Monday, November 17, 2008

License to Eat



The Medals are license to eat :)
Prawns cooked are bigger than a 50 cent coin... imagine it raw 

With the burning of 2500 Calories, i am technically licensed to eat anything and everything muahahaha...

When in penang always visit the 2 sisters char kueh teow... i know i know the locals will say its rubbish and too expensive ... but hey to each its own :P

I love the char kueh teow above... in fact its the best i have ever eaten ... and whenever i am back in Penang i will make it a point to order the Rm 8.00/ plate prawns bigger than 50 cent coin... 

slurppp 

Penang Bridge Half Marathon ... 25Km actually

Route for the Half marathon 
Hand tattoo for timing splits

Pre race preparations ..

I  did it, i completed my longest and furthest run  to date.  25.53Km according to Garmin 305, in a time of 3:23:50.  After the many liters of sweat, with the ups and downs of illness from training, knee creaking, early sunday monrning runs ... i completed my first half marathon.. 

I know my timing is nothing to shout about ... but however .. i survived the ordeal, and i am looking forward to the next half marathon .. 21 km in Johor Baru, December 21st ..

Pre race ==> went to bed at 10 pm, but was tossing and turning and eventually slept at 12 am..  there was a lot of slamming of doors, kids playing with the neighbours door bells and folks laughing outside... with the anxiety & pre race adrenalin .. just could not sleep..

Woke up at 230am, groogy blurr and cold, gobbled on my power bar then got dressed and wrote on my hand tattoo with the timing splits.  Went down to the lobby to wait for SK..

Race ==>4:30 Am sharp, flag off ran at a very slow pace 8:00 Mins/km, to keep everything in check, to ensure that the body , fat joints, ligaments and muscle do not pull and upped the pace until they warmed up. 

Pass Queensbay mall onto the service road i picked up the pace and once on the bridge, settled on a pace of about 6:30 to 7:30 mins/km... i tell you, whenever i run i will pick out the furthest lamp post and use that as my guide... once i reached that goal depending on how i feel i will chose another further post. 

Running on this bridge specially with all the mile markers on the center of the road... is not helping... 0.1km on the mile marker seems very slow..  

Once passed the service ramp, the bridge is relatively flat until the center where there is the incline of the cable bridge then flat all the way to the tol booths..but one way is very very far, approximately 8km ... arck!!

I kept pushing myself and psycho-ing myself that if i can complete the Klang 12 km  without stopping, i gotta run further than 12Km before i am allowed to stop... So other than water stops, I am proud to say that i ran continously for 17.25Km before i walked. This is from start through one way of the bridge, pass the tol booths, U turn and back to the middle of the bridge, near the cable section. i stopped because my calves were starting to pull ... So at this section, i had my last power gel, drank 2 cups of 100+ & 5 cups of water ... and limped, walked and shuffle to the finish.. from here onwards, the mile markers passed by even slower..

Penang island is relatively small... and for the first time in my short 30 yrs of life, i was running towards Penang island, with dawn behind me... its really nice, the orange hew from the horizon and with my achieving my first half marathon, its a special moment for me. 

At the finish... i was rushing to make it back before the 3hr30mins cut off... i need to get the finishers medal and certificate... took a wrong fork and nearly ended finishing at the fun run section...  

It was a great and momentous to get the cert and medal... i was dead tired and completely out of gas... makes me think why  oh why do we kill our body like that... 

However updating this blog... i am having the itch ... asking why do i have to wait 1 month for the Johor half marathon... 

run on.............






Sunday, November 2, 2008

20 Km ... in 2:37:46:43

For the first time in my life ... i ran 20km ... part of my mileage training and more importantly to accustome my lethargic muscles to the distance, repetittion and the long hours of running + in my case ... with walking :)...for My Penang bridge run of 25KM

It’s actually very very tough to run this distance... without the race day magic… Started from my house and ran pass the LDP and did my rounds in Tmn Tun, all the Haji Openg, Zaabas' & Athinahapans.. to make up my 20Km distance.. once passed 15km, I could feel that every step i took, used a lot more extra effort.

Whenever my foot touch the road, with the tired and sore calves and thigh muscles, I could feel the shock going into knees and back.. felt like every step was torture... at this point, I felt like I want to die... lie on the road and hail a cab to take me home..

Using the Penang bridge run as my goal and inspiration, i pushed on.. the final km home... is actually a steep uphill, the road coming in from the LDP up to the Citibank slope...

Makes me wonder how am I going to complete the full marathon KLIM?? ... well gotta take 1 milestone at a time ..after the penang bridge.. will be the great eastern lake gardens 30.1km in January. Quite Brutal ya ... after 20KM looks like i went through war
My calves shrank so much after the run ..