Easy question, difficult answer

Last Sunday when I ran at Salomon X-Trail event, some other blogosthlete friends went to Singapore to run the marathon. None of them that I know got disqualified or did not finish (DNF) it. So, big congratulations to them all. Well done!

Reading the stories they shared on their blogs, none of them skipped the word “pain”. Yeah, to run or even to walk the gruesome 42km of distance is not kindergarten stuffs. As the famous runningmom Haza said, we have to respect the distance.

Very true indeed.

Talking about the pain when doing it, to be frank, I’ve forgotten how painful it was for me to get through the 42km. But I remember that I hated stairs so much after that. Jalan kangkang-kangkang mengalahkan orang utan. The painful journey was not only on the marathon day itself. It has started few weeks prior to that. If I may summarize how I trained for it, it might look something like below:

During the initial stage of training when I first broke my 15km barrier, not so much pain yet. I knew I could go further.

The next LSD run training when I went 20km for the first time, I started to feel the pain in the legs, especially at the knees.

Upon breaking the 25km barrier mark the week after that, I got disturbed with the continuous pain at the knees after running pass 18km. Few friends suggested me to take some supplements for the joints. Thank goodness it worked for me.

I cannot really remember now, but I think I also did a 30km LSD. Or, was it 34km? I can’t recall. But, that was the last LSD training before I started tapering 2 weeks prior to race. Don’t talk about the pain. It was the worst among other earlier LSD’s.

And as much as I wanted to run all the way throughout the 42km distance during the marathon, I was humbled by the unbearable pain I had at 28km or so. From then onwards, even walking was painful.

Towards the finishing line of KL International Marathon.
I kept running just because there were lots of photographers there.
I was already suffering from cramps on both calves, 2km before the finish line.

Now, there are already talks around the corner about the forthcoming Pacesetters 30km run at Putrajaya in January next year, and also the first in Malaysia, night marathon which will take place few weeks after that, and many other races in 2010.

I can’t deny that I am so much bugged into participating in some of these events. But the question is, why?

Why do I want to suffer my physical and mental, yet once again?

I don’t have an exact answer for that, yet.

The reason why I’m writing this entry up is that, out of a sudden I come to think that is it possible to run 30km or 42km, or do another triathlon without suffering any pain?

This question lingers me so much, that I’m planning to put myself into a self experiment. An experiment to see whether I can run or race long distance events with lesser pain than before, or will I suffer it every time?

Hmmm…

And weird enough that I’m not so worried about the suffering I have to endure for the training because I know training harder is a must. But, I’m more concerned with the already limited quality time with family, as many more people will suffer if I wrongly balance it between family and my interests in endurance sports.

Balancing act – something that I thought was non-existence, until I start doing endurance sports. I’m still learning to become better at it. Wish me luck ya!