ON INJURY

While INJURY is to be AVOIDED at all cost,

sometimes it is just INEVITABLE.

Some say if one hasn't gotten any injury before,

obviously he was not pushing that hard, or he

is just a jogger who happens to think that he is a runner.


********** ********************

When an injury pops in, it is usually

not that serious, most of the time it can be treated

with a short period of rest(few days, few weeks).


It is that 'running through the pain', 'tough it out' behaviour during

injury that make things MUCH WORST and much DIFFICULT to deal with later on.


I admit that you do need a fair amount of discretion to distinguish

between an injury and a normal muscle DOMS, etc (and this usually

have to be learnt the HARD way, unfortunately).


*********** **************** *******************


But when an injury is ASCERTAINED, it is time to ACCEPT it.

ACCEPT the fact that you are injured and can't run for a while

can be difficult to some runners. These runner always fall prey

to the DENIAL stage of injury. They alway run though the pain,

even to the extend that the gait is affected. Of cource, they

also deny their chance of recovering soon. The vocabulary

of ACCEPTANCE can be a foreign language to some runnners.



*********** ***************** *************


ACCEPT that during an injury, the BEST thing to do is to

REST and RECOVER.


Think of it as YOUR BODY's way of TELLING YOU that YOU have been

training REAL HARD, and now it is HARVEST time!

Just sit back and rest.

Now it is the tome to REAP the benefit of all the previous hard training.

************** ***************** ***********


WAIT PATIENTLY AND A STRONGER, BETTER YOU WILL EMERGE.


NEVER rush the recovery, you can have all the perfect plan, but your body

may think otherwise.


************ ************** *******************



Think "BODY OVER MIND"; let your BODY dictates HOW LONG it will take to recover

and not your 'tough mind' does all the calculation.

I always think that a sound mind begins from a sound body; a fit and healthy

body nourishes a steel mind.


************ ************** *******************


Crank on.

ADIDAS KOTR RACE REPORT

Just about a week ago, I had a very satisfied

execution of the Hartamas run, I had a total

disaster in the AKOTR race.

I totally misjudged the pacing. The fact that

I had no idea of the route and profile of the course

is not a totally acceptable excuse (who won't run

a race course for the first time), I should have

developed a better sense of pacing according to

perceived effort, HR, terrain, etc.


I looked at the Polar data, 80.5% in MHI, no wonder

I was dying in the race.


But looking at the bright side, good race bad race,

we all should try to get something out of it and learn

a lesson or two.

Well, this is the take home leaasons:

(1)It is really important to "PACE THE FIRST HALF".
It will really destroy the second half if this is
violated.

PACE THE FIRST HALF, PACE THE FIRST HALF, ...

I should ingrain this into my mind the next time I race.

(2)Long Run and Tempo run is the most relevant of marathon/half marathon
training. I checked and confirmed this on Jack Daniel's book.

Long steady state running of close to LT prepare for the marathon
far better than the rest.

I really like this mantra of my own

"TRAIN HARD, RACE EASY"

(3)Develop a better sense of pacing adjusting to weather conditions,
terrain, perceived effort, body condition, etc.

Every race/run is different, RUN SMART THEN RACE HARD

(4)Somehow, I always have a very wet shoe after 10/15K. It got so wet
that I could hear "zick zack" sound every step I run. I think I
really need to nail this down.



(5)I had a small incident during the run that I got a bit over reacted.
I apologize to that guy who pushed me and spilled drink at my pant
but also took some words from me.

Next time, I will ingrain this into my mind:

"Marathon training is stressful enough.
Start avoiding conflict and
Stop creating any.

save the energy for the training and racing".


Crank on.

MILL REPS

I was doing an regular easy run on the mill that day.

Suddenly, the guy next to me was kicking real hard.

He was literally sprinting. I could hear the hard huffing

and puffing, I could see his face flushing. He was running

wih high knee and fast legs turn over.

But when I glanced at his speed indicator, I was astounded that

it read 10(6:00km/min pace). WHAT??? To my further surprise, this guy

soon collapsed and resorted to slowing down to walking pace and finally

drop out of the mill.


********* ********* ********* *********

This reminded me that few years ago, I was in the exact same boat as this

guy. I normally jogged at 8:00k/min pace, and once a while broke into a fast

6:00k/min pace of fast running that might last just a few hundred meter or less.

Who knows, through sheer hardwork and persistant training,

I could hold that pace for 42K few years later.

(See? The most powerful ergogenic aid is training. From 400m to 42.2k,
that was an improvement of 100 times).


********* ********* ********* *********

SPEED IS A RELATIVE THING!

What is fast for me might be slow to you.

What is fast today could be just an easy pace tomorrow, well may be not

tomorrow, but how about next year.

********* ********* ********* *********

We all dreamed one day that we could hold that dreadly 3:00k/min pace

for that dreadly 42.2K. But until then, we have to first attain that speed,

tamed it, literally "slow" it down to feeling easy, etc. Just think of as

a manufacturing process where it has to be gone through various stage of

processing.


********* ********* ********* *********

How do we "manufacture" that fast pace then?

As I said earlier, different training (process) at diferent stage of

the pace refinery process.

The very first thing of a pace refinery is "attaining" it. When I

say "attaining", I refer to that "sprint" of the guy next to me

on the mill. Attaining means sprinting under controll. It wasn't an

all out effort yet but close. I mean a pace that you literally

felt almost like sprinting, bot not quite as yet. And it is relaxed,

under control, and definitely no huffing puffing.


I MEAN Vvo2max or slight faster to be exact.

(If you want to know about Vvo2max you could use

my program vomax.exe that comes together with

eDiaryRC5 downloadable in previous post).


********* ********* ********* *********

To turn today's sprinting pace(Vvo2max) into one that

could be hold for 42K required flowing through

many different training "process". The tempo,

interval, long MP run, LSD all has its role to play.

But we are not going to talk about those today.

We are going to talk about "attainning" the pace,

and the training that matches this is called "Repetitive

Running" or "Reps".


********* ********* ********* *********

Here what I do on "mill Reps" ( I always do

almost all my qaulity run on Mill. There are

a lot of advantages compare to gound running, though

it also bear some shortcoming.

But to the least, it keep me "ON PACE").

Warm up sufficiently, then run at Rep pace (4:50) for

200m, then switch to MP (5:40) for 600m and repeat 6 to

10 times depend on how tire I felt.


The pace of 4:50 matched my current fitness level (

you can use vomax.exe to check yours) and the distant

200m is carefully choosen. With a pace of 4:50, 200m

is is covered in lest than 1 minute. The pace of

5:40 is also carefully choosen. The average 600m

5:40 and 200m 4:50 is 5:30, which is the GMP.


(I always make use of the recovery. I believe that

the recovery could just as beneficial as the hard

work bout as it trains how you would deal with fatique).


********* ********* ********* *********


Reps is classified only as an easy run, and I don't

consider this as a quality run. It is just a variant

of my easy run.


********* ********* ********* *********


Crank on.

Hartamas Run

Guilded by last post's reflection on HR training, I

had a perfect execution of Sunday Hartamas Training Run,

a medium long run of the week.

Guilded by the mantra "PACE the First Half, RACE the second",

I went out at an easy and controllled pace. Well, at first, it

felt just too easy ( At this stage, I kept on reminding

myself to relax and it was supposed to be easy). Then, as the

run unwind itself, it is getting harder, especially on all the hills.

I kept ease out the pace so that my HR would not cross the 160(MHI boundary).

The percieved effort was neither too easy nor too hard.

I would certainly thought that it was like Arthur Lydiard's "Confortably

hard" effort. I didn't really heed my pace, as it was a undulating course.

I kept a 5:30 pace on flat and roughly ran uphills at a slightly increased

perceived effort and slightly easier effort on the downhills to recover.

(I think I am still not a very good hill runner, I should do more

mill hill training).


After reaching Petronas, took five to visit the loo and a drink of Gastrorale.


Now, the second half, surprisingly, was not felt as hard as before(previous week's).

I think the "PACE the first half" really do you good on the second half.

I was gliding ( I think the return journey is easier on the Hartamas route as it

has more downhills) and feeling strong and comfortable. I think I maintain a decent

5:30 "flat effort" all the way and reserving the stregth for a really fast run the last

2ks whick is all downhill running.


The last 2ks felt really fast and I thought I was flying...


RACE the second Half.



BTW, a good training doesn't just train your physiological parameter's like

LT, VO2MAX, etc, it can also train on the racing aspect--how you should race.

Well, the easy run besides piling up your weekly mileage, has a point of teaching

the dicipline of holding back. The hard interval/tempo might do good on

training the GUT. The long run, well, I had just talked about it.

Crank on.

Penang Bridge Internation Marathon 2008

Opps...

Penang Bridge International Marathon 2008 DOESN'T have a

FULL marathno category.


What would you think about it?