People said, a journey of a thousand miles starts from a single step but mine was different. I started with "crawling". Right, because babies don't walk first but crawl. My first fun run was 10km some 2 years ago (OCBC-Rotary run with Army) and it took me 1hr56min
to complete and that was as good as walking, not running. I don't know anything about pacing. I don't know anything about CutOfTime. I don't know anything about LongSlowDistance. I don't know anything about hill. I dont know anything about shoes. I don't know anything about nutrition. I don't know anything about VO2Max. Not even the heart BeatPerMinute. I just run walk run. Then I feel energise. I feel alive. I feel my heart pumping hard. I feel my lung compressing. I started to love running. It gave me a sense of calming and a real sweat. I joined a lot more fun/charity run 3km, 5km, 10km, 15km, 21km and finally, 30km and believe me when I said, it is not that easy.
You have to sacrifice your "ngando" over the weekends as early as 3am and hit the road. We saw a lot of runners running in group which is good as it can improve your endurance. But not me. I'm a solo runner. Running in total darkness at night and also early in the morning. Running for hours just to train my heart to beat stronger. Running longer distance for my body to adopt. Running until my leg can't support my body weight. It's all for self satisfaction. Nothing else. You have to quit smoking. Totally, if can.
This year, 2020, is the 1st time I joint KuchingUltra marathon. Last year, I'm only a jealous spectator at waterfront, watching runners tortured themselves on the road.
Eventhough the 30km category can be consider as non-ultra but it is a good starting platform to go further. 3 weeks before the event, I hit the breaking point, overuse the leg in training by not giving it a single resting day.Almost every night I hit the road and at the end, injuring both my knee and my right ankle (ankle since Jagoi Trail run) .
I knew it is very bad as I have ever injured the knee before during hiking and it took me almost 6 months to fully recover. I'm not 100% fit for this run, but I must try. I went for a few physiotherapy sessions, chiropractic sessions just to heal the injury part but the progress is too slow. I know I needed a longer rest but that is not an option. I'm just can't afford to lost the momentum. So I keep on pushing myself.
Looking at the route,
I know I can complete it as 80% of the route is my nightly training ground. I know every single bump, stone, hill, potholes, where to speed and where to slow down. The pace was perfectly composed and I nicely reached Medan Hamidah surau for Suboh prayer on the dot.
15-16 minutes lost is not an issue as the COT is 6 hours. At km16, there's a bit confusion as the route drawn by the organiser is to cut through Masja/Jln Istana but lack of signage there causing runners to make a big U- turn via the roundabout which giving us another extra 0.6km. From there on, there's no slowing down for me in my strategy but unfortunately, at km21 Tupong Ulu,
my knee started to feel the pain, maybe the pain killer runs out. I tried to run slower but the pain won't go away. I have to walk run walk until the next WS/CP at Kpg Tanjong.
As it is still another 2.5 hours before COT, I knew that if I can walk/jog at pace 9-10, I should be able to complete the run before COT. So it's all fast walking from Kpg Dagok to Waterfront to Petanak and finally the FL.
Gladly, I can complete the run in 5hr13min (official 5.16) which according to my running VO2max statistic, it should be 42km.
things I can learn here is energy food consumption, good shoe, analgesic cream, water and a good night rest and weight is a non related issue. In other word, I passed the mock exam on the line.
Let see if I can make it in the real exam in 2 weeks time. #imgoing42 at the place where the temunek is.
