Shoes Shoes Shoes

How many pairs of running shoes do you have? Well.. I have 3!!! In all honesty, I think serious runners should have two pairs. I have three!!! What does that say about me??? :P

No in all honesty, I believe people who are not runners will say I am a crazy runner. People who are really serious about running would call me a half-f***ed runner. Haha. I guess I am in between the two.

So why do I say two pairs of shoes. If you are serious, you will run pretty often. Perhaps like three times or more a week. And if you do run that often, it would be really good if you can give your shoes a break. I believe by rotating your shoes, you can make your shoes last longer. Well anyway I read somewhere just today that each pair of shoes should last between 350 miles to 500 miles. That's about 500km to 800km. How much is that in terms of weeks? If you run like 6km three times a week, your shoe will last about 28 to 45 weeks. That's like 6 months to 10 months. So if you have two pairs of shoes, it may last you up to one and a half years instead. :P Not only that, by practising rotating shoes, you allow your shoes to breathe. In other words, your shoes wouldn't stink that much now that you can allow them to air longer.

So anyway, now you know I advocate two pairs of shoes. Get it if you feel comfortable or are convinced by my not-so-convincing argument. Now why do I have three pairs? Well my third pair is my quick pair. It's a racing shoe. As I have always aspired, ever since my National Service Days, to achieve that elusive 9.14min, I keep that shoes for that special 2.4km. So now you know. Haha.. :P

Work Work

I just graduated about a month or so. And since then, I have begun working in the ever-busy Shenton Way. My day begins at 8.30am to 5.30pm. By right, that is, I should end by 5.30pm. Well, that has not happened yet. And I do doubt if I would ever end my day at 5.30pm. So how how how. How do I run? Well one has to come up with some means to do that..

My first week of work was, very fortunately, overseas. My lovely company sent me and my fellow newbies to the shores of Penang. I wanted to say lovely shores but the haze has really cast a shadow, literally, on the beaches of Gurney. Well, I am proud to report that I manage to get my big ass out of bed on 2 days at 6am to exercise. I am so proud of myself. Tuesday morning I woke up early for a gym workout. Wednesday morning I woke up for a run along Gurney drive. Not very far though. About 20 minutes. That's like 4 to 4.5km. I was wearing my quick shoes. :) I'll tell you about my running shoes another time.

Well for my second week of work, I was already back in Singapore. I manage to drag my fat ass once more to run. I woke up at 6am on Tuesday morning for a short run. Really short. My guess is about 3.5km. Really short. But given my start time of 8.30am, and my need to catch the 7.30am bus, I am limited either by the distance I run or the time I wake up. Quite sucky. On Friday, I arranged to meet Friend A, and a couple of others for a run around school. Very nice. It's really nice to run with friends and after not meeting them for a few weeks, it really is nice. Oh anyway, it was about 6.5km to 7.5km. However, the thing is the pace was quick. But luckily, I was able to keep up with the quick ones. :)

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. How to work out given now that I have started work. Well. My two options now are waking up early and the other option is to go run after work. Well Well.. Will let you know what works for me in a couple of weeks when my work life stabilizes. Ciao

To Stanchart or Not to Stanchart

The Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon 2008 is open for registration once more. Friend A has been bugging me to enter with him. Apparently his kaki for last year decided the marathon was too short a distance for him. Thus he decided to go two further by adding two events on top of the gruelling 42.195km. He's taking part in an Ironman, which unfortunately for Friend A, happens to be on the same day as Standard Chartered Marathon (SCM) 2008. As of this moment, I believe I am the one of the few friends who is capable of keeping up with Friend A for a portion of the distance. Therefore he has approached me to participate once more in the event.

But to Stanchart or not to Stanchart? That is the question. It would be nice to try and complete one more marathon, and hopefully with a better timing. The temptation is there. Furthermore, for my last marathon at Gold Coast, the perennial question of "Why am I doing this again?" did not once pop into my head during that 4 hours 43 minutes. Perhaps it is the appeal of being in a foreign place running a marathon. Or perhaps I am simply looking forward to the fun things I would be doing after the suffering. I'm not sure. But that question did not pop up. So I ask myself, do I really want to continue to run marathons for a lifetime? To this question, the answer for now is I don't know.

Another interesting thought just pop into my head. Why the hell did I participate in such events anyway? The first marathon I believe I took part was in SCM 2003. That marathon, I had the company of 3 friends from Army. I guess the reason I took part in that was to achieve something. I've been pretty slack in much of my life in the 6 years or so preceding my National Service. Perhaps it is a way of redeeming myself or a proof to myself that I can complete something daunting. Nowadays, I join marathons as a means to keeping fit. I believe that if you have a target, such as running that dreaded 42.195km, you will have more reason to train and you would have to find the time to train.

So whilst there seems be a lot of compelling reasons to participate once more in a marathon, the opinion of my better half still matters and I do take her opinion into serious consideration. It was due to her opinion that I should stop running marathon, at least for a year, that is why I did not run the SCM 2007. I can understand her fears and concerns. She's worried about the impact the constant pounding of my feet would have on my feet, joints and other stuff. I know where she is coming from particularly as I have had problems with my knees and ankles before my National Service. But thus far, she has been very supportive of the two marathons that I have participated this year. Will she be supportive of SCM 2008? The answer is still an unknown.

Again, to stanchart or not to stanchart? As of now, it seems more likely than not that I will join SCM 2008 with Friend A. I would say 70% likely. But it's not a confirmation yet! :P

Interval Running

Have you ever heard of the term Interval Running? Some people, like myself, call it by other terms like Power Runs. So what's this all about?

Interval Running is a type of training to improve your overall speed. I did a lot of it when I was training for my IPPT. For non Singaporeans, IPPT or Individual Physical Proficiency Test is a test of the Singapore Armed Forces as a gauge on the fitness of its servicemen. Well, IPPT requires a 2.4km run. For the crazy people from Commando and Divers, the timing required is under 9 min 15 seconds. To pass, one has to run faster than 13 minutes.

Anyway, Interval Running helps in improving your time. It involves running for a short period of time or distance, followed by a short rest or slow jog. For instance, say you run for 600 metres then you rest for 1 minute. Then you repeat the process. The thing about this exercise is that you have to run quickly. When you do so, you pant more and you take deeper and bigger breaths. I believe this will in turn improve the amount of oxygen you and your muscles can take in. Also, Interval running helps in improving your muscle endurance. The more and harder you run, the better your muscle endurance will be.

Does it work? Well in my humble opinion (IMHO), I believe it really does. Much as I really hate doing it, I believe it is one of the few ways to get that elusive Gold. Getting Gold and you get rewarded by the Singapore Government. Your prize money is $400! Well, I haven't achieved it for quite some time now. Dang. Have to keep trying.

Monday I did one on the treadmill in school. I ran a moderate pace of about 10 on the treadmill. I'm guessing it's 10km per hour. I ran at that pace for about 4 km before I started on the dreaded training. So I started running at a pace of 12.8 for 2 minutes followed by 10.6 for 2 minutes "slower" jog. Damn. It's tiring. The pace was subsequently upped till about 13.3. Man am I tired. I did a total of about 6 sets of that and I completed Monday's run of about 8.8km. Today's a Thursday and I'm still tired. Haha.. I know.. Friend A and his friends will say I'm a bum. Haha..

So anyway, now you know about Interval Running. Hate it..

The Good Stuff of GCM

Another day Another article on GCM. Well it should be apparent how much I enjoyed the trip Down Under. Did I enjoy the marathon? Come to think of it, probably one of my more enjoyable ones. I didn't mind the first half of the marathon or so. Not much pain and I was running at a pretty comfortable pace. The second half was challenging but nonetheless an experience I still enjoyed. Now I'll just have a brief write up on the good stuff of GCM and what our marathons back here can learn from.

There were a few things that appealed to me in the marathon. Firstly, we got to put our names down on our bib numbers. I thought that was an excellent idea. People who were cheering the runners could finally call out their names instead of their numbers. Ever experience running then someone shouts to you, "Comeon 2379! You can do it!" It's quite obvious he's cheering you on. He's staring at you and you have eye contact with the guy. Who else could he be cheering for? But nonetheless, How many people actually remember their numbers? I, for one, don't. I'll still have a peek at my bib and oh! That's me he's referring to. At GCM, there wasn't the issue of that. People called me by my name and it feels so much better. You can even put your nickname or something. One of my friends put his alias and it sort of humoured the cheerers who cheered him on.

Another thing I liked was the numerous timing mats. There was a timing mat for every 5km, and at the halfway point. I think it's really nice and it provides you a breakdown of your marathon. This would particularly be useful if you are a really serious runner, or if you are like me, just curious.

The isotonic drinks during the marathon is also worth mentioning. Perhaps to some it may be too diluted. It has a lot of water mixed with probably half the required syrup. But I felt this was a really good mix. Normally for isotonic drinks, it tends to be too sweet and it makes you want to drink water, at least I do. After drinking the isotonic, you need to drink a bit of water to dilute the sweetness and to wet your throat. The isotonic at GCM was diluted, as mentioned, but it was just right. I felt that I could just take a cuppa isotonic and that's it. This helped reduced the bloatedness and I felt that was really nice.

The last thing I would like to talk about would be at the finishing line. I was really really appreciative of the team of people at the finishing line whose sole task was to assist you in taking out your championchip tag. These nice folks would ask if you require assistance and they would squat, so that you needn't have to squat yourself, to take off that double knot you tied. At the end of a tiring run, that is such a god sent. Thanks nice folks who took off my championchip tag.

Well yeap. That's the main stuff I liked about the GCM apart from the wonderful scenery and amazing people. So hopefully the organizers of our marathons learn something from this. :P

Gold Coast Marathon

The Gold Coast Marathon was held on 6th July 2008. The date quite nice ah.. 06.07.08. Well anyway, it was obviously held in Gold Coast Queensland and on that fateful day, 3 friends and myself embarked on another 5 hours of torture whilst another lady friend embarked on her own race of 10km.

Our morning began at like I think it was 5am Aussie time. Through the night, I keep waking up. Some how I slept pretty lightly that night. And through the night, you could hear the howling of the winds and if you bothered to get on your feet to look out the window you could see the dark clouds and the wet streets. What an excellent day for sleeping in! Why the hell am I waking up to run in such conditions! Crap!

Sadly, a friend (not Friend A) came in to wake us up. He's a morning person. Dang.. I was half hoping that everyone forget to wake up although I was already awake and still enjoying the comforts of my bed. So anyway, I woke up reluctantly and got dressed whilst at the same time cursing the weather. Haha.. We had our little breakfast and prepared ourselves for the race. So by about 6am, we left our lovely, comfortable, WARM apartment to put ourselves through pain once more.

We reached the designated carpark with time to spare. So all of us decided to visit the little boy's room. The moment we got out of the car, we felt the wind! oh my gosh.. Freaking cold. It is those kind of wind that chills you, even into your bone. Argh.. So a quick run to the toilet. And a quick run back to the relatively warmer car and under my wind breaker. Why oh Why am I doing this again! Sigh..

Sadly, time passed really quickly when you are comfortable. Soon we had to leave the car and head to the starting line. Time is about 0640. The marathon starts in 10 min. The thing is, we parked in a shopping centre. And we have no idea where the exit is. So we spent like 5 min trying to figure out just how to get out of the building! Haha.. Then we panicked. 5 min left and we had some way to go to the starting point. So we started jogging to the start point. Thankfully, we reached the start point like a minute before the flag off. Just nice. So within that time, we jumped over the barrier and found ourselves within the 3.00 to 3.30 timing runners. Oh what the hell. We moved a little forward and then the horn sounded! Gold Coast Marathon has begun!

Two of my friends are much better runners than myself. So they were like 10 metres or so ahead in front of me. Friend A was very kind to run along side me. I know that he could have run ahead of me but he decided to be a good friend that he has always been. Haha.. What blatant sucking up this is.. Friend A and myself ran together for the marathon. It's a very interesting experience running the Gold Coast Marathon. For one, it's an Australian marathon so most people around you are Westerners. It's way different from the Singapore Marathon where you are the majority. In Gold Coast Marathon (GCM) you are sort of the minority, well sort of. So besides these Westerners, or Ang Mohs, there were quite a lot of Japanese. Apparently, GCM has always been popular with the Japanese folks.

Friend A and I ran at a pretty comfortable pace of slightly less than 6 minutes per km. I think that's quite okay a pace. But the wind in the morning is a killer. Woo.. When it blows, you really feel it. But run on we did. Soon 5km came along and we get to run pass the red timing mat. Cool! So they will have my 5km timing. Soon 10km came and they had the timing mat once again. Very impressed!!! Soon after the 10km mark, we saw our first friend! The bugger had already turned at the 13km or so turnaround and was on his way back to the starting line. Well that guy is a born runner or something. Running seems to come so easily for him. Dang.. So proud of him when he ran passed us cos he was quite near the top people. Another few minutes, our second friend ran past us. All the quick buggers. Haha.. Soon, it was our turn to make our turn around. So glad to have done so and through this time, my good friend, Friend A, was running alongside for much of the time. We continued on and on. However, since the 2km or so mark, my stomach has been playing punk with me. It was like gurgling for a very long time and making it unpleasant to run with. After 18km, I decided I better deal with this stomach problem if not it will be a terrible 3 hours or so more. Sucks. Once I saw a toilet, I decided to bid Friend A adieu and I queued up for the toilet.

Sad to say, after like 5 minutes of queuing, embarrassingly, it was all blanks. Haha. So nothing fruitful nor anything unpleasant came out of this event. So off I continued. Run run run. I told myself during this time that it would really be nice to catch up with Friend A. So after the toilet break, I ran slightly quicker than normal. However, at the 21km mark, I was feeling the muscle fatigue already. If I persisted, I was worried that I would not be able to last the whole race without cramping up. So I decided to go ahead with a walk 1 minute and run the rest of the kilometre tactic. Well the tactic worked all the way till about 29km mark and by this time, we have already passed the starting point. Now we had to head like another 7 km or so before we turned around for the final leg. Anyway, by the 29 km mark, the muscle fatigue was pretty bad. So more rest was required. By like the 32 km or so, I was resting as much as I was running. That is so not good. Note to self: I have to train up on my muscle endurance.

The second turnaround happened at about 34.5km. My constant mental calculation told me about 8km left. So on and on I went. Half walking, half jogging. Terrible way to pass a Sunday if you ask me. But I was there now. In the event now. The scenery thus far has been wonderful. From the beaches with the beautiful crashing waves to the expensive houses with big boats. As a first time there, it was really an eye opening experience. So much beauty and wealth. Amazing.. Well in countless blinks of my eyes, the home stretch could and should have come sooner but finally come it did. There were more and more people and they were all cheering. Perhaps it's psychological but the people seemed more friendly and supportive. Finally, at 4.43, I crossed the Finish Line with a funny looking pose. Finally..

Well obviously, all my friends came in before me. I don't think I shall reveal their timings just yet. Too much embarassment for myself. Haha.. The youngest yet the slowest according to another "friend" of mine. Oh what the hell.. Finished I did and that's what counts. Haha.. :)

Build up to Gold Coast Marathon

Just two Sundays ago, a couple of friends and myself completed the Gold Coast Marathon. I will recap the events preceding the event itself such as the gruesome training and my thoughts on the marathon itself.

In all honesty, I didn't train much for the Gold Coast Marathon. Yeah months before that we did train. We did quite a few half marathons at East Coast Park. Then there was a period of time where we totally stopped training. At least I stopped training. I finished school, went for holidays with family and loved ones. As a result, I stopped running and neglected training. For a period of like 4 weeks I hardly ran more than 15km.

Following this very enjoyable 4 weeks of my life, Sundown Marathon happened. Was I prepared? Probably not as much as I wanted. So midnight the horn sounded and I told myself 5 hours of suffering began. And true enough, 5 hours and 2 min of suffering and I crossed the finish line. Glad I finished but disappointed at my timing. Oh well..

Sundown ended on 1 June 2008. Gold Coast Marathon was on the 6 July 2008. A good 36 or so days of training. You would think after the disappointment in Sundown I would kick myself in my butt, pull up my low ankle socks and train even harder! Well so did I. But I didn't. Can't really remember what I did. I spent a lot of time at home. Doing stuff myself for myself. And my good friend whom I always blog about went overseas. No training kaki!!! Best! The lazy part of me was like cheering. No more running. Life was good!!!

Unfortunately my friend came back and sadly reality came back with him. He coaxed us back to running. So I ran with him like 3 or 4 times. Monday was like a 15 - 16km long run. Wednesday 18km long run. Friday was East Coast once again, about 21km. So altogether that made up to about 50 - 55km covered in a week. I don't think I ever did that in my preparation for a marathon. Haha. Amazing.. Then the Monday before Gold Coast, he coaxed me into a "short" run. We came back 1 hour 8 min. Dang.. Was upset during the run cos I was cheated. Short to me means 20min of running or maybe like 4 - 5km. Not 1 hour 8 min. But I get where he's coming from and at the end of the day, I appreciate it. Thanks friend. I should give him a name. Hmm.. From now on I name thee Friend A.

Wednesday soon came and on the 3rd of July, a couple of friends ( including Friend A) flew of to Gold Coast, Queensland Australia.

Apologies and Excuses

It's been a very long time since I have updated the blog. For that, I apologize. My excuse would be my lack of access to a computer. My laptop have crashed. My home computer kaput. And with the home internet down, it almost seem like somebody up there don't really want me to be connected with the rest of the world.

Luckily for me, I believe he or she has changed his opinion and slowly, but surely, I am regaining my connectivity with the world. My laptop is more or less gone. But I have internet access again. And the home computer is breathing once more.

So with my running out of excuses, it is time once again to bore the world with my boring life. Stay tuned!!!

Endurance Events - Fad?

I remembered my first marathon. That was Standard Chartered Marathon 2002. During that event, it was crowded but not as it is these days. Apparently, endurance events such as marathons, biathlons and marathons are getting very popular. It has come to a point where organizers seem to need to close application deadlines early. So what's this recent appeal of endurance events? Is it a fad or is it for the long run?

One reason for the recent popularity is due to more people becoming more health conscious. There are so many posters, newspaper articles and magazines constantly bombarding people on the importance of health. Also, there are so many gyms out there advertising aggressively it seems impossible to ignore this craze.

Another reason is the increasing number of such events available to the masses. OSIM Triathlon only started like 4 years or so back. Standard Chartered Marathon started in 2001 I believe. Before that, there were running events and stuff but not so much as that of today. With so many events available for participants, and the pretty aggressive marketing, there are more chance to participate in such events.

So are endurance events a fad? In my humble opinion, I don't think so. I think for every endurance event, there are plenty of first-timers. For instance, for Sundown Marathon, on the bus ride to the starting line, I was in a bus full of young guys. They all seemed like army boys. Very peculiar in the sense that they all have short haircuts, the Sundown Marathon singlet and black shorts. Sort of like a uniform. Haha. Well, it seems to me that many of them are first time participants. Out of so many first timers, there are bound to be repeat runners. So with more repeat runners every year, there will always be an increasing number of participants.

Also, as locals become more affluent, there is a shift of focus on their needs. In this Organizational Behaviour course I took some time back, there is this term called Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The gist of it is once you have satisfied with your basic needs such as housing, food and other stuff, you focus more on your social needs and your need to feel good about yourself. Completing endurance events and training and participating are means of doing that.

All in all, I think endurance events are not a fad. As our society progresses, more people will become interested in such events. So my advice, sign up early for the events!

Sundown Marathon - What went Wrong!

Sundown Marathon was more than a week ago. So with a clear head now, let's consider the negatives and positives of the race and hopefully learn and remember from the experience.

Positives
I think one of the positives was the trial runs my friends and I did. Oh I remember cursing and swearing at how long East Coast is, and how long Area C is. Boy am I glad I did those few long distance runs there. Those Friday nights were not that futile after all. During the race itself, East Coast actually passed by pretty quickly.

Another positive I took was the distance covered during those trial runs. We ran a couple of 21kms. I think that helped a lot in the conditioning of the muscles. Come to think of it, had we not covered 21kms and did constant 12-15kms, cramps would have set in at an earlier stage.

Negatives
One big negative I take away from this is the lack of preparation for the second half of the route. What happens after East Coast? In particular, the distance between East Coast and Bedok seemed never-ending to me. It seemed that the distance markers seemed particularly far away after East Coast. And that sucked a lot!!!

Another negative was the preparation for the marathon. Six or seven weeks before the marathon, I would say I was pretty well-geared in my preparation for the marathon. During that time, we did a two half marathons already. I think that was really good. Given the time of six weeks more, we could have increased that distance and could have conditioned the muscles more. However, trips away from Singapore severely limited the time I had for training and I think that has hindered a better performance for the marathon itself.

I think I could have better prepared myself for the marathon had I kept myself well-stretched. The week before the marathon, I did minimal to no stretching at all. And those times when I did stretch, my muscles felt really tight. I purport that this could be one of the reasons for the cramps during the race itself. I believe keeping the muscles well-stretched could have alleviate or even eliminate the issue of tight muscles. Oh well, hind-sight is always 20-20.

Well anyway, Those are the good and bad points of the marathon. Now let's try not to repeat these mistakes. Now here is what I would like to do:
1) Clock more mileage per week
2) Do longer distances
3) Stretch more
4) If possible, do a run through of the entire route

Next up, Gold Coast Marathon. Point 4 is out. Crap! Let's hope I can do more of Points 1-3. Fingers Crossed!

Bum

I am so lazy right now. Last week, I ran a grand total of 5km! And that was on Monday to assist in my recovery for Sundown Marathon. Besides this wonderful fact of not running, I have been eating a lot as well. Recent trips out of Singapore resulted in plenty of chocolates and other junk food brought back. Many of these end up in my belly. Ah.. Life is so good. But knowing me, the lack of exercise and plenty of sinful food has led to me getting really lazy and the once mascular frame of mine is now a fat blob! (yah right) Haha.. But seriously, I think I have to start training once again. Dang. And I feel so lazy.

Anyway, here's the plan for next week.

Monday - 12km
Tuesday - 6km
Wednesday - 15km
Thursday - Rest
Friday - 10km

Giving a grand total of 41km! That is what I hope to achieve next week. So I've put it down in writing. Let's hope I manage to do it. Let's hope it's not like last Friday where I got all my gear, got on the bus to school but decided not to go to the gym in the end. I'm such a bum. Dang!

Sundown Marathon Summary

5:02am. That concluded my 42.195km of suffering. Come to think of it, I felt it is not as good a timing as I have hoped. Sighs. Slower than my personal best even though I have trained pretty hard for it. Today I will recount the painful events of the inaugural Sundown Marathon. :P

The event started at 12 midnight and there wasn't that many participants as that of Standard Chartered Marathons. So that was good. My friends and I managed to squeeze ourselves into the 3:30 to 4:00 hours starting block. For those who have never participated in a marathon before, there are blocks with timings to allocate runners based on their abilities. Well, we managed to squeeze into that block and Boy I have never felt so out of placed! Haha.

The start of the race was alright. Plenty of room and I managed to start running from the Starting Line. Everything was okay. Perhaps I started slightly faster than I normally would have. I think this could be due to race anxiety. Did this affect my race? I'm not so sure but I doubt so.

Next, we ran through Coastal Road. Surprisingly, Coastal Road was not as boring as I thought it would have been. Yes it was slightly monotonous with never-ending lights but I had the luxury of having company in the form of my friend's dad. He sort of accompanied me for like half of Coastal Road. That helped in keeping the monotony manageable.

Moving on, it was the lovely East Coast. The 3 half marathon runs really helped and East Coast seemed to have passed pretty quickly. At the 20km mark, I was running slightly less than 2 hours. If I am not wrong, it is going to be one of my best half marathon timings ever!

East Coast ended at the 22km mark. Next up is the park connector to Bedok Reservoir. This particular area I felt was terrible. There were overhead bridges and the distance between distance markers seemed never ending. In addition, there were areas which were not lit. This made running quite unpleasant. Slightly after the 24km mark, I could feel terrible things happening to my legs. I was feeling the treat of cramps! Crap! So around 25 to 26km, I had to start walking. Crap.

Anyway, ever since then, everything went downhill. Not literally but everything looked bleak. I kept with the tactic of walking for two lamp posts and running for 6 to 10 lamp posts. Somehow each time I tried to run more than 10 lamp posts, my legs take over and I will feel a slight twang in one of the muscles. Then I have to walk. It's pretty demoralizing. And it is always at this moment in time I ask myself why do i put myself through such torture. I tell myself that this is the last marathon ever. Then I recall that I have signed up for the Gold Coast Marathon. Crap! Not the last marathon yet. Sighs.

Well Bedok Reservoir came and went. The next landmark to look forward to was Down Town East which meant that it's slightly more than 6km left. Down Town East took almost forever to come and when it did, my muscles was giving up on me. Right then, more and more people were overtaking me. What a rubbish race. So much pain then.

Loyang Avenue soon came. This was followed by the memorable Hendon Camp and the lovely Netheravon Road. Much as I tried, the muscles kept cramping up. It feels like someone is grabbing my calves and my thighs. What a terrible feeling. Soon, we came near the jetty and that meant less than 200m more to go. I really did try to complete running but I think I walked much quicker than when I ran. Haha. Well, 5:02am. Race ended. I collected my medal and the t-shirt. It always feel good to have the medal and the t-shirt. Well done to myself and my friends. All of them finished ahead of me. Including my friend's dad. Well done friends. I just hope that the Gold Coast Marathon would be much better than this. Fingers Crossed!

Less than 8 hours

I woke up this morning after a very weird dream. I dreamt that I was near the starting point with 10 minutes to the start of the marathon and I didn't have my shoes on! So I dreamt that I had to rush home get the shoes then start the marathon like probably half an hour later than the rest of the pack! Crap! Well I was woken up by my sibling. Breakfast was here! :)

Well, now it's past 3pm. 8 more hours to the start of the marathon. 6 more hours to the double marathon. Good Luck Friend! :P Anyway, yesterday I checked my equipment. Running Top! Checked! Shorts with zipper at the bum! Checked! Hard-wired tag! Checked! and Band to put the Hard-wired tag! Checked! I guess I am pretty prepared for the marathon. Except for my shoes and socks, everything else is more or less done. Oh and my gels. Well that one prepare later.

So here's my plan later for the run. With fingers crossed, I would like to complete the marathon running, ie, not stopping to walk at all. But then again, based on my performance for the 21km on last Friday, I think that is wishful thinking. Nonetheless, I will try to run as much as I can and make decisions on the way as usual. Impromptu decisions have always worked for me. :P I guess I will decide how I will complete the marathon when all the pains set in.

I mentioned that I bought two PowerBar Gel and one PowerBar. I'm going to eat the PowerBar after my lunch and I am going to bring the two PowerBar Gels for my run. One of them, hopefully, I can squeeze it into the zipper pocket at my bum in my shorts and the second one I will hold it in my hands. The plan is to eat one after Coastal Road just before a water point. I believe it's the 12km mark. Following that, I will eat my second one at the end of East Coast Park, near the overhead bridge at Victoria Junior College. I believe that is the 22km mark. Lastly, I hope they give PowerBar Gel at near the 30km mark and I will eat that at the 30km mark. Each time I eat, I would like to eat just before the water point so that I can wash the extremely sweet taste off the mouth.

Well, wish me luck. All the best to all my friends running. Run your own race and see you at the finish line! Cheers

Power...

I bought 2 products from Powerbar the other day - Powerbar itself and 2 Powergels. What exactly are they?

PowerBar Performance is an energy bar that provides an optimal amount of carbohydrates to your muscles. At least this is what the webbie says. For the layman like myself, it means it gives you more energy. More energy means you can last longer during the race. I think this is particularly important if you participate in long distance and endurance races. In my previous article, I mentioned something about depleting the energy from the carbohydrates stored in the muscles. I believe that PowerBar Performance basically helps you store more carbs in your muscles.

Well anyway, I bought one bar. Normally, I would have bought the Cookies and Cream flavour. I think that flavour's pretty good. The thing about eating such stuff is that it is very sticky and it is very sweet. And sometimes, taste-wise, it may not be the most appetising treat. However, Cookies and Cream gets my thumb up. The other flavour I have tried was Chocolate. Oh dang that one. Firstly, the colour is like really dark brown and for me it doesn't taste that good at all. In fact, I didn't even finish the bar. I couldn't take it! Haha.. But Cookies and Cream again gets my thumbs up as I said. This time around, I got Vanilla Crisp. I so hope it's as good an experience as the Cookies and Cream. Fingers crossed!

The second product which I bought is PowerBar Gel. I bought two actually. They are satchets of 41g each of different flavours. They are a paste-like substance which again is very sweet. In essence, they are instant energy. You eat them and very quickly some energy is replenished in your muscles again. PowerBar Gel is usually used during race days. For Standard Chartered Marathons, they have been giving this out for a few years now. For Sundown Marathon, they are also giving this out, alongside some bananas. It's pretty okay and I have tried a couple of flavours. Flavours I do not mind are Strawberry Banana and Green Apple. So with regard to PowerBar Gel, they also get my thumbs up. One thing to note though when eating both PowerBar Performance and PowerBar Gel, it is very very sweet. So my recommendation is to have water ready at hand when consuming it. The sweetness is fuah! It's really sweet. So remember, water at hand.

You may say this is an advertising campaign or something. How I wish I am paid for this. Haha. But I sincerely believe that these products have helped me during my races. Perhaps it will be helpful to you. :) Cheers. Three more days. Crap

Carbohydrates and Carbo-Loading

About a week or so back, I did a short article on Calories. Just a recap, Calories are units of energy. Today, we will discuss how to get energy, particularly going slightly into more details on Carbohydrates.

How do our bodies obtain energy? What do they require? Through our consumption, our bodies can obtain energy from carbohydrates, protein and fats. Carbohydrates, in essence, is the fuel for our body. They can be found in most of our staple food such as rice, wheat, potatoes, etc. I guess that's the reason why in all our meals,whether Asian or Western, we usually have a big portion of rice or potatoes. Without them, we will lack the necessary fuel to perform our everyday activities properly.

Scientists and Nutritionists have found that our body can only store a certain amount of energy. It can be stored in the blood, liver and the most of it, in the muscles. So if you run a very long distance, you get your energy from these three places. What happens when carbohydrates are depleted? Your body starts to feel really tired, legs get heavier and perhaps cramps will set in. How do we prevent that or last longer during the race? A means is through Carbo-loading, or sometimes known as Supercompensation.

The aim in Carbo-loading is to try to store more carbohydrates in the muscles. I think the theory is that by having more carbohydrates, especially more than you would normally use, there would be excess. With such excess, it will be stored in your muscles, and maybe the liver as well. If we can store more carbohydrates, means we can last longer during the race. Last longer means potentially less pain. :) So how do we do it? Well I have come across two different schools of thoughts. The first is to eat a lot of carbohydrates a few days before your race. The second is to starve your body of carbohydrates a week or so before the race and about a day or two before the race, stuff yourself full of carbohydrates.

I have been practising the first method for a few marathons. Perhaps it is psychological but I believe it does work for me. What I did was to begin eating more carbohydrates about 5 days before the event. So I ate more rice. I also ate 2 bananas after each meal. Why bananas? I think bananas are a great source of energy (carbohydrates). If not, why do they keep giving it during the marathons? So that's how I followed the first school of thought. By eating more carbs.

The second school of thought is a Starve and Stuff technique. Starve your body of carbs then follow it by stuffing the body of carbohydrates. It is believed that by starving the body of carbs, the body is essentially craving for carbohydrates. It will be desperate to have carbohydrates in its system again. When the stuffing begins, it is believed that the body, now that is rejuvenated with the reintroduction of carbohydrates, will take in more and more carbohydrates than it normally would. This would result in more carbs in the muscles in the event that a starving event occurs again.

So that's how you do carbo-loading. Which is better? I have no idea. I was planning to try the second method but I couldn't. Perhaps I will try it at another race some time in the future. Anyway, I have already begun on Method 1. Four more days to Sundown. Oh well...

Final Week to Sundown Marathon

It's May 26. Five more days to Sundown Marathon. Am I fully prepared for this marathon? I would say no. But considering the amount that I have been running, I would say this would have been the most prepared marathon I am going for.

Since signing up for the marathon, I have been running quite often (with the exception of the past few weeks). I have done a few 10+ km runs. I have done three 21km runs. And I have run parts of the route, such as Bedok Reservoir, along Loyang Avenue and East Coast Park. Considering all these, I would say I'm pretty pleased with my runs.

However, considering the distance covered prior to the race, it could have been better. For the past six weeks, with the exception of last week, I have not covered anything more than 10km per week. In fact, most of these weeks, I have not run at all! That is not a good build up to a race of such distance. The five week or so lay-off was felt very much in my last 21km run on Friday where I struggled on the last 6km or so. Thinking about it, I think that though I have trained hard for Sundown Marathon, it is still going to be a very painful marathon. Sigh.

Nonetheless, it's late now. I do hope I can last longer during this marathon. My last marathon, which I have trained quite hard as well, I managed to keep running until the 29km mark. I do hope to run longer than 29km and hopefully, very hopefully finish running the entire marathon without walking. Wish me luck for the race and I wish all friends and participants all the best for the race! including the friend going for the ultra-marathon! All the Best!

Calories Calories Calories

Everytime you eat something or you go for a run on the treadmill, you see this word - Calories. So what exactly is it? I know it means something and something important but what exactly is it?

Calories are units of energy. No calories no energy. So you eat calories and you burn calories. It's neither good or bad. It is due to one's consumption of calories that makes it bad. If you eat loads of food (ie loads of calories) but you are not very active (ie do not burn off your calories) then you put on weight!

So how much calories do you require a day? I found this webbie which I think it's pretty good in calculating the amount of calories you need a day. For myself, I require 3032 calories a day to maintain my current weight. This is based on the calculation of your Basal Metabolic Rate and adding your level of activity. Basal Metabolic Rate or (BMR) measures the amount of energy you need if you are at rest for the entire day, something like that. It depends on your age, weight, height and even gender. On top of BMR, you would have to include the level of activity you participate in a day, whether you are very lazy and don't move a lot, or you are hyper active and exercise strenuously everyday.

So that's how you calculate how much calories you need a day. I hope you find this information useful. Now for myself, I hope I remember it.

Another Tiring Run

It's 1.30am and I just finish my shower after a really late night run. Before the run, I was pretty lazy. My body has been and still is aching from a much needed gym work out the day before. In addition, I have also done two rounds Bedok Reservoir on Monday. Hence my legs were aching like mad. I believe my laziness and procrastination for today's run is very much justified.

However, as I was busy contemplating whether to go ahead with my run, a really good friend gave me a buzz to check on me? He wanted to know if I have already done my run. Dang that friend. Made me feel so guilty. Well he caught me at a really bad time as I was busy searching for stuff at home. So I made my usual excuses and he gave the usual "that is so expected of you" replies and I guess I couldn't stand the goading. Hence, I gave him some assurance that I may go for that run. The probability of me running after that important phone call jumped from 20% to a 70%. So as I said, Dang that friend.

Well at 10pm, I got into the car and off I went to the far end of Singapore - Changi Village. That place brings back so many memories but these stories are for another day. Anyway, I reached at about 1030 and got started on my run along Loyang Avenue and to Pasir Ris Drive 3. This run was meant to be a build up to the impending Sundown Marathon which is now 10 days away. Crap! Well, the run from Pasir Ris Drive 3 then through Loyang Avenue is so called the home stretch for Sundown Marathon. The purpose of the run was to familiarize myself with the route from Pasir Ris to Loyang Avenue so that I know what to expect during the marathon - Where will there be never-ending upslopes, and where I can enjoy the downslopes.

Running alone at night is really different. In a sense, there is this lack of security. It's dark and the vehicles along Loyang Avenue zoom pass you like nobody's business. For me, Changi brings back mixed memories and a little fear due to the reputation of the place. There are still parts of Changi which makes the hair on the back of my neck stand. Say that I'm a Wuss I don't really care. You don't really know fear until you feel that hair behind your neck stand. Well, that said, I didn't really enjoy my return to Changi that much.

After all that's been said, I completed my run. Made my turn just after Downtown East and made my short pit stop or pee stop there before heading back. Note to self and to anyone who cares to listen. It is uncomfortable to run with a full bladder or a half-full bladder for that matter. All in all, I finished my run in 1hr 20min. I went to a webbie to check the distance and that came to about 12.2km. That's pretty good given the fact of my entire aching body and legs.

At the end of this day, I'm pretty happy with the run. Thanks to my good friend for egging me on. Need it sometimes. (please note the word some and not all the). It's now 2am. I'm trying to sleep later as I try to "acclimatize" to the later hours. Have a good night and see you soon. Cheers

Update on Sundown Marathon Preparation

A nice friend sent me a message and asked me how was my preparation for Sundown Marathon. Well today's the 20th of May. Sundown Marathon is on the 31st of May. That makes 11 days left. For the month of May I have officially only ran three times. The distance added together doesn't even make 21km. So my answer to my friend, my preparation for this marathon is the usual, Screwed!

Well this week would really be important. On Friday, I'll be meeting a few more friends for a very long run. Hopefully 21km just as a final build up to Sundown. I hope I survive this Friday. Till then, I hope to update you guys soon. My laptop is down and I have no internet access at all. But nonetheless, I will try to update you guys. Cheers

What's your weight?

I'm back after a nice family trip out of sunny Singapore. Actually, I just came back from my first run since my return. Didn't want to run but figured my tight schedule coerced me into making myself run. But nonetheless, I felt quite good after my run. I did about 30 min and I guess it's about 5.5km. That's my guess. Will try to find out the distance when I have more time at my computer.

Well anyway, I came back and measured myself on the weighing machine. I am so glad to report that I have not gained weight during my enjoyable and delicious time overseas. I'm still at my average weight of XXkg. :P For the past 6 years at least, I have not gain nor loss much weight. My weight hovered at XXkg plus minus 1kg. I personally feel pretty good at myself.

But how do you know whether you are overweight, underweight or just nice? To me it's all about personal preference. What's important is to feel comfortable with yourself. But officially, I believe that the Body Mass Index (BMI) is used by international and the local organizations to see if you are overweight or not.

So what is it? BMI is a measure of a person's weight to his/her height squared. So if you are 1.8m tall and 75kg, then using a calculator, your BMI is 75kg divide by 1.8(squared). That gives you 23.1. That makes you just nice. A BMI under 18.5 means you are underweight. Above 25 means you are overweight. In between that and you are just nice. Some consider that Asian men above 23 to be overweight.

For myself, I have a BMI of 24.9. Does that make me overweight? In my humble opinion, no. At my slimmest and my biggest, I have always been this weight and hence this BMI. I like to tell myself that I have big and heavy bones. Haha. Hence I have never thought it to be a problem.

Well then how do you know whether you are overweight or not? I'll try to do more research and keep you updated. Cheers