Week 1 of 12

Did 88k @ av 4:55 during Week 1 of 12.

Happy with the mileage and the running frequency, given I just came back from a month of ‘holiday’ running and was nursing a damaged ankle early in the year.

However, Singapore’s hot weather capped my long run to 25k this week. I should have started the long run at 4 or 5am in order to avoid the heat. I also had a sub-par race in the 5.6k JP Morgan Corporate Challenge (distance turned out to be 6k), My average pace for the race was akin to my tempo pace and this was very disappointing, although I didn’t taper nor warmed up sufficiently. This adds up to a list of mediocre races in 2009 which included high19s 5k and 41mins 10k

Will decided which marathon race to do (Gold coast or Perth) in 6 weeks time. By then, I will have a better sense of my marathon fitness and also my travel plan. If work schedule allows, I’ll do GCM and visit my family in Melbourne at the same time. If work is busy, I will just make a quick weekend trip to Perth and registered for the race on the day itself.

Mon (Easy):
6k Easy in 31mins (5:10)
Ran at 10.30pm right after a 7-hour flight from Melbourne

Tue (Threshold):
AM:
2k warm up
3 x 7:00 at Threshold with 90secs recovery (3:57 pace)
4 x 200m Repetitions in 38, 40, 40, 39
2k cool down
Total workout 11k in 49mins (av 4:28)
Had to hold back to stop running faster. Ran the intervals by time instead of distance for a change. Accumulated around 21mins of Threshold effort, which I thought was about right given I had a race on Thursday.

PM:
25mins Recovery (5:32) on treadmill + stretching

Wed (Easy):
AM: 12k Easy in 59mins (4:55)
Last two days were ok in terms of weather, but this morning was back to Singapore standard with almost 100% relative humidity. Socks were soaked while shoes made squeaking sound due to the sweat. Shoe laces kept slipping also since it was very wet.

PM: Weights (upper body) + abs

Thu (Race):
1.5k warm up (40mins before start)
6k JP Morgan Corporate Challenge 2009 (23:38)
4.5k cool down
Really disappointed! Although, I didn’t taper for this but running 6k in a race environment averaging 3:57 min/km was really a sub-par performance. I’ve done numerous 5-6k tempo at this pace in Singapore, but only managed to do the race at the same pace! This year’s race has a new route starting at Esplanade and ending at F1 pitstop and as usual were attended by 10,000 runners/walkers. Did a short jog to the start line and just stood there for the next 40mins. Racing in Singapore is like this: all the runners, fast or slow would like to stand in the front and the start line is already full of people even half an hour before the gun.

The first k had 200m downhill and my split was 3:41. Passed km 2 & 3 in about 3:51 (one marker was long, another one short) including a hill. Km 4 has a long hill which slowed me to 4:07. Km 5 split was 4:13 and I just didn’t know why this was slow. Last km was 3:53. Note that the advertised race distance was 5.6k – which is a standard distance for all JP Morgan races all around the world, but the new route was 6k long as evidenced by distances recorded by Garmin/Polars and the winning times that are 2mins slower than last year. Thinking about it, my sub-par timing was probably due to the fact that I’ve lost the ‘guts’ to run hard (hurting) in races.

Fri (Recovery):
6.5k Recovery in 35mins (5:27)
Planned to run at an empty grass plot (to avoid pounding) but it was muddy and infested with mosquitos, so ran on pavement again. Sigh – Singapore is all concrete!

Sat (Long):
25k Long Run in 121mins (4:52)
Don’t think I am fit enough to do MP-type runs, hence the plan was to run parts of the long run at Steady effort (MP + 5-10%). Left the house too late at 6:30am and it was already warm and humid (90%). After 3k warm up (5:15), ran 16k at 4:30-4:40 pace with a couple of stops at km 8 and km 12. I slowed down in the latter part due to the rising heat and it was still not yet 8am! Was really drained and did a 6k ‘death march’ cool down under the strong sun, in order to make a total of 2 hours. Due to the weather, today’s run was much tougher than last week’s 31k long run @ 4:48 pace in Oz.

Sun (Easy):
11k Easy in 58mins (5:13)
Jogged 2k to Padang and ran around 500m diameter cricket field for about 6k, then jogged back. It’s so hard to find soft running terrain in Singapore! Also, did 4 x 15secs strides on grass.

Total 88k for the week