 1 1/2 hrs. I could've gone further, but I just wanted to see how I feel after running longer than an hour, & also to test my new Ultimate Direction Blaze running waist pack, plus to test my feeding arrangements for the half marathon. I'ma go further this week, I expect to hit 2 hrs, maybe 17-18km. I still have 3 weeks to prepare for the Putrajaya Nite Marathon, but the final week is supposed to be tapering week. I must make sure that I run at least one 18-20km run before the event, proly on the final week before tapering. I've told my wife I'm gonna bring my running shoes to Cameron Highlands, where we're gonna spend 2 nights on holiday next week. I proly couldn't do much there, just wanna keep running to keep the momentum going. Proly do some short tempo runs. Definitely no intervals.

Yesterday I managed to average 6:52/km throughout. Better than my target training pace of 7:10. & I'm pretty sure I can maintain the pace for the next hour. My half marathon goal pace would be 6:40, in order to hit 2:20 in the half. But a more realistic goal would be to finish in less than 2:30, I shud be able to do that. I'd be disappointed not to.

I've acquired the Ultimate Direction Blaze running waist pack, a waist pack specifically designed for runners or triathletes or other endurance sports. It comes with 2 10-oz bottles & a small zippered pocket for storing energy gels or MP3 players or ID. How much ? I took my wife along when I went to PJ on Saturday to collect it from Frank. & she saw me paying RM122 for that stuff. As usual, I've got a very good reason to buy it. Once I move to Saujana Putra, I plan to do my long runs in Putrajaya. Once I started running in Putrajaya, I won't have any support for my training runs. So I've gotta have this pack to bring my water & feeding along. Currently I just put my water bottle on my front gate & run past my house each lap. So, I was quite happy with the pack. It bounces around the 1st time I used it, with both bottles full & a couple of PowerGels in the pocket. Then I tighten the strap & it bounced no more.

6 days to go...

Livestrong.