.... the jackal rides and run....

Just one day of rest (Monday) and I'm out again. I've not recovered (not even now!) but am itching to just get out there.... Tuesday : Ultra slow 30km ride, with HR average of 115bpm and speed of about 25+km/h. Pleasant ride at the usual 30km route. An accident that killed a cyclist just occurred over the weekend on this stretch. My thoughts were with him and his close family as I passed the area slowly. Saw quite a few groups already up and riding at the time but I had no interest to chase (nor the ability at this point in time). Good to give my legs some stretching over the pedals. Thursday : Actually felt good the previous day but found difficulty in waking up. I did anyway and ran 11+ km. Slow at first but eventually, pushed a bit towards the last 3-4km. It was tough and the legs were heavy. HR was also getting high faster. I still need to recover properly with rest and proper food. Collected my medical report on Monday. Basically a company sponsored Biennial Health S...

I started training for the Marathon using the above 12-week plan in March, right after doing a 42km Feeler Run (which took me a good 5hrs 30mins to complete, including stops). The initial goals were pretty high. Marathon pace was set at 6:00min/km, probably a bit too high as a first Marathon goal. I followed through until week 5 were the training took its toll on the knees (probably coupled with the fact that I was concurrently preparing myself for the Kuantan Century ride as well...) and at least 1+ week of slow running down time. After that I concluded that I should shoot for Marathon pace of 6:15min/km. Things started to look ok but still deep within I was a bit skeptical if that could even be achieved over such a long distance. A good thing that came out from the training was that I was able to hit consistently below 6:00min/km pace for 21km towards the 2nd half of the training plan. A realistic target for me in the end was to try to hit 6:30min/km. The reality : 6:44min/km ...

Pretty neat presentation of the results! I am actually pleasantly surprised with my placement, not that it matters much. And some pics....I don't look that tired huh. Should have pushed harder....

After 3 months of preparation, starting from that 42km feeler run back in March, the moment came ..... and went. The week leading to this has been a little bit repressive. I had to restrained myself both mentally and physically in order not to do too much activity and this was rather unpleasant. Very weird. It was in the end, more of a good thing than bad as I entered race day with the least pain and aches I've ever had going into any activity for the past 3 months. That was not to say that I was going to do extremely well but its at least a bit more comforting to know that I will probably endure much less over the mammoth distance. So I had my stuff all packed prior. I had a lot of time thinking about what to wear for the event and settled on the provided singlet, my sexy FBT plenty short shorts and Puma H-Streets. Strange to think that after spending quite a fair bit on shorts, I settled with the first few shorts which I bought for 10SGD. Same goes for the shoes! I spent on Me...

My wife got this for me! SGD25 shipped. Supposedly made in Korea, it has a lycra-like upper sewn to a rubber (feels like latex) sole. Its very light and fits exactly like a short profile sock.....with a sole. I've not gotten around to try it out yet, except for running about by micro abode but it does feel good; very comfortable, extremely flexible (more so than even VFFs or my Puma's!). I would be a bit concerned about the durability though...especially on sewn area of the lycra-like material. Okay, they did not have the colour I wanted for the size I needed so I opted for the very loud looking one......

Tapering down at the moment and eating well (too well at times, I fear!). Only did a 10km on Saturday morning which was strangely a very lethargic run for some reason unknown. Legs felt lazy and heavy. Nothing noteworthy from this run. Managed a 12km barefoot run with good speed (a 10km barefoot PB of 57:22). Legs always feel more alive without shoes and in general, always happier after a barefoot bout. Could be also due to the excellent foot massage I had yesterday (and dinner buffet). I was doing sub 6 until the 9km point where I turned it up. I was running on the road park road centre-line which is 'smoother' to relieve the tender soles at this point. A guy in huaraches-like shoes passed me a quite a fast pace and he led a good 80m or so before I decided to turn it up and made him a target pacer from afar. Managed to catch up and eventually passed him right after the old Macs and of course, my end-run point as well. No blisters thankfully but soles felt tender....only afte...

I'm changing my runs to the evenings at the moment, in preparation for the Sundown Marathon in slightly more than a weeks time. The Marathon event starts at an ungodly 12.30am so I better get used to some late runs prior. Started out at about 7:15pm and did the ECP loop. I wanted to try to break 2hrs in this run but failed! I started out with a fast pace and was actually softly challenging a lady who was running quite fast! I passed her at lagoon area but she came back sprinting ala interval style after Bedok Jetty. Passed her again soon after as I help my pace but then again at the 6km point, my pace dropped and she beat me straight up. Respect! From there on no way of catching her.....Did a decent 10km (56mins) so I was on track but I was wrong. Although its still a PB at 15km (1hr 26mins), I was fast faltering in speed and could not even do 6min/km after that point. The last 6km was just pure torture and defeat. HR refused to get up at all (and it was pretty high during this ...

I went down to the Expo with the family on Sunday. The main mission was to collect the Sundown Marathon race pack for Ryo and my own. I was a bit worried as there was already a queue forming up at the entrance of the collection point at 10.45am but it was very fast and efficient when the doors swung open at 11am. Kudos for that. 25000 participants this year.....crazy. The RunBikeSwim was also on that weekend and it was nice to see a lot of minimalist shoes there. I guess the popularity is really surging with these shoes. I bought myself a pair of NB 730 at SGD80 which I think is a pretty good price for this shoe! Saw it at Sportslink going for SGD115 with possible discount of 10% and KL did tell me that at Queensway, 25% discount was possible on the spot. I was not going to buy another shoe although I liked it but when I heard my wife saying "buy la"....that was it and pulled the trigger instantly. Also got myself a SGD15 race belt that could hold a phone, gels and the r...

I reserved Saturday for my long distance run. Initially the plan was the run at night but my forays the previous night on the bike just proved to be exhausting and I needed the sleep. Fortunately, no disturbances from the kids and managed to catch 6+ hours of sleep. Started the run at about 5.50am from ECP. The route is the same as my first 30km loop...basically to run towards SAFRA, coastal straight until Changi beach park and u-turn back after refilling water. As usual, the stomach was not friendly to me...had to take a quick dump. Location confidential, had to go primal on this one. Yet again, the body goes straight into long distance mode....at about 6+min/km (did not check the speed until Coastal straight). The sky was getting brighter so Coastal was not scary at all....but its still a challenging path to take mentally as one cannot see the end of that straight road until the final 1km or so. Refilled at the u-turn point vending machine (15km)...they had no decent drinks so I we...

Check out this minimal shoe....my wife just ordered it for herself. Upon inspecting it, I am curious. It looks to be like a neoprene sock with a well made sticky rubber sole which seems to be attached well to the neoprene sock. Not sure about reliability but its very minimal; ultra flexible and light. I'm gonna order one just for fun! I thought I only managed to get her to start running but I never expected my foray into barefoot-dom also caught on with her! Must be my incessant small talk about minimal shoes and running during my sleep....... Puma's on wash......these shoes are easy to wash and dries up pretty fast as well. Love em! I will used on or the other for the Marathon. Never got used to the feel of the Kinvara's and the Merrell felt floppy at the front end for some reason (but ok for trail).

A truly rare occasion. Gary, BP, Ben, Sam, Francis were all in this ride as well. Nice weapons display too and managed to see Gary's Pink SpeedVagen in action and later on Mark dropped by to unveil his SV. IMO, 2 of the most beautiful and unique road bikes to ever grace Singapore roads in recent history (!). We met up at SAFRA had our few quick hellos and off we went. Ben took the lead initially on a 30km/h 1km warm up at coastal. I took over after than and pushed the pace bit by bit until 40km/h and led till mid-coastal. The intention was to set the 'tone' for the ride to come and get everyone to dump reserves early :) Like a good movie, you need to have a good in-your-face music and cool opening right from the start. I backed off midway, truthfully I wasn't used to night riding and experienced unusually high HR. Even leading at 40km/h I was pushing towards 180bpm....maybe its the excitement of actually riding in a group larger than 2! Everyone took their turn to...

Monday was an off day for me and managed to do a 21km run. Woke up a bit late for this but even so, only had a lousy 4+ hours of sleep....maybe too much rest over the weekend! I should stop napping in the afternoon perhaps! After some tough decision-making, I went with the Puma H-Streets (a good decision). I just ignored my pace and garmin for the first 10km or so and went on a pace comfortable to me. At the halfway mark, average pace was about 5:53min/km. Went about 2km into the coastal straight...it was dawn by then so not creepy at all :) Pace dropped going into ECP and average became 5:58min/km at one point. With 5km to go, I upped my pace a bit and was determined to do better than my last 21km PB. With 3km left to go, the rain started and it was pretty heavy. The shoes were rather slippery under such conditions and could not really do any sprint. Nevertheless managed decent under 6 min/km pace and finished with 5:53min/km average pace. For 21km, this is a minute+ better than my...

The plan was to do 36km at my usual time of 5.30am on Saturday but on Friday night, I had problems getting to sleep. After rolling about the bed for about 1.5hrs and feeling pretty frustrated not being able to sleep (I could end up not sleeping till 2am and hence there goes my plan), I popped out of bed and got ready for the run. I was pretty sure it was going to rain but went anyway and hoped for the best. Started at 12.20am with just modest pace. In the beginning, I felt quite good actually and the legs went smooth. It was my first experience running at ECP at this time and I was pleasantly surprised with so many people still at ECP going about there relaxation activities. Macs was full and the lagoon still looked pack at 1am in the morning. The coastline was basically filled with people having their BBQ and tents set up. Looks like some carnival at ECP past midnight! Pass SAFRA, I turned into the Park Connector road next to Outward Bound....now that's like the creepiest p...

I decided to take it easy these few weekdays. Basically just to let my body recover a bit from the punishment I handed to it the past 2 months. Last month's running mileage was a bit much. March was already high but I had a crazy 42km outing in that month whereas in April, I did not. With only 5 days of rest, I survived April with 260+km on the foot and 430+km on the pedal. Originally wanted to take on the 36km MTP distance on Monday but it was a bad day (woke up with some diarrhea). Within 2 mins of starting; heavy rains. Had to stop for another toilet session at 6km point then I conceded that I can do not much more and completed just 15km, more than half of which was in the rain. Pace was a paltry 6:14 min/km. I just did not want to do anything on Tuesday , just rest in and eat. Had the best sleep in months....basically slept at 10pm and woke at 8+am. Wow, for the first time in a long time I woke up not feeling groggy....so this is how waking up feeling fresh is like...

First and foremost. Right after today's 10km run....post recovery drink and some ~900ml of hydration. I will be back to ~80kg by the end of the day. It has been more than six months since I got back into running. I really re-started around August when I found the Eureka! moment with minimalist/barefoot approach to running but at the time I was not really that much into it as I was cycling my hearts out for Tour de Bintan in November. So really, my journey shot up (plus my weight dropped like a rock) since mid/end November onwards. Below is a plot generated using Endomondo ... Weight : from 86kg in mid Nov to slightly below 80kg now Mileage : increased tremendously from 80+km to 250+km per month (I expect this to go down to 150+ level after the marathon!) Heart Rate : average has been dropping, mostly also because I've been pulling in more sedate long runs for endurance and much less speedwork Average Pace : surprisingly, despite not doing much speedwork the past...