Trip to Bidor and Sabak Bernam 2009

On the wee hours of the morning

last Sunday, 38 members of Permaisuri runners

gathered together and traveled to Bidor to

run the half marathon.

The half marathon was surprisingly well organized,

except for the fact that iso drink was being served

only during the late miles.


I think among the plus points are scenic route,

enough distance marker(though I think some

of them were misplaced, some Ks are really short while some

were too long), good road marshaling,

ample food after the run, etc.

After the run, the group traveled to Teluk Arang for a lavish

lunch. Then the group travelled to Sabak Bernam to pay a visit

to Mr Tan, the Sabak Bernam pacesetter group leader, as well as

to Mr Lian's bird net house.


The group then visited the nearby coconut plantation and finally

had dinner near the bay and captured splendid view of sunset there.


It was a very enjoyable trip, there were plenty of laughter, chit-chats,

etc. I hope we could organize more trip like this...


Please visit the following

Bidor Photo Album taken by our most dedicated cameraman, MR Loh Wing Keen(Thanks Loh!)



Crank on.

Weight Loss II

"We are each an experiment of one" --- George Sheehan





An overweight runner said to me once how he hoped

to lose 10 pounds and how that might help him

in the upcoming marathon. While I am not sure

about the boost in race performance from

weight lost, I certainly shared his determination

to shed off some unwanted fat.

But trying to lose weight while training for a marathon

at the same time can be very difficult and frustrating

experience. You need to experiment with lot of

variables and try to find a balance in calorie intake

and expense so that you still have enough energy to train

through all those long runs, tempo runs, interval workout, etc.

that will instill progression in performance while at the same

time lose some pounds.


If you try to do the same, I might be able to give some pointers,

but again, I am no expert whatsoever and you are warned to take this

with a grain of salt.


First of all, never ever lose weight fast.


A single pounds of weight lost in a week is the absolute upper limit.

I seriously doubt that anybody can still maintain a decent

quality training schedule if he lose weight faster than that.

Honestly, I lost 10 lbs in about 12 weeks, and I personally

find that I was not as energetic as before and the quality of my quality

runs like long run, tempo, interval workouts are usually compromised.

Most importantly, I find myself more prone to injury.

I felt that I seriously need to slow down the weight lost progression,

may be losing a pound in every two or three weeks is the

more appropriate formula.



Secondly, you need to weight daily regularly and

log it. You can use a spreadsheet software like Excel to log and

graph it. If you don't like to turn on the PC every time after you

weight yourself in the scale, by all means, use that pencil and

log book graph book. The important thing is that

you log the data and be able to plot a graph to see the trend.


You then have a choice whether you want to log the daily

calorie intake and expense. If you decide to be meticulous

about it, then, you need to have a system to estimate the calorie

content of the food you take as well as your calorie expenses.


First let's talk about the easier of the two, which is daily

calorie expense. You need to estimate you

Basal metabolic rate(BMR) as well as

your daily activity calorie expenditure.

You can visit
BMR Calculator to calculate your estimated BMR.

Then you can visit

Calorie Calculator

to calculate your calorie expense for various training that you do, i.e., running.





Now let's look at the more complex part of the two, the calorie intake.

To be able to estimate your daily calorie intake, you need to do a bit

of research and experiment. You can visit the following site

Food calorie

to get a rough idea of what the calorie content for various kind of food

to begin with. Don't worry that you don't know how to relate how

much is a cup, how much is a portion, etc. Just get a rough idea of

how much calorie each food carry.

What is important is that you slowly developed a system of estimating

the calorie content of the food that you take daily. It doesn't matter

whether the estimate is accurate or not, what is important is that you

employ the same system in estimating the food calorie content throughout.


With the BMR and calorie burnt information, together with your own way/system

of estimating the food calorie content, you can now log daily calorie intake

and expense. You will keep logging these data for an extensive period of

time, then, you will try to analyse the relationship between calorie

deficit(calorie intake - calorie expense) to your weight change and find

a relationship between the two. For example, from 3 months of

data analysis, you can conclude that with your own system of estimation,

your average daily calorie deficit of 400 will lead to a pound of weight loss in

two weeks or something like that.


Forget about what people tell you that to lose a pound of fat you need to

burn 3500 calories, etc. In addtional to the fact that this requires you

to know the exact calorie content of the food together with the exact amount

(could you tell me how much calorie to count for my mum's secret recipe of

Cantonese fried noodle in oster sauce with black pepper that was served at dinner),

your body chemistry and metabolism is much more complex and

complicated than that, and each individual's mileage may varied.


What is important is that you find your own formula that describe yourself

best. And isn't in that sense "We are each an experiment of one"?



Through an extensive period of data gathering, logging

and analysis, fine tune your calorie intake and expense estimation

system so that it will best correlate with your weight gain or loss.

It took me two years of fine tuning and it is still ongoing, though,

I now already developed a fairy accurate estimation system

that can correlate well between my estimated calorie deficit with my weight change.



Once you found that formula, it seems that you are now totally in charge of

the rate of weight gain/loss. Unfortunately, things doesn't always go that way

and you will find you need to revisit the analysis again and again. I

suspect that there are other influential factors involved, like the intensity/

volume of the training, stress level, sleep pattern, etc., that somehow

affect the metabolism rate of the body.


Lastly, losing weight is not as easy as it is said.

We all need a fair amount of discipline and persistence to carry

out the plan. As always, when we find ourselves wondering

why we live a life resemble a great deal to that of a monk's,

let's treat this as we are doing ourselves great favour by adopting a

healthier lifestyle.


Hope this help.

Crank on.

Weight Loss

I have lost 10 pounds in 12 weeks, which

started from 159.3lbs in 28/1/09 and drop to 149.3 as today.




(click to enlarge)


From the graph, I use the 7 day moving average

to smooth and filter out the daily fluctuation of

weight so that I get a more meaningful trend.

This fared quite well as I planned to drop 1 lbs

per week. Surprisingly, the drop in weight doestn't

really make me a faster runner automatically, at least

not until now.

But my BMI certainly drops to a healthy level.

If you are interested in calculating your BMI,

visit this BMI Calculator.

And if you would like to download the tool that

I log and graph my weight, you can get it from

eDiary

which I coded some time ago.


Crank on.

Ease Off

When I woke up last morning, I sensed a sharp pain

on my right medial tibia while I took my steps toward

the bathroom. Ooooop, immediately I knew that spelt

trouble and it seemed that old friend shin splint wanted

to pay me a visit again (I knew that would happen if

I insisted on pushing it after picking up a mild

shin splint issue resulted from the weekend 32ker, in fact,

I already planned for a rest day or an really easy day

on the mill the day before, but that evening weather

turned out to be tooooo pretty to miss an excellent outdoor

run, and .... See, some people are just slow learner).


The pain was severe enough to practically force me into

hobble. While I quickly popped an Ibuprofen, I was pondering

on what would I do to the Q2 tempo run that was scheduled

in the evening.

Needless to say, the effort to "gut through"

the tempo run last evening was not very successful, and in

some way, I was glad that I packed the run after warming up

and while trying to settle into the tempo pace.

Soon after I started running on the tempo pace, I realized that

I would not survive that pace for the whole 10k, at least

not without picking up another injury that would sideline me

for the next six weeks or so. I would be much better off

to called it an easy day and bagged the run (Ah Ha, somehow,

the 'old dog' still learned a thing or two from past

painful lessons).


Thank god that the shin responded very well to the combination

of ice, NSAID, and rest, this morning the pain subsided

significantly though not painless.


While I am happy that I don't have to hobble my way

to the bathroom today, I find myself pondering again on the possibility

of doing back to back hard day training, which means running

the missed tempo run today and the Interval workout tomorrow,

so that I still can have a rest day before I do the weekend

long run again.



Don't you see that obvious obsessive-compulsive

disorder of a silly runner?



On reflection, I had done enough hard works the last two

weeks to justify some easy days, or god forbids, even some

rest days. I had done 2 long runs longer than 30ker, set

a PR in a 10K race, and done a super furious interval

workout that induced DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness)

for days.



While I still have no idea whether I will still pursue the

tempo run today, I know that I will feel much better and not as

guilty as before if I skip that tempo or even tomorrow's interval workout,

as I know that I have enough legitimate excuses of not blindly

following the program.


Sometimes, I think I really have to listen more

to what my body is trying to tell me (pain) before it decides

to force me into being obedient(injury).

In the endeavor of pursuing excellence and maximizing our

potential, we all walk a very very thin fine line between

overreaching and getting injured, and sometimes always,

it is better to be safe than sorry!

Crank on.

ZZZ

To some extent, marathon training is like interval workout,

especially when you are doing three quality runs per week.

The first week is like the first repeat, it felt so easy

that you wonder what is the problem with all those guys who

complaint about marathon training.

The second week, you've got even stronger and you think you

are invincible and could do it forever. Yeah, bring it on

man!


But as you progress through the calendar of the training weeks,

and as the training intensity gets tougher and the volume gets higher,

the training soon take its toll.


It is the sixth week of my marathon training and I already felt

'zapped'. Yesterday's tempo run was no way up to expectation.

It wasn't because I wouldn't push hard, but couldn't.

The pace of the run clearly felt as hard as 5:00min/K, but every time

I looked at the Polar watch, it said 5:30min/K or slower. I willed

my mind and pushed my legs to make the watch said 5:00min/K to me,

but the legs didn't get faster, instead, it got heavier

and even more clumsy. Obviously, the polar watch didn't response too.


Now I am alarmed to get the ZZZ in, or else, not only tomorrow's

interval workout will face similar fate, the weekend long run

together with next week's training will be affected too.


There is a ghost in every marathon training program,

and if you are not careful enough and haunted by it,

you will face the following symptoms. Firstly,

like what aforementioned, your performance drops

even though you have tried harder. And that drop of

performance is usually sudden and without any obvious reason.

Another thing that will be quite noticeable is insomnia.

You will tend to have difficulties in falling asleep,

wake up more often than usual during the night,

and feel awfully tire upon waking up instead of

being refreshed. You also tend to have more

leg soreness, aches and pains here and there

in muscles and joints. You becomes more

moody and irritable, you have decreased appetite,

etc. Generally, you are washed-out and drained out

of energy, worse of all, you might even lose enthusiasm

for the beloved sport of running.

But one thing for sure,

YOU ALWAYS FEEL A COMPULSIVE NEED TO RUN AND TO TRAIN.

and the more you train, the worse it gets, and the worse

it get, the harder you train. Clearly, it is a vicious cycle.

BTW, that ghost's name is OVERTRAIN SYNDROME.


And if you detect any of these aforementioned symptoms,

it is best you back off your training and start the

ZZZ loading.

You will continue taking these prescriptions until

the day when the urge of training hard sparks again

and turns to fire. But until then,


REST WELL.


Crank on.

Say No to Alcohol

Last Sunday's(5/4/09) long run was a total disaster. I knew it the moment

I started the run. The legs were way too slugish than they should have.

The calves were heavy and the hams were tense. Moreover, I could sense

that the breathing was much more labor than I used to when I started

climbing the first hill near the railway station. The 28Ker long run

ended up in lot and lot of walking and suffering.

After the run, I wondered why I did so poorly.

Noop, I didn't catch a flu and yeap, I did get some

sleep before the run.

Heck, I even had the seldom scheduled two days of no

running tapering before that long run.


WHAT THE HELL WENT WRONG?

Then, I rememebered that I did load a whole bottle of red wine followed

by some cans of beer(I didn't remember exactly how many, man, who would

remember that when they were fully intoxicated) on Friday night.


While I didn't drink a drop of alcohol the following day, it seemed

that the Friday's alcohol loading had done enough damage and I didn't quite

recover from that abuse before the long run.


Realizing that, I decided that I have trained too hard to be ruined by

some drinking problem, so I swore not to drink again, well, at least

not until the next time I drink again.


Seriously, I just want to know how much difference does it make

if I skip all those drinks.


While I don't have the full answer at hand yet, I might just have a glimpse

of the truth today.


On Saturday, I did a 30ker long run. I felt good for the whole run

and the finish was strong and fast. I certainly finished

the run with a clear feeling that I could have done better and faster and longer.

Yesterday (Sunday), I raced another pretty good 10Ker. It seemed that I

have recovered substantialy from the previous day's long run and was able

to race hard.


NOW I AM TOTALY SOLD ON THIS NO ALCOHOL PROPOSITION.




I wonder if one week of no drinking can do that much of magic,

how much more it would do if there is a one month,

or better still, one year,

or even better, the rest of my life,

of totally abstaining from it.



But whatever it is, I have to do better than

"swearing no drinking until the next time of drinking".


May my quit smoking experience helps me in achieving this, and

may the mantras


"Not another Sip"

"Take it one day at a time"


strengthened my mind the next time I feel the urge to

raise the mug again.


Crank on.

P/S: Okay, I will post the next time I drink again
and let's see how long that might be ...

Anual Dinner of Permaisuri Runners

Time flies, yet another year passed ...

It is time Permaisuri runners gather together for yet another

Leg Resting Party, only this time, it gets bigger and better.

The food taste good, the wine flow freely, the music and

singing sound louder, and the dance ...


Below is the link of the photos taken

Photo Album for Permaisuri Runner Anual Dinner 2009



Courtesy of Loh Wing Keen.



Crank on.