Race Report: River Jungle Marathon 2012

A long overdue race report.

Finisher Medal (Front)

This is a very stressful race, eventhough this is my second time running on this beautiful route, but my physical condition don’t allow me to enjoy very much on the scene. I rushed back from Ipoh on Saturday night and can’t sleep well after prepared my race kit for the next morning. The alarm sounded on 2:45am, and I need to force myself out of bed and get ready to the starting point which is about 50minutes from my place.

RJM Route

Reached the venue about 4am and the parking were quite full. There are 400+ runners this year. Saw lots of familiar faces in the starting line, we took some photos. James briefed us about the route, promised the “fun” will begin from 17km (the Bukit Hantu) and some surprise along the route. The joke eased my stress a bit. Then we flagged off on time, and we heading to the 1st u-turn around 2.5km. The route is dark but I had less worry about the potholes issue as the roads seem to just resurface recently. I kept a very consistence pace @ 6.5 ~7 minutes all the way to 17km water station, right before the Bukit Hantu. The first stretch completed in 2hours as planned.

RJM Route Elevation

Stopped for some drinks and collected the energy gel for later. I took up the climb by slow jog. The mist still very thick when I start climbing, felt really great running in such cooling weather. The first km still manageable, but I had to slow down to walk as the elevation increasing, and finally reached the peak @ 20km. Charge down the descent at about 6~7 minutes pace and finished the 2nd stretch of the route in 51minutes, with 9 minutes to spare! Saw Khoo and his two princes volunteering @ water station, didn’t chat much as wish to use the balanced momentum to continue until the 2nd u-turn.

After 25km, still looking fresh. Photo by Khoo

This stretch is the most beautiful part of the route, it overlook to the magnificent water dams, but the sun start to come out and temperature raise. Completed the u-turn and returned to the water station for a banana, Khoo told me that there will be surprises in the 29k water station. That actually kept me going for a while. But I find it hard to kept on 7 minutes pace and the pace start to yo-yoing from 6.5 to 9 minutes. Not really good thing during the half way of a marathon. Finally reached the 29k water station and the icy cold coconut waiting us! Took my time to slowly drink it in and enjoy the surprised look on the other runners. Rested about 5 minutes, then dragged my legs out from the water station and move on.

From there onwards, I can hardly maintain an 8 minutes pace. I am not sure about my condition, I felt tired, weary and legs seem too heavy to keep moving. The situation continued and finally I gave up on running around 35km (even the great asam-boi ice popsicle handed out around 32k can’t help the situation). It must the longest 3km I faced. Walking alone under the hot sun, I can’t help to blame myself on taking up this challenge again, and swear that I will not return for the 3rd time next year. I tried to restart the engine by the run-walking interval, but that can’t help too. 5hours passed and I only completed 37km, I doubted myself could finish the balance 5km in one hour and I will definitely missed my target time. The feeling sunk to the bottom. I certainly missed Khoo who pushed me to continue last year.

Now, I can’t pin-point the reason that jump-started my engine again at 38km. Is that caused by the cheerful volunteers at water station, or may be is it the Singapore Mad Runner who passed me so cheerfully with other runners? Or I just get thru “the wall”? I don’t know. At that point, I just damped all my thoughts, ignored the pain, shut the mind off and continued the running. Stopped by the last water station for a quick refill, then I ran all the way back to the finish line. Completed my 6th marathon in 5:44’06”, 4 minutes behind my target.

Finisher Medal (Back)

RJM 2012, finish line

Overall this is a great marathon that you should try at least once. The challenging route, the scene view and the best organizer will sure give you the mixed feeling whether to redo it or not. For time being, I would like to taste that jump-starting feeling again, and I had the 3rd part of my game plan failed to execute. So I will return in 2013.

Key learning,

1. Lacking of training will definitely screw up the execution :P
2. GU Chomp not suitable for me as replacement of Gel. I don’t like the taste that staying too long in my mouth.

Preparation for 2012 River Jungle Marathon

Another 5 days will be my 6th marathon. River Jungle Marathon 2011 is my first full marathon. Back then, the route and the 42km really beat me up. I was really lucky to just finish the race, and I promised myself I will return to the course again to improve my timing. Looking back to what I had completed since then, I should be able to better the timing for this coming marathon compare to 6:31 last year. But I didn’t have sufficient training lately, so, a game plan is essential for me to optimize both speed and fun of running.

We can divide the route into three sections.
1. The first 17km from the starting line towards the 1st U-turn point, then all the way to the water station before the big climb. This section is rather flat, so I will go with 6.5~7 minutes pace to complete these 17km in 2 hours.
2. Then follow by the 6km of the famous Bukit Hantu, a combination of 3.8km climb and 2km descent. Plan to go with 10~12 minutes brisk-walking pace so I can clear this 6km in 1 hour.
3. Then the balanced 20km with a short climb, will be the real test on me to hold up to 7 minutes pace.
If everything went well, I will complete the race in 5:20. I will leave 20 minutes for spare. My target for this marathon will be 5:40.

This is from 1st edition, some changes made on the route

I will not put up a plan B, the mind will tentatively swift to auto mode and roll out the plan B (usually run-walking from 30km onwards) if I fixed something like that up front. Marathon, like other aspect in our life, we will need to push ourselves over the limit to enjoy the most of it. I planned to play hard this time, how about you? Good luck to those who running in Adidas KOTR.

Restarting Engine

Running had been one of the essential parts of my life since Sept 2010. As I peak my training mileages in March this year, it seems to be some over-trained effect posted on me. I find it hard to head right out the door eventhough I am still waking up on 4:30am. I normally dragged myself until 5:30~5:45am so that I only had enough time for 4~7km. The impact is clearly shown on the monthly running log. I am not really good at self reflection, so it took some time for me to make up my own story about this. The 11 days of grounding period that without running at all really helps.

Two main points (which there are not really stand alone) to summarize this,

1. Running is not solely for enjoyment anymore.

2. Sense of achievement some time can be too heavy to bear.

It is good to have a training plan and adhere to it to achieve a preset goal. It is embedded on my personality that I will normally felt depression after a big event, especially there are nothing else will be happen in the near future. Like we usually joked about the incline in a route, every ascent will be follow by a descent. The achievement is great, but we will later need to endure the down side of the story. Sadly, running which give big sense of achievement fall nicely into this model.

In other term, as long as I trained enough and did it right on the race day, the sub-5 marathon goal is really achievable for me. But I think I am too afraid to ask myself, what’s next? I am happy if I am running a 4 hours plus marathon, but I think I will need to put in many more effort if I wish to improve further, and it may tentatively take away the fun part from this activity. Eventually, I will hit my best and how should I handle that situation?

I wish I could have the answer to myself, but I don’t, at least for now. I am still running because I signed up some races and I still enjoy reading my fellow runners’ blogs FB posts. I am trying out some new thoughts and ways to handle the feeling. Isn’t that life always is? I am consider lucky that I am still understand my own feeling and able to put up some thoughts about it. May be one day I will be able to overcome the huddle and become more invincible to my emotion swing. I will settle with what I had for now. One good thing that I learned from running long distances, focus to your current step!

The Olympics Men Marathon last night gave me some adrenaline to continue. Meb Keflezighi can still come back after 8 years and finished at 4th at age 37. Stephen Kiprotich from Uganda running at his own pace and stayed on the chasing pack until 37km before he take the lead, break out 200m from the Kenyan and claimed the gold medal.

Meb Keflezighi took over the 4th place on the final stretch

Stephen Kiprotich win the 2012 Olympics Marathon.

Both Olympics 2012 photos taken from internet source: 
http://photos.presstelegram.com/2012/08/photos-mens-olympic-marathon/#24

I am restarting my engine now for the River Jungle Marathon in 9 Sept. No sub-5 expected from this marathon. I think I missed lots of scenes and other fun during my first marathon last year. I will take my own sweet time to enjoy this route again.

Race Report: Pacemakers 8th Anniversary Relay Run Series 1

This is my first relay event. Thanks for KY who brought us together from Dailymile to take part in this event. The event organized by Pacemaker in conjunction to celebrate their 8th anniversary. This is the series 1 which flagged off in Tapak A at KL Lake Garden, with the distance of 3.2km per leg. Four of us (Lina, Nick & CK, KY last minute pulled out due to injury) will run the same distances and same route, which inclusive rounding the lake for 2km, and then climb up many stairs before continue for the balanced 1+km.

Team photo before the race

About 1.5km rounded the lake, before the dreadful stairs

Final km, after the dreadful stairs

Happy faces team photo, after the completion

This is a high speed event, so I put in some speed repeats for the last 2 weeks workouts. It’s turned out the effort well paid off. I ran the fastest 3km in my life with the 4:38 & 4:54 minutes pace for the first 2km. Running in 2nd leg after Lina. Like most of the participants, I sprinted to my limit for the first 2k until the stairs, and then walked up those stairs. Finished my leg with 16’30”, and the team finished in a total time of 1:08’53” for the 4x 3.2km, placed 44 out of the total 80 teams. Happy with the result and glad that we will not going for the series 2 eventhough we will missed the medal in Autobat design (the organizer claimed that is a much challenging route compared to series 1).

An overview of the stairs on the 2nd km of the route

Finisher Medal - Decepticons

The relay was really fun and we can go all out for sprinting as the distances are short. The other great experience is cheering and being cheer by the team members and others. Many photographers were supporting this event. The FB wall is flooded with photos from this event. The above photos taken by varies supporters from FB.

Now is about time to restart my training plan for the sub-5 marathon goal, a nice 16 training weeks from the APBIM. But life won’t the free from obstacles and went smoothly. My works and family demanding more time at this moment, and the hazel just returned to KL. Lots of adjustment needed to fulfill my goal, but all these obstacles will only make the final result taste better. I will return to my first marathon race, RJM for its 2012 edition on 9/9/12. Looking at the elevation at Bukit Hantu, I will be happy if I complete this marathon within 5.5~6 hours.

Happy Running!

Races Report: Men’s Health Night Run and Seremban Half Marathon

Often we saw some hardcore runners doing back to back races, some even packed in Full Marathon in the combination. I though it will be fun if I can try it out. Further more, it is July and there will be no race during the fasting month. We raced like a bear that preparing itself with food before the hibernation in winter :p  I took part in both races 2011 editions.

Men’s Health 2012 took a difference route, but it is still rounding the similar Putrajaya Night Marathon route. Missed the limited medal last year, but as this year there are 500 units allocated for Men-Open category, so I am not worry at all. Game plan, hang in the race and flow with the crowds’ pace at about 6 minutes, conserve my energy for the big game next day. Seremban HM is the same challenging route like last year. Limited medal too, but I am not very worry to miss that cause as usual it will be not many runners running in this event as there are lots of other races in Klang Valley. Game plan, trying my best to sub-2.

Yes I planned big for these two races, but there are some variance came into picture later. I got an urgent training assignment to Pakistan, and need to travel until 14 July morning. My coughing and phlegm conditions are still moderate, yet to fully recover from the flu I got since end May. This means I will have very minimum training before both races and will run in sub-optimum conditions. When I touched down in KLIA on Saturday 11am, I felt to DNS both races. But I got some sleep in the afternoon and decided to follow the plan for the night.

Reached the starting line around 6:40pm, still had lots of time until the flag off. Met Nick with his new handsome running shoes (GoRun Ride), and then just did my routine warm up until the starting pen open. As I had no intention to push for speed, just took a place about 30+ m from the line. Lots of people tried to get closer to the line, but obviously some of them are none runners. Started in the few meters closer to the starting line but walked from the first few km on the race? I find it hard to understand the logic behind this move, but that is usually happened when the race is too commercialized. You will found more of these people in coming Adidas KOTR or Nike WeRun.

After few races last year in Putrajaya, I become very familiar with the route. We headed out to PICC, then turn into the dreaded final stretch of the Putrajaya Night Marathon (30km onwards). If you kept your eye on the asphalt, you will notice some distances marking. Btw, the route is very quiet this year. I am actually looking forward to be cheered by those cheerleaders like last year or any other races done by Twenty-first Century. Further more, I maintained a very boring 6 minutes pace all the way from the start. I start to felt bored after the hilly part of the route at the final 2km. Saw GusGhani running in Barefoot, have a quit chat with him on the BF experience, and I started to cheering the walking people around me. It is a great experience! But I think I annoyed some of them :P   Charged to the finish line after the last turn. Finished the race at 1:11’48”, got my limited medal.

 

Didn’t stayed long, I left the venue once collected my goody and cool down. Straight to the bed after cleaning up myself. But heck, the adrenaline still active, I can’t sleep very well and the alarm clock sounded as it was already 4am. Left home around 4:50am and reached Seremban around 5:40am. Got another book from Melvin before the flag off on 6:30am. It started to drizzling around 6am and we had a wet flag off. Eventhough the weather is superb for running, but I knew very well that I will not able to achieve my sub-2 HM. The body felt refreshed by the drizzling, but its’ still tired from the flight and the 12km earlier. Tried hard to start and maintaining a 6 minutes pace, but hit by the climb right in front of the Seremban Carrefour and the pace start to drop to 7 minutes. Decided to run this as another LSD at 7 minutes pace. Used the same trick last night and start to “encourage” (i.e. disturbing) other runners who started to walk. Btw, I was started to run-walk-run strategy from about 16km. Caught by Melvin after about 1km run-walking, got my new energy source via chatting with him and avoiding the school boys & girls. Completed the race at 2:21’48”, got the limited medal too.

There are lots of race reports talking about the pro and cons about these two races, I will not repeat them here. I will only focus on my key learning,

1. It is not fun (at least not now) to do back to back races. May be this is due to my lack of training, other commitments or the total distances (covered 33km in total). At my current condition, I am obviously not ready for this.

2. Game plan is great to ensure a comfortable race and achieving the preset goal. But the execution power is also importance. I had a relatively easy and enjoyable race in Saturday night, but struggle on Sunday morning as there is nothing left in the tank to execute the plan.

3. Talking to others and cheering others up in the race is very enjoyable experience, and it’s helped to divert the stress (and sometime focus) from the race.

After 2 days off from running, I restarted my training this morning. There will be another race next Sunday (4x3.2km Relay @ PAR8), then we will break for Fasting month and Hari Raya. And the rest of the year will be focused to the sub-5 Marathon target.

Gambateh!

Coffee anyone?

I started as a coffee drinker around Form 3 or 4, which is about 16 years old. It started from the good image projected from those movies, novels and readings. Didn’t really like it in the first place, but as it does help to kept me awake until late night and the Chinese radio station just started to have 24 hours broadcasting and it play great songs during midnight. I would woke up all night long just listen to those songs, and the side effect is my academy result improved  :P

The same coffee mud used for 20 years.

Eventhough I am with coffee for about 20 years but I am not the choosy type of coffee drinker. I only take 3-in-1 mostly, and whatever available from the coffee venting machine in office. When the Nescafe White Coffee first introduced to our office venting machine, I was happy to have an extra verity on top of the common 3-in-1. Everyday, I took 1 cup 3-in-1 early in the morning before any activity (even before the routine running). The 2nd cup will served upon reaching the office and the 3rd cup will be after lunch. These are the minimum volume of coffee intake in a regular working day. The addiction went up together with the workload and stress factor. I could take up to 5~6 cups of white coffee in the office in a single day. On a weekend, I only take 1 cup 3-in-1 in the morning.

As I started running, the weight dropped from 80kg to 70kg, but it’s stayed at 70kg for really long time since October 2011. I though it is due to over-feasting during holiday and CNY, but that proven not to be the reason after few month. Then I tried to cut back the lunch portion, but that only reduce the weight 69kg. I really seat down and look thru my diet. I got no control over dinner (promised to take & clear anything that cook by wife, no choice), so I look into the snacks, lunch & breakfast. Then I come across this article. A point made about black coffee, led me to have search on the energy contained on my drinks.

Nescafe 3-in-1 Regular

The early morning 3-in-1 give 86kCal and each of the White Coffee throughout the day give 144kCal each, so my daily minimum energy from coffee alone is 374kCal (for comparison propose, energy from McChicken is 398kCal, or typical 5km routine run for me take about 350kCal). Looking at my normal coffee drinking rate, I will normally take in 400~600kCal in a normal working weekday. That’s actually explained the reason why I am losing 1~2kg for the week I stayed at home taking care my children in early June. I need the caffeine but not the energy. I need to do something about the coffee. I slowly let the 3-in-1 stock at home depleted without replenishment. Brought some stock for the Nescafe powder, and only take black coffee from the office’s venting machine. The black coffee will only give 2kCal per cup and I can feast them until I overdosed with caffeine.

I start to observe my weight reading dropping in June and it moving between 66~68kg now. There are two things I did differently in June compare to norm, I fell sick for almost the whole month and I cut back the coffee. My training mileage is at the 12 months low but I still lost some weights. You may comment that I lost weight because of the sickness and you may actually right. As I had no control over the sickness, I will stick with what I can control to enjoy a more sustainable weight loss. Need to nail it down at below 65kg to achieve my target BMI of 24.

BMI reference

Race Report: Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2012

This is one of the biggest running event in Malaysia, and also a highly anticipated event by lots KL runners because this is our home ground, as its route will cover part of the weekly BA-Sri Hartamas route along Bukit Tunku. I registered to this event almost immediately after the registration open. I was doing my first half marathon last year and this year got myself upgraded to a Full one :)  I was worried as the hazy condition lingering around West Malaysia on the week before, but lucky it started to rain when we get closer to the event. As per my previous post, my condition and trained mileages doesn’t really grant me to improve my run, but I will still going to try out the sub-5 target here. The game plan is straight forward, but the execution may be a challenge.

Nice Bib number.

Woke up 2am on Sunday morning, gave myself amble of time to prepare myself. Leave home on 3am and arrived at Bukit Aman on 3:20am, the car park lots were full. I parked at the side lane and enjoy my breakfast. Still got some slight blocked nose, but I think it will clear once I started warm up. Get myself ready, and start walking to Dataran around 3:45am. I wished to collect the Run for Bersih bib from Julie, but she is not at the Church as planned, so I run without the special bib :(   Met Nick and had a short chat when I walked around to find a spot for my light warm up, he looked quite comfortable + confident on his first FM (and he did it in 5:20, which is a very good timing for first FM). Met my ex-boss who get me into running, he is doing his first FM too, wished him luck and we are almost ready for flag off.

I am in the middle pack inside the starting pen and it’s crowded. If you used to run FM in Malaysia, you will properly know that usually we have few hundred or one thousand plus runners only. We had 3000+ runners in FM this morning, this one sure is the biggest running event in Malaysia and more people seem to start running in FM now. Flag off on 4:30am, I only crossed the line about 2 minutes after the official gun time. The crowd only starts to ease when we reached the National Museum. The pacers start to working on their pace and moving fast from the back of the pack. Met and had a quick chat with Tan before we turned in to Brickfield. The 5HR pacers are almost out of sight. So I pushed on to chase them, Plan A, stick like a superglue to these 5HR pacers.

Rain started to drizzle on and off when I reached MidValley. Strong wind blew away our heat and created the most comfortable weather to run with. No much comment about the route as we are emerging back to the HM route very soon, and most of the time I didn’t manage to enjoy the scene of early KL city, I am busy chasing these pacers. Both legs and the foot soles were doing fine initially but the right sole start to form hotspot around the toes area after 26km, and I had no choice but to slow down and let the pacers go on the 30km water station.

Met Nick again on the 34km water station, both of us are now taking up plan B which is running from water station to water station. We paced for a while and I pushed on towards the Duta Roundabout, and back to our familiar playground – Bukit Tunku. Passed the water station @ 36km and both Choi & Kak June’s aid stations without taking any supply cause the stomach had just too many water/isotonic. Then we met the worst climb on this route, I walked. Plan B continued until Bank Negara. I brisk-walked from that stretch until the u-turn point, and gave the final push to run until the finish line. Crossed the line on 5:11’31” with a big happy smile on my face.

Post Marathon, the tired feet in VFF accompanied by the finishing medal

Split time, getting slower towards the end

Eventhough I didn’t achieved my sub-5 target, but looking at my condition, I sliced 31 minutes from my previous PB from SCMS. I couldn’t ask for more, at least not in this race. I am surprised that I am running with very comfortable and consistence pace and heart rate, both stayed at 6:40-7:10 pace and 150~158BPM all the way to 29km. Must be the effect from those speed works! But obviously I still need more LSD between 30~40km to let the body (especially those foot inside the VFF) used to the demand.

 

Good about the event,

1. More than sufficient water stations, distances markers on every km.

2. Challenging route especially on the final 5k.

3. Staging starting time for 10k category.
4. Very nice finisher T-shirt.

Things can be better,

1. Traffic control, especially on the intersection on Jalan Tun Razak and Jalan Ipoh. Obviously not enough polices/officers to handle the traffic, drivers keep jumping out.

2. Road surface, especially on the Jalan Ipoh and Jalan Kuching. Suggest the organizers to survey the road condition and carry out the required patching a week before the race.

3. Final stretch on Jalan TAR. There are lots of runners/walkers from 5k, 10k and HM, joined us at this stretch. No issue on the runners, but we forced to zigzag to avoiding those walkers. Some supporters also obstructing the flow, some of them are standing on the route but not the sidewalk. May be we can use some barricade here to separate 5k & 10k and  HM & FM runners, with barricade on the side to improve the flow.

You can see I am very happy with my result :P

After the race, met with Tan again and congratulated him on achieving his target time. Also met with Melvin to collect 2 books from him, “Chi Marathon” and “Run Less, Run Faster”. Believe both will help to improve my training and marathon time.

No time to relax for now, I will be doing 3 races in July. With back-to-back Men Health’s Night Run and Seremban Half Marathon, plus PaceMakers Anniversary relay, I not only need to focus on Speed, but I will need to improve my Endurance. Men Health’s Night Run is revenge from last year where I finished 18th place before the limited medal, but as they increase the limited medal to 500 for Men-Open, I think I will be entitled one if I go with 6 minutes pace for the whole 11.8km. Tentatively Seremban Half Marathon will be my last change to secure my goal of completing and sub-2 half marathon in this year, sure I will throw in all I had on that race. For the PM Anniversary relay, each of us only needed to complete 3.14km, another speed event that I never experienced before. If all the plan and training when well, I will try to do it with a 5 minutes pace.

Run Happy!