Running Makes You Smarter

I remembered I read somewhere in the Internet saying that running will make you smarter. That article seems to be written by some sort of authoritative expert in the subject and it has lot of supportive arguments to support that notion though I can't quite remember what those are.

Anyway, I would be more than happy to buy that as I do run quite a bit during the recent few years (but I am not so sure whether I run entirely to get smarter.) However, the empirical result of my experiment of one doesn't quite seem to fit...


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After 5 laps of warmup and some light stretching, KW and I lined up in the common start line of the track. It was dead silence between us. We both knew what laid ahead, a grueling 20 laps tempo run, targeting 2:00/lap each.

As my sixth sense (I do have some of those, in case you don't know) told me I might run into trouble counting 1 to 20, the plan was simple, just count 1 to 5 for four times instead.

The first 2K was a breeze. Every time I crossed the common start line, I pressed that BIG RED button and the Polar clocked faster time than 2:00, every time without failure.

BEEP...ONE ..Good, 1:58 ...
BEEP...TWO ..Not bad, 1:59...
BEEP...THREE ..Well done, 1:58...
BEEP...FOUR ..Yes! 1:59...
BEEP...FIVE .Yeah, right on target, deadly accurate, 2:00...


Somehow, after the first five laps, things got a little harder. The Polar seemed to refuse to show anything faster than 2:00.

BEEP...ONE ..Hmm... 2:01 ...
BEEP...TWO ..Oops, need to pick up a bit now... 2:01...
BEEP...THREE .. just push a little faster, you dump aXX...2:01...
BEEP...FOUR ..WHAT? I thought I told you to go faster?...2:03...
BEEP...FIVE ..Damn! still've got 10 more laps to go... 2:02...


The effort of the second half of the time trial was definitely tripled that of the first half while the lap times were getting much slower.


BEEP...ONE ....2:01 ...
BEEP...TWO ......2:03...
BEEP...THREE ......2:03...
BEEP...FOUR ......... 2:05...
BEEP...FIVE ............ 2:05...


After six ks running at the tempo pace, things were getting blurry. At this stage, I was really struggling. My breathing was heavy, I was clearly panting. And the target of averaging 2:00/lap was a long long goner. All I cared at this stage was counting how many more laps to go.


Endure, endure and make it to that starting line and I've got 1 more down.

Now, only five more laps to go, I can handle that.

Just hang on, forget about that darn thing of 2:00, just hold on and finish the damn run.

BEEP...ONE ..OK, four more to go....2:05 ...

BEEP...TWO ..OK, 2 down, three to go, hang in there....2:04 ...


All the while, KW stayed silently somewhat 1 meter behind me (Hey, KW, that's called drafting and that is cheating, just in case you are reading this.) At this point, he must had figured out that I wasn't anywhere near to be able to clock 40:00 for 20 laps, so he started to pull away from me.

As he smoked me, my competitive instinct was awaken and I started to push really hard too. The consequence of that reckless response was quick to show, my right calf started to pull immediately and that must be due to the lactate accumulation.

Now that was the beginning of a different ball game. It wasn't so much about achieving 2:00 per lap or chasing KW anymore, it was just a matter of survival and finishing of the run.

Having not option at hands, I slowed down and fortunately, the cramp settled down.

Just three more to go, hang in there....

At this point, the lung and the legs really started to hurt like hell. All I wanted was just to finish the 20 laps and pack the run. All my mind was thinking at that moment was just making it to the finish line again one more time and I would stop there (it amazed me that I could keep cheating myself to repeat that again and again, though I am not sure that I am too smart to cheat myself or I am too dumb to be cheated.)

I couldn't care less for the lap time so I didn't even bother to look at the watch anymore.

BEEP, two more to go ...

BEEP, YEAAHH..ONE MORE, let's just pump up a bit ...

As I started to lap on the final, KW was already some 100 meters ahead of me and the gap was gaining fast. Though I tried very hard pushing my legs, they didn't quite seemed to response. As I turned into the last straight and started to sprint, I saw KW just crossed to finishing line. Somehow, he did something really strange. He didn't stop there as usual and continued to run. That puzzled me a lot and I thought may be he was trying to cool down a little.

As I crossed the finishing line finally (what a relief pressing that BIG RED button, BEEEEP! So soothing!) I saw that KW was not way cooling down. He was clearly pushing harder and faster.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.. Don't be such a jerk. You don't have to run an extra lap to show off how good shape you are...

As he finally came to the finish line again and stopped running after that(puffing and panting like hell that his lungs almost dropped out, I am sure!), I asked whether he had run 21 laps. He seemed to be a little puzzled and not too sure himself, as he replied "...Ughh....may be...I think I did!"


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When I sat down in front of my desktop computer and looked at the log of the Polar Pro Trainer, I noticed a time of 38:40 for the time trial.

WHAT? How could it be!


I started counting the lap.

"1..2..3..4..5......19".


19! There was no 20!!!

The plain fact of knowing that not only I failed miserably at the task of doing an average of 2:00/lap, but also failed mysteriously at the simple act of counting 1 to 5 four times really hurts. What relieved me a little was the fact that KW also shared the same problem (even though he had gotten the counting right, obviously he wasn't too sure himself too.)

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Now, to that wise guy somewhere in the web who claims running make you smarter, I have got a question for you.

"Of all those more than 13,000 kms that I have run in the last five years, how come I still couldn't count straight from 1 to 5, correctly, huh?!"

Crank on.

TCX2HRM UPDATE2

This version has only minor fix that solve some parsing error of file.

Download at tcx2hrm update2.

Happy using.

You've Just Made My Day

Have you ever been psyched out by an old runner who is much slower
than you?

I just did!


Last Sunday, when I was running toward the Bkt Aman car park on the
returning trip of the Hartamas loop, just right after crossing the
highway junction, I saw an old runner "jogged" in a turtle pace about
tens of meter ahead of me. Not wanting to cause any embarrassment
or paying any disrespect, I passed him silently and swiftly by
picking up the pace a few notch.


But after running pass that long stretch of undulating hills stored
after Selangor Property, fatigue set in rather quickly. I was
totally running out of steam, somehow, I just didn't feel like
running anymore (heck, I was supposed to be still in the Rest &
Recovery phase scheduled after that marathon race that almost
squeezed every last drop of performance out of me).

I took a quick glance around, making sure nobody was nearby, and
decided to take a walk (I am sure you know how embarrass it could be
for a runner to get caught walking.)

For the first time, I took the time to smell the rose and
seemingly thought that it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Just as I was fully engrossed in enjoying the beautiful scenery
along the way, someone approached me fast and startled me by staying
way too close.

It was that same old man that I passed some time ago.


"Didn't you just overtake me a while ago?!"
(Something strong must have compelled him to approached me and asked
me this question, though I was't sure it was a question mark or an
exclamation mark. He was on the opposite of the road shoulder which
is two-line wide, mind you. May be it was that swift passing stunt
that I did a while ago really taunted him.)


"Ugh...I..I... ugh.., I just crashed and burnt"
I reply stutteringly.


"HeHeHeHe"
He literally laughed out loud while running ahead and
crossing the road onto the opposite site of the road shoulder,
leaving me with consternation.


And if you think that is the worst, you are wrong.

Just as I dragged my sorry ass slowly entering the car park entrance
after walking the remaining three km or so, Mr. Old Man was driving
out of the entrance and obviously saw me. He must have arrived 20
minutes or so ahead of me as he appeared to have taken a bath and
fully changed.

Though I pretended I didn't see him, I did notice that he was
shaking his head and was having that disdainful look on his face.
Somehow, I couldn't hold up my head.

Well, no doubt that he just made my day!


Crank on.

TCX2HRM Update

A newer version of TCX2HRM has been released.

It now handles PAUSE in exercise, so that the total execise time
is accurate within a second.

It also implement a moving average filter to smooth the
rather "JUMPY" Garmin Speed/Pace Curve, so that the graph is much
smoother showing in Polar Pro Trainer.


Download the new nersion by clicking

TCXHRMv2.



Crank on.

TCX2HRM a Garmin Forerunner to Polar File Converter

For those who owned a Polar HRM long ago and recently just couldn't resist

the temptation and have migrated to Garmin, but still want to keep all

training information with the Polar Pro Trainer,

and

for those who have Garmin Forerunner, but would like to take advantage

of the rich analytical capabilities offered by the Polar Pro Trainer,


below is the tool that could just be the right solution.


Actually someone have already coded a tool and hosted it on the web

http://converter.gps4sport.com/.

But somehow, I am not too keen to go online converting a file and moreover,

I need some extra features, like keeping the lap time after conversion.

So, I ended up coding my own converter.


Click
download tcx2hrm to download the tool.

PLEASE DOWNLOAD THE LATEST RELEASE AS THERE ARE SOME FIXES, PLEASE REFER TO NEWER POST


To use the tool, first unzip the file, edit the tcx2hrm.ini file accordingly.

Basically, you want to edit the parameters like weight, resting HR, MaxHR, and

also the various HR zone so that Polar Pro Trainer can display it according to

your setting.


Copy the tcx2hrm.ini to WINDOWS directory and copy the tcx2hrm.exe to your DESKTOP.

From Garmin Training Center, export the exercise that you want to convert to a

TCX file.

Then, click the tcx2hrm.exe to run it, enter the pathname to your tcx file and the

tool will output the converted data to a file named YYMMDD01.hrm,

where YY is the year, MM is the month and DD is the day.

Copy the hrm file to your Polar Pro Trainer data directory, for example,

C:\Program Files\Polar\Polar ProTrainer\Yourusername\2009, then start Polar Pro

Trainer, click on the appropriate day and add a new exercise, click on the "Attach

an exercise file" to attach your newly converted file and that's it.


Below are screenshots for a workout displayed both in

Polar Pro Trainer and Garmin Training Center .




Polar Pro Trainer



Garmin Training Center




If you encounter any problem or would like to report any bug,

feel free to email to me, but I will be able to work on this

only when I have free time.

Hope this help.

Crank on.

You Will Laugh

You will Laugh.

School Sports Day Part II

Javelin Throw




Hurdle Accident




How not to Hurdle


Crank On.

School Sports Day Part I

For my eldest son, it is school sports day again.

In order to cheer him up a bit for not getting anything out of it,

I thought it is nice to share a few videos.




400m Hurdle





Best Polevault Ever




Ouch! My_Balls.


Hope that you enjoy it.



Crank on.

SHAPE Night Run 2009

This is the first time I ever run an organized night run, kind of different.

Surprisingly, the Shape Night Run attracted qute a large number of runners.


Anyway, I think I still prefer to run in the morning as I would have insomia problem

if running too close to sleeping hours.


Below is the photo taken by me during the event for the Permaisuri Group Runners.

The quality of the photo is really poor as I am not very into photography,

sorry!


Shape Night Run Photo

Crank on.

Speed Zone View of Polar S625X and RS400/800

If you own a Polar S625X, RS400 or RS800 HRM, then

most likely you are using the Polar Precision Performance or

Pro Trainer too.

The Pro Trainer is a great software and I use it daily.

But maybe speed zone view is just one extra feature that

the Pro Trainer doesn't come with.


I have coded a simple tool just for that and you are welcome to

download it.

click
spd download.

First unzip the file, edit the spd.ini with a editor like notepad and change the DIR to point

to your data. Edit the zones as well if you like.

Then copy the spd.ini to your window directory, and the spd.exe to your desktop.

Click the spd.exe to run it. Click File|Open to open your hrm file and you

can view your workout in speed zone defined in spd.ini. You can also use report

to view the speed zone for a period of time. You will most likely

not using the Graph capabilty of spd.exe, and thus, I won't include

the OCX needed for graphing.

Hope this help and Enjoys using the tools.

Crank on.

SCKLM 2009

Check out the following link for some photos

taken by my nephew Siaw Yi and me.

click here

Crank on.

Permaisuri Lake Track SCKLM Circuit Run

The Permaisuri Lake Track circuit run for the SCKLM

last Sunday was a successful one.


Thank to Phoon, Sim, Ah Foo, Fatt, Low in helping carrying the

drinks, and BIG thanks to Har who is kind enough to wake up

wee hour in the morning and helped us manning the water

station.


Most runners dutifully completed at least 21 laps run, while some

achieved the 25laps target. A few even did a 27 laps run yesterday.


Well done and bravo.


While doing the long run on the lake track has some obvious disadvantage,

(like half of the track is in concrete and brick, and after about 20laps or so,

you really can feel that the impact is killing the legs, and after 7:00am,

people start to pouring in and really crowd the track) its pros clearly

out weight its cons.



I seriously considering doing the LONGEST LONG RUN on the lake tack in 7/6/09,

the next next Sunday.

In the mean time, this week is a recovery and easy week.


Rest well and enjoys.


Crank on.

SCKLM Circuit Run, Be there at 4:45am

To all runners who will participate in this

SCLKM Circuit Run on 24/5/09 Sunday, please gather

at the Permaisuri Lake car park near the swimming pool

latest by 4:45am. We will start distributing the iso drink

at 4:45am. The run will be started at 5:00am sharp.



Crank on.

SCKLM Circuit Run

SCKLM Circuit Run 09

Date: 24/5/09 (Sunday)
Time: Starting at 5:00am
Distance: 25 laps of Lake track (32.5K)
Payment: RM5 per person



Iso drinks will be provided as well as bananas.

Noticed that iso drink will only be served after 6:00am
due to no volunteers manning the station.

Help in transporting the iso drinks,
"watching" the iso drinks and bananas is very much needed.

During the previous circuit run, I had encountered
quite a few non-runners who thought that the iso-drinks were
supposed to be some promotion kind of things and
they really help themselves drinking without asking.

This time around, we only planed to purchase 6 cartons of iso drinks
(6X24=144) and assuming each runners drink 4-5 bottles, there are only
enough for 30 runners.


So, everybody please helps out, as I will also need to run
the circuit run myself, so I won't be responsible for
manning the water station this time, sorry...

The purpose of the circuit run is what I called

Marathon Pace Run.

Firstly, the flat course of the lake track is
chosen to stimulate the flat SCKLM route condition.
(You are free to run the hills, but if you like the hills,
why not run in Double hill or Hartamas. You could take the
outside 4k laps too, but you would not be able to pace yourself
as nicely as the 1.3K lap does.)


More importantly, it is a practice for the target marathon
pace. For example, if you shoot at 4:45 for the upcoming
SCKLM, then you should aim at completing the 25laps in
3hr38, which translate to average of 8:43 per laps.


I suggest that you always use a range for your marathon
goal, for example, you should aim at 4:45 to 4:30 intead of
just 4:45 or 4:30.
This means completing the circuit run in anytime between 3:27
and 3:38 is fine.

Always start at the low end of the pacing for the fist 10laps
of so ( which mean 8min43sec or slower per lap) and then speed
up towards the last 10 or 15 laps (trying to push to 8:30 or
even 8:15).

Below is the chart that I prepared for marathon
goal time between 5:30 to 3:15 and the corresponding
32.5K(25laps) target time and the average lap time.

Marathon	32K5(25laps)	Lake Lap Time	Min/K
5:30	4:13	10:07	7:46
5:15	4:02	9:38	7:25
5:00	3:50	9:11	7:04
4:45	3:38	8:43	6:42
4:30	3:27	8:15	6:21
4:15	3:15	7:47	6:00
4:00	3:02	7:18	5:37
3:45	2:52	6:51	5:16
3:30	2:40	6:23	4:55
3:15	2:28	5:56	4:34

Hope this helps.

May we have a successful circuit run this coming Sunday,

see you there.

Crank on.

Ooops, I slipped

Remembered that not long ago I decided to say no to alcohol, well

unfortunately, I slipped.

That was on 11/5/09 and I officially broke a streak of four weeks of

no drinking.

I won't try finding any valid excuse for the slip, and I certainly

won't beat myself up.

I didn't drink on the 12th, neither did I drink on the 13th, and I

am sure I won't today.

Let's just see how long this second streak can last.


Crank on.

Weight Loss 3

Ever wonder what is your ideal weight for running?

Well, Dr. Stillman might have just the right suggestion for you.


Firstly, he fixes the non-active man's average weight for height

with a simple formula.

He allocates 110lbs (56.2kg) for the first five feet (1.524m) in height,

and 5 1/2lbs (2.296kg) for every inch (0.025m) thereafter.

He is a bit harsher with women, though, giving them only 100lbs (45.3kg)

for the first five feet and 5lbs (2.268kg) for every inch thereafter.

Having established the average is not where he stops,

he then speculates on the ideal weight for athletic performance, as follows:

Sprinters (100-400m): 2.5% lighter than average

Middle-distance runners (800m - 10K): 12% lighter than average

Long-distance runners (10 miles onwards): 15% lighter than average


Now, for a person of with height of 5'6" like me, that translates into

143lbs(65Kg) for an average non-active man and if he happens to be a long

distant runner, his weight is best kept to be around 121Lbs(55.25Kg).


Wow, that's a lot deviations in my case,

but at least now I know what I should aim for.


BTW, if you happen to be overweight by a lot more than

an average non-active person(me included),


DON'T DESPAIR!

LOOK THINGS AT THE BRIGHT SIDE,

AT LEAST YOUR RUNNING PERFORMANCE HAS A LOT OF ROOMS TO IMPROVE.



It is always better if one is 15% heavier than an average person

and run a sub 50min 10K than having a long distant

runner's body frame and still run on the same par.

The former will just outdoes the later in no time

once one gets rid of those excess baggage .



It would be interesting to know how much performance gain

can be achieved from the weight drop,though.

If I happen to come across any research relating to this,

it would be nice to be posted in Weight Loss 4.



But until then, Crank on.

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.