Road Running - Training Log, 22 February 2009

After a week of quiet running activities due to backache from the long 20k last Sunday, I was planning to climb Batu Caves up 2 times on Sunday as a crash course to butter my butts for the KL Towerthon on 01 March 2009. The thought of climbing 2,400 plus steps gave me the nerves all week.

But when my trainer called to invite me for a half-marathon 'fun-run', I did not falter and said yes. He was planning to run on MEX but later changed to KESAS as MEX to Putrajaya is about 36k. Checked my gears, carbo-load, early night sleep, and I thought I am good for the run.

The morning itself, arrived at the rendezvous place, and I had a body scan. Will post the details later, but it seems that I have lost some weight (2kg) and lost 3% of muscle too, while increase in visceral and subcutaneous fat level. That can't be good... in all fairness, I admit to the many junk food I have had for the past 2 weeks or so. The cravings for them are a little bit over the top, lah. The vices are basically Glenn's maruku, and the many butter cookies from the post-CNY hampers in the office.

We hit the road around 7.45 a.m. from Sri Petaling LRT towards Puchong. Running along KESAS in the morning was quite fun, a relief from the many loops I pictured in my head on my usual LSDs. And the changing landscape, with zooming cars (and bikes) were unnervingly exciting. I have yet to participate in any events in 2009, so this was in a way, comforting. The only part was running side by side with my trainer... man, that was some pressure. The last time we ran together, I dropped out on the incline of Penang Bridge (2008), and now here we are attempting another half-marathon.

We arrived at the Subang/Taipan toll gate within the hour, crossed over and I had a quick fix of the PowerGel.Muscle still good, legs running OK. The mistake here was drinking too much. But we made our way back to Bukit Jalil, albeit walking for the first 5 minutes. From then, we ran towards Kinrara R&R, and here we had a pit stop as I started to feel a lot of cramping activities, and my toes on left and right feet started to crimp. It did not hurt in any way, but whenever it crimps, I couldn't run as the feet arches up and all the tendons are pulling each other instead of distributing the load. Whatever that is, I had forced IY to stop and walk quite a lot at this point. We reached Sri Petaling after 10 a.m., and all-in-all, it was not too bad after all. I might try this course again, almost definitely on my own in the future.

Good Sunday workout. The question is, macamana nak panjat 2,400 plus anak tangga next Sunday?