Runners and dogs

I'm back in my home town for Cheng Beng.

Since there was nothing much to do in the evening, I decided to go for a long run around housing area next to my house. It's was around 5.40pm and sun is still shining bright and hot.

I started the run thinking how many rounds should I go, which route to take etc but not even 500 meters into the run suddenly I saw a dog ran towards me from about 200 meters away. Since I have several experience of being chased after by dogs, I immediately knew this dog is heading towards me. Without even a second thought, I turn around and ran back as fast as I could. After 500 meters when I'm back to where I started the run, I turn back to see whether the dog is still chasing. Luckily it has stopped and walking back slowly.

"This route didn't work out.", I thought. "So let's try in another direction". Unfortunately this time it was worse. 200 meters into the run and I encountered another dog barking furiously at me. I stopped immediately and walk home. Basically not worth risking injury just to put in the run.

All these dogs around the housing area is wild. They normally don't border when people walk by but somehow when they see runners, they will start barking like mad and some will start chasing. I guess the dogs think runners are abnormal people..

Since I have not been running consistently for the whole of this week and definitely don't want to miss the weekend run, I went home and took my sister's motobike and ride to the nearby recreational park to continue the run.

The sun was still shining brightly at around 6pm. I went on to run around the track for 35 minutes. The heat from the sun and hot track surface made running very difficult. Since I ran mostly in the morning and quite unaccustom to the heat, 35 minutes seems like eternity but I'm glad to have put this in the bag.

I went back to the track again this morning on my way to buy breakfast to do another 38 minutes run. It was much better without the heat..

Stairs run

Since I was unable to do any outdoor run for the past 2 days, I have decided to do a stair repeat in my house. I did a similar training a few days before the KL Towerthon with a total of 75 repeats. Equivalent of 75 storeys climb and 1125 steps up and same amount coming down. My legs was completely sore for 2 days after that. Luckily recovered just in time for the towerthon.

Yesterday I managed to do 30 repeats. It's a good alternative during the rainy days and hill runs since there is no hill around my place.

Trying out ChiRunning

Went out around 5.30am this morning to do some easy run. Also to try out some of the ChiRunning techniques.

Overall I think I'm able to keep the cadence at around 85 to 90 per minute comfortably. The landing of foot seems to be alright at midfoot and behind the body's center of gravity even though I can't be sure without looking at myself from outside but the feeling is good.

Formula one season is starting soon

The new formula one season is starting this weekend. The first race will be the Australian GP.

I've been following the pre season testing and the most surprising thing so far is the pace of the new Brawn GP team. This team is the ex Honda team. I guess Honda must have invested a lot of money and effort into development of this new car since last season. Problem is they have to quit this year due to the worldwide financial crisis. Most of the top car manufacturers are badly hit by this.

Another surprising thing so far is the struggle of Mclaren team. Their new challenger seems to be way off the pace. Even slower than the Williams at some point during the pre season testing. But fortunately they have shown some sign of improvement late in the pre season test.

Ferrari as usual keeping their real pace up until the first race. I have high hope that Kimi will return as champion again this year:-)

Learning Chi-running

Bought this book from MPH midvalley yesterday. I came across Chi-running in the web before when doing some research on the correct running form.

Chi (chee) is short for Tai Chi. Chi-running technique make use of principles in Tai Chi. It makes use of natural forces to help runners better their running form and at the same time run more efficiently. This running technique is claimed to have reduced running related injuries tremendously. I will have to find this out.

Another 3 months to go before the KL Marathon. Hopefully this book and the Chi-running technique can help me to speed up the training and most important of all to be able to last the distance.

Leg on the wheel

Guess whose leg is this on my steering wheel?

Mei Mei loves to come in front of the car when we are waiting. She will test out all the buttons, corner lights, lights etc.

In one occassion, she turned on my front light when we go for breakfast. At the end I have to replace the car battery.

Very naughty Mei Mei.

Penang Bridge Marathon

Yes. I have signed up for this event on day ¹the registration open on the 6 of March. Going the full distance.

Meantime KL Marathon will be held on 28 June. Tempted to try out the full distance on this event but I guess will need to see how is my weekend LSD progress before committing to it.

The plan is to do a 20k this weekend. 25k the week after and a 30k attempt by mid of April. If I can do a comfortable 30k within a reasonable time - 3.5 hours then will have more confidence to commit to a full marathon.

Let see...

Larian Amal Seri Sinar - Part 2

Photo courtesy of CP.

Race details:
Date: 15 March 2009
Time: 7.00am
Location: around Taman Bukit Jalil and Kompleks Sukan Negara
Friends who participate: CP, Janice, James, Terence (DNS)

It was a good race for me. Finished the distance of around 10.5km (measured using mapmyrun) in 58 minutes. Placed 103 in the men open category. CP did very well in this race. He finished in 57 minutes and placed 87. Janice did superbly well in her women open category as well. She finished in 16 position. James came in later after the hour mark.

I started the race pretty quick due to the downhill stretch. It's a strategy I frequently took to gain on the timing. The 1st km pace is estimated to be around 4.3 minutes. After the 1st km, I slow down the pace to around 5.5 minutes. Keeping CP on my sight until around the 3rd km mark (the turning to the Sports Complex). After that I started to struggle a bit and had to slow down more. CP continued with his impressive pace and I'm slowly losing sight of him.

Reached 5km mark (water station) at around 26 minutes (found out later CP is already ¹minute ahead at this point) and continue to charge forward after a brief water stop.

The rest of the route is quite flat and I managed to maintain my pace until reaching the starting point again. There the voluteers gave us encouragement and said 3km to go. The 10km runners have to do one more loop around Taman Bukit Jalil. This final loop is extremely punishing as my legs were starting to get very tired. A lot of people overtook me during the long climb at the last 2km.

Finally the climb is over. The last km is the road leading to Taman Bukit Jalil. About 500 meters from the finishing line suddenly a familiar person zoom pass me. She is the strong lady from the senior veteran category. I keep up to her pace until the carpark entrance where the race would end and give my last push and overtook her at the climb towards the carpark.

Overall this is a very satisfying race for me.

Larian Amal Seri Sinar

Photo courtesy of CP.

Top finishers in the Larian Amal Seri Sinar 10km category.

Spaceship Galactica

This is the famous Spaceship Galactica. Both Jen and Jey spent 7 hours inside there last weekend.