Kuala Lumpur Half -

In short, my Personal Worst time for HM distance since 2004 (the first year I took up running).

I've been struggling with sore hips for the last couple of weeks. While I could do easy run with no problem, but running long at a solid pace puts a lot of strain on the hip. I arranged for a deep tissue massage on Wednesday, but the guy was sick at the last minute and he could only do Friday which was too late since I flew to KL that day. That sort of put an end to my hope of getting a last resort.

Struggled big time even after only the first couple of ks and it spiralled downwards from there. The route itself wasn’t nice as we ran mostly on the shoulder of highways – which was heavily cambered/tilted. After running up and down the highway ramps, I passed the 10k in 44 minutes. While this is still ok for a 1:32-1:35 finishing time but my sore hips restricted me to sustain the pace for the rest of the race. From then on, it was an uphill struggle as my pace slowed down due to the tightness in the hip. I made decision to run easily and took walk breaks for the next 12k (total distance was 22k + by my Garmin) to finish in 1:44.

Couldn't sit comfortably for the whole day due to the sore hips, but luckily we took the plane home.

Just came back from a one-hour massage session. And boy, it was excruciating!

This fiasco has put a serious dent in my hopes to do a marathon this year. Inability to do long runs due to persistent hip problems and heat/humidity has pushed my running times backwards by a couple of years. Perhaps I should have a re-think and just focus on short-term distances for a while.