THREE O FIVE

I joined this same race in 2014 and ran a PB so I decided to be back again this year because it was one of the best Marathon that I had ever run. I kept it relatively low profile this time, no one knew I was racing but it was quite obvious as my mileage in the past few weeks was very high. I won't be training so much for nothing right? LOL. I was actually undecided between Shanghai and Taipei. I almost wanted to register for Shanghai but too bad they changed the date to 1 month earlier which I wasn't fit enough during that time. I wanted to join Karen, Angel, TW and Wil for the Shenzhen marathon too but unfortunately, they jio-ed too last minute and I had all my Taiwan trip paid. Expo Route Taipei (previously called Fubon) Marathon is a fast course. The route changed a bit this year but it was still flat and there were only 3 climbs which one was at about 15.7km where we had to run over a flyover to cross the Keelung River, another one was at about 38.8km where we climb

In My Dream I was leading the race the whole way until the 15km mark when my shoelace got loose, so I stopped at the road side and tied it. At this time, 2 Kenyans had caught up and overtook me. Muhaizar and Jironi were about 50m behind so I waited for them and ran with them. They looked quite exhausted so I asked them if they were OK. They couldn't speak much because it's too tiring. I looked at my watch, we were at about 3:30 pace, no wonder they were tired. I paced with them for about 3km and sped off because I wanted to chase the 2 Kenyans. At the last 1km to go I caught up with them and tried to close the gap. They saw me approaching and started to sprint too. We sprinted side by side until the last 100m to go when I actually overtook them but there were so many people and cameras at the finish line, so I had to slow down a bit to pose for the photo. They took this chance and overtook me so I got 3rd ranking. After like 5 minutes, Muhaizar and Jironi reach too. They got

Form wasn't very good recently. Indeed it was quite bad (it's like never good before! LOL!), I thought last year when I couldn't make it to the top 20 in Seremban HM was bad enough but this year I was even slower. Last year I did 1:30; this year I pushed so hard only 1:34. But last year was more competitive, last year even though 1:30 but I couldn't make it to the top 20. This year was slow but I got 19th! Successfully revenge for myself! Haha. The slow time was expected though the podium wasn't. I was quite dilemma these few days even in the race day morning I still couldn't decide if I should DNS. Seremban is not that near, it took me about 50 mins drive. My form wasn't great and I didn't want to wake up so early, waste time going so far to race and came back empty hand. But I felt guilty if I DNS and if I didn't race I still had to do my long run alone so why not just race it! Luckily I won something. Enough to cover my registration fees, petrol

I did badly in the SCKLM yesterday. It was my bread and butter race and we didn't get to run last year due to the haze. This is also one of the very few well organized and high quality local marathons that I would join every year so no matter how much I didn't prepare I would still run it. This time I came unprepared again. I was down with dengue one month ago and suffered from flu a few days ago. I didn't train enough too. The longest run I did was the TM Fan 21km and others were merely a few 10~14km runs. However I felt that I was OK to run. My plan was to pace Michelle and hope I could keep up with her. Not sure if I overestimated myself or I wasn't really aware that I wasn't fit enough to handle this, I didn't expect it to be easy but I also didn't think that it would be so tough. The whole situation just didn't cross my mind. At the starting line, haha! Our plan was to run the first half faster. 5:00 pace for the first half and 5:15 for the s

Almost DNS the race due to oversleeping. I set my alarm for 4am but it was raining and the weather was so nice to sleep so the 2nd time I woke up it was almost 5am! My 15km actually started at 6:30am but Alan was holding my bib and he ran 30km which started at 5:30am so I had to reach before that. The race was in Puchong, no way I could make it so I decided to DNS. Then he told me his gf was running 15km so she could wait for me! Luckily and thank both of them so much! But still, it was raining heavily, such a nice cozy weather, I have no idea why I wanted to torture myself to wake up so early for this. Damn! Newton 2016 Rain stopped when I left home but then it rained again when I reach Puchong. The race was still carried on though. Took my bib and warm up a little then the race started. Knowing that my form wasn't great and the route was hilly, I set my target pace to 4:40. It should be moderate hard effort but I think I over estimated myself, the last 4km wasn't as &q

Fitness went down the drain after dengue and had to run this race 2 weeks after discharging from the hospital. Despite knowing that I wasn't fit enough to run any good result, I still planned to run my best effort. My plan was to hold on to 4:30~4:35 pace but 3km into the run, I knew this was going to be very tough. The HR was still on point but my body was contradicting itself. It was getting heavier and heavier so I decided to slow down. William and Masaaki slowly left Michelle, Aiden and I for dust. Aiden started to speed off too after 8km. It was fun running with Michelle, the women first runner up of the race, so proud of her! It was the first time running with her actually. We had a long 21km gossip session and she still decided to run another 9km after the race to complete her 30km LSD! What?! It looked so easy for her! We were running at quite a fast pace, she talked and made fun all the way and she continued to run another 9k. After all this, she could still win 2nd plac

I'm not sure why I joined this relay again and moreover I joined both series. I actually told everyone I was not going to run this relay after participating the 2014 one. That was also why I skipped it last year. 3km kinda race is not my cup of tea. I regretted immediately after I promised Teck Wai to join. At first I actually just promised to run series 1 but not sure why after running series 1, I asked the team if they still wanted me to run series 2. I regretted immediately after I asked! LOL. WTF was I thinking? As usual, I planned to take these relays easy. They were just part of the training for my SCKLM which was my goal race. But again, I knew I was lying to myself. I would never take them easy, in the end I would still run my 100%. My kinda take it easy was just merely I won't specifically train for them. Haha! Let's start with our series 1 podium photo Series 1 This time I teamed up with Angel , Guo Shen , William and Teck Wai . Wil, TW and I were kind

This is what dengue plus 8 days of no running did to my running fitness. I keep a very comprehensive running logs and from time to time, I will analyze my performance to see how much I've improved/regressed. So this is what happened. I have been absent from the running scene for the past 2 weeks due to dengue fever. The last run I did was the Par series 2. I was still OK during the race in the morning and I'd actually planned to run a LSD later that day. However, my body started to feel quite unwell. At first, I thought I'd pushed too hard during the race which led to the soreness in my body but later that night, I got a very high fever. No surprise, a few days later, I was diagnosed with dengue and got admitted to the hospital. I was actually in the middle of preparation for the SCKLM. Par series 2 was actually already at week 14 and everything was going on pretty smoothly until dengue hit. Based on my past experience, 8 days of no running won't actually cause a dr

I signed up this race last minute as there were like more than 30 races on that weekend so I thought I might stand a chance to win something. I also wanted to test how much I've improved since the Nike HM 7 weeks ago. I did 1:48 in Nike so I set my target to 1:35 for Bagan Lalang. 7 weeks of training it better be good! We got 4th and 5th! Not many people I know joining this, actually there was like none, only Alan Tan and Sharon. Alan form was superb recently. He just did like about 4min pace in a 15km race the week before so I wanted to see if I could pace with him. Race flag off at about 6:30am, I followed the lead pack quite closely. Alan was in the lead pack. I stayed like 10m behind them. After like about 5mins, shit happened! We ran wrongly, not sure how we did, we ran back to the starting line again. LOL! We had to cross the starting line again and the 10k runners were already there waiting to flag off. We had to cut through them, so funny! Some of us cursed like he