Holy taper, Batman

Where am I? What is this? What day is it? Oh hey there. It's Pre-Marathon Monday and I'm packing for this long-awaited vacation...

Last week was a bit of a blur. I did my usual week of night shift, but was also chasing a couple of pretty intense stories so most of those days turned out to involve roughly 12-14 hours of work - a couple of hours before my shift, and then the regular shift from 2 to 11pm.

Consequently, I. Was. Wiped.

Monday got off to a decent start: 6.5km + yoga.

Tuesday morning's track session also involved a tropical monsoon storm. I think the rain was coming down sideways. I hope Coach Shem brought a firehose to the evening track session to properly simulate a monsoon for them. Got to give everyone the same set, right?
Fortunately or unfortunately it was the exact same set as last week (if he does it a third time this week I'm going to scream. Unless it's hard 400s, then just kill me now.) - 6.5km?

Followed by some strength exercises.

Why yes, we all phone each other Monday night and coordinate our outfits, and then line up according to the rainbow...doesn't your team?

Wednesday and Thursday, I continued to be wiped out. On the Hansons plan, Wednesdays are usually a strategically-planned rest day in which you get to spend all day dreading Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I was dreading Thursday's planned 16km tempo so much that I physically couldn't get out of bed on Thursday morning and so the tempo run did not happen.

Friday morning I was still exhausted: 5km.

Saturday and Sunday we were in Penang for my high school friend's lovely wedding, so I ran a quick tempo 5km on Saturday morning before we headed to the airport.

Souvenir. Married people love other people's weddings, they remind us how fun ours were. 

Sunday was spent sleeping in and eating. And eating. And then eating some more. Total for the week: 23km and yoga.

Above: my better half with the best assam laksa known to man (pictures of the laksa itself would have been pointless. It looks like something that came out of a drain, but it tastes like heaven. Southeast Asian food tends to under-promise in looks but over-deliver.)

A few selections from the runner's dictionary

With apologies to Ambrose Bierce.

Fart - deeply suspicious. Never trust one.

Fartlek - Swedish for 'running full tilt until the next lamp-post, then walking three miles home'.

Foam roller - simultaneously a torture device and instrument of mercy

Lube - slathered liberally on intimate parts to...get your mind out of the gutter... prevent chafing...get your mind out of the gutter.

Long slow distance - Vital opportunity to get dropped on a group run 

Masochist - see 'runner'

Monsoon - a minor obstacle

Puddle - see 'monsoon' - the best part of a run, naturally  

Runner - see 'masochist'

Shower - failproof instrument for locating all the spots you've chafed, just in case you miss one

Give me some more suggestions! 

Gold Coast training log, week 16 (June 16 to 22)

Monday - 5.5km + yoga 

Tuesday - AM Track: 3[7(40s hard/ 20s easy) + 3min recovery] ; PM 3km eeeeeaaaaaasy and Body Pump. (Heart rate - don't know, don't care; pace - don't know, don't care; distance - don't know, don't care; effort - on target.) 

Wednesday - rest 

Thursday - 15.2km tempo at 1:36 (6:22 minutes per km with BEAUTIFUL PERFECT AMAZING weather - now I just need to hold that for 42.2km...) 

Friday - 5.64km easy + core and ITB routine 

Saturday - slept in 

Sunday - 23km in bits and bobs at the Run for Cover event (more on which later!) 

Total: 59km (estimated) 

Peak week

Hello from the loopiness that is peak week!

I hit 70km last week. For me, that's a lot. Possibly the most I've ever hit in a marathon training cycle. If you are paying attention to the Hansons plans, it is not remotely near the actual peak mileage one is supposed to get. But in terms of absolute time on my feet, that's certainly equivalent to other people's manymoremiles.

Every marathon cycle gets more interesting. Longer peak weeks? More ways to hurt? Adding a strength class? Bring it on. At this point I think I've been fairly good about those resolutions to stretch and do strength training. That was another little goal that I set down at the start of this cycle.

Oddly enough, I'm not totally wiped out and hungry and sleepy all the time. My body seems to have adapted just enough that I'm hungry and tired and sleepy, but not horrifically so. I would say I'm almost feeling good, but I'd rather not jinx it.

In honour of this I've been reading a couple of things:
- Nonrunners often ask me: Why are you running so much? So - How many miles is enough? The answer really depends on the distance of race you pick, the rate at which you ramp up, and the amount your body can handle. Me, I'd like to train just hard enough to hit whatever goals I've set over the distance I've picked and still finish smiling. For too many reasons to list I will never be competing at the Olympics, so I don't believe in suffering all that much.
- On un-becoming a runner is a musing on running, identity, and the extent to which being a runner is or isn't an identity. (The wag in me would like to pipe up: the sight of me running is pretty unbecoming anyway.)

Gold Coast training log week 15
Monday: 7.5km easy, followed by yoga class. I often run this easy run a little harder than I should be doing, because I am perpetually running late for yoga class.
Tuesday: AM: a very confused mixed-up speed session at the track with a substitute coach who accidentally got the location wrong. 5x800 with plyometrics, 4x100 sprints, 400m cooldown. PM: Bodypump class preceded by a meandering 3km because I (miracle...) got to the gym early.
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 12km tempo
Friday: 11km easy
Saturday: 25km long run. I'm solidifying my fuelling plan: endurolyte capsule before I start; one shot blok every 5km; an endurolyte cap and a minute walk break every hour.
Sunday: 5.9km less easy than I ought to (had to rush off to work after that)
Total: 70km 

More gelato than speedwork

Well, that was a rollercoaster three weeks. 

Two weeks of this:

Atop Pietra di Bismantova in Reggio Emilia (photo credit: Mr GCA)

I had gelato from this particular gelateria three times while we were in Florence.

The view from atop Il Duomo

Hikes and museums and cathedrals and gelato, oh my. 

Followed by nearly a week of this: 

working our tails off 8am-10pm each day to cover a confluence of three conferences - World Cities Summit, Singapore International Water Week, and CleanEnviro Summit

And a couple of tiny life triumphs: 

- I just found the swimsuit wringer machine in my gym. How have I lived without this before? Now after my long run I go and do my cooldown (five minutes on a stationary bike), my strength and core, my stretching...and I soak my shirt in water and wring it out manually a couple of times - and then stick it in the wringer so it's practically dry for the unfortunate folks around me on the train ride home! 

- A couple of my poems are running in the Manoa Journal's special Singapore issue, Starry Island! 

Gold Coast training log week 11 (May 12-18)

Monday: 11km of trails, then TRX in the evening

Tuesday: 10.53km -- mile reps with warmup and cooldown

Wednesday: 5km and stretch class 

Thursday was a travel day. 

Friday: 5km around Rome (we did a loop of the Colosseum!), 

Saturday and Sunday were spent walking around Rome. While wandering around we walked straight into 

a Race for the Cure 5K - Komen Foundation, pink ribbons and all - happening just around the Colosseum! 

Note: I'm not even going to count mileage for this and the next couple of weeks. Who knows how much time we spent on our feet? Nor do I really care - the point of this trip was a physical and mental break. 

Gold Coast training log week 12 (May 19-25)

Monday was another travel day - this time from Rome to Florence, and then getting settled in at my husband's uncle's place with my in-laws (they were with us from Monday till the end of the trip) 

Tuesday: 8km loop around Florence, in the hills south of the old city

Wednesday: Early morning hill sprints while nervously watching for SUVs to come barrelling down the narrow, steep road 

Thursday was spent wandering around Venice. 

Friday was in Florence again followed by a long drive up to the small town of Borgomanero to visit relatives. 

Saturday and Sunday involved a lot of heavy-duty eating...

Gold Coast training log week 13 (May 26-June 1)

Monday: 8km hill loop around Florence in the morning, followed by a 6km chunk of the Renaissance Ring to a small, ancient monastery. If you are in Florence for more than a few days I recommend taking a day out to do this; it makes a great break from fighting with the crowds of tourists. 

Tuesday: We drove to up a small Italian mountain town in the Appenines, got on a trail in the mist and fog, and then promptly veered off-course to an expert trail that involved a considerable amount of scrambling. Epic.

Wednesday: A far better hike.

enough said

Thursday involved SO MUCH CHEESE - a tour of a Parmigiano Reggiano factory, to be precise - and SO MUCH CURED MEAT (we hauled 2 kilos of prosciutto di parma and a kilo of sausage back home). This trip had all the elements of a perfect holiday: a little museum-ing and cathedral-ing, a little family time, a little outdoors time, and a lot of food. 

Friday to Saturday were also epic: woke up -> drove to Parma -> waited for train -> got on train to Bologna -> waited for train -> got on train to Rome -> waited for train -> got on train to Rome airport -> checked in -> waited -> sat on plane to Dubai -> napped, waited -> got on plane to Singapore -> landed in Singapore at 8pm. Total travel time: 30 hours. 

Sunday morning: 17km. 

 

Gold Coast training log week 14 (June 2-8) 

Monday and Tuesday were spent at the Epic Conference.

Wednesday was also spent covering the conference, but I hauled myself out of bed at way-too-early o'clock to run 8km. Instant mood lifter.

Thursday: 12.2km tempo (AM), 6km easy and core (PM). 

Friday I slept in.

Saturday: 10km tempo with colleagues for the Run for Cover 2nd qualifying round

photo credit: PictureArt

followed by 7km of mind-numbingly slow plodding because my legs refused to go any faster

Sunday: 14.5km of a planned 20, cut short in the interest of my poor right knee which was feeling off-kilter and somewhat sore (not severely, just like...*wrong*, as though the ligaments have got tangled which I swear is physically impossible). I think my ITB and calf are tight and pulling. Core and stretching. 

Total: 57.7km, working my way back to fighting fitness

Marathon training for slowpokes: Week 11 check-in

Gold Coast training log week 10 (May 5 to 11) 

Monday: 9km easy
Tuesday: Woke up absurdly late, so I did my intervals at the gym: 800 warmup, 3x1200 at 5min/km with 400m recovery, 400 cooldown - 5.6km.
Wednesday: A true rest day!
Thursday: 9km marathon pace + yoga. Boy did I need the yoga after this.
Friday: 12.25km 'easy' (starting to feel like a slog; I walked a couple of those kms and picked up the pace only after halfway, when I ran into my colleague who lives nearby - she was running too and dragged me through 2km and then I finished the rest on my own!)
Saturday: 13.5km 'easy' (definitely feeling like I was slogging through these runs)
Sunday: 17km to and around Sentosa - quite possibly the happiest, best 17km I've run in a while, which was a great relief after a whole week of feeling sluggish.

Total: 66.35km + yoga

So, it's now week 11 of 18. Two months to go. I've basically pulled together sage advice from several books (Jack Daniels plan A and Hansons Marathon Method somewhere between the beginner and advanced plan - yes, the former bases training pace on current fitness and the latter bases training pace on your time goal but I think my time goal matches my current fitness quite nicely), several wise people (Kirkie and Holly), the internet, and my gut instincts, to cobble together a marathon training plan that I think of as the Commonsense Marathon Training Plan.

Some lessons from 10 weeks of training:
- I feel like this is the first time I'm training systematically and with specific goals focused on the training process. Goals like: run >60km a week consistently. Or: Do a strength class and a yoga class each week.
- I've started doing a proper warmup that isn't just slow-jogging the first km or two. It includes leg swings, knee hugs and toe touches because that's all I can remember at 6am most days.
- There is no such thing as 100% compliance with a training plan - so the best plan is the one that maximises compliance! For me, a key part of marathon training - in fact the biggest part of marathon training - is being consistent. I found last time round that the Hansons plan was incredibly easy to comply with because I didn't need to think about how far and fast I would have to run each day ('what do you mean, fartlek? I don't like to hurt that much, why would I do it for 2 whole minutes') or do algebra in my head ('Let X be the total mileage for the week. Okay, now run 0.25X.') All I had to do was remember a number and a pace. Believe me, at 6am that's all you want to think about. That's why I still use Hansons as my base.
- It is more reassuring for me, mentally, to have run 60km or so a week consistently going into the marathon, than have done one or two killer long runs. I mean, BOTH would probably be ideal, but there is some notion that slowpokes like me who take nearly three hours to do all of 26km should not be a) doing a 20-miler because it burns us out too much to handle the week ahead [or b) running marathons, but that's my choice thanks].

So, um, this is sort of unorthodox, but this week we will be upping sticks and going to Italy for two weeks' vacation in the middle of my 18-week marathon training cycle. We'll be in gym-less hostels, B&Bs, and staying with family (my Italian cousins...doncha know? Chinese grandmothers and Italian grandmothers are fundamentally the same thing. No not really. Husband's Italian relatives.)
I wouldn't advise this in the least.
I still plan to try and get in my two quality workouts (as per Mr Jack Daniels) each of those weeks (ha ha let's see how that goes). I'll be walking and hiking enough that the mileage can go hang.

in which Mr Daniels tells me what to do

May you get what you deserve

When I was doing my A-levels, my favourite economics lecturer used to tell us before major exams: "And may each of you get what you deserve." He wasn't being cruel, just very British. (Why did we have some British teachers? He was hired almost thirty years ago when the country didn't yet have enough trained economics and literature teachers so the school system had to be jump-started by borrowing some from the UK. And then they didn't want to go back, so we happily kept them.)

The point is, when it comes to exams, you certainly get back what you put in. No one expects to roll up to an exam, or not even complete the exam, and be handed a certificate of completion.

This seems to be lost on some of the people who entered the Run350 half - last weekend's half that wasn't, which got cancelled because of a huge storm with thunder and lightning.

Most people were super gracious and understanding about the cancellation. Nearly all of the half-marathon participants I know just decided to a) go home and sleep, b) do the 10K instead, or c) go off and run 21km on their own after the rain had stopped. (And if you're me, you're a pigheaded stubborn little twit and attempt an ill-advised long run.)

But on the organisers' Facebook page, some people were asking for their finisher shirts and medals!

To the organisers' credit (in terms of averting a PR disaster, not in terms of educating the public about what you are and aren't entitled to), they kindly offered to give finisher shirts and medals to the half-marathon entrants who brought their bibs to their warehouse.

And then people started complaining that the collection hours were too brief, the warehouse too far away, et.c.

I understand if this was your first half marathon and you're a little put out by not being able to take part in the event at all. That's unfortunate. Sometimes these things happen - it's real life, after all. There will be other races.

But races get cancelled for far stupider reasons than participant safety in a storm (such as running out of water, ahem Sheffield Half Marathon!.) Runners should at least be glad the organiser is looking out for them.

Some people were saying 'I paid for it, so I should get the finisher shirt and medal'. No, you paid to run an organised event. You even got the goody bag - which already includes a pretty nice tech tank - ahead of time. There's a reason it's called a finisher shirt - you get it because you've finished. Obviously this isn't life-or-death stuff, but this entitled attitude sort of irks me. Also, if you are capable of running 21km, you are also definitely capable of walking less than half a km to the warehouse from the nearest MRT station. May you get what you deserve!

This also applies to putting in the hard work to train for a race. You can't really bluff your way through 42.2km.

Am I just being an old-school hardass curmudgeon about this stuff? What do you think? 

In this month's reading material, I am taking a tiny break between books of 1Q84 to read Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate series of supernatural steampunk detective fantasy romance novels*, which are light fluffy reading with a wicked sense of humour. I'm also just now getting stuck into 'Delusions of Gender' by Cordelia Fine, which aims to debunk a lot of the pseudoscience that claims men's and women's brains are hardwired differently. I'm only in the introduction right now but I promise you a review later!

*the genre-slicing and cross-breeding is getting a little ridiculous. Can we agree to just call them 'novels'?

Gold Coast training log week 9 - April 28 to May 4
Monday - 9km easy + TRX
Tuesday: speed set: 3[(40s hard/ 20s easy) + 3min active recovery]
Wednesday: yoga
Thursday: 10.3km tempo
Friday: 9km easy
Saturday: 25km (extremely hot and humid - took me 3 hours, 4 waterbottle refills, 1 pack of shot blocks, and 2 Endurolyte caps. I ended up at East Coast Park, which fortunately has plenty of bathrooms - with paper! - and had to wring out my shirt, rinse it, and wring it out again before putting it back on. Everything was a soggy mess. My shorts were soggy. My socks were soggy. My shoes were soggy. I froze my tail off on the bus home. Public transport in Singapore is a never-ending freeze-thaw cycle.)
Sunday: 8km easy
Total: 66.3 km, TRX, yoga

One day I'll laugh about this

Ever have one of those deeply ridiculous, frustrating, disappointing, exasperating days that you just know you'll have a good laugh about - eventually?
That was my weekend: in which the half marathon I was supposed to run didn't happen, and in which I had probably the worst run of this marathon training cycle (let's just say it can only go up from here).

A little bit of background:  So, I worked on Saturday, and when I say I worked I mean I was on the duty roster and I do any and all odd stories that come in - police news, fire breaks out, etc etc. This past Saturday wasn't so bad - only two assignments and three minor freakouts. But it was still a 14-hour day from 8am to 10pm. I managed to eat lunch at 3, and then after the second assignment of the day I had an inauspiciously dodgy greasy wrap thing at 6pm and finally had some water after not drinking anything all day. Then I went to the airport at 10.30pm to pick up the husband and had what must unequivocally be the saddest prerace dinner ever:

a bun wrapped in plastic and about three inches of coffee.

His flight got in at 10.40pm and by the time we got home it was midnight. Obviously this set me up real well for the Run350 half marathon the next morning that started at 5.30am, right? (And I wasn't even racing it really, I had 21km on the schedule that day anyway. I thought I might as well have some company, so I signed up when registration opened months ago. Then we got the monthly roster for April...)

The race organisers were kind enough to arrange shuttle buses to the race from several MRT stations so I'd originally booked a bus ticket from Buona Vista. For 3.50am, the only time the shuttles left.

At 3.50am, I was still asleep.

At 4.15am, I woke up a bit more, had some breakfast, and then my fabulous husband/ support crew was supposed to drive me to the race. ("Why on earth would you want to drive me there? Doesn't that just make for TWO sleep-deprived people??" "Oh no, I can always go back to sleep.")

At 4.45, I made the executive decision that I wasn't going to run a half marathon on 3.5 hours of sleep and hardly any dinner.

It was possibly the ONLY smart life decision that I made all weekend, because at 6am I was woken up by a text from the race organisers to say the half was cancelled due to a massive thunderstorm. (Hooray!) A really smart person would have just declared victory and quit then and there, rolled over, gone back to sleep, and lived to run another day. No, I had to go and try to run my scheduled 21km after the rain stopped at 8am. Mind you, I hadn't had any more to eat since my 4.15 wakeup call. (People make terrible decisions when sleep-deprived.)

I set off, already feeling exhausted and hungry, and a few km in, I ran into a spot of stomach trouble. Remember the inauspiciously dodgy greasy wrap thing? It refused to come back up; it went the other way instead. I grew up on street food and usually have a cast-iron stomach, so I blame the lack of sleep.

So imagine this: 5km into a run; no sleep, no dinner, girl trouble, stomach trouble, and home is 5km away while the nearest lavatory is 4km away in the other direction. What do you do? You run-walk-jog to the nearest loo, of course.

Once inside, you find the nearest loo -- the only loo for miles -- has...no...paper. At which point you burst into tears, then collect yourself and take a cab home.

You might entertain thoughts of trying again and doing another 10km in the afternoon, but the universe has other plans for you and hits you with a migraine, and then you just give up on life altogether and declare it a nap day.

Sunday wasn't a complete wash though - after I recovered from the morning run-disaster we went to our friends' place for some delicious brunch and Ultimate Fighting Championship live on some sports channel (aka: naptime/ playing with friends' dogs/ playing with other friends' cute toddler to distract her from the violence on TV). But yes, sometimes the universe just decides to punch you several times in the face and then guillotine-choke you into submission.

Gold Coast training log week 8 (April 21-27) 
Monday: 10.5km + TRX
Tuesday: speed set
Wednesday: TRX with Shirlene
Thursday: AM: 8km tempo. PM: 5.6km at the JP Morgan Challenge with colleagues (5:10 pace, yes I do go out too fast during races)
Friday: 11km easy
Saturday - skipped planned 10km, working
Sunday: 9km misery
Total: 49km + TRX

Flying solo + week 7 training log

I've been flying solo this week because the husband is away at a conference for work. It turns out that an apartment occupied by one person (even if that person is out for a great deal of the day) becomes just as grimy as an apartment occupied by two people, but the difference is that one person gets to do all the chores herself.

On the plus side, that one person gets to burp, fart, eat cereal and prunes for dinner, finish off the very good cheddar cheese, and stay up much too late reading a giant Haruki Murakami novel that is fat enough to hurt when I fall asleep with it on my face. It's midnight and I have 10km on deck tomorrow morning and I'm about to read another chapter. Smart life decisions.

Also, one is never really done with dishes. Now I know how Sisyphus felt.

Gold Coast training log week 7 - April 14 to 21 

Monday - 5.1km + yoga

Tuesday - track. 9 by 400 hard with plenty of rest (was supposed to be 10 but I had good old bronchiospasms midway and couldn't breathe so the last, oh, five of them were about half a minute slower than they should have been. delightful)

Wednesday - 1-hour TRX class - probably my new favourite strength class; it's a full-body workout but doesn't completely kill me

Thursday - tempo: 11.2km with five of those at 6:00/km, and yoga

Friday - 10km easy

Saturday - 11km trail, easy

Sunday - 16km continuous, 18km with a bit more jogging: Went around Gardens by the Bay via the river.  After last week's slightly epic long run I felt I ought to back off a tiny bit. I'm only just starting to do about 60km a week consistently. I looked back in my training log and last week's 64.5km is the farthest I've ever run in a week. Ever. (New achievement unlocked! I did do 80km once but that included rather a lot of hiking.)
I realise this is pretty miserable for someone who's somehow managed to jogwalkbumblethrough four marathons but let's face it, I've trained through these things since 2010 with a full-time job and a half, and life happens. I could add more easy mileage and I probably will, but I am so slow that it will involve multiple doubles.  Anyway - I feel I'll do better on 60-70km/ week consistently than 80 one week, 40 the next. Ehh. Baby steps.

Total: 61km, TRX, yoga 

Ultra volunteering, tri spectating

A couple of weeks ago I volunteered at the Twilight Ultra Challenge organised by the Running Guild.

If you remember this was on my list of 2014 Things To Do. I'd never volunteered at a race before, but I picked Running Guild because I LOVE their small community-focused events - those events are really well-organised, by runners for runners, and they really do know what runners need. At Twilight, most of the volunteers were high school kids who needed to get community service hours, but quite a number were runners themselves.

So, I signed up back in January, and we got our briefing packets through email. I was assigned to the 'special needs table' - if you're not familiar with ultras, those that come in the form of multiple laps typically have a spot where you can drop off stuff you might need over the course of the race, but that you don't want to carry with you. People stash food, extra gels, a spare shirt, phone chargers, and in the case of one runner, an entire set of shower stuff so she could take a shower and change mid-run! (It worked - she ran 100km...) Another runner had a pack of cigarettes and would go for a smoke every lap or two (!...) . Another one chatted on the phone with a series of friends overseas nearly the whole time.

For the first hour or two we were super busy just taking in people's drop bags and labelling them with masking tape and marker pens (should just get sticky labels next year - save on masking tape).

At 7pm the runners were off! The race course consisted of a 10km loop, with a main aid station in the middle and one at each end. Race format was as many 10km loops as you could run in 16 hours (!!!).

We spent another half hour arranging the special needs bags by runner bib number. For the first couple of hours, as people came in, we directed them to their bags; by about 11pm most people had a pretty good idea of where their stuff was. I feel like I could have been redirected to labour-intensive stations that really did need more volunteers, like the food station (they were kept busy boiling hot water for coffee, cooking hotdogs, slicing watermelon, and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all night).

At 1am I took a tiny nap because we weren't needed that much, then alternated between directing people to their bags and handing out gummi bears and biscuits. At 4am I took a slightly longer nap (it was supposed to be half an hour but it inadvertently turned into an hour and a half, oops).

Runners sprawled all over the place - about 3am

And then, sunrise!

As the morning wore on, the special needs table team took turns manning the spray bottle to spritz runners with ice cold water - by about 8am, they really, really needed it.

Photo credit - Dave of PictureArt

Finally, at 11am, the ultra was over. The eventual winner ran 145km. In 16 hours. Let's just say that's faster than my long-run pace.

The medals are the size of your face, just in case you need bragging rights.

A few of the volunteers. Photo credit - Ben Swee (race director!)

I don't feel any urge to do an ultra in the near future, but if I did, it would be with these guys. And would I volunteer for another Running Guild race again? You betcha.

---
Gold Coast training log, week 6 - April 7 to 13 

Monday - 6km to gym, yoga

Tuesday - 16x400 leaving every 2:30 - this was a tolerance set, so 400s at moderate pace, about 2:00.

Wednesday - a true rest day

Thursday - AM: tempo - 1.2km warmup, 7km at 6:00/km, 2km cooldown. PM - 5km easy with coworkers after work near the office, chatting all the way.

Friday - 'GRIT strength' class at the gym -- half an hour of high intensity interval strength workout that is way tougher than it sounds + 1.2km cooldown. All I can say about this one is, burpees are the exercise from hell and no one should ever do them. It's Sunday night and I'm still sore.

Saturday - 10.3km to and around the Botanic Gardens

Sunday - 25km from downtown to Changi Beach for more tri spectating. Once you get on that Changi park connector, you really have to commit because it's the middle of nowhere and there is no turning back. I ran a little bit longer than expected because I suck at estimating distances - I'd thought it was 21k from downtown to my destination. Also, one of my water stops was simply not open at 8.30am when I got there, so I arrived at the end point ABSOLUTELY STARVING and Shirlene had to feed me a Snickers bar to stop me from tipping over.

Shirlene and I are rapidly becoming Super Tri Spectators. This morning we chalked up some more tri spectating points by cheering our heads off at the Metasprint sprint-distance tri at Changi Beach Park. Her husband and his friend were racing each other - I mean, they were racing, but the actual race doesn't matter as long as Eugene beats Aylwin. Or vice versa. You know. Boys.

Total: 64.5km + yoga + GRIT + tri spectating

What's new, folks?

Makiko and I, reunited at the Twilight Ultra Challenge I was volunteering at - her husband was running!

Reading list, on and off 
I've just finished Charles Stross's 'Glasshouse', on SF Road Warrior's recommendation. Sure, it's scifi, but all good scifi contains a kernel or six of incisive social commentary, and this one says a lot of things about gender norms, identity and 20th century society despite being set in the centuries-distant future. It's bubbling over with ideas and is a pretty fast, fun read.

Also just read Jonathan Black's 'Making the American Body'. I feel like the publishers didn't do a great job of marketing this book...or editing it, because it could have been so much more. It's a nice packaged history at a glance of the fitness industry, from Arnold to Zumba. You'll meet Abbye 'Pudgy' Stockton of 1940s Muscle Beach, who at 115 lbs could lift her 180lb husband and wrote a column called Barbelles; and the business-savvy founder of Jazzercise, Judi Sheppard Missett. (Yep, before there was Zumba, there was Jazzercise.) But I feel like the author didn't push deep enough into exactly who these characters were and what their motivations were - or draw much of a link to modern-day fitness trends, cultural neuroses, body dysmorphic disorder, gender, or obesity.

Gold Coast week 5 of 18 - training log 

Monday - 8km to/ at the gym, plus hot yoga. I have the world's best yoga instructor - zero nonsense, nothing faux-spiritual, just a good stretch in a warm room. Short, sturdy, loud, and hilarious are not things one typically associates with yoga teachers. I'm a regular. This is a good class.

Tuesday track - 5km time trial in 25:49 (not my best time, but now I'm sure Venus Run was probably not a fluke. Dear lord, do I hate time trials. Does anyone ever do better in a TT than in an actual race?)

Wednesday - a warmup jog and strength work

Thursday - 10km of very painful, miserable, appalling tempo attempt; you could have melted down my legs for solder. This week I'll try doing my strength work AFTER the tempo run and have Wednesday as a true rest day.

Friday - 8km easy

Saturday - skipped my planned 10km because I was working

Sunday - The longest long run I've done in a while, and the most successful in terms of sticking to plan. 20km: 8km easy (in the neighbourhood of 7min/km), 6km tempo at 6min/km around Pandan Reservoir, 6km easy all the way home - hooray! Fuelled by shot blocks and overnight oats (oats soaked in cold soymilk overnight because oatmeal keeps me full longer than anything else, but trying to eat a hot breakfast when it's 30C in the morning is just too much to ask). Who says I never learn?

Total: 52km 

The Great Hansons Marathon Experiment, Round 2: Here we go again

After several weeks of dithering, I've picked this year's marathon: the Gold Coast Airport Marathon.

Based on what I can do for a half marathon, I'm shooting for 4:30* and those are the paces I'm training at, but given the unpredictability of my work schedule and my long history with muscle cramps, let's see how it goes!

*an almost entirely arbitrary number; I might as well pick a perfect square, or a prime number, or no number. At some point I will have a Conversation with Coach Shem about choosing a marathon goal. Hopefully sooner rather than later. It kind of dictates what paces I train at.

One of my mini goals this time around is to be able to finish strong, happy, and cramp-free. (Please, running gods? Can I have just one marathon without cramping? Internet, can you find me salt tabs I won't throw up?) In Perth, things were all right all the way until the last 5km, when the cramps hit and I had to sit down and wail for a while. I think the secret is more tempo runs. Long ones. Long, painful ones.

Gold Coast training, week 4 (March 24-30): 

Monday - 5km easy and yoga. Or rather, because I woke up late, yoga followed by half an hour on the treadmill to undo all the nice stretching that yoga did for my legs.

Tuesday - speedwork. 7x800 on the track - did a few of them at 4:00 with 30s rest, and a few of them at 3:45 with 2 minutes' rest. Very, very confused.

Wednesday - off

Thursday - 9.5km tempo run at roughly 6:08/km (a little bit faster than marathon goal pace - this is good)

Friday - 8km easy + strength work

Saturday - 18km to and around Macritchie Reservoir; met friends near the visitor centre and carried on around the reservoir with them

Saturday to Sunday - ultramarathon volunteering at the Twilight Ultra Challenge

Sunday - lots of sleep and 4.5km Running of the Errands

Total: 50.6km + yoga + strength training

The Effect of Hansons Marathon Training on a Marathon PR: A Perth Chevron City to Surf marathon race recap

I did say some time ago that this marathon was going to be an experiment. So here you go...

Abstract: This case study is of a female subject, aged 28, running her fourth marathon in four years. Using the Hansons Marathon training method, subject successfully attained her goal time of under 5 hours, produced a 20-minute PR, AND had fun most of the way except for quad cramps as usual right near the end.

Introduction: This is a one-subject case study. You know me. I know you (if I don't, please leave a comment to say hi!) Let's skip the introduction. You can read the rest of the blog.

Race faces - it was go time at 5am! I'm on the right; on the left is Holly whom I talked into doing the marathon as well. SHE had a VERY good run. Read all about it. Photo courtesy of Holly. 

Methods:
- Training:
Starting in April, I began using a variant of the Hansons Marathon training plan (I didn't get the book until about a month ago - READ THE BOOK if you intend to use it). Its most important principle is probably cumulative fatigue: you run six days a week with a speed day, a tempo day, a longer run day (up to 25km), and three easy days. This is to simulate the LAST 25km of a marathon, not the first. Rest between your speed day and your tempo day.
I was able to stick to the training plan, give or take a few km, for the first 10 weeks or so; thereafter, work commitments, illness and slight injuries meant a week of lower (40km) mileage every couple of weeks.

- Other stuff
Nail polish (blue, the usual; assume colour does not affect aerodynamicity and fingernail aerodynamicity does not affect overall speed)

Immediate pre-race inputs: Dinner - pizza, turkish bread with dips and caprese salad. (Photo from Holly.)

Breakfast - coffee and Orgran's Buckwheat Os. The cereal was much like Cheerios but, well, made from gluten-free buckwheat - since I have no gluten sensitivity this was not a concern. These were a brand new (to me) cereal that we'd been eating for the past few days with no ill effects, and since I sometimes have cereal before a race I figured this would do just fine.

During-race inputs:
Hydration - Nuun in the waterbottle, refilled twice with water
Fuel - One pack Clif blocks in 'margarita' flavour from 6-21km; half a chocolate Honey Stinger gel from 28-30km, gave up because too sweet; one chocolate Honey Stinger gel from 37-40km because of hunger pangs.

Garments: Race-day weather was uncertain (rain? yes? no? how much?); the temperature was a balmy 12 to 19 degrees C throughout the marathon - really optimal running weather for me (i have been known to winter hike in New Hampshire winter in a t-shirt). I wore a wind jacket and cotton arm sleeves to the convention centre start, discovered I was warm by the time we got to the start point 1km from the hotel, and took the gamble to leave arm sleeves in clothing bag. Cap, capris and tank top ended up working out just fine and were a great departure from the usual What Not To Wear disasters.

Results: 
I maintained a fairly even pace till the 30km mark, crossing 10km just over an hour, 21km in 2:12 (very nearly pulled off a new half-marathon PR, which should NOT be the case during a marathon), and 30km around 3:30. (There were two fairly big hills between 22 and 30km and much of that portion was upslope.)

Between 6km and 12km I crossed paths with an older gentleman who had lived in Perth for 44 years ("I came on vacation 44 years ago and never left. Been to Singapore plenty of times") who was running his 38th marathon with bells on. Literally - he had them in his hand. Out of curiosity I asked him what time he planned to come in. Five hours, he said to my slight horror (while he was good company, I was not about to listen to jingle bells for 36 more kilometres this far short of Christmas). I ran away. (Later edit: he did remind me to run the tangents. "Cut the corners," he said. "Good girl.")

There were some GREAT views of the Swan River, first as we ran along it, then from the top of a hill in King's Park botanical gardens. Sadly, I never got to see the surf at the beach where the race ended - was just too sore to walk around a whole lot. Also, there was a big ol' downhill right after the finish line, which was quite enough for me.

On-the-run funnies included three cyclists with signs at the top of a hill: "BIKE FOR SALE", "EPO UP AHEAD" - "Do you offer rides?" I said.

Official results and race splits aren't in yet, but I felt like I began to slow down around the 32km mark and cramped at 36km - to the point I had to squat down and stretch out my thighs. I walked about half a km, crunched half a Nuun tablet, drank some water, and kept on going. (At that point I had about an hour left to get in under 5.)

There were not one but TWO hills from 38km, right before the finish. Fine, I understand, this is natural terrain and not the bridges that race organisers in Singapore keep saddling us with.

Oh yeah, and I came in at about 4:53 (race clock minus the extra minute it took to cross the start line). This was a >20-minute PR from my last one, and I'd very much wanted a sub-5-hour marathon too. Winning!

Edit: Official net time was 4:54:18, with the following splits (really just for my own info):
10K - 1:00:08
20K - 2:05:05 (1:04:56)
30K - 3:15:13 (1:10:08) <-- big hills here
40K - 4:35:11 (1:19:58) <-- cramps AND hills here, always a fun combination
Finish: 4:54:18

Discussion:
Would I use the Hansons method again? Yes, it seemed to work. It seems as though there are plenty of believers, too. (Jeano!) I managed to hit and stay at higher mileage, fairly consistently, than in previous training cycles where I topped out at 55+km. Thanks to the increased mileage, I'm in better shape than I was during my previous PR (5:15 at Tokyo in 2011). And I'm now used to running six days a week.

It probably worked for me because I have so much room to improve (my marathons over the years have been 6 hours, two in the low 5s, and now this.) I'm not sure cumulative fatigue and higher mileage alone would work as well for someone who's pushing PRs of a few minutes each time. That one will take speedwork and mental mettle.

Mentally, this was the easiest marathon I have ever done, as the weather was so pleasant. For the last 6km, the motivation was very simple: I knew there were hills, I knew I would cramp, I came prepared for battle.  I simply wanted that sub-5 way, way more than I minded the pain. In all I might have walked a total of 1 or 2 km - at no point did I think 'I want to throw in the towel', it was more like 'well if you want it you're going to have to fight for it'!

Why was I injured in training? That's a mystery but there are a few possible reasons: Hansons does not specifically include strengthening/ agility exercises or a stretching regimen, which I started doing quite late and which often fell by the wayside due to work; I'm also extremely flexible and somewhat injury-prone. I'd definitely recommend doing some strength exercises and much stretching/ foam-rolling in any marathon plan.

Why in the two blue hells do I still keep cramping?
I have very nasty and well-documented problems with leg cramps. The nice physiotherapy student who gave me my post-marathon massage said the crampy muscle was, very specifically, the vastus medialis. That's the lower bit that goes from the inner knee midway up the thigh. I'm glad it held off till 36km, the longest I've gone in a marathon without cramping. Thanks, weather.
I did a couple of things that probably helped: sugarless electrolyte drink and Clif margarita shot blocks with electrolytes from the beginning, and Nuun-tablet crunching (what? haven't you ever had Pop Rocks?) and lots of water the moment the cramping began.
But I don't know why the cramps happen at all. Was I dehydrated? Perhaps, but I didn't want to drink more water because I could feel it sloshing around inside me. Why do those muscles cramp and nothing else (calves hamstrings glutes other quad muscles)? If you have any answers, correspondence is by blog comment please.

Would I recommend this race to Singapore runners? YES. At 1500 runners, this was easily the smallest marathon I have ever run. The 'swag' that Singapore runners are used to in their goody bags (daffy knicknacks, snacks, caps, vouchers) is nonexisistent; you are paying for excellent organisation, abundant water and Powerade and Gu, trucks to transport your baggage to the finish line, portapotties, road closures, shuttle buses to get you back to town, and finisher shirt and medal.

The course has a number of hairpin turnarounds to make up 42.2km so don't expect to be too fast. But spectators do line the streets and cheer. This year, the weather was superb. Just make sure you do a great deal of hill training (you have no idea how many times I've run up those @#(%& Botanic Gardens and Rifle Range Road hills in training). And take it easy on the downhills.

Supplementary materials
Link to obsessively checked Perth weather website
Link to City to Surf website. All I could think was 'Chevron is a sponsor? If you win what do you get? Free gas for a year?'

This is a really hard-earned medal, thank you very much. 

Slow? So what?

Huh (she said incredulously). This time last year, 4:10 was a difficult 800.

Last night's track session involved 5 moderate 800s. Which turned out to be 4:10, 4:07, 4:05, 3:58 (?!), 4:02. With room to chat with my friend J. (Followed, of course, by 4x400 'hard' which I promptly floundered around on: 1:47, 1:52, 2:05 - my shoulder suddenly spiked with pain, who knows why - and 1:59. Yes, my body still rebels during short intervals.)

In this -- my hardest week of marathon prep, mentally even if it physically isn't much, involving a nasty bout with self-doubt -- my body springs a lunatic surprise like this. THAT'S IT, BODY. NO MORE SURPRISES. I can't deal.

There are good track sessions, and there are absolutely lousy ones. There are good runs and terrible ones. Two steps forward, one step back.

Although last night's track was probably the effect of the present I bought myself (along with the husband's set of birthday presents - shirts that practically glow in the dark because he has the terrible habit of running home from work, at night, clad in black).

The downside is, luminous purple makes it harder to hide from your coach on the other side of the track.

--

Which brings us to this lovely post from The Wannabe Athlete (don't mind her moniker, she is very much a real athlete).

She wrote it as a follow-up to a hilariously nasty comment someone left on her post, 'On behalf of all the 10+ minute mile runners'. That's 6+ minutes per km.

It has honestly never crossed my mind to feel ashamed of the pace I run. Frustrated that that IS my fast, sure. But shame, no...

If you look at my race times today, you'd think, oh, she doesn't really take these races seriously. But my first marathon three years ago took me just over six hours. My first 10k took me at least an hour and ten minutes. My first 5k --  I don't even remember my first 5k, but if I did it'd probably be 'let's not even go there'. So things HAVE changed. But it has taken me a long, long time to get there. Life. You know. It happens.

So I might be one of the unlucky genetically challenged*; I may be good for nothing at all except fidgeting relentlessly. (I am an incorrigible fidgeter. Hey, I'll take whatever superpowers I can get.)

Still, there's a silver lining. My heart and lungs are almost certainly healthier than before, and I'm probably at less risk now from the chronic liver condition I was born with. My blood pressure is entirely healthy - running probably saves me from the stresses of work life. And exercise seems to help maintain cognitive function - at least, it does in this study of masters athletes. I like to think it makes me younger (totally why people still mistake me for an intern, right?) No reason to stop now just because I'm not getting a whole lot faster.

All that is why I never ever, ever judge anyone for their speed or their finishing time in a race. How do you know for sure whether someone has put in the work and is giving it their all, or is on a run/walk plan, or is undertrained because they don't respect the distance? Everyone's got to start somewhere. And honestly, you never know how far each person has already come.
---

*A note for science nerds. Science nerds who may or may not have read The Sports Gene. I'm looking at you Jeano.

How much difference is there between different ethnic populations? If different populations have longer, thinner legs  or more fast-twitch muscle fibres written into their genetic code, would it be implausible that different ethnic populations have different levels of trainability on average at the population level? Are these things that vary more WITHIN populations than BETWEEN them?
---

In other news, after this marathon, it'll be time to evict the spiders and their cobwebs from my bike and dust off my goggles. I've signed up for the sprint Cold Storage Singapore International Triathlon at the end of September and would rather not be the resident Metasport embarrassment.

Here's a discount code - TRITSIT1309 - in case any of you want to try a thlon. That gets you 20% off race entry (have not done this one yet, cannot attest to quality of organising). Found on the web via Trititude.

And here's a picture from my favourite run last week, more to motivate myself than anything else.

Marathon training: the good, the bad, and the tragic

There are now just four weeks to the Perth City to Surf marathon. HOLLY ARE YOU EXCITED YET?

The good: This is probably my most consistent marathon training cycle to date. Except for a couple of weeks in the middle when I was sick/ injured, most weeks have been in the 60km range and have involved running 6 days a week. Past marathon training cycles have NOT been consistent, 60km and five days a week was somewhat optimistic.

Here's a typical training week from last year, a month before the marathon.
Sunday - 6km easy run
Tuesday - Track: pyramid 200/400/600/800/800/600/400/200 = 4km
Thursday - 4km
Saturday - 25km.
Total: 39km.

And this is my week so far:
Sunday - 10km
Monday - 7km
Tuesday - a couple of strength circuits; track: 4(400 and rest), 1200, 3(300 and active recovery), 1200, cooldown = 5km
Wednesday - 8.4km tempo run (A PROPER tempo - 10.4 to 10.8km/h)
Thursday - AM 5km, PM 10km
Total so far:  45.5km.
That doesn't include tomorrow's workout and I haven't even got to Saturday's long run yet.

I'm more comfortable with a double-digits run midweek now. And doubles. And strength training. And running six days a week (I had a little trouble wrapping my head around that one at first).

Except this morning. I set foot on my usual canal path and the sky poured a bucket of water on me. So I did just 5km of a planned 14.5. It actually crossed my mind that I should've worn my goggles...

this is what comes up when you do an image search for "running in goggles"-i have no idea.

(UPDATE: had a very nice run around Bishan Park this evening - ran from work and back.)

The bad: I think 60km is still too low mileage-wise to make a proper dent in a marathon, but it's what my work schedule can deal with. Just in case you think I have commitment problems - my 5.30am phone alarm says PERTH CITY TO SURF. SUB-5. YOU HAVE TO EARN IT. That usually gets me out of bed... (I mean, you try being a slow-as-molasses runner who works as a daily news journalist and trains for a marathon at the same time, and then let's talk...)

The slightly worse: I added all this up and all of my training takes me roughly ten hours a week. I have no idea where the other 158 hours go.

The it-would-be-funny-if-it-wasn't-so-sad: I think I've gotten SLOWER as a result of longer slower runs. (Ya think?) At Tuesday track this week, I ran the 1200s with a friend who claimed that when he started at track earlier this year he was trying to keep up with me. He might be right, but he is now MUCH faster than I am on sprints. Ouch. And I've been doing my speedwork and strides. That's why I'm genetically challenged...my body goes 'I see your measly hour of speedwork and raise you some turtle pace'.

I'm quite happy to accept that I will never be FAST fast even if I work twice as hard. And I'm not really going to beat myself up about it. Not while I still enjoy running and if it gets me to the finish line of a marathon in healthy-but-genetically-challenged-molasses-goal-time.

Here is possibly the world's best running tank

It's the Under Armour Women's Victory Tank, which wicks like a dream, is hip-length on my hilariously long torso, fits skintight so it doesn't flop around uncomfortably when soggy, and you should probably size down from whatever you usually wear. You're welcome. (I have two and they're XS. Sizing - it basically means nothing these days so just wear whatever fits.)

My friend A. told me about these and she swears by them. Apparently an added bonus is they stretch and still fit if you're pregnant, or so she says. (She is due at the start of August.) Haven't really tried that myself.

I would really, really like to get more, but I don't think I can justify that right now. Uh, so my birthday's in November. Husband? Are you reading this?

Back in the land of the living

Iiiiiii'm back! 

This morning I had my first run in nearly a week, after being out of commission due to
- your everyday garden-variety generic cough/ sore throat/ cold that would not go away
- a wonky knee
- a janky hip

And. It. Was. Fabulous.
I didn't take my phone with me and still, after a decade of running, own no Garmin. But it was about 15km at what should be roughly marathon pace; I quit while the going was good. But it's too soon to celebrate. Let's get another consistent week or two of runs in and then talk.

I do a lot of runs, or sections of runs, on a canal path near my house. If I cross the road to run along the canal further down, and come all the way back to where I started, it's about 10km. The sun was shining, the birds were singing. I felt like singing and skipping down the path but didn't want to inflict that on anyone else. And I was - and this is very important when your run is at 7am in Singapore - in the shade much of the way.

After the 10km canal section I turned out and ran to the Botanic Gardens - another 5km or so. After which I came home, showered, did some work, and went to the Botanic Gardens AGAIN - this time for lunch at Food For Thought  with Mr GCA and a friend. I love FFT - it's down-to-earth and decidedly unpretentious and just has really good food. They must be doing quite well because they just opened a new outlet at the National Museum - so now there are three.

We had:
- mozzarella-stuffed meatballs with linguine and roasted tomato sauce (someone suggested an alternative. 'Does it involve cheese?' 'No.' 'Then you know which one to pick.')
- two orders of fluffy pancakes (mixed berries and dark chocolate raspberry, with fresh cream and gula melaka syrup)
- bacon
- garlic mushrooms

Marathon training

Today is all about lists, and I might as well share my weekly training for the Perth City to Surf Marathon (in five weeks!) as a list.

- One to two strength and core workouts a week
- Two to three times: 6-10km
- One Tuesday night speedwork session (about 6 km)
- One to two times: 10-15km
- Once a week: 16-25km
- Total mileage (ideally): about 70km
- Total mileage (realistically because let's face it, I don't have the most elastic schedule, or rather it's stretchy but only elongates): 50-60km
- About a cumulative half hour of stretching, tennisballing, and icewaterbottlerolling (WHAT. Those ARE verbs) each week
- If I find myself feeling under the weather from lack of sleep + stress + running, I have a multivitamin and more fruit and veg
- If I find myself tweaky, or injured in any way, I head straight to the pool and swim, about 1-2km at a go (hey, cross-training)
- This regime takes me way too long each week

Surviving the long run 

Now, even though what I did today wasn't, strictly speaking, a long run, I did think about ways to survive a long run. My long runs are up to about 25km, which sounds short for marathon training, but the whole weekend usually involves 35 to 40 km (it's all about tiring your legs out - and I am a wimp. A tired wimp).

Sometimes I have a really good long run or the beginnings of one - like this morning, when I could probably have run another hour and been quite happy about it. But more often than not, I barely want to get out of bed; when I do I barely want to get ready; when I do that and start running I'm tired when I start, or bored in the middle, or tired and slowing down near the end.

So here are my favourite strategies for surviving the long run:

- Call a friend. Someone to run with you for a section or two. Better if they live near you and make you laugh.
- Mantras and head games. Train hard, race easy, right? Or, when the going gets tough, 'you have to earn it'.
- I like the canal path, as routine and boring as it may be, because I don't have to stop and cross too many streets. If I stop I have a hard time getting going again. So my long run has sometimes been a couple of laps on the double canal - 2 x 10km. Treadmills are also good for this. If you stop you fall off.
- Distract your body. When I did that long treadmill run I had a Shot Blok every few km in the last hour and a half, simply to keep my mouth sufficiently distracted.
- Play head games: what is the most ridiculous thing you can see on this run? I have seen the same older gentleman on a unicycle at least thrice. I also once saw a man out walking his African Grey parrot (no, he did not have an eye patch and a peg leg). And the other evening I saw a car drive past with a bunch of balloons sticking out the back window and flapping merrily in the breeze. I must live in an odd neighbourhood (clearly I fit right in).

What are your mantras for getting through a tough run or race?
What, indeed, is the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen on a run? 

What I think about when I think about running on the treadmill

My Singapore readers (yes, all three of you) may know that Singapore has recently been through its worst period of haze ever recorded.
I won't really talk about it except to say that we've been working anywhere from 11 to 15 hours a day covering this. And that marathon training while working wackaloon hours is somewhat difficult.

As you may have guessed I'm doing my marathon training Hansons-style, which is intended to simulate the fatigue you feel at the end of a marathon. You rack up lots of slow miles over the course of the whole week. Because of my flaky schedule I've had to adapt the standard plan, but am still running six days a week. Even better? I'm already tired. All the time.

Last Sunday I had a 24km long run planned. It started really well: on Saturday night I worked till 1am (when does that ever go well?), went home, slept 4.5 hours and went to the gym (it was both hot and hazy outside) to bang out my 24km at speeds between 8.6 and 9.2 km per hour. I was armed with a phone, some ebooks loaded on said phone, water, energy chews, a gel, Nuun, and a sport towel.

According to the gibberish I posted on Facebook and sent to friends during the run, this is what I think about when I think about running on the treadmill.
- 4km into a 24km run on the treadmill at the office gym. Entertain me or come say hi. (No one did, except virtually.)
- Mr (not-so) Genetically Challenged (obviously I married him for the genetic boost he will one day give our future children): "Hi beautiful. You're insane." Me: "And you married me! *beams* "
- My mouth has no idea what to do with energy chews. Spent the last 2 km with Clif Shot Blok stuck in my teeth. (Mm, caries.)
- Conversation with Holly about pregnant women wearing N95 masks: "A meta-analysis I read said there wasn't really any good evidence for pregnant women not to wear the masks because of increased respiratory burden." (Yes, I typed this out on a phone touchscreen while running.)
- Hooray, 8km down.
- Hooray, 12km down.
- That's a funny-looking sunbird in the plants outside the gym. It's not a common olive-backed one. (It turned out to be a very pretty brown-throated sunbird.)
- Only 8km left! I can do this. I eat 8km for breakfast. (Then I thought about breakfast.)
- Hooray, I've just done a half marathon in less time than it took to do my first ever half marathon.
- You'll feel this tired at 35km in Perth and you'll still have to run. So run.
- Why is it that Australia is full of things that will gladly kill you, while New Zealand has not a single one, even though they used to be the same continent? (The answer probably has something to do with them evolving after the continent split apart.)
- I wonder what Tyler Cowen thinks of Singapore's food landscape. (I was reading 'An Economist Gets Lunch' on my phone at the time - a very bad book to read if you happen to be hungry. I was hungry. I did not find out what Prof Cowen thinks of Singapore's food scene until about chapter 11 while on the same treadmill today.)
- Hooray, I'm done. (I am so done.)

I leave you with blurry treadmill photographic evidence.

I've been forgetting to post the weekly workout log and also forgetting to post in general, but since nobody reads it but me and I already have a notebook full of workout notes, my total for the week of June 17 to 23 was 57km of a planned 62. Either I have to get a lot faster or there need to be more hours in a day in order for me to fit everything in.

DON'T PANIC

What, I haven't posted in nearly a month? How did that happen, yadda yadda yadda.

I know exactly how that happened. Back in early May there was some sad news at home - my grandfather passed away (he was 96. We miss him. But don't feel too bad. Not everyone gets 96 good years and four great-grand-children close by). So we were dealing with all that. Then my parents whisked my grandma off to a nice restful holiday in Bintan, and the following week my husband and I went off to New Zealand. On which more in a future post. I promise. I remembered to take photos this time.

Throughout all of this, I ran. And ran and ran. We did a four-day hike in New Zealand, where it's now closing in on winter. On the North Island where my grand-aunt lives I had a lovely run. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, I felt like I was flying, and when I looked up I'd run for an hour and a half.

It's now week 5 of 18 of my Perth marathon training. I tend to panic all the way till the last three weeks of each marathon cycle and then finally sit back, relax and let my legs do their thing. Obviously this hasn't been very effective if you judge by my previous marathon times. Which are complete rubbish. (6:18 in 2009 in Singapore. 5:15 in 2011 in Tokyo. 5:20 here last year).

Today I had a minor freak-out on poor Holly, convinced that I will never be able to run a sub-5-hour marathon, that it's not just the heat giving me issues, that despite all the training I just don't have it in me. And that I'm afraid to go all the way to Perth and find that out.

Fortunately tonight's track session was downright magical and subdued the panic a little bit. 5 x 5 minutes at 5K race pace - so just under 1km per rep. I discovered that yakking away to a friend (well, a short sentence at a time) at the start of each rep helps stop me from going out tooooo fast and imploding like I normally do. Even if she isn't really responding to me. Tonight the laps were on target - and I felt like I was flying.

The panic is still there. But at least I know where my towel is.

Liebster and lovin'

Oh my goodness, nearly forgot to share the Liebster Award bloglovin':

I nominate my friend Shu - an ex-colleague, now teacher (once a journalist, always a journalist...no getting away from it) with the most delightful sense of humour. She's no slouch in the photography and fashion departments either! I suspect she has too many followers to qualify for the award, but I wanted to share the love because I miss her.

Things I'm loving right now:

1. Edward Humes' book Garbology, about America's (and the developed world's) addiction to refuse-generating Stuff and what this does to the environment. Each chapter reads like a magazine article: you'll meet the Bay Area family whose entire trash output per year fits inside a mason jar, the world's first garbage archaeologist, and the Trash Trackers of MIT.

2. This week my friend from our university's dance group visited Singapore with her boyfriend in the middle of a trip around Australia/ New Zealand/ Southeast Asia. So of course we had to feed them. We all had crab last night.

 this is salted egg crab. it doesn't look like much but it is delicious.
not my photo, borrowed from someone else's review...too busy eating to take photos. 

3. The Yellow Fellows, who are running to raise funds for the Singapore Cancer Society, which does free cancer screening, public education, home care, and funds treatment and transport for low-income patients. They ran the same 10K I did this morning, and their shirts were even yellower than mine. There's a link to their donation site on their Facebook page.

4. We had friends over last night and they used all the regular glasses so I'm drinking my Nuun from an old pasta-sauce jar. Lemon-lime with an ethereal whiff of tomatoes.

5. The watermelon and grapes I thought to toss in the freezer yesterday. Mm.

Things I'm loving somewhat less right now - because I am also a curmudgeon, ok?: 

This morning I did the 2XU

 ("2XU: two times you!" "one of me is enough for the world to handle, thank you very much")

10km as a tempo run, using the bib of a friend of a friend who couldn't make it. (I got stuck behind a lot of people at the start, started tired and got tireder, and my phone claimed it was a tiny bit short: 9.8km in 1:01. Except my friend's GPS said 10.41 km. I feel like I've fallen into some kind of gravitational distance warp here.)

But my body, without my consent I might add, has made it its mission in life to chafe in as many interesting places as possible. And I don't mean interesting places like 'inside Marina Bay Sands'. Stupid weather. Stupid shorts seam. Stupid me, forgetting the Bodyglide...

The reason I want to do longer tempo runs is... I signed up for the Perth marathon in August.

I've cramped after 25km on every single marathon I've done, and if I don't cramp I will almost certainly PR (under 5:15). A bit of back-and-forth email discussion with one of the coaches led me to the conclusion that what's going on is
a) I lose a lot of salt
and
b) muscle fatigue from not being conditioned to push hard on longer distances.

So part of the solution I've come up with is
1. longer tempo-paced runs (which for me is a little bit over 10 km/h). Going to force myself to do more of these in the months ahead. I hate tempo runs...
2. speedwork + strides - which Tuesday night track takes care of, but it's geared towards sprint-distance training
3. more strength training -  anyone got a good routine?

"If you can't run a fast 10km, you can't run a fast marathon," said my coach.
(Hey coach, I'm just trying to PR here, not qualify for Boston! This IS my 'fast', or at least a level of fast I'm confident of doing. It's not very fast for the other people you coach, but where I am is where I am, so let's work with what I've got, OK? Having the inverse of natural ability is kind of frustrating sometimes.) (And here we insert a very important note about mental health: I have some stress issues and if I'm not running with joy, if I'm running on upset or stressed or angry, I don't race well...so please don't feed the self-doubt demons in my head.)

Workouts: 

Almost none this week, it has REALLY been a nightmare at work. 

Tuesday extra exhausted track session.

Thursday easy 5k recovery run.

This morning: 10?km, getting slower every km I ran.