Weekend Updates, Monday and Tuesday

Weekend has been filled with lots of activities, most of which did not involve running.  Mileage is down to a low.  No matter.  I intend to put in as much as I can handle before starting my tapering next week.  Although I did run on Friday evening (8 laps), Saturdays and Sundays were just busy for me, socially.  And I was tired enough not to be able to run as much as I wanted.  I did go to Kampung Pandan on Saturday to pace Ronnie in his 3000 meters time trial.  I managed to complete it in 11:11.81.  I know I could have run faster, but my legs started feeling tired by the 2^nd lap, as if there was a lot of lactic acid.  It just felt lead-like.  Still I managed to run negative splits for each lap but I was a tad disappointed with my final finishing lap where I thought I could have gone faster if my legs were not so tired.  Anyway the former national cyclist Shahrom attended the time trial, as did the tall Caucasian fella (about 6’ 3”) whose name I later found out to be Andreas, Ronnie, Bee Hon and a few others.  Andreas is something of a nemesis to me- actually I was just dissatisfied that I lost to him at the Nilai Half Marathon, where I got within 5 feet of him but in a tactical blunder I allowed him to surge at a certain point in the race and he was too far from me to respond.  Naturally, he finished ahead of me. 

 

Back to the time trial- Ronnie and me lined up at the inner lane of the 200 meter mark- and off we went!  Andreas surged strongly in front and started very aggressively.  He was probably 50 meters ahead of everyone.  Ronnie and I completed the first 200 meters in 41 seconds- 4 seconds too fast but it was alright- it wasn’t so fast that we would slow down dramatically if the pace heated up.  We completed the next 400 meters in about 1:28.  By then Shahrom zoomed past us (although it looked as though he was just easing or jogging past) and Andreas.  He practically passed us as if we were standing still.  He sure is fast. Anyway in the subsequent laps the pace then slowed down to about 1:33, 1:32, 1:31 before I decided that the pace was too slow and I began running harder, because I was about 4 seconds off the pace.  The remaining 3 laps were run at a faster pace (although I’m not sure what the pace was, because as you may be aware, my basic stopwatch does not have a split timing function).  I did manage to overtake a rapidly tiring Andreas at around the 4^th lap (woo hoo!).  Obviously he started out too aggressively and is paying the price.  I completed the time trial in 2^nd place.  I believe that I could have run faster if I wasn’t running high mileage and if I had tapered.   There are other time trials ahead anyway.

 

After the time trial I hung around with Ronnie, Joviet, Jason, Kenny, Jessica and Tey for a while.  Even jogged barefooted around the track with Kenny, about 3 laps.  Maybe it was the stress of the time trial, but my feet hurt like hell when I ran barefooted.  Oh yeah, Tey took some silly photos of us.  The photos are posted here.  Ronnie also passed me the Excel Isotonic drinks that he bought at a very cheap price.  4 bottles of the 1.25 litres  variety.

 

Thereafter I proceeded to Sunway to meet up with William and Wen Dee.  We were  supposed to rendezvous at Sunway College before heading to Jamie’s apartment to help him with his moving of house.  Before that I headed to a bakery to get some breakfast.  Anyway upon my arrival at the rendezvous point, to my pleasant surprise Rohaizad was there.  I thought that of all runners, it was only CM who was going to be helping Jamie out.  Turns out that he found out about Jamie moving house from my blog and he offered to help. Nice to see him there!

 

The moving proceeded without any hitch, as we transported Jamie’s stuff from his apartment into our cars, and then to his new home in Puchong.  The new home is extremely spacious and there’s certainly enough space for Jamie and his family, and if he wants to, I think the house is definitely large enough to accommodate a further addition to the Pang clan!  For running nerds like myself all I looked out for was the potential running routes around the area.  Jamie informs me that one loop around his area covers about 7km.  Sounds good to me!  I even managed to try on his Asics Gel Cumulus, recently purchased for a sinful price of RM59.00 from Ipoh.  I ran about 500 meters in them, and I am jealous.  It is a really good pair of shoes.  Maybe I can be as lucky in the future.   After helping Jamie out I had to rush off to Sungai Buloh to get my grandma and take her to Subang Jaya.  And then I took her back, before heading home and crashing.  That was about 4:00pm.  I was so tired by then, and after a quick shower I slept for 2.5 hours but that didn’t help.  I wanted to run but I was just too tried.  Walked around Ikano Power Centre.  Had a late dinner at Fasta Pasta.  Watched some football on tv.  Man U are really pissing me off.   They either concede early goals and can’t score an equalizer or they play well, score a goal but concede an equalizer.  Really irritating.  Sir Alex Ferguson better do something about this.

 

Sunday- headed to church before going for lunch.  Did not go for the 15k trial run organized by the Pacesetters.  Went shopping at Bangsar Shopping Complex for my Mother’s Day card (yes it was last minute) and also checked out Times bookshop which was not very good when you consider Kinokuniya and MPH. I had to get ready for Mother’s Day, so I didn’t have much time for my run.  Still, I managed to put in an hours’ worth of run, so it wasn’t that bad.

 

Dinner was a simple affair- my mom wanted it that way- because she felt that the restaurants would have been overpriced, trying to take advantage of the Mother’s Day. So we (the family) had a simple Chinses dinner, followed by a nice bottle of very mild red wine (Merlot) at the front porch of my home. 

 

Went to bed early and on Monday, I woke up later than usual 615am- in fact I slept up to 745am! Reason being- I had a meeting in Cyberjaya.  After the meeting I went back to the office.  Things were pretty hectic but I managed to leave before 630pm.  Ran 12 laps at KLCC, most of which were with Kenneth and Newton.  Later ran 1 lap with Ronnie.

 

Tuesday- woke up early as usual and was in the office by 740am.  I hope to get some work done so that I can leave on the dot today.  It is TRACK TUESDAY, after all.

 

Have a good week ahead everyone.

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