Lazy Bum

With just 1 week to go b4 the big 42, I'm getting lazier instead of more kancheong. 

Last weekend, did 15k on Sat, supposed to do another short one on Sunday. Got up at 6.30am, went took a leak and then promptly went back to sleep. M was all geared up to go already but surprised she also didn't said anything - just went back to sleep! So last weekend mileage was less than ideal. Only about 35km.

This week Tuesday evening decided to join the I-run. Why?  because the longest distance they do is only 7km. Last night, RL run was Fort Canning/Clark Quay. Can choose to do 2 rounds at Fort Canning but again got lazy and settled for one round clocking less than 10k. 

This weekend program is 10 - 15k on Saturday and follow the Fatbird on Sunday but it will probably be 10k Saturday and zero Sunday.  Ha ha!

M's Borneo MarathonTrophy

M's trophy has finally arrived along with a free Air Asia ticket. The ticket is quite useless though. Must board from KL and only to Borneo. So unless she intend to fly from Sin to KL and from there to KK or Kuching, it is as good as junk. Some more doesn't include airport tax, baggage etc. Anybody want a free air ticket from KL to Borneo, good until next March?

Apart from these 2, she also won RM1500 which was tt to her bank account so all it I must said this has been a fruitful 1st marathon for her.

Will she be back next year? I doubt. This type of luck cannot prevail. She has already ride her luck twice - once at the Mizuno Mt Faber Run and now this. Both time, timing that are so miserable that we didn't even bother to find out the results after the race. Like for the Borneo Marathon, even though we were still at the stadium until quite late due to transportation problem and had looked at the results pinned on the wall, it never dawned on us that she had won. To get lucky a third time, she need to look for another obscure race where the number of women veteran runners are few and don't attract attention from the elite runners here and in the home country. I don't think there is a lot of these around though.

But having said that, I would like to go back though but not for the marathon, but to climb Mt Kinabalu, visit the reserve and see Survivor Island which we had no time to go the other time. And of course to eat the barbecue seafood at the waterfront!

The race report here

Gym Rat 1

You know I got nothing to write about when I start to write crap but here goes:

My observations of the different foreigners in the gym downstair.

First the

The oversea Indians. I am amazed at the way they do their stretches. Most of them do a form of yoga and stretches at superfast speed. And the way they run on the treadmill - high speed and literally holding on to the handle bar to avoid falling off! Just watching them makes me dizzy. Interesting thing is, the Indian ladies are almost inevitably obese and just content to walk on the treadmill. I am not a racist and generally I avoid going near them when they are doing their workout. Not that I am scare of being hit by their rapid movement but those who go to the gym often will know what I am referring to:)

The angmoh. Can't tell whether they from down under, or the Big Apple or Europe so all get dumped under angmoh. Down to a t, they will go for the heaviest weight available. And most of them are not the body builder type some more! I can't imagine doing bicep curl with 17.5kg weights. These guys are super strong or what? And yah, they grunt and groan with every lift and every curl.

The mainland Chinese. Very easily recognisable. Oversize basketball tee and shorts and sometime basketball shoes too. Mostly young, they will go on the treadmill - run at 13 to 15kph for all of 5 minutes and then disappear.

The Indonesian Chinese. I can smell them the minute they walk in. Usually clad in a branded t-shirt and short and covered with an extra thick layer of perfume. The amazing thing is that no matter what exercise they do or how much they exert themselves, not a single strand of hair will be out of place and they still end up looking a million buck!

So far that the main group of foreigners that patronize the gym. Very few Korean and Japanese so no comments about them. What about the locals?

That's another story for anothr day when I run out of things to write again.

GE Women 10K 2008 Video The Final Instalment

The little lady is away for a school camp and so finally get to use the note book and do up the final instalment of the GE Women 10K 2008 video.

Actually quite boring. Lousy resolution, cannot catch the faces cos either too fast or too jerky. Put in some slowmo and a nice catchy song.

Video also uploaded to sgrunners photo album.

Recovery Food

As usual after today's run, I had a ripple ice cream. Somehow I can't resist it. Probably the body craving for sugar but it sure make me very happy That and a cup of teh halia.

Try it. It definitely aid in recovery! No need fancy expensive mix!

Blister, blister everywhere

Unbeliveable!

For the first time since I started running - I have multiple blisters all over my foot.

1. 1 big but now dried up blister on right foot arch - souvenir from the Borneo Marathon - likely caused by the orthontics insole

2. 2 permanent big blisters on the outside of the 2 big toes - present from Nike Singapore that comes together with the Nike Lunar. No amount of change of insoles (tried all types), socks help. The front is simply too narrow for my foot.

3. 1 newly acquired one on the left foot arch. Probably from lacing the Saucony Phoenix 3 too tight!

4. 2 tinny weeny one on the middle toe of each foot courtesy of my Sole flatbed insoles ganging up together with the Saucony Phoenix 3. 

So where else coming up next? Heel? Small toes? Urggggggggg

Mileage Mileage Mileage

Mileage, mileage, mileage. I have decided that last week was the week that I was going to break 60K. The plan was to do 10 on Tue & Thu, 15 on Sat and 32 on Sun. Total: 67k. Yeah pipe dream.

Monday was rest day after the PI 30k run on Sunday. Tuesday came down with an unexplained fever so Tuesday and Wednesday frizzled out too. Thursday - didn't want to push it and only did a short 5k. Friday got work and end up leaving office late. Saturday finally managed to do a 14km with new running friends. Which means only 19k for the week and 41k if I want to touch 60 for the whole week. Decided that was too optimistic, the original 32k will do but alas someone up there has obviously decided that I need a longer break - it rained cat and dog on Sunday morning! 

Sighed! Ended up going for a run at 10.30pm. M said I siowed! Yeah a bit crazy most of the time. Was really tempted to run longer but in the end settled for 15k as need to go to work the next morning.

So did  I miss the final opportunity to do my last long run? One more weekend to go after which must taper. What's  going to happen this week?

Mileage

My friend Ben, wrote about mileage training for the marathon in his blog and of course he being the ironman that he is, he only needs a weekly milege of not more than 30km to do a marathon!

Now me, being a mere mortal have always subscribe to the belief that mileage is key to doing a good marathon. And that means doing at least 60km a week. Unfortunately, for this year, a lot of things seem to be conspiring against me to keep me from doing a proper mileage training.

Take the leadup to the Borneo marathon, total monthly mileage for June, July, August was 171, 189, 183 and September was a miserable 99 no thanks to the ankle sprain sustained during the Swing KPE run. This means assuming a 4 week month, the weekly mileage was 42, 47, 45 and 24! October itself was not much better. After taking out the marathon itself, the weekly mileage was only 35! Now into the first week of November, with a 30k race last weekend, this should be the week for me to boost the mileage but instead out of the blue, I am down sick and 2 days of training is gone. So this week mileage is unlikely to hit 40 after which it will be too late to increase any more

Compare this to last year when weekly mileage for the month of October to mid November was at least 55k a week! And those were with higher intensity training thrown in compared to this year just running at slower than race speed.

Looks like I going to suffer this time round:(

Pearl Izumi Pure Run 2008 Series 3

Run like an animal. That's the Pearl Izumi war cry. And so I ran like an animal. A sloth. Long hands long legs and yet so slow:)

Okay today was the last run of the Pearl Izumi Pure Run Series. The first run which we missed was 10km, the 2nd was 20km and this last one 30km and all at different place.

Today run starts from Changi Beach Park and goes all the way to East Coast Park Carpark F2 and back. Like the previous run, there was only a small crowd of about 300 runners. The ladies started first followed by the guys 10 minutes later. There was a small number of sgrunners, Mr & Mrs IMD, Sleek, Yamsong, Fruitloops, Zco, Ayin, Eliza, Yankee, Fennel.....and a number from Safra. Michelle and Jun Hong decided to get crash since we had 2 extra ladies bibs. Unfortunately, Jun Hong is a guy. Luckily he managed to swap his bib with a lady who had an extra guy bib.

After last week horribly slow 27k, I had decided I was lucky if I can complete the 30k in 3hrs 30mins. I started slowly at around 7min pace and hit 3km around 22 mins where the first drink point was located. After that started to pick up a little speed but could see that I was like the last few runners. As I was still feeling good, decided to go slightly faster. Hit 5km in 31mins + and 10k just a few seconds of 1hr. So far so good. Was looking forward to the accerelate drink and banana at the 15k u-turn and decided to move even faster. Finally reached the uturn just after 1hr 30m to discover that contrary to what was emailed to us, there was no banana and no accelerate drink. Only plain water again!

Surprisingly, despite the hot weather I was still feeling rather good. Reached 20k at slightly after 2h. Met Eddie manning the traffic light and asked him 'Where is his banana?' before realising that it sounded......... At the next water station, they finally had a blue medicine tasting drink (presumbly the acclerate). The next water station had a yellow colour version which tasted slightly better and thereafter no more. Sigh... they should have served this at 15k and maybe 22k!

Anyway, still running and constantly shifting from fore foot to heel strike to relieve the pressure on the knee, I reckoned I was now looking at possibly finishing just around 3 hours instead of the 3:30 that I was thinking I could do. At the first park after Aviation Rd, saw somebody in blue up ahead and thought that could be M and decided to catch up with her. Unfortunately cock eye me..that turned out to be a guy:( Running alone and after the SAF terminal, saw another person in blue with a cap and from the way she was running, reckoned that must be M. She was about 500 m ahead and it took a lot of effort to catch up with her. Finally caught up with her just after carpark and ran back together with her to finish together. Time for me based on my watch was 3h 06m and that cheered me up no end! Hopefully I can maintain this momentum and do the same at the SCSM.