Ohhhkay I decided that I wanna run on Saturday morning - following RunnersMalaysia's Beginner Program to prepare for Larian Kardio (really wanna make my dad proud u see) and Mizuno 10k. Being a big baby I went to buy a Vanilla PowerBar & Tangerine PowerGel beforehand, since I dont really know what to eat before running.

I slept early around 10pm-ish and woke up early too at 5:30am. I experienced the pre-run suspense like it's a real run hehehehe. At 6:30pm I took 2 caps of Lipo-6 (cause wanted to take PowerBar at 7:00am, since running starts at 7:30am). I dont know about you guys but PowerBar that I bought was friggin sweet! ARGH had lil headaches trying to finish them up.

While I was preparing my dad asked me to send my bro to his kendo practice. Aiyak. He didnt wanna go too early so long story short - I only managed to drop him off at 7:45am . It's already too late for the program and too hot to run outside so I resorted to running at a place that I know is safe and air-conditioned - the gym. HAHAHAHAHAHHA

A lil side story - my right calf is in pain. Residue from my 4km run on Wednesday. It's a big pain in the ass lah since whenever go down the stairs or do simple running. But then compared to my previous pair of shoes, this one allows me to run two days consecutively. *hugs new shoes*. Shoes is also Nike+ ready and I've just gotten my Nike+ kit yesterday from another forumer. I even plugged the transmitter into my shoes. Now all I need is a Nano.......

So back to the story : I changed and sprayed some heat spray thingy to my calves. Alright all set n ready to go.

I key-ed in 60mins to one of the treadmill (wishful thinking since I'm expecting to go more than 30 mins) and surprise surprise it allowed me to. Most treadmills @ FF only allows 30mins max, you see. I was in luck! I hopped on and started warming up the usual way - 1min at 5.0km/h, 1min at 5.5km/h and another min at 8.0km/h.

My right calf was practically screaming in pain when I started running at 8.0km/h. Being a hard-headed person I ignored the pain until minute 20. I barely passed the 2.5km mark! Had to tone speed down to 5.5 (walking) cause calf couldnt take it anymore and drank some water. I really really wanted to quit so bad!! But then I estimated that since I'm already halfway there (was aiming for >4km), might as well I consume the PowerGel and see how much energy-boosting effect it can give me . I also ran through the whole playlist in my iPod Shuffle to look for my "Power Song" since I was so demoralized. Damnit I should've gotten a Nano.

PowerGel tasted like..... orange-flavoured fish oil. Rancid! I gargled down around 300ml of water (I only filled my bottle halfway around 500ml) and within a minute my body was refreshed and I've gotten some focus. Wow this s**t is amazing! Calf still in pain so I had to change my running technique to utilize the "best" musclegroup  I have - the quads . Here's a catch, that technique is for sprinters you see so I went 10.5km/h and ran like I've been chased by dogs. Went pass the 4km mark and went "What the hell, lets burn 330kcals". My aim shifted to burning all 330kcals of stuff I took (PowerBar and PowerGel) else I'm gonna have excess calories!.

Calf was spared from pain but I ran out of breath. Went down to 6.0 to catch some air and hey I already burned 330kcals at 40minutes something. I went "What the hell, lets go 45mins!". Running paces varied from 7.5-9.5km/h depending on the condition of my calf and how heavy I was breathing. Had to walk a couple of times too (5.5-6.0km/h).

By the time I passed 45mins. I went "What the hell, lets go for 1 hr". At the 60th minute (including 3 mins of warmups) I already clocked 7.5km something of distance. I drank all the water I had in my bottle proceeded to go "What the hell, lets go for 10km!".

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!     

Body went auto-pilot. At that time I felt like my legs could run for another hour - but I seriously ran out of energy and water (really tempted to ask someone to fill bottle for me hahahah ).

In the end I managed 10km in 1 hour 21 minutes - good enough for a medal @ Mizuno 10k . Burned 664kcals according to the treadmill but I didnt enter my weight so I think after weight adjustment I should've burned around 600kcals - Whee I burned almost 5 cans of Coke!

Considering how boring running @ one place might be, I feel pretty good about it. Ah should've gotten my Nano. I'd have a 10km record in my stats dy

Wednesday, 22nd August 2007

Workouts

@ Subang 10k



Stretch

Things
- It's a bittersweet run. Sweet because I managed to finish it by giving maximum effort. No regrets. Bitter because I actually finished it around 10seconds after qualifying time. Nike+ recorded 1:17 cause when the race ended, I went up to reporting table, was the FIRST PERSON to be turned away .. Turned around to take a breather, forgot that Nike+ was still running, tried to turn off but cannot. Then realized that it was on 'Hold' haha. Turned it off and recorded my time and pace. Sad lah a bit cause my best wasnt good enough

- I made a mistake by running in the middle of the road to avoid other runners. Gee there's a reason why runners dont run in the middle of the road - since there were lots of left turn, running in the middle of the road will cause ppl to run further a bit. Besides the additional 2mins something in Nike+, I still dont get why Nike+ recorded the 10.92km distance tho. Did I really add 10% to my run by picking to run in the middle of the road most of the time?

- I should've brought all my bottles (took out 2 bottles from my 4-bottles FuelBelt). I was so dehydrated and dizzy 6km onwards, I ran with one eye closed and head looking down trying not to lose pace and balance.

- On a lighter note, I've managed to cross out this out of my 2007 goals : Participate in a race (7km - 10km) . Whee!