Training must go on

Lately lots of changes happen in my organization and my main project hitting the wall too. Also, I suffered the usual dip in emotion after every big race (failed to score the highly anticipated PB made it worst). To overcome this, I do shopping.

I got myself double doses of endorphin from the books by two famous Japanese Ultra Runners, Hirofumi Ono (a.k.a. the White Radish Costume Runner) and Ryōichi Sekiya (4 times 24hrs Ultra World Champion). I signed up for Seremban Half Marathon, got myself a pair of Drymax Socks (will be running in Bare Access in the coming Challenge68 Ultra), and tentatively get a new pair of Merrell Bare Access later in the RSH Warehouse Sale. The family will have more shopping over this weekend because the bloody GST is coming.

After the Seoul trip, I rested for few days. Only resume my running last Saturday. As I back in Ipoh, I decided to run up the Bukit Kledang as part of the training for the 1900m elevation gain in Challenge68. The training was great. Surprisingly I found a way to keep my effort manageable when scaling the incline, just keep the stable breath by counting it, and never thinking of stopping until you reached the target. My target for this training was simple, 1.5km up (out of the whole 6km road to the TM Tower) with close to 144m elevation gain. Then I walked up another 1.5km, and ran all the way back to start. The descending of 3km over 350m was fun! I clocked 5.5min/km pace in Bare Access. Usually I descend slower than ascending in road race. Now is time to put in some training on how to descend properly with some speed.

Apart from the hill workout, I add in evening run. Challenge68 will start at 6am, no matter how fast I go, come noon I will still be in the race. It preparing my body to endure the heat (plus I planned most of the long run sessions in April to be done in 8/9am-12pm). The usual 6 morning training sessions will still be continued. Evening workouts planned for all easy days (Monday, Friday & Saturday), and Tempo run (Thursday). The easy run was just to building up my endurance. And the tempo run will be a continue session from what I left in the morning. As I need to finish my morning run by 6am, I usually don’t have enough time to cover the planned tempo run distances (especially towards the end of the training program). So the evening session will be filling up the gap and also training the body to restart into target racing pace after some break.

The game plan for this 68km race was ready too. Plan A (711) very aggressive and Plan B (828) relatively conservative. Tentatively I will mix them up and play by ear. The elevation gain doesn’t look very scary as I break it down to average elevation change per KM. But the plan was draw out with the CP elevation. There will be more to be expected in between CPs as the organizer announced 1900m elevation gain in total. I will need to do lot more hill workout in order to follow thru the planned pace.

After putting down all these plans, I felt some relief of my emotional stress. May be I just need to have something to divert my attention and perhaps doing venting helped too.

In short, training (the show) must go on. 6 weeks until my second Ultra road race.

Race Report: Seoul International Marathon 2015

I was highly anticipated this marathon as my first sub4 marathon, but it’s turned out to be another failure. I was so determined to run this race and got my flight booked July last year. The race date only confirmed towards end October, and registration only open on 8 December. The key lesson learned in this race, I ran a better race back in home ground and I don’t need to purposely travel for a cold climate marathon for a PB. The body is a complex organism and it won’t always work the way you think it should.

I travelled to Seoul on an early morning flight on Thursday. This is my second trip to Seoul, and I had no issue to travel to the guesthouse from Incheon Airport to Dongdaemun around 6pm. Despite most of the Korean don’t speak English, Seoul City is a tourism friendly city. You can move around without any problem via Subway and trains. These transports will display/announce in 4 languages (Korean / English / Mandarin / Japanese). On other hand, the quality for the guesthouse is ok. I got a single room with bath room attached. The room will be great if I came few years earlier, but now I think I was spoiled by all my business travels in the past few years. I couldn’t sleep and rest well in the room, the bathroom was too cold and the room was cold too at night time. I was too conservative in choices prior to the race, most of the meals were familiar name like McD (plus LotteRia, the Korean version of McD), Subway & BurgerKing. Some sightseeing planned ahead of the marathon. Dongdaemun, Insandong, Jamsil Stadium (finishing area), Gwanghwamun (starting line), Namsan Tower, Myeongdong. Lots of walking and these tourism activities continued until Saturday evening until I felt I walked too much.

Saturday night I was not able to sleep well, may be too cold, too tired or just plain excited for race. I woke up 4am, but the race only start at 8am. I slowly prepared myself and left the guesthouse for breakfast around 6am. The morning plan role out nicely, morning breakfast at McD after a 30 minutes’ walk from the guesthouse, used the toilet and slow jog to the starting line (about 2.5km from the guesthouse). Reached the starting line around 7am and it was filled with runners. I took out all warming cloth and packed them into the baggage to be transfer to the finish line. Walked around in the freezing 1degC weather, I found many runners stayed inside the lobby of the Sejong Performance Art center, it’s located just next to the my assigned starting pen C. The starting pen setup was so simple and it’s depend on your own judgement if you wanted to stay in the assigned starting pen. There are not check point, not barriers, just few ladies holding up a banner with a big A/B/C/D/E on it to indicate which zone is this.

8am, the elites were off. After some speech and the national song (my guess), zone A and B were let off too. When I finally past the starting line at 8:18am, spent more than 30 minutes in the cold with only my running attire plus the poncho, but the cold is much bearable may be due to adrenaline building up. Running with the poncho for the first 3km, I took it off but still kept it on my hand. Only confirmed that I won’t need it any more then I disposed it in the 5km water station. The route bring us from Gwanghwamun to the Dongdaemun twice, 1st time via the famous Cheonggyecheon stream, 2nd time via the main Jungro road. I managed my pace around 5.5min/km, when we reached Dongdaemun area for the second time, it was about 20km done. The pace was right on the dot for the first 20km. Then I struggled from there onward. The average pace getting slower by every km.

A blind runner with a pacer overtook me. The pacer doing a great pacing job with the blind runner and pace command was loud and clear. This is the first time I saw this live, and it spike up my spirit to run with them. Hence I was still managed to keep the pace around 5:45min/km. But they are strong, I finally lost them, and after crossed the Hangang River at 36km, I felt I lost the determination to continue. My soles were still great, no blister (dry weather with minimum sweat). The right ankle seems to be alright, and the tights & calves were tight but still manageable. But, I just lost the determination to continue. I started to walk. One by one, the 4:00 hours’ pacers overtook me. I knew I failed.

I didn’t run much, I felt really cold on the route. Until 41km, where I certainly felt that maybe I should at least aim for sub 415. Then the fire started to heat up again. I started the run walk routine and finally arrived at the stadium. I enjoyed the entrance to the stadium and sprint to the finish line. And I remembered the last time I finished my marathon in an Olympic Stadium, I was still doing a 5 hours marathon. I felt great! I crossed the line at 4:12’22”.

Seoul International Marathon 2015 Finisher Medal

Official Split Time 

Overall Finisher Statistic, FM average @ 4:6'16"

At the finishers’ area, I had plenty of Pocari Sweat. Actually this was the first time I had it. It tasted way better then 100Plus we used to have back home. I drank too much until I felt really cold and my tight and calf muscle almost cramp up. I shivering and walked to the warm changing area but can’t walked fast with the tight muscles. What an experiences.

After reflection, this failure was mostly caused by under trained. The down time from the injury and the work commitment caused few delay in the plan. I only done 6 weeks of serious training prior to this marathon, the endurance was not fully built. Also, all the tourism activities and the few nights that not slept very well contributed too. So, the key to complete a marathon with great timing is simple, training. With great training, I can run faster even back home (408 in SCKLM). I don’t need to travel all the way for a cold climate marathon for PB. Without sufficient training, that’s day dreaming.

So, will I return to Seoul for revenge? Probably not in the near future. I need to correct my mind-set, travel to run a marathon is not for a PB, you travelled, and the marathon supposed to be the highlight of the trip, but not the only reason for the trip. Of course if you PB too, that will be a great bonus for the trip. I suffered in this trip. I travelled with my mind all into the race. Walked around the famous tourist spot like a zombie, ate only familiar food before the race (worried that the kimchi and spicy food will upset my stomach), and no photos taken! I had 2 plates of toppoki after the race for dinner. For next oversea race, I will register for 2016 Tokyo Marathon. If I got thru the ballot selection, I will bring my wife for 2nd honeymoon.

Keep Running!

Training report: Training week 8 & 9, Final Preparation and Game Plan

Training week 8 involved the long missed 1.6km speed intervals. The mile repeats is the hardest amongst all speed work cause the length and pace. The last time I did this was more than 7 months ago. Now from the past few speed works, I realized that the training is about the speed during the interval, not the average pace. Hence I started to slow down lots more during the 400m recovery between repeats, from the usual 5:50-6min/km, to 6:15-6:30min/km. It’s helped to maintain the quality of the speed works. And I able to kept the pace I wanted for all 3 repeats. Still the problem of woke up early but started late, most of the workouts are short in distance compared to what planned. Also I started to reduce the load partly due to workload, and it’s getting close to the race. Monday and Friday were off. Sunday was revisiting the Padang Merbuk – Hartamas route at long run pace, and found out that the Sri Hartamas Petronas was closed again for renovation.

Week 8	Program	Done	Remark
Mon	Easy 9.7km	Rest
Tue	Speed 3x 1600m	Speed 3x 1600m	All repeats paced at 4:50min/km
Wed	Rest	5km
Thu	Tempo 11.3km	9km	8km in tempo pace
Fri	Easy 9.7km	Rest
Sat	Easy 16.1km	18km
Sun	Easy 16.1km	20km	Padang Merbuk – Hartamas
Total Done		62km

Training week 9 started with a day off. The back to back 18/20km over the weekend was unintended, but necessary preparation for the Challenge68. Been a while I didn’t do back to back long run, figured that some extra off time will ensure that I don’t inviting any injury. The body started to response to the amount of training, the speed work and tempo run completed rather easy, and another round of back to back 18/18km was done too. Heart rate and effort were moderate during these 18/18km workouts, with around 6min/km pace. This increased my confident to sub-4 in the coming marathon.

Week 9	Program	Done	Remark
Mon	Easy12. 9km	Rest
Tue	Speed 6x 800m	Speed 6x 800m	All repeats paced at 5min/km
Wed	Rest	Rest
Thu	Tempo 12.9km	12.6km	11km in tempo pace
Fri	Easy 11.3km	5km
Sat	Easy 12.9km	18km
Sun	Long 24.2km	18km	Long run pace @ 6min/km
Total Done		64km

I can’t help but kept revise the game plan during the past 2 day’s long run sessions. I read thru some great story about PB in Seoul International Marathon, the key factors the weather adaption and the flat course. The flat course is a fix fact, but the weather is a variable. That’s means I will need to force myself out for a morning run this Friday and Saturday in Seoul, to let myself adjust to the temperature and clothing requirement. I belief the challenge will be the waiting of flag off until 5km in the race. After that, the engine will be warmed enough to keep going. Forecast for 15 March now is cloudy with some shower @ 10degC. Only minimum faith in these weather forecast, I will need the 2 trail runs to fine tune the attire.

The planned attire,

Running attire, running vest plus running t-shirt, arm sleeves, glove, compress short, cap, running buff and VFF Komodo Sport. Running jacket will be on if light shower.

Waiting for flag off, my running attire, plus a cotton t-shirt, running jacket, poncho and some hand warmer.

Transport from hostel to starting point, all above with additional long pants and light winter jacket.

The long pants and winter jacket (tentatively the running jacket too) will be packed into baggage for after race collection. The cotton t-shirt and the poncho will be disposed after the flag off.

On the other side, the game plan for the marathon is rather simple. Just keep going with faster than 5:40min/km pace, I will be fine. That’s plan A (359 finishing time), plan B will be kick in if I felt great after the first 10km, will push harder gradually and aim for a 350 finish time.

6 more days until the marathon.