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.

Concluding 2014 (4th year of running)

Looking back the whole 2014, it seems to be a very fulfilling year!  For one, I wasn't being forced to stop running for weeks due to injury.  I experienced some pain at the bottom of my foot, which I just rest for a few days to maybe a week and I was back in running again.  This is a good sign.
With this, I managed to log more than 80km per month for 9 months consecutively until the APBIM.  Although I didn't train for speed this year, with the increase of mileage, I was able to improve my race time to be less than 6min/km for all the races (shorter than HM) that I joined through the year.  Even with HM in APBIM, I was running at the pace of 5:51min/km and "officially" enter the sub-2 category for HM (although I still think that the race course is 1km shorter)!

Achievement for 2014:-

1. Joined 9 races throughout the year.  Too many, I think.  I will have to cut it down.
2. Completed all the races with less than 6 min/km pace with best pace for 10km at 5:18min/km.
3. Started to join out of town race: the NTCRC Run and Taiping Run.
4. Surprisingly achieving sub-2 in my APBIM HM race.
5. Managed to log more than 80km per month for 9 months throughout the year.
6. Achieving more than 17km for long run starting July.  One in July, One in August and 3 in Sep before going back to One in Oct due to races.  I think at this point, I can only handle more than 17km long run every 2 weeks (instead of every week).
7. Managed to find my "max" heart rate due to the fact that I started to wear heart beat monitoring during race.  My max heart rate recorded was 196 bpm (instead of 188 bpm that I tested it out myself).  The new max heart rate was recorded during the Taiping Run almost at the top of uphill run.  So, I have to re-define my heart rate training zone again!
8. Bought myself a footpod and be able to monitor my recent running cadence of 174 to 180 per min.

Overall, the high mileage training was accomplished with well-plan training plan "almost" throughout a the whole year.  Thus, I will continue to work on the training plan in the coming year.


My plan for 2015:-

1. Work on the speed.  Focus on quality of training without increasing my time spend on running.
2. Targeting to have 2 hour long run every other week (and hopefully make it to every week).
3. Increase my weekday mileage to at least 5km per run or at least 30 mins.
4. Join less races.  Only focus on HM locally, or charity race, or out-of-town good race.  Something like 5~6 races should be good enough.

However, for some reasons, the motivation of running is lower recently.  I do not know the reason, which might be due to stress at work!  I hope I can overcome this in a few months time once I come out with training plan again!

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.

Concluding 2012... Starting 2013

Looking back at 2012, this is the year that I seriously engage in running.  To keep me going, I started to participate in running events, logging my run online, reading running blog and started my own blog, looking for running friends, etc.  Quite a good year for me.

My first running event was Malakoff 7km fun run in March 2012.  I was struggling to finish the 7km at that point of time with ~40 minutes to complete 7km.  I wasn't that particular about the running time at that event as my main goal was to be able to complete the run.  Looking back now, I was doing quite good (or I haven't been improving that much).  Besides, I joined a hiking competition and ECO night run before my actual target of half marathon in APBIM at the end of the year.  Total of 4 runs including 1 half marathon.

To be able to track my training more systematically, I started to log my running training using runningahead beginning of Jun 2012. The main reason for choosing runningahead is the capability to associate running shoes used during each run.  With this, I hope to be able to choose a longer lasting running shoes to save a few bucks moving forward.  Following is the monthly summary from runningahead.

From the table, a faster pace in Oct was due to shorter distant of each run that I engaged in.  By analyzing the pace on the same course, I can see that my pace has improved from 10% to 25% since early June to end of December.

To track my time more accurately, I bought Garmin Forerunner 210 in November.  So, the time recorded after APBIM 2012 is more accurate and definitely more consistent.

From the running shoes usage tracking, my running shoes can last me around 300km run.  Not a good number due to my "heavy heel strike".  I have bought 3 pairs of running shoes for the whole 2012.  I will work on this more this year.

Starting a new year, I had a short run in the morning.  I recorded a pace of 5'22" for 5km of track run.  This is one of the best record that I have so far.  This is definitely a good start of the year!  Moving on for the year, my target is to participate in 2 half marathon and a few more shorter run (3 or 4) between the half marathon.