Another One Broken

Once again, when the weather was nice, and the mood was good, I pushed my sleepy headed self in the pool. This time, with a specific target to break my 1hr swim of 2.4km which I did last week.

I arrived back to JB way for work, well past the wee hours of 3.30am in the morning of Monday. Having to wake up for work was another torture. I was sleepy headed the whole of the first half day at work.

The weather yesterday was very good and although I brought along my running shoes, I opted to skip the running in the evening as to give my body more rest. Instead, I headed to the swimming pool. The sun was still shining at 5.40pm when I arrived, and I was ready for another long distance swim just before 6pm.

This time, I chose to swim at the diving pool, which promises no disturbance from the other zig-zagging swimmers at the main 50m pool. The 5m diving pool measures at 25m wide, and 30m long, thus for one loop around it, I can do 110m (25m + 30m + 25m + 30m).

The place where I normally swim. The standard 50m pool is on the left, and the diving pool is on the right.
(Photo cilok-ed from a friend's website)

I set two targets for yesterday’s swim. One, was to break the 1hr swim of 2.4km (I want to see how far I can swim in 1hr). And two, was to see how fast I can swim for 3km.

With the start of my stopwatch I began my non-stop swimming, making loops upon loops upon loops, alone. Somehow I find it fascinating to be swimming at the 5m deep pool, as it gave slightly different perspective. The water was superbly clear and quite warm, and that was nice.

Upon doing 10 loops (i.e. 1.1km), the time clocked was 23 minutes.

I can’t really remember what was inside my mind during that lonesome swimming. Partly I was trying to imagine how is it to swim during Kapas-Marang swimathon (oh, I'm still contemplating), partly I was imagining those Ironman triathletes swimming the 3.8km distance. Later on, few friends joined me, doing their own swim pace. Having set some targets to achieve, I kept on swimming at my own pace. I only stopped for some quick rehydration after every 5 loops (no, I don’t drink pool water. I brought my own water bottle).

At 15 loops (i.e. 1.65km), my time was 35minutes. I was shocked, to be honest. If only I can produce the same result during a triathlon.

I did experience some slight fatigue feeling at the arms and shoulders, but I forced myself further. I forgot now what my 2km swim time was, but after making 24 loops (i.e. 2.64km), my stopwatch was showing 57 minutes.

OK, I achieved my first target which was to beat my previous record. That was a nice feeling, so I thought.

Continued on further, I wanted to see how many loops more I can do in the remaining 3 minutes time I have before reaching 1hr. To my surprise, I completed 26 loops within 1 hour. That reflected a distance of about 2.86km.

I was so happy that I continued swimming, smiling.

At the end, I finished up 30 loops (3.3km) in a total time of 1hr 11min, and I came out of the water feeling so light headed that I almost fell down.

And I know, this new personal record is a tough one to beat or break. But, I will try, nevertheless.

[Training Log]
Monday: Swim, 3.3km, 1hr 11m, easy/moderate

When It Is All Over

It’s either I over estimated my body, or I was a tad over confident with myself.

Last Saturday we had another LSD run training, which was planned to start from Bukit Aman car park at 6am. After settling our morning obligations at the nearby mosque, we kicked off our run at around 6.35am, if I’m not mistaken.

One funny thing though, I prayed Subuh twice! Ahaha.

I remember doing ablution when I took shower in the morning. So, when I arrived at Bukit Aman, I went straight to the mosque and prayed, thinking I still have the ablution.

On the second thought, lepas bagi salam, I remembered I’ve kissed my sleeping daughter and wifey prior to leaving the house.

Duh! Kena solat sekali lagi…

This time I can’t remember all their names. My apology.
There’s actually another runner, Shaqi, which was out of frame (he’s standing to the right of Syah)

We slowly made our way from the car park towards Bank Negara (now I know where Padang Merbok is). As always, it is fun to be running in a group. It was still dark and peaceful. Fortunately my whole body system was still showing all green lights despite of the very lack of sleep I had the night earlier. I arrived home from JB at almost 1am, and being awakened twice by my crying daughter (ngigau punya kes ni), just to force open my eyes at 5:15am to prepare to go for the run.

Pelari-pelari tegar, bak kata Shakhir.

Ever since the starting of the run where I stayed with Shakhir, I knew the pace was slightly faster than the one which I did the week earlier. Still able to hold conversations though. Ok, let’s see how I can maintain this high pace during LSD, I told myself. And we proceeded our way in the darkness at Bukit Tunku.

Met up with Fong, Bacin and Anita. They started the run at 5am, and were already on their way back to Bukit Aman. Daud a.k.a CheRaMiChe made a u-turn and followed them.

We re-grouped just before crossing Jalan Duta.

Sekali tengok nampak macam pelarian haram lompat sempadan daaa…

As we ran pass Masjid Wilayah and towards Hartamas, we saw many other runners were already making their way back to Bukit Aman. It’s pretty normal, when races are around the corner, the more runners can be seen on this route on either Saturday or Sunday mornings. I even heard that Sunday morning is normally much more crowded with runners.

We saw Doris and Meng too.

Taking a short break, refueling at Petronas station at Hartamas. This time we ran around the back of the Petronas before making the break stop, to make the whole distance 20km.

Heading back to Bukit Aman. Still feeling strong, still plenty of jokes to share during the run.
(Thanks to Shakhir who snapped these photos, or else cameraman’s face takde peluang nak enter frame)

Shakhir: “How many km? 10km? 20km? 30km? 42km? Semua boleh la bro, takde hal punya. Wa memang TEGAR!!!”

The sun started to drain much of my energy after 1.5hrs running. Many have turned silent, saving up all the inner strength to complete the run. This was the point where I thought I over estimated myself, or perhaps, being a little bit too confident.

The serious faces finally emerged, first signal of fatigue.

Knowing the distance left to cover was only another 5 or 6km, I started to feel fatigue on my thighs. I thought 20km was easy. And I do want to feel easy (i.e. comfortable and not feeling tired like dying) when doing a 20km or 30km runs. But at the current state of affair, I know I have to do more LSD runs so my body can adapt to higher pressure. Having had this fatigue for a 20km run, I don’t know how I will feel when doing 30km run this coming Sunday. I just want to finish the run smiling.

Heading our way to Lake Garden from Bank Negara, I saw Syah pushed his pace up at the front and I knew he was chasing for a good run time. So, I chased him up, and plodded on behind his steps. Looking at my stopwatch it was already showing 2hr 02min as we reached the car park, but Syah said his watch showed 1hr 58min. (we stopped our watches during breaks so that we can measure our run-only time)

Cooling down and post-run stretching. Good for injury prevention.

So, there it was, my last LSD training as a preparation for the upcoming NB Pacesetters 30km run this Sunday. And the good thing is, I will convert this 30km race as another LSD training, for the upcoming Putrajaya Night Marathon.

That’s the only way I can calm my nervousness down, a little bit.

[Training Log]
Last Week Thursday: Run, 1hr3min, easy/moderate
Friday: Rest
Saturday: LSD run, 20km, 2hr2min, easy/moderate
Sunday: Rest

Push

When the weather is nice and the mood is good, I normally like to push myself slightly harder during my training. And looking at the current pattern of my daily training, Wednesday is normally the day where I tend to push more, if however possible lah.

So yesterday, right after my work ended I rushed to the swimming pool. I was fortunate that the big dark clouds were only passing by, pouring down the heavy rain and thunders somewhere else. I quickly changed to my swimming gear and hit the pool at 5.45pm. I wanted to start early, with a mind set to do 1 hour swim, non-stop.

With not so many other swimmers, I put my water bottle on the edge of the third lane of the pool, as to indicate that I am ‘reserving’ the lane to myself. The first few hundred meters were good enough that I did not feel any discomfort in any of my swimming muscles. Perhaps, the pain has been really ‘broken down’.

Getting to 1km point, breathing was still manageable, and the time clocked was around 25 minutes, if I’m not mistaken. Upon taking few sips of water from the bottle, I continued to reach 1.5km point, where the time shown that I’ve spent 38 minutes swimming.

I know I’ve done 2km swim before, only I forgot what the time I clocked was (and I’m lazy to look back at my old post). Anyway, this time, I managed to swim 2km in about 53 minutes or so (not so accurate, I did not use stopwatch, just reading off the needles).

Ok, I have about 5 to 7 minutes to go before completing an hour of swimming, and I spent those final minutes to add another 400m. So, I did 2.4km in 60 minutes, and I’ll try to beat this record next time, when I have the mood to push again.

Done with the swimming, I went home to collect my running and cycling gears. I’ve promised a buddy to run together before we cycle, and I was 15 minutes late when I arrived at our normal gathering point. He was already doing 10 minutes of warming up run.

I joined him and started my stopwatch. The plan was to run one big loop of our normal cycling route, which would give us approximately 6km distance to run or cycle. He’s a very strong runner and in fact, I could say he’s among the top 3 in JB (out of all this very little community of active athletes I know). I don’t know what you would think, but he holds a personal best time of 3hr36min for a full marathon race.

So, following his running pace can be categorized as a hard effort for me. But, I pushed myself, and managed to stay behind his foot steps throughout 95% of our run last night. It was also a battle with my own mindset which kept on sending me signals to stop and just run with my slow pace. I won the battle, and I was glad that I completed the 5.8km run in 31 minutes.

Still not yet as fast as I wanted, but I’m reminding myself that I’m still in the journey towards that goal.

Right after the run, we cycled. Again, I wanted to see how far I can push myself on the bike after having done the swim and the run. Our normal menu was to do the 6km loop, 5 times.

On the first loop, I was doing fine. The pace was not that fast yet as most of them were still warming up. Getting into the second loop, I was still feeling good as I place myself to lead the peloton cruising at 36-37 km/hr on the flat road until suddenly…

“Pssssttttt…..”

… at 8km mark, my back tire exploded and there gone my chance to push on the bike.

Instead, I had to push the bike back to the car park. What a good 20 minutes cooling down walking exercise that was.

This was not last night's photo (obviously). This was during one of the times where I pushed myself on the long rides, back in February 2009. I did a 79km long ride on Saturday morning, followed by a 131km long ride on the next morning. It was really tiring.

[Training Log]
Wednesday: Swim 2.4km, 1hr, moderate; Run 5.8km, 31min, moderate/hard; Cycle 8km (supposed to be 30km ride, but DNF due to puncture)

Fun Dive

After a tiring drive down to JB for work on the midnight of Sunday which followed with a lack of sleep, the evening of Monday I spent doing some light swimming. I borrowed my brother in law’s waterproof camera, and brought that along to the pool. I wanted to see my own front crawl swimming stroke, as a mean to better understand what bad habits I am having.

The pool water was very clear, but only after half an hour in the pool that I managed to get a friend to shoot some videos of my swim stroke. I am quite fortunate to have some friends here who were keen enough to share their knowledge on how to improve our swimming strokes.

I am now watching the video of my own swimming stroke repeatedly, and already have noticed how many bad habits I possess. Well, I never took any formal swimming lesson, hence the many inefficient movements I produced that’s causing in lots of drags and non-powerful stroke. Senang cakap, I am still a slow swimmer lah.

I remember Kash once posted about Swim Smooth. It’s a cool website where lots of tips you can catch from there. Don’t forget to bookmark it’s URL.

Visit Swim Smooth website.

Swim Smooth's Hierarchy which you can find in their website.
They cover tips for all range of swimmers, from beginner, intermediate, to pro.
(click image to enlarge)

Apart from that, since it was supposed to be a playful training session in the pool, I asked one of my friends to come with me to the diving pool, which the floor is 5m deep. Then, the fun began!

First, I asked him to shoot a video of me diving 5m down, touch the floor and return to the surface.

Taking in all the oxygen I needed

Blowing out about 30% of my lung content as I made the first move, in the effort not to let the water to get into my nostril when I’m upside down (which is gonna be painful).

Dive, dive, dive!!!

A little bit more…

Touch down!

Time to make the power leg push

If there’s a sound, it should sound like “Zzuuuuussshhh…”

At this stage, there’s no more air in my lungs. Can’t wait to resurface.

The second game we played was that, my friend will dive down and put the camera lying down on the pool floor 5m below before resurfacing, and I will dive down to collect the camera.

I was on the left, and my friend just resurfaced after putting the camera on the bottom floor of the pool.

Making my entrance downwards.

Dive, dive, dive!!!

“I’m comin’ to getcha!”

That was my last breath while resurfacing.

It was fun indeed, but to be doing the free dive multiple times in a short period of time was truly tiring. I love diving, and I love moving under the water. Once in a while when I got tired with continuous swimming, I surely will come to this diving pool to have fun by either diving, or do underwater swim from one wall to another with one breath (approx 25m), or to simply lompat katak from the spring board.

Now, if only I have my own waterproof digital camera… sigh.

[Training Log]
Monday: Swim 30mins, easy/play-play.
Tuesday: Run 48min, approx. 10km, moderate/hard.

Bukit Aman LSD Run

During the previous weekend (Saturday, Dec 26), Kash and I did a LSD run of 21km, starting from Kiara park, ran through Hartamas and made a u-turn at the old LHDN’s building alongside Jalan Duta. The time recorded was 2hr20, with a slight pain felt on my right knee, and it felt good after a very long hiatus from LSD. I did not blog about it, but Kash did.

Last Saturday, together with another few running buddies, we did another LSD run. This time starting from Bukit Aman, which was a first time for me. Six of us turned up, and for forgetting where I put my stopwatch, I had no idea of what time we started the run. But it was still pretty dark.

L-R: Me, Syah, Kash, Ian, Fadil (nice to meet you bro), and Din.

As always, I like it when I run on a new route. The feeling of not knowing what’s coming ahead (hilly, flat, downhill routes) made it feel like I was into a new adventure. For many times I have read from many other blogs about those who run from Bukit Aman to Hartamas on weekly basis, but only now I have the opportunity to experience it myself.

Simply put, at least now I know the whereabouts along the route, like the Bank Negara, and Bukit Tunku.

If I’m not mistaken, they are all preparing for the NB PACM 30km run, in two weeks time.

Not wearing my watch, I can’t really gauge the distance during the run. I just ran while enjoying the awakening morning sky. The group got a bit scattered after a while, leaving everybody almost running on their own.

Ian running along Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan. This should be a suitable place for those attempting the 30km NB run, for which with a starting time of 5.30am, on average many runners should be crossing this masjid with ample time to perform Subuh prayer, insyaAllah.

Ian and Syah leading the way as we were approaching Hartamas.
(Sangat susah mau kejar ini orang untuk ambil gambar tau!)

Arriving at our u-turn point, for a quick re-fuelling break.

Ian kindly bought us all a round of mango puddings. After about 15 minutes or so, we were ready to begin our return journey. Yeah, we chatted a lot during the break.

Fadil on the left, who was running his first 20km! Bravo!!!

On our way back, I tried to follow Syah’s pace (which was fast ok!). Four of us (except for Kash and Ian who opted to take it slightly easier at the back) started to run back the undulating route alongside Hartamas where as much as I wanted to stay close with Syah, I have to remember that the journey was still far and I should pace myself well. I didn’t want to suffer my knees too much.

Syah was steadily running at the front, and for not wanting to run alone I chased him up. (Well, actually because I didn’t really memorize the way back to Bukit Aman, so I better keep my self close to him). We could still chat a little bit on the run, making the long run felt much shorter.

Following Syah’s pace was not that easy for me.

We stopped for a little while to re-group, after which we proceeded our way to Bukit Aman. I was feeling good, as I did not feel any pain on my knees yet, so I pushed it further and faster only to realize I was running alone at the front.

Upon making the turn into Lake Garden, I waited for Syah and we sprinted together towards the car park as he mentioned that we could be doing a sub 2 hours run. Never that I thought I could run 20km within 2 hours. I was in disbelief with that.

But unfortunately, as Kash put it on her blog, the distance was only about 19km something.

Oklah, whatever the distance or the time was, it was a good LSD run, at least as part of my training for the longer distance run events in the future.

Stretching down after the long run.

And with this New Year, I’d like to put something new on my blog at the end of an entry. Without any intention to take pride of what I did or whatsoever, this shall remain only as training logs for my own self. It shall also serve as a motivation for me to keep on blogging, and to keep on training. They seem to compliment each other pretty well.

[Training Log]
Friday: Rest.
Saturday: Group 20km LSD run (maybe less); 1hr58min; Bkt Aman-Hartamas-Bkt Aman; no leg/knee pain.
Sunday: Rest.

Flashback 2009

Few days ago as we were approaching the end of this colorful year of 2009, I spent quite some time refreshing my memories by going through my own blog. Indeed, 2009 was a beautiful year for me, with the opportunity to venture into more endurance events (either official race events or the group training sessions), making and meeting new friends who share pretty much the same interest. Though some portion of my life was not as cheerful as much as I wanted it to be, I’ll take that as a learning curve in achieving a better life and becoming a better person for the future.

Allow me to bring you back to some exciting portion of my journey in 2009. These are some of the interesting stuffs I found worth remembering (for my own self), as well as to serve some key notes on how I progressed throughout the year.

JANUARY

I kick started my 2009 triathlon training season with some running, trying to build better base and putting a little bit more effort to run much further. It was a period where I tried to expand my endurance envelope, little bit at a time. I knew, the journey was still a long way to go.

GE 30km – I did not participate in it, just went there to grab some mood and to support some friends taking part. I did not know many of them, except for very few which I get to know through reading their blogs. Towards the end, Aini put the poison into my brain to do the 30km run next year.
OK, at least now I’ve registered for my first 30km run in January 2010.

It was also the time where I first run for 2 hours, by running 6 loops around the garden as my LSD (truth is, I didn’t even know what LSD meant at that time). It was so mentally torturous to run 2 hours alone, plus having to circle around the same loop many times. But, I was glad I did it.

FEBRUARY

February saw me doing lots of long distance rides, three to be exact. It was fun to be riding with a good bunch of cycling buddies, as some of them were finalizing their IM Langkawi training. I learnt a lot about the term ‘bonking’ too. And I can easily testify that long rides can make you cycle stronger afterwards. Oh, I miss those long rides!

Tour de Ayer Baloi

Tour de Pendas

MARCH

OK, March was the start of our local triathlon season, if I’m not mistaken. I participated for the first time in the toughest triathlon even, as some said. The Kenyir Lake triathlon. It was tough indeed, as the heat and the crazy steep short climbs surely taught me to train harder.

During the Kenyir Lake triathlon.

APRIL

Perhaps, with the shock that I had after doing the Kenyir Lake triathlon, I got bitten with the M bug in April. Going for training felt like being forced to get into a prison or some sort. I even felt sick for running.

Browsing through my photo album, I now remember I did one long ride to Kukup, which I did not put up any entry for it.

MAY

If I can remember correctly, I started preparing for the KLIM marathon in May. Together with Kash, we did few LSD run at which I for the first time broke my 2 hours running time barrier, as well we going beyond 30km and peaked my marathon training with a 35km LSD. I thought I peaked too early, as I still got at least three more weekends before the marathon.

Other than that, I also remember started doing few long swims as a preparation for the longer distance triathlon event I wanted to take part. It was great to be able to see how far we can take our body to. But the training was not easy, as it took lots of effort and time to go beyond something big for yourself. I blogged about it here and here.

JUNE

At the start of the month, some friends in JB organized the first eco-challenge event in the town. Yes, JB City Eco Challege was held for the first time and I had great time being with the organizing committee.

Behind the scene.

JB City Eco Challenge.

June was also such an important month for me, as I was going to attempt my first ever running event, which was to run 42km in the KL International Marathon. Not really sure whether I could survive it, but I gave it a go and how glad I was that I crossed the finish line. This was my first biggest achievement of the year.

My first marathon.

JULY

It was the month when I re-visited PD for the OD triathlon. I remember about the massive wave at PD beach, but I had great time during the bike and running leg. Felt pretty strong, and I almost clocked sub 3 hours.

And having met new friends at the event in our little local triathlon society made my PD race one of the most enjoyable ones. I hope they will always hold a triathlon event in PD for much more years to come, as it is relatively close to KL as well.

I can't remember why I took so less picture during PD triathlon.

AUGUST

Another big target for me to achieve this year, was to compete in a Long Distance triathlon event – at Desaru. In fact, my whole year training was focused for this particular event. I did not have a big target, just want to see whether I could survive the event without having any injury. It was another fun race for me, especially during the run. Plenty of friends around too, which was always a pleasure to meet them all.

I finished it!

And almost as usual, after a big race, it was easy to be bitten with the M bug. Especially when Ramadhan was approaching.

SEPTEMBER

Apart from the beautiful Aidil Fitri we celebrated in September, I had my first taste of what they call trail running. I even bought a pair of trail shoes, as I could feel that I will venture more into trail running. Together with 6 more friends (they call themselves the Geng Bas Sekolah GBS team), we run up Gunung Nuang up until Kem Lolo. It was fun.

With GBS, running up Nuang.

OCTOBER

I did another trail running in October, as there were no other events on the calendar.

We ran up inside FRIM.

Also, I volunteered myself for the Young Endurance Athlete (YEA)

NOVEMBER

I pirated the Genting Trailblazer upon a difficult-to-reject invitation from Syah and Ian. Perhaps this was when I got hooked into becoming a runnergrapher, or photorunner? I don’t know, you decide.

The pirate in red.

And maybe some of us were addicted to trail running, we organized another group trail runs, where we went to Kiara.

In preparation for Salomon trail run, we did a dry test at Kiara.

DECEMBER

OK, the last month of the year. Let see what happened.

Started off with Salomon X-trail run.

Then we also did the final group trail run at Batu Dam.

And finish it off with the last event I took part in 2009, the Malakoff Run.

To all of you, thanks so much for keep on coming to view this blog as I ramble through what came across my mind. My sincerest apologies if any of the contents in this blog ever hurt of disturb your feelings or emotions, as I never have any intention to do so. I hope you too had a wonderful year in 2009 and I hope I can continue writing in 2010 as it gives pleasure to me seeing comments from you. With each entry I put up here, my only wish is that, for a smile to be blossoming on your face. Hope you had fun at this blog.

May we all have another wonderful year in 2010.
Happy New Year!