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 Training Journal (17 wk to go)

After getting the habit to write this journal weekly, I just realized that the year end APBIM is around the corner, mere 17 weeks to go.  When I started my training plan, I was thinking to myself that I had prepared a few weeks ahead of time, ie. 20 weeks instead of typically 16 weeks.  However, after next week, it would be just 16 weeks to go.

For this week, I again stressed myself to run 3 days continuously.  But the pace is slower and slower.  I don't really worry about this because my main point is to be able run.  The reason for running slower and slower is because I experienced acute pain on my tight muscle after 2 days of easy run on Tuesday and Wednesday.  However, since I felt that it was not that serious, I continued to run on Thursday and rest for Friday and Saturday before the 5.5km fun run on Sunday.

The pain became more serious, I even felt pain while sitting on a chair in Saturday morning.  Anyway, I took multi-vitamin in the morning to see if it helped.  Luckily, in the afternoon of Saturday, the pain disappeared.  I was just hoping that I could join the run the next day.  With this minor incident, I was just targeting to finish the 5.5km with 6 mins pace.  I told myself that I need to be able to control myself because I recently will stress myself too much during the race.

Since this is just a 5.5km fun run with no prize, I didn't notice any serious runners around.  So, I was in quite in front before the run started.  Unfortunately, my GPS watch wasn't able to detect a strong GPS signal and thus I have to run by feel.

I was running slow (I guess), paying attention on my leg to see if I felt any sign of muscle pain.
Luckily, after around 1~2km of slow run, it turned out to be OK and thus I just increased my pace.  It was the uphill stretch when I increased the pace and managed to overtook a few runners.  When I was running back after the U-turn, at the downhill stretch, I just increased my speed, while paying attention on my leg.  It turned out that I didn't feel any discomfort downhill with that speed.  However, after a few minutes, I experienced pain at side of my abdomen, like previous race.  So, I decided to slow down a bit until the pain went away.

Around 1km to go, as I didn't feel the pain anymore, I slowly increased my pace.  Lastly, I finished the run with 28m42s.  This translates to 5:14"/km of pace, which is one of the fastest for around 5km route.  I am very happy with this results even with an uphill stretch.

Fuel: To try out different method of fueling before the race, I decided to try taking Yogurt before the fun run.  So, 1 hour before the run, while driving to the destination, I took ~100gm of Yogurt (127kcal according to the label).  At the same time, I drank 500ml of water mixed with isotonic drink.  Luckily, my stomach was taking this OK.  I just lined up to pass urine around 15 mins before the run started.

Overall for the week, I logged slightly more than 20km, which is what I targeted in my plan.  Furthermore, I managed to stress myself with 3 days run continuously.  I will do that again the following week to get myself comfortable with 3 days run with total mileage of around 15km.