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

Ok, will be leaving for Ipoh Century Ride tonight. Me and Ben will be making a trip up Cameron Highlands tomorrow morning upon arrival on our bikes. It will be a non competitive ride of course. On the Ipoh Century Ride, I am just not in that kind of competitive spirit as last year to be honest so I'm just gonna shoot for a 5hr finish. I think doing so is already in itself quite a challenge! Monday : Went for a 10km run at ECP. Warm up 3km and then went on to sprint and recover exercises. Basically run fast for 18 light poles and recover for 8 light poles all the way up to the 10km point. Tuesday : Went for a 43km ride with Ryo. Revisiting the hills in the west, namely for this time; Pepy's road, Telok Blangah hill and Mt. Faber. In addition, a sprint finish at Nicoll Highway. Good workout. Wed & Thurs : Rest. Was on MC yesterday due to sore throat and cough. My whole family is down. I better take it conservatively this weekend....

Monday : Rest day as usual Tuesday : Went out for a 1hr ride at nearby Parbury Ave. Its quite a steep short ascent (>12% at its steepest I think). I haven't done this since July 2010 (!) on my Colnago. Decent as I managed to complete 13 rounds in slightly over an hour. Last time I normally only get to do about 10 rounds within the hour, there's some improvement, probably due to weight and a lighter bike! Wednesday : 10km run...just felt soooo sluggish the first few kms. By 7km the ave pace had increased to 6:10min/km.....determined to complete within the hour, I forced myself to get my ass moving. Managed to complete in just under the hour. Thursday : Got up early to do a ride but it was raining. Instead I swapped my wheels back to the HEDs. Friday : ECP Coastal ECP again. Feeling a bit tired as worked till late and only got home after 10pm. Nevertheless, still decent effort of 32.6km/h average over the course. The HEDs do feel 'better' and they lo...

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 ...

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......

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...

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...

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...

What a month! Completed about 698km in total which is the highest so far for this year (don't compare with last year where I did a full 900km coverage on a bike within a month!). Bike : 435km (not bad at all for dual activity) Run : 263km (10+km more than my monthly running distance record which was March). I was shocked as well to see 2 days back that for this month, I only had 5 days of non-activity....typically, I have 8-10 days. No wonder I'm getting slower and it seems like the long distance runs really kills momentum and tougher to recover from them. At this rate I will be happy to complete the marathon under 5hrs! Seriously! Today's run was quite bad. I woke with diarrhea and decide to go ahead....although the long distance plan had to be scrapped as nature called again at 6km. It also rained big time from the start. 15km covered only and speed was modest. I basically finished my 1l water bottle which is highly unusual for this distance. Must be dehydrate...

21km Run Monday's run was good and rather 'fulfilling' as its a PB and by over a minute so leaves me with a very positive vibe. Now the mind was elated and pumped and it deceived me on the bodily condition. Well, this deception came with a price as I tried to achieve another PB on Tuesday with the 21km. I even employed the help of Ryo to come in at km11 to supplement my pain with inspiration and correct pace. It was not to be. Started out quite promisingly for the first 2km but really that was it. Pace began to falter, HR refused to get pumped up. What started out at a "go for under 2hrs" went gradually to "go for 2hr 2mins" and then to "go for 2hr 4mins" and by the time I reached the meeting point where Ryo was waiting eagerly....it was "Ryo, can't make it....just try for my PB". He pushed at 5:40 pace for a while but it was killing me already and as we passed my underpass area at 16km, I really wanted to give up (I think...

Actually, this was quite irrelevant to me since I already did 42km on my own prior to this training. The goal of this training is then of course to see if I could do it at a considerably faster pace than my 'feeler' run earlier this month. I target the marathon pace of 6:00min/km, which will give me roughly, a 4hr 15min Marathon. This is going to be tough and truthfully, I'm not gonna make it! Still, aiming high is good. I wanted a training programme that is more flexible and not something which is regimented day by day. This 12 week program was from Runner's World (I think) and I converted it to metric to suit my metric-trained-mind. The programme basically covers 12 weeks (just nice till Sundown) and defines 2 key workouts for each and every week. It also defines how much these workouts should account for, in terms of mileage percentage, for your weekly mileage target. So the extra runs apart from these 2 workouts can be simple, easy runs, I decide! So far, I...

I had to start training with some padded shoes. On my last 42km run....the final 5-6km was torturous on the soles that I ran on grass wherever possible. The amount of sole-landing took its toll after such a long distance. I had a voucher from my Merrell purchase (20SGD discount) and I have been looking at the Sauconys for quite a while so why not? They look great IMO but I chose a more simple, non-loud colour. Virgin run : 21km .... Personal Best time of 2hr 6mins. First time I did 20km under 2hrs. Feels good without socks too!!

I just had to know. How does 42km feel like? So I set out at 5am, on my "Marathon Feeler Route" (I have 3, by the way), with the intention of finishing at 10am, with a pace of 7:00min/km. 'Modest' I thought. Oh how wrong I was! The route basically covers the Park Connectors. It was pretty interesting on paper but in reality, one can get confused, like I did as at times the PC do not really 'connect' that well. I entered the Siglap PC near my place. This brought me through Teluk Kurau, Kembangan over the PIE and into Bedok North. Made a wrong turn over here but luckily I stopped to check my GPS and u-turned back towards the correct route. At Bedok Reservoir......the usual dump-attack came....so had to stop at a coffee shop to do my business. I was running on the pathway here until Tampines ave 1 junction where I connected in the Tampines PC. This brought me towards Tampines Mall, Sun Plaza park etc and finally into Pasir Ris PC at Downtown East. At this poi...

Ryo cycled to my place and we ran at ECP doing the 10km loop. As he is definitely a much faster runner than me, I asked him to help me to try to achieve 5:15 pace (just want to get it under 53mins). He did just that at shot off at a bullet pace of 4:30.....I nearly fainted but thank goodness he noticed my state and slowed down to 5:10 pace.....by then I was dying already. Think the initial fast pace destroyed me. Upon reaching the 5km point (a PR), I could feel that I was getting tired fast so I knew at that point that it would be quite difficult to hit the under 53mins target but to achieve a PR over my best time was definitely possible. I gave it all I had for the last km or so and managed to do just that. Ryo hardly pulled a sweat! 10km in 53m 22s....improvement of 20s from previous PR achieved last week. Wow, every seconds equate to pain and suffering but I am loving every moment of it. Strange.

Monday : A rest day....was hit with sore-throat right after the trail-run beer session. I've instructed Ryo to remind me next time out. I'm such a sucker to peer pressure. Not blaming beer directly but the past few times that I got sick.....it was beer after heavy exercising, everytime!! Tuesday : Got up and ran barefoot 10km......did the first 5km alone was suprised I could hold a decent 5:50ish pace for the first 5km. Ran slightly slower with Ryo as my feet were feeling a bit raw by then but it felt great and we managed to complete the next 5km slightly under the 6:00 pace. It was nice to run an chat a bit as well just to catch up and talk about stuff. Wednesday : I owe my bike a ride so I headed out for a 'base' 30km. Basically try to keep HR at 130bpm average for the entire ride. Boring ride as usual but I did not feel the greatest either as I have a dry cough after the sore throat subsided. Thursday : Headed out for a run......I felt ok and thin...

Preparation for Sundown Marathon cannot be complete without a feeler route. I need to know my capacity for suffering and manage it myself, especially for this distance. ECP - Changi Village - ECP (42km) Hope to do this soon, just to get a feel of the pain expected. At this point, I'm just going to go easy on the NTU Bike Rally Event! EDIT : Ryo has offered water support for this grand effort. I will probably need him to run alongside be for the last 10km!!

Rested monday after the mammoth 30km run on Sunday. Thought I could do ok on Tuesday but I suffered and just managed to do under the hour for the usual 10km. Obviously, though the mind was willing, the body was not. I believe, much reparation work was still needed to be done within the body! What did not help was the fact that I had a late night out for Ben's birthday, with Ryo and KL as well at TGIF. We ate and drank A LOT. For the record, after a long hiatus from drinking, I'm proud to announce that I survived 3 bottles of Sam Adams and 3 pints of Summer Ale (nice!) or was it more. No way I could run the or ride the day after though and was so sleepy throughout the day. I arranged a run with Ryo at 5.30am today and he was game. I did a warm up 1.5km as I had time before heading to the usual underpass meeting place. Ryo put up quite a fast pace for me as I struggled a bit for the first 3-4km. We wanted to see if there was a through road to Marina Barrage but to no avail. A...

I have been planning this for the past couple of days. The early plan was to complete 34km which is a loop covering ECP - Coastal - Changi - Loyang - Bedok Reservoir and back via the park connector. The thought of going up Loyang on foot at the 24km point was pretty much unbearable since I felt that I have not fully recovered from the previous day ride yet! Even so, the show must go on; I had to feel a true long distance run. So finally on Sunday morning, I decided to go for my usual ECP - Coastal - ECP 30km bike route -- on foot. Started with a slow pace.....my initial target was to complete the 30km NOT WALKING at any point but later changed my mind and set a target pace of 7min/km (which I failed, of course). Upon reaching the East Coast Sailing club I was already doing 7+min/km pace......and my bowels were moving. There was a toilet there but I decided that I was ok to go and could control it. It was a mistake as it came in on and off for the next 8km! Fortunately for me, at the ...

Courtesy of JM from his handheld POV camera. Short Excerpts from the run... Macritchie Start Rifle Range Road Zheng Hua Park Woodcutter's Trail Old Upper Thomson Road Casuarina Beer Reward Back to Start