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.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)