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.

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.

4th HM (lack of training)

As expected, this is really a struggling HM run for me.

For all the three HM that I ran before, I have at least one run more than 2 hours or more than 16km during training.  But for this time, the longest run I had since early of the year was 14km (around 1hr 23 mins).  So, I really struggle at the end of the run.

The first 10km in the run had no surprises.  I ran with the pace of 5:30~5:40min/km after 4km.  I was thinking that if I could keep to this pace until the end of the race, I could really target for sub-2.  I knew I was a bit optimistic because I felt that my breathing was harder than I'd like to be.  With that kind of breathing, I knew I couldn't keep too long.

So, at km 10 (or 11), after I stopped for drink, I felt too tired to start running again.  I forced myself to start running after walking for more than 1 min.  For all the previous 3 HMs, I just walked for 1 min and felt so energetic to start running again.  Slowly, I increased the pace to 5:20min/km, targeting to finish sub-2.  However, the 5:20min/km pace didn't last long.  Only for 2~3km with that pace.  I was then pacing with a fellow runner with around 5:40~5:50min/km.  I had hard time keeping up with that pace but I tried hard.  I had pain at my side that I just had to slow down a bit.

Just before the last incline of the bridge, that runner increased his pace.  I just couldn't keep up and just stick to my own pace, which I looked at my watch, was slightly slower than 5:50min/km.

The last part of the run was a real struggle for me.  At the peak of incline, my pace was dropped down to 7:00min/km.  At decline, I was hoping I could increased my pace to 5:20min/km but I failed.  My legs were so heavy that I could only run with around 6min/km pace at sloping down.

Lastly, I managed to struggle through the last 500m flat surface with 5:30min/km pace to complete the HM with 2:06 finishing time.  I was so exhausted at finish line.  For all the previous HM, I felt exited and felt like I can still jog slowly for a few km.  Not for this time.

My conclusion is, either the age has catch up with me or it is the lack of training that causing all these struggling.  I believe lack of training is the key for this struggling, couple with the fact that I didn't had a good sleep a few nights before the run!

Here's my results...

So, I will to come up with good training plan for the next HM in Nov...

 

Sub-2 in HM??!! Maybe...

1:57:18 was the time I read from my Garmin watch when I reached the HM finish line of 2014 APBIM.  This is an amazing time to me.  My target for this year APBIM HM was 2:06.  However, when I checked the distant from the watch, it only showed 20.06km!  More than 1km short from standard HM distant of 21.095km.  Yes, that's more likely the case from how I feel during the run.

My friend's Garmin also showed 20.06km on his watch.  Other HM runners also commented on this distant of slightly more than 20km only.

However, I stopped several times during this run.  I woke up 12:30am and started my hydration plan of drinking 1.5L of water before the run.  My last drink was at 1:40am and I went to toilet at 2:30am.  After 5~6km of run, I felt like I need to go to toilet again.  I hold on to it until I reached the toilet with no queue, which was around 11km.

Another 2 stops was at the beginning due to large group of runners.  The stop-walk-run situation continued for around 0.5km.  At around 15km, a runner (full marathon I guess) felt in front of me due to muscle clamp.  I stopped and stood by him for a couple of seconds until another runner stop to help him.

So, here's how I can do the math.  If I continue my last km with the pace of 5:51km, I would have finished the 21.095km in 2:03::21.  Minus out all the 3 stoppages which total up to 2:54 mins and I should be less than 30 seconds to achieve the sub-2 in HM.  If I improve the walk-run pace from 8min/km to at least 6min/km, I can take, maybe, a minute from there and really meet the sub-2 in my HM time!

After all, I shouldn't just do the math as above because I might have too tired and run with slower pace without all the stoppages!

Anyway, quite a good run and I shall wait to see how the organizer respond to the shorter HM distant!

APBIM 2013

This is my 2nd Half Marathon since I started running and joining races around 2 years ago.  As I put a lot more effort in injury prevention, my goal for this half marathon is not to have any kind of pain after the run.

As for my training, I initially wanted to run 21 km during training before the actual race.  However, as always, I had to attend to other priority and not able to meet that goal during training.  I just managed to log 17 km as the longest run before the race.  This 17 km is slightly better than last year, in which my longest run was just around 14.5 km.  However, the 14.5 km route that I was training on was a bit of hilly while this year's 17 km was on flat surface!  Moreover, I didn't had any interval training this round but focus mainly on logging higher mileage.  But, I joined more short distant race throughout the year thou.

Similar to last year, I had been drinking around 1.5 litre to 2 litre of water up to 1 hour before the race.  Since I was kind of hungry before the race last year, I brought myself a piece of bread to be consumed 2 hours before the start.  So, the bread solved my hunger problem this year.  On top of that, I spent time to understand and plan my diet based on the materials (Fuel for Runners) through the medical forum.

Nothing surprising at the beginning of the run.  I was running with the pace that I was planning on.  Although there were more participants this year, I didn't really feel the different during the beginning of the run.  Maybe because I was not that far away from the starting line.

Since women category started the race 1/2 hour before, I started to see lady participants (walking and taking photos) around 7 km.  At around 9 km, I felt that the road was more crowded as compare to last year.  As I only had my drink after 10 km during my training, I did the same and walk for awhile after the drink.  This time, I felt that my timing for 10 km split was a bit slower than last year.  Thus, I kind of cut short my walking and started to run again.  Although my target for this year was not on time, but when your emotion overtake your logic, not much thing you can do about it.

At around 12~13 km, I can really felt the crowd, especially more and more lady participants were walking.  If my memory served me right, the road was quite empty at this distant during my last year run.  But for this year, I had to maneuver around trying to keep to my constant pace.

I still remembered that I started to get tired after 14 km last year.  I wasn't that tired at 14 km for this year but started to feel tired after 17 km.  Now, I really think that long run training really helps.  I was really struggling for the last 4 km for this time.

Finally, I finished the race with the timing of 2:09:23 which is slightly faster than last year, to my surprise.  Well, the slight improvement was helped by cutting down my walking time at 10 km point!

Here's the results for this year.

The real improvement for this year to me is that I wasn't suffering that much after the run.  I had difficulty walking up and down the stairs for 3 days after the run last year.  But for this year, just half a day of difficulty and not as bad as last year.

For next year, I hope to be able to complete the race strong and no suffering at all after the run!  That's the goal.

My First Half Marathon - APBIM 2012

As this is my first long run race, I was very excited.  I initially planned to sleep from 7pm to 11pm before leaving for the race.  However, I only managed to take 1 hour sleep from 7:30pm to around 8:30pm.  Filled my stomach with noodles and ~1.5 liters of water before leaving for the race.

I reached the race site at around 1:30am and had my car properly parked before the road closure.  Unfortunately, I started to feel hungry and sleepy at around 3am just before the race started.  I just ignore the feeling and focus on the run.

Getting ready to the starting line, I was stuck in almost the middle of the crowd together with my friends.

When the gun fired, everything went as expected and I was squeezing my way to the front of the crowd (of course I didn't succeed).  At around 1km after the starting line, the road became narrow and everyone was stuck there again.  I had to run on the side of the road to make my way up front as much as I can.

As I normally run for 10 km during my training, I was very relax for the 1st 10 km including a bit of climbing in the middle of the bridge.  I was at the pace of <6min/km for the 1st 10km except at area where I was stuck in the middle of the crowd.  I then stopped for the drink and walked about 1min before I continued to run again.

I started to feel a bit of tired at ~13 km (after 1.5 hours of running).  13~14 km is the longest continues run that I had during my training.  So, I guess that's the limit.  I had to push myself to move forward and checking my watch very often to know how many km left.

At 17 km point, I was really struggling.  My mind was asking me to stop running and just walk to finish the race.  On the other hand, I wanted to hit the 2:15 timing and I pushed myself to just keep on running... just 4 km to go... I told myself that I could do 4km during training with no sweat!  However, I really had to spend conscious effort to move every single step after the 17 km point.  Running for 1 km was a great effort and a long way to go.  The sign of "Pain Now...  Char Koey Teow Later.." tells me that a lot of people is struggling as well and I just had to keep on running to complete the race.

I was so excited when I saw the sign of just 1 km to go.  Although I heard that I had to keep my pace constant but I can't help myself from running faster.  I checked my Garmin watch to know that I was running at less than 5mins/km.  However, the fast run only last for around 300m (not the1 km fast run that I wished) and I had to slow down to around 6:40min/km pace.

I finally complete the race with 2:11 on my watch!  I was so excited and couldn't express my feeling at that moment.  I knew for sure that I will take another half marathon again some time.

Before I started my real training (~1 year ago), I set the target for myself to complete the race in 3 hour time.  After I started the real training (~8 months ago), I set up another target to complete the race in 2.5 hours.  A few weeks before the race, I think I am going to shoot for 2h15mins.

Well, I finally made it in 2:11:35 according to official time.

The tracking from Garmin Forerunner 210 is with the time of 2:11:49.

To me, this is very accurate tracking that I can certainly make use of the tool for future training.

To have a better half marathon run, I think I need to train for a longer run ~18 km so that I will not be struggling like what I experienced after the 17 km point.  Food and drink planning that I had for this run was not bad.

Overall, I am satisfy with the results despite having a bit of knees discomfort for 2 days after the run.

Training, Training, Training...

Just 2 weeks to go for the Penang Bridge Marathon for my 1st ever half marathon event!  Getting very excited with a little bit uneasy due not able to train as much as I wanted to.  It could be due to rain or too tired or falling sick that I skip or cut down my training schedule.  However, whenever possible, I stick well to my training plan.

During my recent training at the Dam, I met up with a regular Penang Bridge half marathon runner.  From her point of view, I should be able to do 2h15mins for my half marathon.  Well, my target is just 2h30mins and getting 2h15mins is a bonus to me.  I met a few runners before (during training) and they all commented that I can run faster.  One even said that my pace should be <50mins for 10k.  However, from record, the best I can achieve for 10k is 61mins.  Anyway, those words are very encouraging that "pushed" me to participate in more runs...

However, after bench mark with another runner who participated in the same run before, I should be doing between 2h15mins to 2h30mins.  On previous run, I am ~15% slower than him and he is doing 1h53mins to 2h04mins for half marathon.  Considering Penang Bridge run is my 1st run and in the middle of the night, getting 2h15mins and 2h30mins is a reasonable target...

We'll see... just 14 days to go!

Start Again

Haven't been training for two weeks starting end of September due to other commitment.  So, I have to start training for Penang Bridge Marathon again.  It is just 7 weeks away from the race from the week I started again.  The shortest training plan for half marathon that I can find is 8 week.  So, I just have to modify it to make it a 7 week plan.

The 1st and 2nd week of training were going smoothly.  Managed to log 20km and 24km respectively for first two weeks with 4 days training per week.  However, the raining session starts on my 3rd week of training.  So, I am not able to log as much as I 'd like to for the 3rd week.  Hopefully, with more holidays on the 4th week, I am able to still stick to my plan and train myself up without injury!

Another Week of Record Setting Training

This was the second time I ran the countryside route again.  The cooling atmosphere was still there except that it was a lot hazy.  I felt more tired at the end of the run as compare to the first time I used this route.  It could be due to another long run yesterday.  I checked back the record and found that I just had 55mins of ~7km the day before I took this route on the 1st time.  But yesterday, I trained for ~2hours (including hiking up and down) at Air Itam Dam for 4.5 rounds.

This time, the run was a bit exciting that I frighten a herb of buffalo that were about to cross the street.  All the buffalo stumbled back when seeing an stranger running 50 feet in front of them except one (the leader I guess).  The buffalo stood there steadily watching me running pass.  What an exciting and a bit of scary experience.

Except for the weekday tempo training, I was on track for the training for this week.  In terms of distance, I recorded the longest running distance of 27.4km for the whole week.  I even had a steady improve in pace recently with now pacing at the average pace of 6:33min/km, which I was targeting to get 7mins/km.  I hope I can maintain this for a few more weeks.

By checking blogs of other runners, the pace of ~5:30min@10km will give 2:40hr at Penang Bridge Half Marathon.  So, with my speed, targeting to complete the race in less than 3 hours should be achievable.  We'll see...

Overall, this is a very satisfying week...