Thursday, November 24, 2011

Fish Burps and other Weird Running Things I've Discovered

1. I’m glad that I’m only doing the halfie and not a full marathon because I’ve pretty much run out of detours to make to get home. Also, I realise my ‘ultimate running playlist’ doesn’t last for all that long. Plus, around the 16k mark is when my bag’s jostling against my neck starts becoming unbearable.

2. Having a filling sushi meal before a long run gives you fishy burps and it lasts the entire run. And it isn’t pleasant. The thing is I actually know all this because I’ve stupidly done it before, but apparently I’m not smart enough to learn from my mistakes.

3. I sing when I run. Well mostly I mouth out words of songs, but if ever I’m feeling out of it and there’s no one around I sometimes belt out the chorus of a song. Obviously I run out of breath really quickly and then regret doing that. I also regret it when sometimes I don’t do a good enough check and realise there are actually people near me. There actually is a good reason why I sing/mouth words whilst running: I find it helps me run through a stitch. I wish there was some scientific way to explain this, but there isn’t. It just works for me. So if someday you’re in a car and you drive by a crazy person running and looking like she’s talking to herself. It is likely to be me trying to get rid of a stitch. Sometimes I do a little jig too but that has nothing to do with side stitches and more to do with me being a little too into my music.

4. My brain stops working when I run. When I was running back last week I spotted someone I thought was an old friend of mine. I yelled his name as I ran past. The guy stopped and looked quizzically at me, which should have been my first clue. Instead of running on, I stopped, looked at the guy, pointed at him and said ‘SR?’ Doh, obviously it wasn’t him and obviously I looked like a complete fool. I refused to take that route when I did my long run this week lest I meet the guy.

5. On top of achy legs, my stomach muscles ache after a long run. I’m not sure why, but today it feels like I did a bunch of crunches yesterday night!

6. Not really running related but I take back what I said about good yoga schools. I realise I meant good yoga teachers. I went back for a yoga class on Monday this week and had a very blah class. The instructor was nice, but it just felt like a whole bunch of stretching. And it was hardly challenging. And there was a lot of sitting around cleansing your mind of this or that. Yawn.


What I did this week:

Monday: 1hr yoga

Yesterday: 16k run in 1hr 57mins (The last time, and only other time, I did a 16k run I did it in 2hr 26mins, so even if this is the slowest a human being could run, I’m not complaining!)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Training Updates

Last Monday: 1hr Personal Training

Last Thursday: 14K run

It was long and painful. I was pretty much over it by about 10k but I pushed through (woohoo!) and made it all the way without stopping to trot...well at least not till the last 1k. Point to note, overhead bridges are the enemy 13k into a run!

Saturday: Woodcutter's Trail/Butterfly Trail in 3.5hrs

It took that long not because the walk was particularly long but there was just so much stopping and waiting around for people. We did this with the local Y and there were a lot of people. While I think there are overseas treks that I might do with the Y, the local ones just have a lot of slow people. I'm not particularly fast, but these guys are sloooow.

And while I think it's great that the Y organises walks like these because it gets people (who might ordinarily be inert) out and moving as well as raising awareness on the presence of this ("natural") side of Singapore, but short of there being another local trail I need directions through, I'd probably be a bit reluctant to join them. Sorry Gracie!

Sunday: Salomon X-Trail Race - See below.

On a side note, since Jo asked - I wasn't actually doing real yoga yet. It was a beginner class to prep your body for yoga (or something like that) and it involved doing a lot of squats. I think when I progress further I'd be learning Ashtanga yoga?

2011 Salomon X-Trail 10k Race Report

Despite signing up for a ton of races this year, this is the first running race I've turned up for in ages and my legs are feeling 'achy' today.

Overall I like the Salomon X-Trail. When I'm mentally prepared to get muddy and gross then sloshing around in mud is actually pretty fun. More fun is running right through mud puddles and getting mud on the nancies who were tip-toeing around the puddles. It's a trail race and you're already half covered in mud, might as well enjoy it!

The morning started off well weather-wise. Clear skies and all that. I was sleepy. Very very sleepy. I think I probably was half asleep at the start line. By the time my legs started working, Rich was already off like a shot while I mucked around at the back trying to get into a rhythm.

As Rich describes it, the trail route basically looked like someone took a pen and just scribbled all over a map.



Although it's not completely obvious, the course isn't on a huge area, but somehow it never really felt boring. Well actually there was a lot of scrambling up and down hills as well as overtaking walkers on narrow trails, so there wasn't much time to get bored. And there was never really much of a bottle-neck situation...yes there were bits where I had to slow to a trot but frankly I was just pleased to have an excuse to rest my tired legs.

When we met up after the run, Rich and I agreed that the Salomon X-Trail is one of the more fun races. Hills, mud and lovely trails...what's not to love about it? And a special shout-out to the volunteers at this race who are one of the best race cheerleaders!

Time: 1:20:24 (86th out of 254 women! woohoo!)

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Unlucky 13 and an Eventful Weekend

13 isn't my lucky number it would seem. I've got to 13k on my training schedule but it's been a hard to actually run it. The first time I managed only 10k (and this involved a lot of stopping, wheezing and walking), the second only 4k-5k (?) because my watch/foot-pod bailed on me and I had a bad stomachache (which resulted in more stopping, wheezing and walking) and the third I have no idea how far I ran because (11k-12k maybe?) the same watch/foot-pod was still spoilt despite sending it to get fixed. So no idea if I've done 13k yet but I did feel completely wrecked after my 1hr 41 min run on Friday and there was a lot of walking, hobbling and near-crawling at the end of it. I also felt like throwing up after which I'm not sure was really a great achievement.

Anyway, I just got back from Hong Kong last week and wound up with a massive stomachache for a week. I supposedly had an acidic stomach (whatever that means) so was put on meds for a week, which is my justification for being a bit lazy last week. All I did were the two runs (the 4k-5k and the 11-12k one)!

I felt a bit better over the weekend and went for a 2.5hr trek on Saturday(I always feel a bit stupid using 'trek' in the Singapore context since trails here are hardly challenging!) and then yoga and rock-climbing on Sunday. I was supposed to meet Karrie for a drink somewhere in the weekend but my stomach was still a bit iffy and I didn't want to risk aggravating it.

Incidentally I tried yoga again (see above) and went to a proper yoga studio this time. It was so difficult! And we're talking just the beginner lesson, not even a real yoga class. At first I wanted to laugh because he made us sway to and fro and for some reason seeing everyone do that seemed hilarious to me. But as he made us do squats combined with some complex arms above head moving at your waist thing, I wasn't laughing and was just desperately hoping the class would end. So I sweated it out like a pig and today I ache so bad. But a good ache. They did all the 'close your eyes, cleanse your mind' thing at the end, but that gave me time to just lie down and die a little, so I was cool with it. Bottom line, I'm glad I gave yoga another shot and the yoga at True Fitness is kind of crap.

What I've done (at least what I remember I've done)

3rd Nov: 10k run
Wednesday: Ran 4k-5k
Friday: Ran 11k-12k
Saturday: 2.5hr trek from Rifle Range to Mandai
Sunday: 1hr yoga and 1hr rock-climbing


In Hong Kong-

5th Nov: 4k run and 20 minutes weights
6th Nov: 2hr hike @ Dragon's Back