The fools!

Not really, it was just a term of endearment towards my fellow runners who ran with me yesterday evening. I was a tad late when I arrived at Lake Garden around 6:06pm, and Kenny THAM, Captain Ron, and Lai were already there, raring to go, from the looks of it. Kenny THAM (a new nickname given by Captain Ron due to his ability to talk non-stop despite running fast in his asthmatic condition with all the phlegm that comes along with it) told us that he had to pick up his wife at KL Sentral station by 7pm and this had to be a fast workout. I thought this was supposed to be an easy day? Kenny THAM in fact was the one who mentioned to me that it will be an easy 4 loops round the lake. I wasn't quite prepared (mentally at least) to run at that pace, but I thought what the heck.

Off we go at the starting line of the children's playground, and within seconds, Lai and Kenny are already 50 meters ahead. I ran with Ronnie, and within 400 meters, he remarked that he was already breathing very heavily. I knew that it was a fast pace, and the timing on our watches confirmed it- 4:30 in the 1st km. We toured the first loop in 10:26. 2nd loop, Ron started to increase his pace in an effort to catch Kenny and Lai. I went along with him. Not realising how fast we were going, I looked at my watch at the end of the 2nd loop- 10:05!!! By then we were breathing down on Lai and Kenny. Kenny slowed down and I managed to run side by side with him, while Ronnie pushed ahead to catch Lai. He overtook Lai shortly after. I was breathing quite hard by then, and Kenny told me that it was his Max V02 workout, to which I remarked "Foolish!". As usual, he then tried chatting with me, but I had no breath to chat with him. We then overtook Lai. 3rd loop- 10:22. Final loop I decided to maintain the same pace as Kenny pushed ahead. Time for final loop- 10:22. Total time: 41:17 for 4 loops, as I finished 3 seconds behind Kenny.

I was pretty satisfied with the run- I didn't think I had it in me to run at that pace because my mileage has been somewhat low, training has been rather unstructured since Singapore. So I have to thank the crazy fellas for making me run at that pace even though it wasn't necessarily comfortable. I've been running aerobically since Singapore so a 21k race pace workout was just the thing to add some zip to the legs and get myself accustomed to running that pace again.

Kenny then left to pick his wife up; and we ran another warm-down loop. Our legs were already like jelly at that point because we waited too long after the run to start running again. That warm-down loop took 15 minutes.

Next up- it is supposed to be an easy run at Lake Gardens today. We will see.