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.
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