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!

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.

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!

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!

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...

 

Slow Down in Running

For some reasons, maybe due to high and unpredictable workload, my running has not been consistent!  Except for the 1st week of March, I only logged 0~10km per week for the remaining 4 weeks of March.  Since I started running, this was the lowest mileage logged (except in Apr 2013 that I had minor operation)!  I really have to force myself to start running again.  If it is not because of health, I would have stopped already!

I tried to run at my favourite route, Air Itam Dam, yesterday and I really felt like wanted to stop after half a round.  I eventually stopped close to 2 rounds of running.  I really can't imaging that I could run for 5 rounds back then in 2012.  The scenery on the route is still that fascinating but I just can't run that long.

For this coming HM in June, I guess it would be a real struggle for me...  We'll see...

Training Plan for 2015

I started to get serious about training again 2 months after the Penang Bridge Marathon last Nov.  After the run, I was just running 10~15km a week and skipping run whenever I don't feel like running.

Anyway, I started to be more serious in training again.  By more serious, I meant planning out my running schedule, trying to plan my run to avoid crash with other commitment, look into running mileage per week, look at running intensity, etc.

Following is my guideline to plan out my training plan for 1st half of the year:-

1.  For each run, the min running time is 30 mins.  This is translating to around 5km for my speed.
2.  Add in Tempo Run to my training.  From various articles that I read, my Tempo Run pace should be around 5:20~5:30min/km or heart rate of more than 170bpm.  For a start, I will alternating between Tempo Run and Long Run each week and hope eventually, I can run Tempo Run during weekday and Long Run at weekend.  For the whole last year, I was focusing in increasing my running mileage and mostly run at easy pace.  My target was to improve my monthly mileage to 70~80km consistently at the end of next year.  For now, I hope to keep at least 60km for my monthly mileage while adding Tempo Run training in.
3.  Run Strides at the end of my run every now and then.  My definition of strides is following this article from Strength Running.  I will just start with once per week and eventually increase to run strides at the end of everey easy run.
4. Lastly, my recovery week will be once every 3 weeks.

The planning above will only give me around 2.5 hours of running per week while the doctor suggested me to exercise at least 5 hours a week.  In order to make it 5 hours a week, I will have to run for 5 days a week so that I still can mange my long run.

I will see how it goes at the end of the 1st half of this year to decide my 2nd half training plan

My new Heart Rate Training Zone

After having the heart rate monitoring device for 2 years, I finally found my max heart rate.  This is because I only wear the heart rate monitoring device during actual race recently.  From recent race monitoring, my max heart rate can go as high as 196 bpm instead of 188 that I initially determined before.  Also, from various testing, my resting heart rate is now 65 bpm instead of close to 80 bpm when I initially started running.

With this discovery, the following training zones are now revised.

Easy Run (recovery zone)
Pace: One to two minutes slower than marathon pace
% Max heart rate: 65 to 78% [127~153 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 3 to 4/easy
Talk Test: Complete conversation
Training Run (aerobic zone)
Pace: Marathon pace or slightly slower
% Max heart rate: 80 to 89% [157~175 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 heart rate: 88 to 92% [171~180 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 7 to 8/hard
Talk Test: A few words at a time
Intervals (VO2 max zone)
Pace: Mile to 5-K pace or faster
% Max heart rate: 95 to 100% [186~196 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 9/very hard
Talk Test: Can't...talk...must...run...

I have changed the max heart rate percentage to follow Jack Daniels' definition.  Also, I didn't use resting heart rate for the above calculation this time.

Just by looking at the number, I think haven't been training in Tempo Run zone all the time (although I though that I was training in that zone) not to mention about the Interval zone.  As for my easy run, I am running kind of too hard to make the heart rate falls into the Training Zone.  In conclusion, if following the heart rate training zone, I have been training mostly in Training Zone almost all the time so far!

My Running Cadence

I just bought myself a Garmin Foot Pod a few days ago.  Today is the first time I used it for my run.  I used it in my weekly long run (last ~2hours or 18km) with phone's metronome on, and set at 180 beats per minute.

After the run, I looked at the run cadence data and found several interesting findings:-
1.  For the first 20 mins, I was running at 182 spm.
2.  Eventually, my run cadence dropped to 180 spm.
3.  When I tried to speed up for 2 mins right after 1 hour of running, my run cadence further dropped to 176 spm.
4.  When I ran back at my original targeted speed of ~6:45 min/km, my run cadence increased back to 178 spm.
5.  The run cadence of 178 spm only last for another 20 mins before it dropped back to 176 spm.
6.  At close to 2 hour of run, I again increased my speed.  This time, my run cadence increased back to 178 spm for only around 5 mins before it dropped back to 176 spm.
7.  At the end my long run, where I was getting real tired, my run cadence varied from 176 spm to even 172 spm.

From the data, two areas that I need to focus on in order to maintain my run cadence of 180 spm, ie. when I increases my speed and when I get tired.  Apparently, I didn't respond well with my phone's metronome.  Or, I could be even worse without the metronome on.  I will try out one day to find out.

New Chaprter

After started running consistently for probably 3.5 years, I finally managed to log > 80km/month, ie. more than 20km/week, continuously for the last 5 months.  While I have to stop or slow down my progress due to injury (and surgery) last year, this kind of mileage is considered a big achievement.  The drawback is, my training pace is a lot slower (10%) than when I initially started.  This is mainly due to the fact that I am more careful after the 1st injury that I have back in 2012.  Since then, I have been paying attention to my running form, stay slow, and carefully increasing my mileage.

I kind of decided that this is my target for now while I will be working to improve my speed slowly from now onwards.  From what I read so far, tempo run and interval run are what I need to include in my training routine.  I just need to figure out how to put in.

Inspired by these 2 videos regarding marathon training (Part 1, Part 2), as a new chapter in my running life, I have decided to try out barefoot running.  As mentioned in the videos, I will only do that for my training on the familiar route, ie. running track.  I just started with 400m last weekend and the feel is totally different.  I can really feel the hardness of the track on every step of my run.  I plan to keep to that distance until I am very comfortable with the distance and pace, before I add in a little bit more.  No timeline, no target for this barefoot training and I just hope to have a stronger feet as time goes by.

Goal Achieved (70km/month)

Despite the fact that I had to stop my training due to flu, I still managed to meet my target of 70km per month of mileage in Feb.

I think 2 factors that made this possible, ie. carefully drafting out my plan to include all holidays and possible races; and leaving some breathing space for sudden event.  Although in the beginning, it looks like I should be able to achieve this target earlier, but because of flu, the plan is not as easy as it seems.

Anyway, feel real great for having able to achieve what I initially targeted.  With this, this is the 7th consecutive month that I  hit more than 60km per month in terms of running mileage.  Something that I really feel proud of..

My next goal is getting myself to 17km LSD weekly.  My plan is to be able to reach there early July or end of July.  After that, I will have plan to increase my speed.

Hitting 20km per week

Coming to the end of the 1st month in 2014, I am following well with my training plan.  By this time, I should be logging 20km per week and I did.  20km/week is a special number to me.  I guess it was the target that I had since I started running seriously.

Since I started to run ~2+ years ago, out of 80 weeks that I recorded my mileage, only 16 weeks were with weekly mileage of more than 20km excluding the weeks with race.  Nothing magic, but this is a good start for the year.

As I read somewhere that optimum running mileage per week is between 10miles to 20 miles, my long term target is to run 30km/week while keeping 20km/week as minimum.  While achieving 30km/week, I am targeting to run 17km in the long run.  The 17km is chosen because I think it takes me 2 hours to run 17km.  Again, I read somewhere that running more than 2 hours continuously has no significant benefits in improving endurance.  Thus, 17km is my target now.

From my planning of 3 runs a week, achieving 17km will also bring me to 30km per week and then 80km per month.  Thus, all the goals aligned!  Amazing.

As I can achieve those target (probably end of June this year), I will consider myself to have the base of running and will work on improving my speed.  Once I can improve my speed, I will slowly increase my mileage to keep to 30mins run during weekday and 2 hours of long run during weekend.

Concluding 2013

2013 was not a smooth year for me in running.  At the beginning of the year, I was forced to slow down and stop running for 1 or 2 weeks due to "injury".  Then, in April, I was again not able to run for 1 week+ due to surgery.  However, I managed to join more races (short races thou) in 2013 than 2012 and able to improve my half marathon time very slightly in APBIM at the end of the year.

The "injury" that I experienced could be due to the fact that I keep pushing myself for speed on every run after I had the Garmin watch.  I kept on looking at my pace during the run and forcing myself to run faster.  Moreover, when I first felt pain, I continued to run in believing that running will make the pain go away!  After forcing myself to run even with pain, I was eventually not able to walk!  Because of that, I put focus on injury prevention instead of running with faster pace.

Changes that I have made throughout the year:-

1.  Keep to the 10% rule (almost).
2.  Focus on running form.  Instead of heavy heel stride, I am now practicing forefoot stride and doing running drill.
3.  Taking core exercise more seriously.  Focusing on back muscle and glute muscle.
4.  Warm up and cool down properly.  By doing cool down properly after every run, I can really see the impact.
5.  Listen to my body.  I stop listening to music during the run and pay attention to my running form and my breathing.  I don't push myself on every run but want to run very comfortable and feel great after the run.

My target for 2014:-

1.  Slowly increase my mileage to 80km per month for 5~6 months.  In 2012, I managed to have 5 months logging more than 60km/month and out of that the 4 months actually logging more than 80km/month; in 2013, I managed to have 5 months logging more than 60km/month but with only 2 months for more than 80km/month.  So, my running mileage is more inconsistent in 2012 than 2013.  So, I plan myself to be more consistent in 2014 with more months above 80km/month.
2.  Be able to have long run of at least 17km every week (almost) starting 2nd half of 2014.
3.  Increase 5% of speed.  After achieving the above 2 goals, I will target to increase 5% of my speed by end of the year, which should be around 6:30/km averagely in last few weeks of the year.
My long term goal is to be able to run at very old age and thus I will have to keep it slow and safe throughout the years.

 I will still participate in local races whenever possible and might be joining 2 HM if possible.

Rest from Running

Really took 2 weeks off from running so that I have enough rest after the APBIM.  So, I started with 5 or 6 km again and slowly build up my mileage!

I guess I was starting too fast and felt quite tired around 4.5 km.  However, I kept continue to meet my 5 or 6 km target for this week.  Finally, I am logging 6 km.  Also, I am still able to keep my running form for the whole run.

To create some excitement for this run, I took the newly build bridge, which is not open yet.  I was stopped by security guard after entering the bridge for awhile.  Not only me trying out the bridge, I saw a group of cyclists trying to cycle on the bridge as well and "negotiating" (I guess) with the guard to be able to go further.

Here is the running route...  running on the sea...

Very satisfying run

Just logged another 14km run in the morning.  Although I planned to run 14km today but I wasn't so sure that I could do it due to the fact that I only had 2 hour sleep last might.  Surprisingly, without much problem, I completed the 14km run with my new pair of shoes.

This time, I did have a "better" warm up and warm down.  It could be because of warm up and down session, I didn't feel that bad after the run (especially at my lower back).  Well, this could be due to running shoes change as well.

After all, I am logging faster pace, ie. 6:52 min/km, as compare to earlier 13km run at only 8:13min/km.

Very satisfying run.

A fulfilling month

This is a very fulfilling month for me in terms of running.  My mileage has been increasing steadily and most importantly, without injury (touch wood!).  I managed to log 55km last month although I ran for 89km last year time time.  Hopefully, I can continue to this trend without much issue until end of the year...

Back on Track... well, maybe

After a long long while that I managed to log more than 5km this week, 3km on Saturday and 4km on Sunday.  This 4km is the "longest" run since 2 months ago.  Feeling great for the run but I stopped after 4km to give myself enough time to adopt to the run again.

Hopefully, I can continue with the training routine and increase my mileage steadily as plan.

Anyway, due to my busy workload, I didn't plan for any race soon...