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

Things my mother gave me

1. When I was a really little kid, my mum didn't run at all. It was my dad who got up at the crack of dawn to knock off 10 or 20km and then come back and take me out 'jogging'. It wasn't till I was ten, my mum told me, that she started running - mostly to prove my dad wrong when he teased her: 'You're so lazy!' Now, my mother cannot possibly be accused of being lazy, because she runs pretty much every day, 4 or 5km at a pretty good clip, and often twice a day. And does regular strength workouts. Talk about role model.

2. All of the women in my family are incredibly, pigheadedly stubborn.

3. And professionally accomplished career role models for their kids. Edit: My sister and I would probably have turned out all right either way. I realised only a lot later that not every kid had parents who both went off to work every day. And she confessed that she suffered a great big dose of mum-guilt when I would bawl as she went off to work.
Then again, I probably bawled because she was the one who spent most time with me when I was very small. And if your usual primary caregiver suddenly takes off for several hours a day and you're two years old, you're probably going to bawl. Why doesn't society put the same sort of pressure on fathers?

4. And what we lack in genetic predisposition to athleticism, we make up for in sheer bloody-mindedness.

5. An understanding of what privilege is. My mum was the first person in her family to go to university, and paid her way through it by tutoring younger kids.

6. A love of books and of reading and learning. (This extends to both parents and a lot of my family. One aunt, who is 73, managed to get a biochemistry PhD after having two children because, as she put it 'I just liked learning so much I didn't really want to stop'.)

7. Allowing me to stick with ballet lessons and drop the piano, because I was a terminally restless kid who could not sit still to practice.

8. Not being (too much of) a tiger mum. Or a helicopter parent.

9. I have to admit that the term 'mamalete' makes me twitch and think of Marmite or marmalade, but I like the notion.

Happy Mother's Day! 

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

Take two

I swear I went to Paris. In order: UNESCO in Paris at night, the view from the Eiffel Tower, the Pont Royal bridge, wandering around the Tuileries Gardens, and surreptitious snapshots in the Louvre. Not pictured : some great meals. 

'Target muscular calves'...

Ah, Paris in the springtime! Except - I was there for work last week, and cold, and tired, and juggling other work, and feeling somewhat jetlagged (think waking up hungry at 2am).

Still, I managed to sneak out and get some runs in along the Seine and through the Tuileries Gardens. (DC Rainmaker, who actually lives in Paris, has some good resources on where to run/bike/swim in the city.) It turns out the footpaths directly along the river do not extend all the way along both sides, so I kept having to get out onto the main roads and cross bridges and dodge traffic and run along the islands in the middle of the Seine, like a human pinball game, with little elevation changes and flights of steps here and there. The weather was kind of cool and gray so my only good photos are surreptitiously-snapped pictures of museum exhibits. Hello, Venus de Milo!

I also managed to make it to the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Elysees. (I was accompanying a friend who had a shopping list of corporate gifts and orders from friends back home.) Specifically, to the restroom of the Louis Vuitton store on the Champs-Elysees.

(Some context: there are a lot of Singaporeans and other folks who love to buy and brandish their designer goods, but for me it's more fascinating in an absurdist, anthropological sort of way. Did you know that when Harvard Business School researchers asked shop assistants and pedestrians to rate people entering a luxury-goods store, the women in the street thought the sharply-dressed shopper was more likely to buy something, but the shop assistants - speaking from experience - thought the gym-clothes-wearing shopper was? The idea being that the latter was confident enough in her appearance, and more likely to be a celebrity making a purchase. WSJ article here. I was not exactly wearing designer clothes, but according to Occam's razor what that should really indicate is I do not have a designer budget.)

Anyway, what I'm trying to brag about is that I managed to...use the ladies' restroom in the basement of the Louis Vuitton store. It is a totally ordinary lavatory. I may be the only Singaporean on earth to visit Louis Vuitton merely to pee.

Otherwise, this week has not been so great for me running-wise. Last week it was a little hazy, and when I tried to do my long run outdoors my chest started feeling tight. Same deal again today even though the skies were clear, so it wasn't the air quality. I have some very mild exercise-induced asthma - not officially diagnosed or drug-treated but I know what bronchospasms feel like when I have them - but it usually shows up only when I do track sprints and goes away once I sit down for a bit. It's never made its presence felt at the beginning of a slow long run. Bizarre and uncomfortable. I finished my run indoors on the treadmill and was totally fine. What gives?

In separate news, this is the single best thing I have seen on the internet all day.

This is another pretty spectacular thing from The Atlantic: The Overprotected Kid (caveat, refers to middle-class, mostly Western kids. The problem we have here in Singapore is a total lack of unmanaged play space. Or unmanaged space in general. Mm, and coddling.)

Right before I left for Paris, somehow or other this came up on Facebook:

Here's the blurb:

"Target on Muscular Calves
Say NO to pant and show your slender calves in this year, use 2B For Leg to slim up your calves! Made for muscular and edema calves!
Highly recommended by famous beauty blogger Kelly for the effect!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMxK3pdx2cc
Special Offer in Chinese New Year!
$34 per box, exclusive in Guardian"

I still don't know what irks me most about this ad: the message that muscular calves are not attractive, the grammar, or the fact that the makers really believe it works to slim down muscular calves...
(For the record you cannot get rid of your muscles, sorry. You can get rid of puffiness and fluid build-up by elevating your legs, exercising, or putting on some compression socks. But edema can also be a symptom of something going really wrong - like kidney failure or heart failure. Okay? GET A DIAGNOSIS.)

My response to this was: 'My calves are sad you don't like them. These calves carried me through a full marathon last year, and can run 5km in under 25 minutes. I think I'll keep them, thanks!'

A very productive weekend

Race report: Venus Run 

There aren't a lot of races in Singapore that are just a 5K. Normally, a 5K is the neglected smaller sibling of some big event like a 10K or a half marathon. Or if you're a sprint triathlete, 5K is your cooldown. So I always leap at the chance to take part in an event that's SOLELY a 5K, because when it's well-organised, a 5K race really has a chance to shine.

The all-women's Venus Run is held to mark International Women's Day. It was held on Saturday for the third time (see last year's race report when I did it for the first time), and at Marina Barrage again. The route was changed up slightly - last year's race ended with a very painful climb to the Barrage rooftop, while this year's painful climb was in the middle!

route goes up that wide arm of the spiral, and down the other side

It's organised by the Singapore Athletic Association, and sponsored by compression-gear company X-Bionic, which gave us a really spiffy-looking and probably highly-engineered...but potentially somewhat hot...shirt.  I'm glad the shirt now says 'Diamonds aren't my best friends...Running is'.  I quite like the shirt, even with all the logos, and it will probably stand me in good stead the next time I go cross-country skiing...

So, only 5k? Let me tell you, there is nothing 'only' about racing a 5K. I'm not a speedster at all, and I've painfully clawed my way to every PR minute by minute. I'll take 800s over sprints at track any time. And I'm still a chicken; I don't push myself till I totally blow up. So...why did I sign up for this? I had a good time last year. And I wanted to find out if those track workouts have had any effect.

I walked to the event site from Bayfront MRT. It's about 1.5-2km, and I know all the shortcuts because I've run this dozens of times, but a small investment in shuttle buses from Marina Bay MRT would be really nice. One photographer stationed near the Flower Dome gave me a thumbs-up and I gave him a grin.

I didn't take advantage of this, but I noticed folks with cold drinks and ice cream? fro-yo? before the start. Extra bonus points! I once had a delayed tri wave start at 9am and almost died of dehydration because there was no access to fluids beforehand.

After bag drop (2 minutes), I excuse-me'd my way to a few rows behind the start line, shoulder to sweaty shoulder with loads of other runners. Apparently some 4,400 runners took part. And here I thought it was a smallish race. Normally I'm a prerace Oscar the Grouch, but I was in a good mood, and all the enthusiasm was infectious, even if I was too tightly packed in to do the Zumba warmup. Clearly the organisers were sprinkling pixie dust on the whole thing.

The gun went off and we flooded out; I immediately got stuck behind a couple of people, passed them, traded places with a few others, and then suddenly I'd run the first km in 4:26 (there's that starting-too-fast problem again). The next km flew by, as did a turnaround. Past the first (only) drink station of the race, and then we were heading up to the rooftop of Marina Barrage.

Afterwards, I did hear a couple of complaints that the only water point was at 3++ km on a very hot day. I don't even think to drink during a 5K, but for new runners this could be a bit of an issue. (Something for race organisers in general: Keep in mind that a race experience can be very, very different for the podium finishers and the 1 per cent, vs the 99 per cent; organisers should try their best to ensure that everyone, right down to the last person, has a good experience. Also keep in mind that the 99 per cent pay 99 per cent or more of your race entry fees.)

Going up the Marina Barrage Spiral of Doom.  

I saw Holly and her cheer squad here -

Holly & Zun. Best sign ever, so many people took photos with it! 

 - and before I could yell anything at them (heard someone yelling 'Go Grace', Tekko or Holly was that you?) we were heading down the other 'arm' of the spiral and across the dam itself. I'm pretty sure I began to slow down here, and was passed by a couple of women. Then another turnaround, back across the dam, and back towards the end point.

Thanks to a wonky distance marker that I now realise was *definitely* not at 4km, I thought I wasn't going to make it under 25 minutes. But as I rounded the corner I realised the time on the clock read 24:42, and charged into the finish for a total time of 24:50somethingorother...

A couple of friends with GPS watches confirmed that the race wasn't short, and so I am now the owner of a shiny new 5K PR - a PR that is almost two minutes faster than my last one (26:40 some time in the distant past). And between the heat (30 degrees C at 5pm), the headwind and the spiral of doom this was a tough, tough run. So that PR is legit, hooray! Update: chip time was 24:50 with no puking involved, I'll take that as a success. 

At the bag drop I ran into national rower Saiyidah Aisyah, and chatted with her while we waited to get our bags.
'You run as well as row?' I asked. It turns out she runs for cross-training, typically about an hour at a go. The 5K was painful, she said - 'It's like sprinting all the way!'. Now, she's in training for the Asian Games in August. (And then the Commonwealth Games, and then the Olympics, I hope. Super cool.)

Generally, the race site was well laid-out, with no inconvenient crisscrossings or snarls. The route might have involved a giant Barrage spiral climb of doom, but I'm glad it was at 3.5k this year instead of the finish line like last year (which is nice mentally, because you know that you're done as soon as you finish the climb, but not so great for race atmosphere because more people can fit on the ground than on the roof). So yeah, I'd do this again next year. Just put the distance markers in the right place.

Extra bonus points for:
- Plenty of COLD water and sports drink BEFORE and after the run
- Taking feedback about last year's shirt!
Minus points for:
- Bag drop folks being totally unable to find my bag for something like ten minutes while a queue built up behind me and I began to freak out; finally I went round behind the counter and told them 'please just help the people behind me, I'll look for it myself'. Time taken to find bag: 30 seconds.
- Not sure why, but it took the organisers a full week to put up official results and timings, and not even the full downloadable list at that.

Mega thanks to: 

- Holly for cheering

- The Running Shots team for the pix  

Let's get some shoes: the Mizuno Wave Hitogami 

On Saturday afternoon, before the Venus Run, I also popped in to TRG to get the shoes that are going to see me most of the way through this year's marathon cycle. The New Balance 1400v2 was out of stock in my size, so Wille suggested the Mizuno Wave Hitogami, because they're very similar. Both have a 9mm heel drop, a soft non-plasticky upper, and a wide toe box. The Hitogami looks like it won't have the problem I had with the NB1400 (peeling overlays) though, which is nice.  

source: http://wemakerunningcool.com/2014/03/05/new-arrival-mizuno-wave-hitogami/

Aren't they blindingly gorgeous? This morning I ran an easy 12k in them. Very comfortable - my feet felt at home straight away. Must save them for last few long runs and marathon. 

These guys were also in the shop while I was trying on shoes. They're doing a very, very long run through a very hot, dusty desert to raise money for animal rescue charities. That's dedication. Folks are amazing! 

Miscellany 

My life isn't all about running though; this afternoon I made... 

Chilled cucumber-celery soup

1 large cucumber

3 stalks celery 

1 tablespoon lemon juice

A good pinch each of coriander seed powder and cumin powder, to taste 

1/2 tsp salt 

1 clove garlic

1.5 cups Greek yoghurt 

1 tbsp mayonnaise 

1 tbsp olive oil 

Put everything in a bowl and blend with hand blender or food processor. Allow soup to chill out in fridge before serving. Makes 2 large servings or 4 small ones.

I just made sugar cookies (am still wavering on whether or not to top them with caramel sauce - maybe they're sweet enough), and I'm going to make fried tofu and tuna onigiri for dinner tonight. Lucky husband. (He does the dishes. Lucky me.)  

Next up: Marathon training for Gold Coast begins this week. Also, if you're doing the Twilight Ultra challenge, I'll be volunteering, come and say hi! 

From the department of sensible decisions

Some facts:

1. I woke up on Monday with pain - everything sore to the touch - across the top of my right foot near the outer toes. And a line of pain that follows some muscle or tendon all the way down my outer lower leg. And a tight calf and ITB. I suspect extensor tendonitis. Bizarre. Bodies are like voodoo. (Maybe it is time to invest in that gait analysis after all.)
2. The pain continued till Wednesday so I haven't run since Sunday. I type this sitting on the floor and foam-rolling while having my morning coffee. Except I don't know what portion of me to foam-roll first. I'm going to try running later today.
3. My right foot is not the foot that I semi-sprained on Sunday while running to the end point of the 2XU half marathon to meet my dad. That's my left one. I am supremely sprain-prone (despite a lifetime of desperate stability exercises). If there is a hole in the pavement, my ankles are guaranteed to find it.
4. On Sunday I had my last successful run: 13 easy km to and around the 2XU end point...and then went home and hauled my husband out of the house to run 5 tempo km with me, which hurt and was hot but went by much faster with him than without.
5. Here is a picture of me with SuperDad, who ran the 2XU half. Remember how my parents are my running role models? When I am 58 I want to still be running, too.

6. Unfortunately I am supposed to race a 5K this Saturday (don't know if that's happening, gah) and a half marathon in late April (probably still happening; I have six weeks to train for it).
7. I leave you with a picture of a Trojan Horse.

YES THAT IS A HORSE ON WHEELS.
It was just sitting along the 2XU route, about 2km from the finish. At this point I was running with a friend for the last few Ks, trying to drag her to the finish line in one piece, and I just had to run across the road and take this photo. I didn't want to get too close though, just in case hordes with swords came swarming out of its belly.
I'm pretty sure it's just left over from Chinese New Year though. I hope.

Update: Thanks guys! I ran four tentative km this morning and the foot + leg were fine, if a little tight. I'm going to keep on foam rolling, icing, and stretching prophylactically, and Saturday afternoon 5K will probably be all right. Phew.

After my run, I also did a 'HardCore' class at the gym, which seemed to be a general bootcamp-style sort of fitness class that included lots of agility exercises like box jumps and burpees, and core exercises like planks. Hilariously, the warm-up consisted of running in circles around the studio for five minutes. It wasn't a terrible class - I probably need to be doing some of those things anyway -  but not my cup of tea; I don't really have patience for general fitness classes and I would like to be doing runner-specific things for runner-specific reasons.

More things for you to read!

Brunch date, his and hers edition 

The husband had to ID some trees for work, and he is not a tree expert at all (more of a working-out-what-things-are-from-satellite-images-expert), so we had a nice walk in the park a couple of weeks ago with a tree guidebook.

That's not a ridiculously tiny backpack, it's a ridiculously tiny pack full of extremely high-tech GPS equipment.

Note to self: when on tree-identifying date, it is advisable to have TWO copies of the tree book instead of one person sitting around checking their phone while the other flips frantically through the book to find said tree.

Earlier this year I talked about all the things I'd love to get done for the year. Reading lots more is one of them. My library card has been getting a lot of exercise lately; here are some of the things (both online and off-) that I've been getting stuck into.

Pure comedy gold - 'Awful stock photos of women running' (stock photos tend to be awful in the first place, stock photos of women even worse, stock photos of women running...well let's just say at least they're not stock photos of women running while eating salad and laughing.)

Google Translate for runnerspeak - slightly more relevant only to the 1 per cent, aka people who are actually, competitively looking to get on a podium, rather than the 99 per cent of us, but amusing nonetheless.

Floating City by Sudhir Venkatesh (that's the book you see in the brunch photo up there)
Sudhir Venkatesh is the erstwhile University of Chicago sociologist who became famous when he contributed to 'Why do Drug Dealers Still Live With Their Moms?' in Freakonomics. Floating City is a study of what makes New York City tick, which of course is an enormous question. The result wasn't too surprising or revealing, given what we know of New York as a place for people to invent and reinvent themselves continually. Anyway, if you liked this, I'd recommend Katherine Boo's 'Behind The Beautiful Forevers' or Robert Neuwirth's 'Stealth of Nations'.

Arcadia by Jim Crace
I hadn't really discovered Jim Crace before reading Harvest, which was on last year's Booker shortlist. These things can best be described as fables both timeless and contemporary. (A few people on Goodreads said Harvest was historically inaccurate, but they were missing the point. I will say the characters in Harvest were not as compelling as those in Arcadia, though.) There's something about Crace's prose - it's blank verse, poetry simmering beneath the surface, waiting to burst into flame. Enjoyed this one v. much.

That's a lot of reading. But what about running? 

Well, on Saturday I did an interesting sort of long run: 6km trying not to go too fast (so 6:30-7:00min/km with great effort), 4km of painful tempo run interspersed with 2km of grouchy walk breaks around Pandan Reservoir in full-on sunshine and heat, and 6km very slow (had to get back to where I started ouch ouch ouch).

I think this progression run stuff needs more work.

Oh, and I'm thinking of another winter marathon this year. Winter Down Under, that is. The Gold Coast Airport Marathon is in July, and it's a fan favourite among Singaporeans because it's cold and flat. I mean, cold and flat...what more can you ask for? 

Race report: Marina Run

I'd done this fairly no-frills evening half marathon in 2011, and DNFed due to stomach trouble. But I trust my friends' race recommendations, and Adrienne had had a good time at this one. So I signed up...and then she wasn't able to make it on race day thanks to a janky foot. Here's to sensible life decisions: rest today to run again another day!

I am not good at sensible life decisions.

Hang in there guys, it's going to be a longish one.

Race pack collection: Packet pickup was a breeze - in, out, done in 2 minutes on a Sunday afternoon. Bonus points for offering same-day packet pickup for runners visiting from overseas!
This race also had 10K and 5K fun run options.

The race pack: I don't really notice what's in the race pack so long as I get a bib and a shirt and a finisher medal at the end, but I know some of my readers do. This race pack was pretty dismal (at least for Singapore and for a run that I paid $50!! for): a bunch of flyers, including one for car servicing and one for air-conditioner servicing, and duplicate flyers for children's soccer birthday parties and gym lessons and watches.
There was one coupon for a massage, WHICH YOU BET YOUR ASS I am going to use, and one for an either-or spa deal: a facial or a 'slimming wrap', neither of which I really want, especially because the latter sounds like a poorly filled burrito.

Race site: The race site at Gardens by the Bay East is convenient only if you live at one of the Tanjong Rhu condos. Otherwise, it's about 1km from the nearest MRT station (Stadium). Walking about 1+km to and from the nearest MRT station is not a huge deal for me, but if this was my first half marathon, it might have been somewhat upsetting, I guess.

I went down with my neighbours Aicha and Peter, who were also running and supposed to meet their friend at the medical tent to give her a race pack. Turns out the medical tent was definitely not where it was supposed to be on the map. Thumbs down.

Baggage deposit and pick-up: When we got there, the bulk of the 10K runners were just finishing, and there was a  horrifyingly long queue for baggage pickup. There were definitely not enough people manning the baggage pick-up booth, probably because some of them were handling half-marathon bag drop. Apparently some of the 10K runners waited in line for half an hour, ABSOLUTELY the last thing one wants to do after running 10K, thank you very much.

Fortunately when I finished, the queue for medal, apple, and water was fast, and I made a beeline for bag check. The queue for baggage...well, I probably stood in line for maybe 5 to 10 minutes.

By the way, race organisers: you know what would be really nice? Just hand us a little prepacked box of food so that we don't have to juggle apple and medal and banana and water etc etc, because ain't nobody got enough hands for that nonsense. One more thing - it would also be nice to have more water at the finish area instead of only at the finish chute.

The route: Two loops of out-and-backs, not particularly exciting, but quite pretty because you go around Marina Bay and a little way up the Kallang River and you get to see everything lit up at night. Not bad!

And now...*drumroll*...The run: 
So after a terrible week at work, I promised myself I would do this as a long run, a kind of reward for making it through the week. Of course I was very bad and didn't keep that promise - more on which later.

There were about a thousand half marathoners, which is really, really small for Singapore! It was crowded for the first couple of km or so, but not too bad after I'd sorted myself out. (I tend to try to get out of the crowds right at the start, but this often spells trouble - here's why.) Later edit: I forgot to count the veteran half marathoners! That means there were about 1,500-1,800. Sorry. Still really really small for Singapore, though.  

I could feel myself going too fast right at the beginning, and was desperately trying to slow down, but my legs seemed to be beyond my control. The angel on one shoulder said: "What are you doing? Stop passing people and rein it in now or else you'll die later." The demon on the other shoulder said: "But you feel fine *now*." In the end my shoulders were inexplicably sore so they must have been slugging it out pretty hard.

So what did I do? Of course I went out too hard for the first 11 or 12km. (What? Nothing hurt. Yet.) There was another woman on my shoulder and we kept trading places; I could hear her breathing quite hard next to me, which was quite distracting; I know she couldn't hear whether I was breathing hard because she had headphones in!

Somewhere around 14km I began to regret my initial burst of speed because I suddenly felt like my legs were made of lead. I kept thinking 'just keep running, just keep running'... My pace definitely dropped a bit here, and at this point I just slowed down to relax and enjoy the night air. The woman with the headphones overtook me and all I could do was glare at her back.

On my second loop, one of the drink stations ran out of water and was apologising: "Sorry, we only have isotonic drink left" - a nasty purple, grapey-smelling stuff. From the way it smelt I half expected it to glow. You had better not run out of water, especially when I'm in the middle of the pack and I know there are plenty of people coming along after me. (A note: When I first started doing half marathons I was so slow that some of the drink stations really did run out of water. So now I always, always, always carry my own for any race over 10K.)

At the 18k mark I somehow summoned enough energy to hammer (ok, only in my dreams; in reality I'm quite sure I looked like a spastic rhinoceros) the last couple of k's home.

I finished in about 2:15, which is where most of my half marathons seem to be these days, and with no ill effects but a pair of sore feet. My half times remind me of my 10K times, which were stuck firmly at 1 hour++ for a very long time until an abrupt and totally surprising breakthrough a couple of years ago. So maybe there's a half breakthrough in the offing somewhere within this lifetime!

My team-mate Claire who ran it as well said the course was a bit long; I still don't own a GPS watch so I'm just going to believe her.

After cooling off I found myself totally encrusted in salt - gross. Good thing I packed and ate my good old shot blocks throughout or there would have been blood. I mean cramps.

At the finish line, Jimmy found me and we set off for food and home. By now it was 10pm and NOW I was famished, so we popped into Burger King. Sometimes you just need a large iced Milo after a race. And sometimes you need a large iced Milo and a nap; I nearly passed out.

The verdict: You all know I really have only two key criteria for a race: Does it start on time? (yes) and Is it the right distance? (no) -- I'd give this one a grade B. Maybe some extra marks for scenery and a relatively thin crowd.

Anyway, I think I've learnt my lesson. The real test is the Run350 half in April, a race for which I actually have goals. You know, like goal number one: don't...start...too...fast. One day I'll be sensible.

I also think I need to do a couple of things in training:
- One, a long run or two with 7 or 8 tempo km in the latter half. Or some sort of progression long run in which I start slooow (an important lesson in reining it in) and work up to finish off at 10K pace.
- Two, aside from one angel and one demon sitting on my shoulders (those guys need to lose some weight), in all seriousness why are my shoulders sore? I have to figure out what to do to fix that.

An update: Results are out. Discovered my team-mate Claire was FIRST - well done her!

What are these mystery 'lap 1/ lap 2' points - what distances are those anyway? 3km? 4.2km? 5km? 10??? Annoying. Race organisers, please don't do this.

Epilogue: Cheer report, Metasprint Aquathlon

I had somewhat ambitious and extremely optimistic plans for Sunday morning: do a recovery run around Sentosa and cheer friends on in the Metasprint Aquathlon there. But we got home at 11.30pm, and by the time I showered and got into bed it was midnight.

Naturally, my body had other plans. I woke up at 8am, but Shirlene's wave was at 8.35 - not going to make it on time for the start, could I get there on time for the finish?

I got there at 9.15 - eek! - and thought I'd missed her, so I wandered around looking for her ('maybe she's cheering her husband out of the water?')...and missed her coming through the finish. When I turned around again she was standing there (sweaty hugs!) and we cheered Eugene and his friend Aylwin in. Those two are not only very competitive with each other, they're also training for a half-Ironman in May, so after Eugene and Shirlene got home...he turned around and went out to run for an hour. I have no idea how people do it. Training to run takes up enough of my time.

What are your best ideas for 70.3 cheer signs? I suggested Shirlene stand at T1 with a sign that read 'ONLY TWO MORE SPORTS TO GO'. ("Trolls," said Eugene, shooting us a dirty look.)

a short note about a long run

I'm really looking forward to tonight's half marathon. Especially after the madness of this work week in which things happened or didn't happen or fell through or got arranged or rearranged and came at all of us from every which direction at once. A week in which, for three days, I saw my own husband awake for a sum total of ten minutes. A week in which I didn't get remotely enough sleep until last night. All that accumulated stress is waiting in my legs to be pounded out, the heavy fuzziness in my head to be dissipated, the monkey on my back shaken loose and sent floating off into the sky over Marina Bay. I'm looking forward to a nice quiet long run tonight, in the darkness of the gardens at night, just me and the wind and my watch.

Once, in JC, I was on a school trip to climb Mount Kinabalu in East Malaysia. The way most people do it is you spend one day climbing halfway up, overnight from about 4pm to 3am at a lodge midway, and summit and come down the next day so you can see the sunrise at the summit. In the wee chilly hours of the morning, as we were trudging blearily in silence up the path towards the summit, I turned around and saw a long line of headlamps and torches twinkling in the darkness all the way back to the lodge. And in the magic of that single moment I forgot how cold and out of breath and weary I was. Just me, and the wind, and my watch.

You may be a runner if...

You know. Sometimes we have doubts about these things.

Here's a handy-dandy guide: Are you a runner?

You may be a runner if...

- You have Very Strong Opinions about shorts vs capris and when and where to wear each.
- And about running with, or without music.
- Your laundry contains more sports bras than regular ones.
- You own more sports bras than regular ones. (...ahem. guilty as charged...)
- Saturday morning long-run planning begins on Friday afternoon.
- Yours are the grimiest shoes in the gym. (What is this 'indoors' business?)
- Don't even get me started on shoes.
- You have planned at least one holiday around a race. (Hello, Tokyo Marathon! And Perth City To Surf!)
- You get annoyed when someone calls it 'jogging'.
- You don't NEED coloured cornstarch, zombies, or lightsticks to enjoy running, but will jump in for 'colour runs', 'zombie runs', or hen party runs with friends for a nice social affair
- You get more excited than your best friend about her upcoming first 5K.
- This is a real problem:

- You run. As in, you put one foot in front of another at a speed faster than your walking pace, putting some real effort into it, and you do all of this deliberately, day after day, of your own volition...and you enjoy it.

Any more suggestions?

---

I haven't blogged for three weeks - sorry, internets - and suddenly I have my very first race of 2014 coming up this weekend: the Marina 21K!
This was the one I ran into gastric trouble at two years ago and DNFed. Ow.
It starts at 7.30pm though so I haven't decided whether I'll fun-run it or race it. My circadian rhythm doesn't really like running at night, and my 13h/day work schedule this week isn't the most conducive to resting. But I feel fine, speedwork has been going well, I've been good about strength and stretching, and I've been quite consistent about running ~40km/ week since the Standard Chartered ekiden in December. So who knows?

I leave you with the highlight of my last weekend run:

Bad idea: running 12.5km after sleeping for 4.5 hours following a wild house-cooling party at a friend's house. (The difference between parties in your early 20s and parties in your late 20s: at the latter, not only does no one question your choice not to drink alcohol - which I don't at all for medical reasons - but they support you, no one pressures you to drink, and the host offers you tea.)
Good idea: running 12.5km to Sentosa
Bad idea: running to Sentosa via the Southern Ridges (what goes down must come up; I had to stop and walk on Mount Faber)
Good idea: OH HELLO MR MERLION

Let's talk about pain

The other day, I ran around Macritchie with Rachel, and then we sat down to breakfast. Rachel is training for the Tokyo Marathon so part of our conversation went something like this.

- When you run a marathon, is there a point that everything starts to hurt?
- Yeah, my feet hurt, knees hurt, quads hurt, everything hurts. But it's normal pain. Not bad pain. You just gotta deal with it. (Pause) Do you realise that only another runner would understand exactly what I mean?

We both burst out laughing. It's true - there are so many different kinds of pain, and runners understand exactly what the difference is.

But let's talk about pain.

In general there are two kinds of problems that runners have with pain:

One, more common to beginning runners, is not understanding the difference between good pain and bad pain.
At last year's Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, one of the taglines on the posters was 'Brave the Pain. Celebrate After.' And experienced runners complain all the time - 'That track session hurt but it was so good.'
This can actually be dangerous to less experienced runners listening in, and lead them to do some crazy stupid things. I've heard of people doing a 30k while they're still recovering from a flu. Going from nothing to marathon or ultra in too short a time frame. Doing a marathon - even though they're generally fit - with no training, thinking that pushing through the pain is heroic.

But here's the difference.

Good pain is: Doing a long training run and needing to foam-roll out all the dull muscle aches afterwards. Or: strength training and aching gently in places you didn't know existed. Or: when the yoga instructor says 'now open up your hip just a tiny bit more'. Or: 38km through a marathon; everything is sore from all the pounding, but you know you're not going to injure yourself and you're on track to PR if you just push a tiny bit more. Or: you hurt all over the day after a hard workout, but you know it'll go away in a day or two. Good pain is never the goal, never a bragging right. Good pain is pain in service of a larger goal.

Bad pain is: Sharp bright pain just below your kneecap when you run, as though the padding has worn down and something is grinding away inside. Or: when your calves are abnormally tight and wound up, like a too-tight guitar string, and you need to stretch at every stop light but even the stretching hurts. Or: being undertrained for a long race. Or: 12km into a marathon and every step sends pain shooting up your leg. Or: two weeks after you sprain your ankle, it still twinges when you land wrong. Or: pain that doesn't go away even with rest and reduced intensity. It's psychological too: bad pain is the pain you flaunt trying to show off how tough you are.

There comes a point when fighting through the pain isn't brave, it's stupid. And that depends on whether it's good pain or bad pain. Experience will help; no one but you can tell you what kind of pain you have. Knowing which is which can make all the difference.

This is why I hate 'fitspo'. Which is a whole nother conversation for another day.

The other sort of problem, endemic among experienced runners, is not listening to your pain.

Yeah, I have a problem with this too. I know running gives you a buzz like almost nothing else. I know how addictive that buzz can be. I know no other exercise is quite the same. One of my running friends is suffering through a nasty bout of plantar fascitis and the psychological damage is worse than the physical misery.

Most people who've been running for a while know the difference between good pain and bad pain; whether today's pain means tomorrow's gain or tomorrow's DNF. Your pain is trying to tell you something. But you've got to actually pay attention to it and take responsibility for yourself, or you're in as much trouble as someone who doesn't know which kind of pain they have.

I love this.

credit: http://legit-fitness.tumblr.com/

Another year, another age group

This year is a bit of a daunting year for me.

Why? It's the year I move up into the dreaded 30-34 age group. There may be eleven months to go before I turn 30, but triathlon directors don't care. (So heartless. Those women are fast.) That may or may not be part of why I haven't decided on the annual triathlon yet. I'm not a real triathlete, just a runner who pretends to be one now and then.

Either way, it got me thinking about a few other things I'd like to do this year - both running- and non-running-related. Some of them are realistic. Some of them are more aspirational.

I'd like to...
- volunteer at a race - YES! If you're running the Twilight Ultra Challenge, come and say hi. I will have gummy bears (not these ones don't worry)
- race a distance that I've never run before (that can be 6k, 12k, 15, 30...50???). Instant PR!
- trail run at least once a month
- run Punggol Waterway again! - DONE! Fine, that was last year on Christmas Day. It's still pretty.
- run my first ultra (any distance longer than 42.2...and I have a particular event in mind!)
- run a 25:00 5k
- run a 55:00 10k
- commit to one strength/ conditioning class and one pilates/ yoga/ other 'body awareness' class at the gym once a week (it's like medicine for me - I haven't the patience to do this on my own and therefore need a class to kick my butt)
- go paddleboarding more. I tried this last year and it's great fun. ('Learn to surf' is on my not-so-secret adventure bucket list, and I figure getting used to standing on a floating board is a good place to start.)
- go on a bike ride longer than anything I've ever done before. Enjoy it.
- hike in Hong Kong again
- swim with the whale sharks in the Philippines
- visit Italy
- try five new foods or restaurants this year (visiting Italy might help with this...)
- keep a log of the books I read all year - and yes, that includes the trashy mysteries. YES! Inspired by Angela over at SF Road Warrior, I'm actually doing this. You'll get the occasional book review here, too! I'll also be rereading Annie Dillard's 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' and reading all of the 2013 Booker Prize shortlist.
- finally complete the Udacity course I'm taking, in very, very basic Python. (No, 'basic Python' was not a bad nerd pun.)
- make some progress on one of the passion projects I have for work
- complete two more Coursera or Udacity courses (please recommend!)
- camp out on a beach and watch the sun rise. While not moving. Usually when I see the sunrise it's because I'm running towards it.
- learn to be still.

Anyone have any other suggestions?