Running Sucks

While I was walking around the Race Expo last week, was at the SIS booth and learnt something new which I will share here. Apparently there can be such a thing as too much gel. This chap, unfortunately I didn’t get his name claimed that he only takes ¾ of the packet of gel and chucked the rest. His reasons was that our body can only convert a certain amount of the carbohydrates in the gel to energy and any excess will be absorb into the stomach which will cause gastrointestinal distress or GI distress for short. What is GI distress? Stomach feeling bloated even though you haven’t really drink a lot of water? Nausea, feeling of vomiting even though you are not pregnant and haven’t eaten anything oily or heavy before your race? Maybe feeling of getting the runs and I am not talking about the running you do with your legs? These are all symptoms of GI distress. So according to this guy, if you take too much gel, the rest of the gel goes to the stomach, then you drink isotonic drink at ...

Actually what an oxy moron - barefoot how come got shoes? But I am still in the stage of enjoying short runs san shoes but still need some sort of foot protection. My Tyr booties is almost worn out after and I need another replacement. Unfortunately, they are no longer on offer so I am left with not much options. Most of my friends who like me still need some sort of shoes have got the Vibram Five Fingers . But I think they are very very ugly and over priced too. So despite this being the most obvious choice, it will not be my choice of footwear for any time to come. This next pair is something I been eyeing for some time. This is the T erra Plana Evo Vivo barefoot shoes for barefoot running. It is available in Singapore at Mandarin Gallery and Ion. Can't remember the shop name but at $229, it is a bit too pricey. Unfortunately this one got no lobang for discount. How about if the distributor whoever you are? Sponsor me a pair and I do a very very nice review? :) Most likely I...

Down to 1 and a half week. So exciting! Got sleepless night or not? Okay you are running running running and tired as hell. When is this race going to end? “Why”, you asked yourself, “did I sign up for this torture”; “how am I going to finish this?” When you are physically drained, when all the gels and salt and isotonic drinks doesn’t work and all you want to do is to lie down and sleep, how do you keep yourself focused and continue to run? This is what you need to do - Distract Yourself. Yes contrary to all the other experts’ advices out there to focus on the race, I am telling you – distract yourself. Guess that’s why I am not an expert J Distract yourself. Look at the other participants. Look at the hot bod in front of you or the sexy bum. Read the captions on the bibs. Get inspirations from them. Look at everybody just don’t look at yourself.   Look at the old fogey in front. If he can do it, so can you. Distract yourself. Look at the scenery/surroundings. Hopefully the li...

After waiting for the past 1 year, I finally went and got my Garmin GPS watch. I had wanted one for quite some time but baulked at the cost of it. However, now that the USD had come down to a low, the watch has become so much affordable.  As I don't do tri, I went for the basic Forerunner 110. Across the big blue sea, the watch is selling in the US for around USD250 with the heart rate monitor (including shipping to sg) but over here it was retailing for S$340.00. However, I opted for the non heart rate version and it cost $300.00 at Sim Lim. Found out it was selling at the Sports Expo for $299.00. Oh well. Out of the box, the set comes with a clip to attach to the watch for charging and uploading. There is also a power adaptor which provides for convenient charging direct from the power point. The watch itself is pretty bulky. Its face covers almost my whole wrist. The display is simple - just the distance , the total time start, elapsed, end and the pace.  Using it was si...

3 more weeks to go before the SCMS. At this point in time, to make sure that you can get to the start line in one piece Don't sit next to anybody who looks even remotely like he/she has the cold, flu or even cough. Change place if you on the train or bus. Wear a mask if it is a colleague. Report him/her to the communicable disease centre and get him/her quarantine! Better still, take sick leave yourself and stay at home for the next few weeks until the race. That way, you be sure you won't catch any nasty bugs from anybody. Don't do all other sports especially soccer and badminton. Many runners have had to abort their race even before the start after injuring their ligament or spraining an ankle while playing soccer or badminton. Maybe shouldn't even cycle. You won't want to be hit by a car or fall or something like that. If you must cycle, do it in the gym and make sure don't fall off. Swimming is okay but just don't drown okay? Don't run ~ if t...

4 weeks more to go to the big day for all Singapore marathoner wannabes and I am back with another series of posts for marathoner wannabes. But you gonna take these with a pinch of salt. Hmmm actually you should. Take the salt that is. It will come in useful when you run the final 10km of the marathon. For the other pro marathoners, the seasoned marathoners, the atas marathoners, you can read, you can dissect, you can criticize, you can add your comments, your advices, in fact you can do anything you want including go away but if you really  吃 饱 没 事做 , by all means, carry on reading. This 1st post shall be about drink - what to drink during the run up to the marathon other than your usual coffee, tea, milk, isotonic drink and sky juice. Vitamin C . You trained and trained and 1 week before the big day, you catch the damned bug from some idiot standing in front of you in the train and who sneezed big time into your face! And there goes your race. So what to do? Load up on vitami...

Last Saturday I did my longest run since December 2008. Distance of 28km. It started off well and I was able to catch up with the front runners in my group even though I started about 5 minutes later than them. However, on the return leg, by the 22km along Changi Coastal Road, the energy level begun to drop and the pace became slower and slower.   I could see M about 50m in front of me but I couldn’t summon the energy to catch up with her. At the 25km outside NSRCC when she stopped for a drink at the choked water cooler, I ran past her but within 2 minutes she overtook me again and that was the way the run continued till the end with her finishing a good 5 minutes in front of me. Fortunately for me, the run had come to an end. I knew if I had continued, I will hit the wall and come to a complete stop. I surmised what had happened was I had ran out of fuel or in cheem technical terms, depleted the load of glycogen stored in my body. How did that happened? Let me see, firstly no ca...

Take a look at the 3 shoes above. On the left is the Adidas Exerta . In the middle is the Nike Lunarglide and finally on the right is the Saucony Fastwitch . Look at the condition of the soles. Looking at the state of the sole, it would look like the latter has been used helluva a lot as the sole is almost bald. See the patch of grey right in the middle. Yet, surprisingly, the mileage for each pair of shoes are 375km; 383km and 374km respectively. Can you believe it! The shoe with the lowest mileage got the most wear and that is made worse by the fact that the  Adidas Exerta is a trail shoes and used exclusively for trail runs and in that type of rough terrain should suffer more damages but did not. The LunarGlide is my current favourite pair of shoes and reserved for races and longer runs and the Fastwitch is used for shorter runs and shorter races.So it proves one thing. Not all shoes are created equally so relying on the time tested 6 months or 500km to 600 km is not goo...