PBIM HM Worst (hopefully) Performance

 Hopefully, this is the worst HM.  I was walking after 6km of run.  At times, I wanted to run and tried to run, but can only hold for awhile before I have to walk back.  I was really thinking DNF, but I couldn't find runners sitting aside waiting to be carried back, so, I just walked back painfully.

In the beginning of the run, I didn't feel any different.  The only thing was, for the last few training seasons before the race, my heartrate elevated easily.  Typically, my heartrate was ~135bpm when I ran at 8 min pace.  However, for last few seasons, my heartrate was close to 150bpm even at 8 min pace.  So, I have decided to take it easy this time.

However, after ~6km of run, I started to feel dizziness when I looked down, and I felt the dryness of my lips.  Since my friend sent an article on people die while running with one of the symptom is lack of water.  As I was worry about my situation, I started to walk/run a bit in 7km.  After having a drink, I tried to start running but the dizziness feel when I looked down still remained.  So, I decided to just walk until the end.

The thinking of DNF started to surface up in my mind.  I was looking around to see if I can find any runner sitting beside the road waiting for transportation to fetch them back.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any.  So, I just kept walking and told myself to stop if I see DNF runners.  While walking, I started to wonder I can finish the HM before the cut0-off time.  This is the 1st time I had that doubt in my mind for HM distance.

Eventually, I finished the distance at 3 hour 19 mins, 10 mins before cut-off.

When I think back, these are the possible issues I had for this race:-

1.  Lack of water:  From all previous races, I will need to pass out urine before the race and then after 1 hour+, I will need to pass out urine another time for HM distance.  For this time, I don't feel the urge to pass out urine and even for the whole 3 hours + walking.

2.  Lack of rest: For this time, the day before, I still visited Taiping Zoo with family and only reach Penang ~4pm.  While trying to sleep at 7pm, I woke up 8+pm and couldn't sleep again until the race started.

3.  Higher heartrate: For some reasons, my heartrate was higher at typical pace, which I still have no idea of the cause.

I can have solution for the first 2 possible causes but not the 3rd one.  I can only monitor the progress of the 3rd one and hopefully the medical check out in Feb will have some hints.

Fuel:-

1.  Instant noodle with eggs 2 hours before the race.

2.  1.5L water 2 hours before the race.

PBIM HM with Garmin Training Plan

 This is the running post agan after 4 years.  Mainly due to lack of event that I joined in 2019 and no event organized during the year of 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.  Starting 2022, running event started again.

However, in 2021, only virtual running events were being organized.  For the last 2~3 Virtual HM, I find it harder and hard to complete it.  Thus, I decided to follow a free trainng plan.  Garmin Training plan was chosen since I am using Garmin watch.

Throughout the whole training plan, I did follow more than 90% of the training, except for cross training.  The training that I skipped was due to either raining or personal engagement.  Out of 80 trainings, only 2 activities that I skipped due to personal reason.

By following Garmin Training plan, I managed to increase my weekly mileage to more than 30km without serious pain.  Previously, when I run on myself, whenever I reached weekly mileage of 20km, I started to feel pain at my leg.

There are 2 main differences between the training plan and I run by myseft.  Firstly, the training plan ask for cool down (walk) of 5~10 mins after each training session that I didn't do that when I run myself.  Secondly, there are variety of running style, Interval, Easy, etc in Garmin Training Plan while I always run at almost the same pace when I run myself.  These are the 2 main different that I am able to log more than 30km per week, I think.

Although I am not able to improve my time after joining the Garmin Training Plan, but I didn't feel out of breath by running with this pace, not like a few HMs before.  I guess this is the improvement from the plan.

Following is the HR vs Pace for HM from my available data, ie. 10.6sec/km improvement for 5s increase in HR.

As for this particular run, the pace vs HR is as follow.

HM in Storm

It is really a true experience for me to run in thunderstorm.  The wind was very strong until I felt the pain as rain drop hitting my face.

With lack of training, the last 3 km was really suffering.  In all the previous run, I felt excited when reaching 18km and wanted to run faster too complete the race, although not able to...  But this time, at 18km, I really felt like to walk for 3km to complete the race.  Anyway, I dragged myself with slow jog to complete it.

The heavy rain started at 16km on the bridge.  My eyes could hardly open due to the rain and have to use my mouth for breathing while the pace was down a bit to around 7min/km.

Except for the 1st 2 km where I was getting myself away from the crowd, I was running in a manageable pace of around 6:30min/km with heartrate of around 170bpm.  I guess that could me my space for 10km without really training...

Adding this run statistic into the heart rate vs pace will get the following:-

Comparing to other HM in 2018, I experienced a higher heart rate that could due to lack of training.

HM Heart Rate Trend

While I focus a lot on the heart rate, my pace has been reducing tremendously recently.  My hope for training with heart rate (MAF) can help to increase weekly mileage without injury was wrong.  I have been suffering from Plantar Fasciitis for the last 2 months.  This makes the coming PBIM to be challenging as I have reduced my weekly mileage to less than 10km/week for almost the whole October.

However, I took the chance to summary my HM pace trend together with HeartRate as follows:-

As the pace slower recently the average heartrate also reducing.  I will interpret this as no much change in terms of heart rate vs pace.

Plotting heartrate vs pace will get the graph below:-

Hopefully, to run at 170bpm I can be with pace around 6 min/km.

MAF Heart Rate Training

After reading the articles regarding MAF training (https://philmaffetone.com/want-speed-slow-down/) and with the hope that I can increase my weekly mileage to around 40km per week without injury, I had decided to following this method of training for 3 month while increasing weekly mileage. By following the formula of 180-age as the max MAF training heart rate, I find it very difficult to run at 140 bpm. With my run of longer than 10 km, it is very difficult to keep below the max MAF heart rate without a walking rest.  A few days before end of my 1st month of trying, I came across another article from StrengthRunning (http://strengthrunning.com/2015/02/maffetone-method-and-base-training/).  So, I have decided to deviate a bit from MAF training recommended by Dr. Maffetone by adding in strides (suggested by http://strengthrunning.com/2018/02/base-training-fundamentals/) at the end of the easy run.

Following is my running using MAF method for 1st month (analyzed using http://www.graphmyrun.com/).

From above charts, Jan 23 and Jan 25 runs were with wider spread of heart rate due to slightly hilly routes and I was just learning to run by heart rate.  However, starting Feb, it seems that I can control my heart rate throughout the run better.  The higher max heart rate in Jan 30 run was due to hilly route.


For 2nd month, I have decided to modify the MAF to include strides in the training.

Here's my base training plan in the coming month:-

• Keep the max MAF heart rate as base.
• Add strides at the end of run with max time of 10%, ie. if I plan a run of 40 mins, I will add in 4 mins of strides.  This to ensure 90% of training time is within max MAF heart rate.
• Add in strength training and stretches in my weekly schedule!

The training zones on my first run with strides is as below:-

Still able to keep 90% of time within max MAF heart rate with 20s strides (40 steps, ~ 100m) for 5 times.  Will practice the above for 2 runs during weekday and long run during weekend.

My new (again) Heart Rate Training Zone

I have been having difficulty to determine my max heart rate.  Initially back in Dec 2012, I concluded that my max heard rate was 188 bpm.  Then, back in Jan 2015, I noticed my heart rate of 196bpm and thus determine that my max heart rate was 196 bpm.  However, starting 2016 and 2017, I started to read my heart rate of even more than 200 bpm, which I started to doubt the reading.

After talking to a colleague who has been running for more than 30 years, he told me that very likely my heart rate monitoring device is having issue.  I didn't immediately got a new heart rate monitoring belt until I misplaced it.  I then get myself a new heart rate monitoring belt.

With the new belt, I found out that my heart rate is more consistent now.  With the very high stress in the Station 4 running of Penang Round Island Relay with uphill, I found my heart rate of 186 bpm.  After checking the old post in 2012, where heart rate monitoring belt was new, to know that my max heart rate was determined as 188 bpm, I now think that my max heart rate of 186 bpm is more accurate now.

With that, the new training zones are with follows:-

Easy Run (recovery zone)
Pace: 1~2 mins slower than marathon pace
% Max hear rate: 65 to 78% [120~144 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 3 to 4/easy
Talk Test: Complete conversation
Training Run (aerobic zone)
Pace: Marathon pace or slightly slower
% Max hear rate: 80 to 89% [148~165 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 5 to 6/moderate
Talk Test: Full sentences

Tempo Run (threshold zone)
Pace: 20 to 30 seconds slower than 5-K pace
% Max hear rate: 88 to 92% [163~170 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 7 to 8/hard
Talk Test: A few words at a time
Intervals Run (VO2 max zone)
Pace: Mile to 5-K pace or faster
% Max hear rate: 95 to 100% [176~185 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 9/very hard
Talk Test: Can't... talk... must... run...

I will be focusing to increase my weekly mileage to be more than 40 km before working on speed, I will be mostly training at Easy pace with max heart rate of ~144 bpm.  Only with I managed to increase my weekly mileage to be more than 40 km or around that, I will pick a day to train for Training Run and Tempo Run.  Again, during that time, has to work harder on the core strength too!

Concluding 2017 (7th year of running - my 1st FM)

After 7 years of running I finally tried out a full marathon.  It is not a pleasant one that cause me to be very demotivating in running for a few months before I start to like training again.  I guess this could be over train syndrome.  I didn't force myself to hard to get back to my normal weekly mileage of 20km and my weekly mileage drop for a few weeks or months.  Another possibility could be the change in my life style since I didn't take up a full time job this year and still looking to get a balance in my life.
The above caused me to run my worse HM in Jul and Nov.
All of these could pass now as I started to get exited in training again and looking at logging 20km consistently again as soon as I could.
I concluded the year with another Penang Round Island Relay, which initially I wasn't intended to join.  I joined the relay for the pass 2 years and found that very tiring to start my journey as early as 3am and ended around 2pm in the afternoon.  For this year, I just participated in my run and went back home for rest before going to the finish line again when the team finished.  I was running in Station #4 with up hill that not much people like to run.  However, it turned out not too bad to me to be able to run 5:49min/km pace, which I am very satisfy with despite having high fever the week before with less than 10 km per week for the last 2 weeks.
As I was working hard to cut down my races, I finally managed to do it this year due to other commitment.  For the whole 2017, I just joined 5 races including my 1st FM.  There were 2 races that I wanted to join but not able to due to schedule conflict.


Summary for 2017:-

1. Joined my 1st FM.  Concluded that I need more training to participate in FM.
2. Clocking my my worst HM timing which could be due to insufficient training or age!
3. Participated in only 5 races, vs 13 races in 2016!

My plan for 2018:-

1. Increase weekly mileage.  Slowly increase my mileage to ~30km per week.
2. Increase my weekly running days to 4 days a week.
3. Join less races.  Only focus on HM locally, or charity race, hoefully 5~6 races should be good enough.

My First Full Marathon

After running for 5 years, I finally completed a Full Marathon in Perlis Marathon.  I signed up for Full Marathon after several "encouragement" from the running peers and thought I should had more time to train now after I didn't engage with a full time job for now.

However, my running mood was very down that I practically stop running except for weekend 10km run for the last few weeks before the FM...

Since this is my 1st FM, my aim is just to experience the long distant and complete the race before the cut-off time.  So, I started the run with "slow" pace of around 8min/km.  To avoid muscle cramp, which I heard often from other running friends, I took 100+ in every water stations.  Everything progress as plan.  When I reached 22km check marker, I was very happy because that was the longest distant that I had ever run.  I felt excited to start a new journey.  My goal after this point is just to run as far as I could and start my run-walk plan!

Very soon at 25km, I started to experience pain at the ball of my foot.  I carried on for awhile (a few tens of meters) and I just decided to walk.  From my calculation, if I started the walk at this point, I still would be able to complete before the cut-off time.  I just counting down the remaining distance for the completion...

A few kilometer later, the pain propagated to the heel of my foot even thou I was just walking.  Very soon, I started to feel the pain coming from my thigh muscles of my left leg.  I had to keep walking with fast pace (~10min/km) in order to finish the Full Marathon distant before the cut-off time.  Thus, I just keep the fast walking pace with pain as I believe the permanent injury due to fast walk is not high.  Later part of the walking, the pain propagate to side of my foot and then top of my foot.

At around 30 km of the race, I also felt strain in my abdomen muscles.  I tried to jog slowly, but my pain in my foot was very intense.  I thought to myself that I just have to walk to avoid further injury.

At 40 km, I was thinking to complete the race with 2km jog but then I was just couldn't, the pain at my foot was so intolerable.  Anyhow, I force myself to jog the last 500 m just to look nice at the finish line!

Luckily, with the help of energy gel, I didn't feel that so called "hit-the-wall" symptom.  But really feel like to give up especially the last few kilometers!

Beside completing my first full marathon, I also logged the longest weekly distance of all time at 48.8 km!

Overall, I am very happy with the run although I feel terrible.  I managed to know my weakness to work on for the next Full Marathon.  I think I would not join another Full Marathon without a proper preparation.

I need to work on the core and a longer distant run during training.

Feeling Down

For the month of Feb, I managed to log at least 30 km per week for 3 weeks (44 km in one of the weeks) and with ~23 km in the last week.  Again, I managed to repeat that in March with at least 30 km/week for 3 weeks (with 42 km max) and 25 km in the 4th week.  Unfortunately, April is really a pull back.  For the last 2 weeks, I really didn't feel like running and even suspecting myself of having heart problem.  I took a real rest for the next 3 weeks with only one run per week with ~10 km run.  Only after resting for 3 weeks, I started to check out the so-called heart problem to understand that the pain in my chest is not really related to heart.  After checking, it is likely that I had a strain in chest muscles.

Finally, I started to feel like running again... and looking forward for my first Full Marathon in the coming weekend.

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Extraction from Dr. Thomas Graboys articles.

Understanding Chest Pain
Characteristics	Cardiac Chest Pain	Other Chest Pain
Time of day when pain often occurs	Morning	End of the day
How it usually feels	Pressure, heaviness, constriction, burning, or squeezing. Feels “deep” rather than superficial. Often very hard to describe. Diffuse. May be in the chest. May also radiate to throat, jaw, or even arms and back. Can’t really be “pointed to”/	Feels like real pain, often sharp. Usually more local. May actually be at one point. Usually easy to point to location of pain.
What brings it on?	Pain is usually preceded by exertion, especially upper arm movements like carrying a briefcase, shoveling snow, or carrying bundles. Exertion during exposure to temperature extremes is common provocation. Sometimes follows a heavy meal, especially with exertion. May wake you from sleep.	Usually occurs “out of the blue”. “Heart burn” may come after eating, especially fried foods.
Duration of pain	Usually lasts as long as exertion, but rapidly declines when you stop or reduce exertion.	May come and go very quickly, fleeting, just a few seconds. Or it may last several hours
What relieves it	Stopping exertion. With angina (“aching” from the heart), lying down makes it worse. Sitting and “leaning into” the discomfort helps. SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE – TREATMENT IS MANDATORY!	Exertion or exercise may actually stop this pain. Also: Breathing exercises. Simple analgesics: aspirin, ibuprofen (e.g. Advil), or acetaminophen (e.g. Tylenol). Application of local heat (wet or dry). Antacids (e.g. Tums, Rolaids). Simple reassurance that pain is not from the heart can be very effective.

1st Event in 2017

Gelugor Power Run 2 is the 1st running event in 2017.  Despite accumulating 30km this week, I think I did good in the run clocking 5:40"/km with 3 minor uphill.  I am attributing this to more regular training recently.  Although not long, but I had a more consistent run of 3~4 km every 2 or 3 days.

Except for the beginning 1st km and uphill at 9th km where I ran more than 6 mins pace, my pace was around 5+ min/km throughout the run with only 5:00/km in the last km.

If I can keep to this training schedule and stamina, I will try for another sub-2 HM again end of the year.

Hitting 40km per week mileage

With the help of running group as well as a few holidays, I finally accumulated 40km/week of mileage for the 1st time.  However, the increase in mileage is not gradual which prone to injury.  Joining this running group, the pace is around 7~8min/km (comparing to ~6+min/km that I usually did) because of a few ultra runners in the group.

I have been controlling myself for not following the mileage of other runners.

The day before the last 8km run, the muscle of both of my legs a giving me strange feeling on and off.  So, I will just off for the next 5 or 6 days and hope for the best.

My longest (in time) run

Since a few weeks ago, I trained together with a few "ultra' runners.  To them, running 10km or even 17km is too short.  So, this week, I have decided to run 21km or 22km together with them.

To them, running at 7mins pace is a little to fast.  So, we started with around 8min or 8:30min pace.  Running at this pace was a bit of a challenge to me.  For one, my cadence is low and I'd expect knee discomfort after running for awhile, probably around 10km.  Strangely, no knee discomfort this time.  However, at around 12km, after running for 1h 44mins with two short walking break (for maybe 1 min each), the bottom of my right foot became very painful.  So, I took a walking break.  I tried to run again after the walking break with slight adjustment in landing position (to be closer to big toe), the pain seems to be bearable after the break and the adjustment.  Thus, I continued with journey back to the starting point with around 8 min pace.

After 16km, I felt that I still have energy left with my heart rate was just around 145bpm, I picked up my pace a little bit.  However, I didn't go fast but with only around 7min/km.  I wanted to run stride after 19km.  As my watch signaled me at 19km mark, I ran stride.  But I was too tired and could only do 6:10min/km pace.  It was after 2h 35mins of jogging!  The longest run I had so far.  Before this, the longest run I had was during the NTCRC 3-state HM where I ran for 2h 22min (for 22km).

After 5x of my usual stride, I slowly jog back to the starting point.  While jogging back, I was still debating if I should run a bit further to make this the longest (in distance) run.  But I gave up the idea and stopped after reaching HM distance.  Too tired, that's it.

2 h 45mins run.  The longest so far.  Now that I experienced how it feels for FM and I really respect those who finished FM regardless of time!

To me, definitely more training is needed to handle the time and distance!

Get back my feel of running

Finally, after a few months of set-back, I started to get back the feel of running starting mid of May, after the NTCRC 3-state HM.

However, due to slightly busy work schedule, I only managed to train long run during weekend and very difficult to squeeze time for run during weekday.

During the FIT Malaysia Run in end of May, I really enjoyed the run and felt strong after completing the 8.3km run.  Although not achieving my best timing, I felt very comfortable after the run.

For my 2nd HM this year in Garmin HM on Jun 4, I felt very comfortable after the run.  Again, I only managed to beat the 2 hour 15 mins target this time.  I was running with the pace of 6:30min/km after warming up at beginning 2 km.  It was until 11km, after my toilet visit, that I started to pick up the pace in trying to hit 6:00min/km.  However, a few km after that was with inconsistent pace.  Eventually, I sped up around 17km in trying to catch the 2hr15 mins pacer.  Finally, I managed to catch the pacer within the last 1 km and achieving 2hr 13mins finish time.

Anyway, I felt that my running feel is back and hopefully can continue until end of the year and improve my self until end of the year!

My Worst HM

I knew I wouldn't be running a good HM this time due to lack of training but I still hope that I could be in par with my 1st HM that I ran a few years back.  Unfortunately, this NTCTC 3-state HM turned out to be my worst HM since I first running.

Not only I clocked the slowest pace, but I felt terrible for the last 6 km.  I only managed to drag myself at close to 7 min/km pace after 16km.  After showing my results to a friend of mine, he mentioned that I ran too fast in the middle of the run, which could be true.  I was running at less than 6 min/km pace after 6km for 7km.  During that period of time my fastest lap was 5:38min/km.  Since I could run with around 5:40 min/km for my previous HM in Nov last year, I thought I could hold on to 5:40min/km pace until end of the race.

It turned out that I couldn't!  And it is due to lack of training.  Due to my busy work schedule and injury, my March training mileage was only 13km for the whole month.  Yes, 13km for the whole month!  Then, I put in some effort to look my training mileage prior to all the HM that I ran before.

Following is the summary:-

	Avg training mileage (km)
HM Pace	16W	8W	4W
1) 6:13/km	18.0	17.7	17.3
2) 6:06/km	17.5	17.5	13.2
3) 5:51/km	25.2	24.5	22.3
4) 5:58/km	16.2	17.6	17.1
5) 5:41/km	24.1	24.2	23.0
6) 6:16/km	14.8	11.8	10.6

Note: 16W, 8W, 4W are the number of weeks before the actual HM race.

From the summary, it shows that I need to train with average weekly mileage of 25 km for around 16 weeks prior to the HM to be able to achieve less than 6 min/km pace during the race.  As for the 6th HM that I ran for 6:16min/km, my average training mileage was only half (or less than half as approaching the race) comparing to my 5th (best so far) HM.  So, there's no short cut in training to get good results.

Looking forward, I can only run back my best HM results if I start with more than 25 km / week training now for 16 weeks.  So, the timing would be after Oct!

I hope I can keep to the training volume that I'd like to be.

My Worst Run

Coming to my fifth year of serious running, I experienced the worst running session this morning.  Not because of the distant, not because of the pace, not because of injury, but because of my mood!

Due to my busy work and life schedule recently, I had been skipping weekday run for 2 weeks now.  I wanted to run yesterday but too tired to wake up early for the run.  For this morning, I dragged myself out of bed early in the morning for the run.

Unfortunately, I couldn't motivate myself more.  After running for 2~3 km, I really felt like stopping.  It wasn't physically tired buy emotionally exhausted, I guess.  While forcing myself to continue running, I was debating with myself on the distance and time for this run.  Eventually, I decided to just stop after 7~8 km or 45 mins.  45 mins is my definition of Long Run that I set-up a few years back.  So, at least, I still had a long run today.

My Plantar Fasciitis doesn't seem to cure completely.  I even had a Silicone Heel Cushion but still feel a bit of pain after the run.

Hopefully, after the business trip next week, I can be re-charged and back to my running session again!

My first two Interval Trainings

I had been reading about interval training on and off but have not really tried it out seriously.  Initially, I did try to run fast and slow intermittently and thought that was interval training.  However, after reading more regarding interval training in more details, I realized that my fast interval wasn't fast enough.  So, I decided to try real interval training more seriously.

By reading a few articles on interval training, I figured out that my fast interval pace should be around 5 min/km.  I plan to use this as my starting target.  With the help of my FR220, I set up for 5x interval run with 400m.

In the first trial, I thought I could manage the 5 min pace well and thus I just set the rest time of 1 min.  Unfortunately, this wasn't the case in my first trial.  Although I could complete 5x of interval, but the last 2x was slower than my plan.

Here's my splits:


Looking at the results, I concluded that my fast interval was too fast, and probably my slow interval was too short.

So, I adjusted the setting so that the slow interval is also following the distance of 400m and go for second trial after one week.

Unfortunately, the result is even worse.

Here's my splits:


Same issue as before, my fast interval is too fast.  I should learn to control my speed better.

I couldn't continue after three times due to heel pain.  After going though some self-diagnostic, I think I had a Plantar Faciitis.  I had it after the Penang Bridge Run and it become worse after the interval training.

I will reduce my mileage quite a lot going forward to prevent the injury before worse and come back to this interval training after I am free from injury.

My problem now is to control my pace to prevent further unnecessary stress to my body and leg!

My 1st Penang Round the Island Relay

I have been hearing and reading blog regarding this annual event and have not joined any.  As this is the relay of 12 runners, and I usually run alone, it is not easy for me to join this event.  However, starting mid of this year that I joined a group of runners, I was asked to join them to form a Mixed Team.  Just to try out what it is like, I agreed to join.

From what I read, all runners would be sent to their station at the beginning of the race.  So, I thought that would be the case for me.  However, I understand from one of the team mates that the rules have changed since last year that only the first 3 runners were sent to their respective stations at the beginning of the race.  With this arrangement, the runners at the last few stations would not be that tired waiting for their turns to run.

I was arranged to be at station#11, which would be hot by the time of running.  As this is the mixed team, last few stations would normally be run by male runners.

This year, the race started at 4am, one hour earlier than before.  Again, this is good for the runners at last few stations.  Our team captain made the arrangement for all the teammates to go from one station to another to cheer for other teammates.  This was very fun and excited.

To make it more exciting, as this running group formed 2 mixed team, we have a friendly match between the teams.

As planned, I reached the starting line at 3am.  I met a few friends there.  After getting our BIBs, we just hanged out at the place.  Right after the 1st runner took off, we sat in separate cars to go to station #2.  We were there at station#2 to see the pass over of baton to another runner.  After that, we went to another station.  This is the process until the last station.

As we were competing with another team, our team was losing probably around 15 mins until the sixth runner.  When the seventh runner from our team started the run, we just hope that we can close up the gap with another team.  To our surprise, our team runner overtook the other team at the last 100m before reaching station #8.  This really gave pressure to the runners after that!

Before the run, I have been told that runner #11 from the other team is a fast runner.  So, I just hoped that runner#10 either losing to another team or can give me 6 mins advantage so that I would not be the one causing our team to lose.  Finally, runner from our team reached station#11 first.  The pressure was on me now and I didn't know how much advantage we had over the other team.

I initially planned to run at 6 mins pace due to the heat.  Also, I set my watch to alert if my pace is faster than 5 mins/km.  However, under pressure, I started up the run at 4+mins pace.  I knew I couldn't continue for long in that pace but I wasn't really able to slow down much under pressure.  Eventually, after 2km, I was too tired and just slowed down to walk.  Calculating by heart telling me that I should have 1~2 mins time to walk.

After walking for around 1 min I think, I ran again.  And this time, with slower pace, 5+ min, which I think I could continue for awhile.  So, I continued with that pace for awhile and stop for another walking session before reaching station #12.

Finally, I completed the 6.5km with 5:14min/km pace.  This is not the fastest pace that I had but certainly is the fastest under the hot sun.  This is really exciting event and the most pressure run that I had so far!

2015 APBIM HM Race Report

Finally, after weeks and weeks of training, I have completed the race.  Well, I just managed to clock 2-hr (well, 2 hours and 9 seconds to be exact) for this HM.  Not as good as I'd like to be, but I have tried  my very best this time AND I think I have identified my weakness so that I can train well in next HM!

For this time, since I was expecting a narrow road at the beginning of the race, I squeezed myself a bit in front than before.  I was just more than 10 rows in front of the starting line.  This helps as I didn't feel like being blocked by anyone at the beginning of the race.  In fact, after analyzing the running split, I found that I actually saved more than 1 minute for the 1st km as compare to last year HM (my fastest HM before this one!).

I found myself running at slightly less than 6 mins pace for the 1st km, which was good.  I have then decided to slightly increase my pace to hopefully at 5:40min pace to meet my sub-2 goal.  However, I didn't want to increase too much of my pace until I was too tired.  I was just running by feel without constantly checking my pace.  At every km, which my watch alert me, I checked my pace and my pace was around 5:50min, which I thought was good enough for the 1st half of the race.

After the 1st water station, around 7km, I decided to increase my pace to be less than 5:40min to make up for the slower pace earlier on.  I then ran with the pace of 5:30min.  I felt a tired with that pace but I knew that I would stop for water at around 10km and thus I just pushed myself a little bit.

At 10km, I stopped for water and I checked out my watch that my elapsed time was 57mins, 1 min slower than what I planned.  So, I cut down the walking time and started to run again just after ~30 steps of walking.  I just ran at controlled pace (comfortably hard, maybe) after the drink.  I didn't check my pace because I knew that I couldn't go faster than this pace and shouldn't go slower than this pace either.  I just want to hold on to this pace as much as I could to go for my best HM time.

I wasn't been able to hold this pace for long.  I knew that if I were to meet the sub-2 goal, I would have to reach the 3rd U-turn before 1:30hr.  Again, I pushed myself hard for not slow down until I reached the 3rd U-turn.  Finally, when I reached the 3rd U-turn, and I checked my watch, it was 1:32hr, 2 mins slower than what I'd like to be.

I was a bit disappointed.  However, I knew that I had really tried my best.  I knew my problem was not trained long distant enough at target pace.  I then realized that I had to train at target pace of 5:30mins instead of 5:40mins due to slightly longer distance in actual route than the calculated HM distance.  Also, I have to at least run a few times at target pace for more than 15km during training.

Instead of giving up altogether, I was thinking that if I didn't try harder this time, it would be much harder next year due to my age.  So, I pushed myself hard again!  Until I had to stop for another time at around 17km!  With the help of negative slope at 18km, I managed to picked up the pace a little bit.  During that time, I just wished to improve from my last year timing instead of hitting the sub-2 goal!

After 18km, I was just running as hard as I could without thinking too much.  I knew I wasn't been able to hit sub-2.  Finally, at the last km, I was running the same pace as a lady runner.  As woman HM started 15 mins later than man, I knew that she was running at faster than sub-2 pace to be able to catch up with me.  The pacing worked as it turned out that I was running slightly faster than earlier!

Finally, I saw the finish line.  To my surprise, the clock was showing 2:00:0x.  I didn't expect to finish at 2 hours.  So, I tried to speed up and it turned out that I was running at less than 5 mins pace for the last 500 m!

Overall, I am quite happy with the outcome, although I'd like it to be sub-2!  My fueling strategy is right as I don't feel hungry and thirsty during the run, and didn't go to toilet too!

As I mentioned, I'd need to train harder at HM pace for longer distance.  I just happened to talk to a 7th placing HM lady and she was logging 90km per week to be able to complete HM in 1:41hours!  So, I have a long way to go.

Here's my results (top 2.4%):-

Fuel:-
1.  1 pack of instant noodle 2 hours before the race.
2.  ~500ml of water 2 hours before the race.
3.  Another ~100ml of water 1 hour before the race.

FR610 vs FR220

My experience in FR610 and FR220.

I have been using FR610 for 7 months and decided to trade in for FR220 for RM300.  My experience for FR610 is not very pleasant.

The most annoying thing about my FR610 was the battery charging.  I have to try many times before the watch can be charged.  I have tried all the suggestions that I can find in the internet but I still could solve my problem.  Either I was unlucky or it was the "returned" watch that I purchased.

Even if the contact is good, I will get reverse charging every now and then.  Previously, when this occurred, I just turned off the watch and turned it on again to have it charge normally.  However, this wasn't the case for the last 2 rounds.  I just had to let it "charged" to 0% before it can be charged normally.

Lastly, I was a bit disappointed with the battery life.  I can only use it for ~ 4 hours in running before I have to charge again.

I blamed all of those to the cheap price for the watch, ie. USD179.99, which I sometime think is the returned watch.

When a friend of mine is willing to trade-in my FR610 for FR220, I have decided to take the offer although I just use it for just half a year.

After using FR220 for just 2 weeks, I am very happy with the performance.  The battery can last for more than 5 hours after charge.  Also, a single charging from flat battery is just around 3 hours.

The speed of GPS signal acquisition is very fast, a lot faster than the FR610.

However, the 2 features of FR610 that I would miss are the Virtual Racer and Virtual Partner.  Although I have not been able to use these features, but I think this is an interesting features to help pacing strategy in a race

Other than that, I have all the features that I want in FR220.

I hope to be able to use the watch for 2 years!

2015 APBIM HM Training Journal (2 wk to go)

Finally, this training session has come to final 2 weeks.

Because of this journal, I am able to keep to my training schedule most of the time, except some unavoidable situation.

After completing the last 30km per week the past week, the coming week is taper week.

I just plan to run 20km easy run this week before my HM in the coming week.

The most important gain from this session of training is my fueling strategy.  I should be able to move from here.

Right after this HM, I will have to increase my weekly mileage to 30km per week.