Road to Penang Bridge Marathon (Week 4)

This is a low mileage week due to many reasons (or excuses??:)

1. I was down with flu, luckily not H1N¹but it was enough to make me feel dizzy in the morning. So 2 days is gone just to recover.

2. Raining season has started and it rains almost every morning. I ended up doing stairs training on friday due to that.

3. Lazy bug hit me:)

Anyway I was determined to make it a good week yesterday by trying to do a 20km LSD.

I started the run a bit late at 6.30am and by the time I finished 16km it's already almost 8.30am. Had to cut short the run because it's time to head home and bring the family out for breakfast.

Total mileage for today is 6km. 2 x 2.6km for the pacemakers run plus some warm up strides I did while waiting for the gang to arrive.

Total mileage this week = 23km. LSD = 16.5km

Total mileage todate = 123km

PS: finally met Yin in person today. She is on the right of the emcee in photo above. Much taller than I have expected:) Kopi O satu or is it Milo O??

The 5th Pacemakers Anniversary Run

This is my first participation in a race hosted by the Pacemakers Network.

It's a 4 x 2.6km relay run around the Lake Garden track.

My team consist of myself, CP, Janice and James.

Janice took the first leg, CP 2nd then James and me took the last 2.

The greatest challenge of this run is the first 500 meters uphill run then followed by a 200 meters steep downhill before hitting the loop around Lake Garden.

Before my turn, CP has warned me about the punishing climb and asked me to take it easy but when my turn come, I still made the same mistake of pushing too hard on the climb and suffer greatly for the rest of the run.

In any case it was fun to push very hard all the way. You can almost hear the pumping sound of the heart. (not recommended to do it everyday:)

This is the time split of our team:

1. Janice - 13:49 [Pos. 14]
2. CP - 11:42 > 25:31 [Pos. 13]
3. James - 16:12 > 41:43 [Pos. 24]
4. BP - 12:30 > 54:13 [Pos. 26]

We finished in position 26 among 33 teams.

Other interesting facts:

- The champion team finished at 38 mins sharp.
- The fastest runner's time is 8m 27s (ave 3:15 per km)
- My time ranked 80/132 overall and 72/91 among the male runners (this is an elite field:)

- 8/41 female runners are ahead of me. The fastest female runner's time is 9m 50s (ave 3:47 per km)

My average pace for this run is 4:48 per km. I'm quite happy with this and of course there is always a lot of room to improve:)

Road to Penang Bridge Marathon (Week 3)

Woke up at around 6am this morning to do my weekly long run, however less than 2km into the road, the rain started to fall heavily. So I have to make a detour and run home instead.

I was getting ready to do some stair training indoor when the sound of the rain subsided. Quickly, I walk out of the house to check on the rain and it has reduced to small drops. So I put on my New Balance shoes again and go on the road to continue the unfinished long run.

My body felt unusually tired only after 6km, anyhow I pushed on until 11km before calling it a day. Total distance covered is 13km including the 2km before the rain started.

Overall this week's program went well as planned.

I did a 10km at marathon pace yesterday and did a good tempo run during the week at sub 6 mins pace. The plan is to get the tempo run distance up to 10km gradually.

Total mileage this week = 41km; LSD = 13km
Total mileage todate = 100km

Running is bad for the knees?

Contrary to what most people believe, according to this article, running actually enhanced the knees. Hmm... I guess right running technique must be one of the key factors as well.

So friends, let's continue to run...

At the end of the decade, the active runners showed “no adverse long-term consequences…” while the runner who hadn’t run over the course of the 10-year study showed “severe deterioration of the internal structures of the knee joint..

Usain Bolt's New World Record

Wow... amazing run... and they said human limit is 9.2s... still long way to go Usain...

Road to Penang Bridge Marathon (Week 2)

Only managed 2 weekday runs this week but managed to catch up on the lost mileage yesterday and today.

I put on the heart rate monitor today to see how is my heart rate during the long slow run. Quite surprise to find out the heart rate can stay below 140 bpm most of the time and go slightly higher to 146 bpm when I run faster at 6:20 pace.

I used to be able to run comfortably at heart rate of around 155 bpm and peak close to 175 bpm when I'm pushing the pace.

This drop from 150 to 140 must be the effect of many LSDs done during the previous marathon training.

Even though I have no problem with the heart rate and breathing throughout the LSD today, my legs especially the knees still feel uncomfortable after 12km. I guess still need to do a lot of strength training to build the leg muscles. That will be part of the training in the next few weeks.

Total weekly mileage = 32km. LSD = 15.5km
Total mileage todate = 59km.

Skytrex Teambuilding

Skytrex is located inside Taman Pertanian in Bukit Cahaya, Shah Alam.

The entrance is quite difficult to find if you're not familiar with this place. A number of my colleagues were lost initially but managed to get there after a few detours around Shah Alam and Kelang.

Before all of us were allowed to venture into the real Skytrex challenges, we have to go through a training and warm up session with 3 mini challenges.

The mini challenges is vertical climb of about 5 meters then we have to walk over a hanging bridge, do a rope swing to a spider web and finally end with a flying fox back to the ground.

It was a challenging experience already for some of us, before we see the full challenges which is about 20 times harder.

The first hurdle for the full Skytrex challenge is a vertical ladder climb of about 17 meters. From there we have to walk through a hanging net across to another platform then through another hanging bridge before we hit the first flying fox.

We need to go through many types of obstacles. The most challenging ones are the swinging tubes and the hanging bridge with a large gaps. We have to jump and swing from one step to another. I almost fell in one of those challenges.

On top of that the interesting part is there are no less than 6 to 7 flying foxes. Flying foxes became quite fun after you've conquered the first one. I really enjoyed flying above the trees from one end to another although I almost failed to land on the tree in the last flying fox.

The weather was quite kind to us throughout the day as well. The rain started just after we finished the Skytrex session and while we were having our lunch break.

In the afternoon, we had a few fun teambuilding activities. A small treasurehunt, a couple of magic rope challenges, building a pyramid with balloons and a couple of brainteasers.

Overall it was a well organised event. Kudos to all the committee. I look forward to another one towards end of the year but it has to be zero cost version...

Road to Penang Bridge Marathon (Week 1)

Week 1 Training Plan

After a challenging half marathon race last week, I kick started my training program for the next marathon this week.

Last week's Adidas event see a tragic ending with a young runner found dead in the stadium tunnel a day later. A lot of tributes from various runners here, here and here. Life is so fragile and unpredictable. Who would have thought a young healthy runner will end his life in such unpredictable manner. My heart goes to his parents and family members..

Rest in peace Gary Leon Robert.

Back to my training this week. The training program is meant to be aggressive with mileage of around 50km for week 1. Anyway in reality it is very difficult to find enough time to train that long even in the morning unless I wake up 4.30am in some of the days. A lot of 8.30am meetings these days...

At the end I managed put in 27km mileage this week. Not such a bad start...

PBIM is on week 47. Exactly 16 weeks away including this week.

Training log:
Week 01 = 27km, Total todate = 27km, LSD = 10km, Tempo run = 2km @ 6m pace

Adidas King Of The Road Shah Alam 2009

This is my first competitive run after the KL Marathon at the end of June.

I suffered quite a bit during this run due to lack of training. The longest distance I've done in July is only 10km so the outcome is sort of expected.

In any case, I'm still very happy with this run. Turned out I'm only ¹minute late for the finisher's medal. They only give this to top 350 finishers in Category A.

Must try again next year when I'm able to train harder.

The running route is quite hilly throughout northern and southern part of Shah Alam. Total race distance is 22.7km which is odd for a half marathon race.

I started the race pretty strong and able to keep up with the top runners until about 3km. Reached the first water station (my guess that is the 5km point since there are no distance markers) at about 2¹mins. After that I just can't keep up anymore when the route hit a few hills. My legs were completely lack of strength to push hard so most of the time I ended up with mere jogging pace.

After 10km I have to start my run-walk routine again to ease the running muscles. It worked perfectly and I'm able to overtake quite a lot of runners later on nearer to the finishing line.

The last hill before the Shah Alam Stadium is where I suffered the most. Only if I had push harder, I should be able to finish 1-2 minutes earlier. Frank Chong from Runnerz Circle overtook me in front of the stadium entrance...and he is probably the last of the top 350.

CP did well by finishing his first sub 2 half marathon with the time of 1h 58m.

My Time: 2h 19m

(I forget to stop the watch. So the actual timing is between 2:18 - 2:19). I heard the gun went off about 1-2 mins after I crossed the finishing line.

Next up will be the training for Penang Bridge Marathon. Here it goes again....:)

2km with daddy

My younger 6 years old son woke up early yesterday morning and followed me out for morning run.

He walked 2km with me around the neighbourhood.

Still full of energy after that..