k r i s a n d r o

I had an interesting 15.5km long jog this morning.

There was this huge tree that had fallen from Bishan Park, right smack onto the pedestrian road on the park outskirts. Not sure when it fell but it was about 6am when I saw it and I hope nobody was hurt. It then started to rain pretty heavily about 4-5km into my run; the kind of rain that keeps pounding into my eyeballs, disrupting my vision and threatening to dislodge my contact lens. There was also this ghostly wail of a voice that made me jump out of my skin which turned out to be this stealthy cyclist with an umbrella trying to get me out of his way.

Dude, if you are reading this, please install a bicycle bell. I don’t get frightened easily but that was mighty scary. On another note, you have awesomely oiled gears. I had NO INKLING that you were behind me.

Despite dealing with the above, the jog was extremely comfortable. I risked not bringing any fluids along for such a long jog but I didn’t need any in the end. Not that I was drinking from the rain or the flooded drains like some savage but I didn’t sweat much due to the cold weather. Like an over-clocked CPU with good cooling, I guess my bodily engine also enjoyed the dropped temperatures and my timing and level of post-run-panting proved it.

I enjoyed the jog immensely and was reminded of how painful it was to jog/run long distances back in 2009 when I started it all. During runs, I would start to experience sharp jabs of pain from plantar fasciitis in my left sole, right knee aches and the biggest ailment any runner will face; the nagging mind telling me to stop.

“Stop. The pain is so sharp. Stop. Your legs are tired. Stop. Go home.”

So what changed?

3 things: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, training knowledge & Vibram Five Fingers.

The book gave me purpose and with purpose, comes joy. The knowledge allowed me to embrace safe & productive things like training in heart rate zones. The Vibram Five Fingers simply allowed me to run like how humans were made/designed to; pain free.

I may have started quite late on this journey and still have a lot to learn but I am pretty sure I have a long and enjoyable road ahead; preferably with bell equipped cyclists and upright trees.

My training has been smooth so far after making a full recovery from Pneumonia. Come tomorrow, I would have hit 146km for the past 37 days with about 420km to go before Sundown 2011 on 28th may, 2011.

Looking at my training data, I am very close to the peak of my fitness last year and the road ahead, beyond 240km, is pretty much uncharted waters for me as I have never ran this much before. Although I’ve been reading up on training, the journey of every training cycle is very much a learning process and an ongoing experiment on the limits of the human body. Single human body; my body to be exact.

History (for all of the past 2 years) has proven that I tend to hit a wall of bad health or injury before races but the same history also show that I push my boundaries of fitness each time I tried like the stubborn man I am. So with fingers crossed, I hope that I make it this time for a race and shatter the shameful personal best of 2 hrs 43mins for a 21km run in 2009.

On other news, my trusty pair of Vibram Five Fingers (VFF) KSO have accumulated 568km of mileage so far since I 1st wore them January last year.

Pic taken before I put another 5km in them

The rubber of the “toes” are worn off in quite a few spots where I land and push off during runs and I will have to retire them as soon as my socks show through. As minimalistic as I am, I don’t need holes in my socks. Despite the sadness of the inevitable parting with my very 1st pair of VFFs, the KSO has served me well and seeing that the recommended lifespan of regular shoes are between 500 – 800km, this pair of KSO has lived a pretty good life.

Stay strong my Vibram Five Fingers KSO! With any luck, you’ll live to see yourself break the 600km mark.

For those who have not been following my social updates on Twitter and Plurk, I was actually diagnosed with Pneumonia in my left lung in Nov last year after a long bout of flu, sore throat and a persistent cough. I really have to thank the Medical Officer during my reservist for referring me to Changi Hospital’s A&E. Else, I would have stubbornly stuck to the “miraculous healing powers of the human body”.

In the short few weeks of November, I lost a good 4kg or so.

After seeing a specialist once in December and in January, my lung was declared free of the disease and I even helped to complete my doctor’s sentence,

“Okay, your x-ray looks good. So I guess you are free…”

“.. TO DO ANYTHING I WANT!”

The doctor broke into a grin and knew I was referring to running.

It was really difficult to stop all the training. Besides the fear of wasting all the effort and improvement from the training cycle, it was painful to not sweat it out on the pavements and roads. I lost count of the number of times in the last 3 months where I would stare longingly at someone breaking sweat on a run. Any onlooker would have mistaken the stare for something else.

I finally got back to jogging last week and it felt so good getting my feet moving along that I was smiling to myself like a smitten puppy in love. Many have professed their admiration for my persistence in running but I have to say that I really have it easy considering how much I really, really love running.

Every setback is a lesson and although I might never pinpoint the reason why I acquired pneumonia, I am definitely putting more thought into the post-exercise recovery process. Downing myself with vitamins after hard workouts, eating healthier (not doing it for now. I blame the back-to-back festivities), rest and compression.

Compression is a sports science proven way of helping performance and recovery and I do have a full length compression tights but KuKuNehNeh forbids me to wear them for prolonged periods for fear of the death of my “soldiers” in the crotch area and so I have resorted to the following attire after workouts.

The black portion are are 2XU compression calf sleeves. The white portion are Phiten Knee sleeves that I doubled up as thigh compression sleeves.

The ugly red portion is just a pair of shorts that I bought many years back on a day with a bad taste in fashion.

Training has been great from the start of the year ever since I threw my shoes away for Vibram Five Fingers although I was probably overly enthusiastic with the momentum that I faced injury at the end of April. After 4 months of inactivity, I finally started training again at the start of September and the result is even more rewarding when looking at my data and my form.

“What doesn’t kills you, makes you stronger” – Friedrich Neitzche

Of course I don’t train to kill myself  but I definitely can see myself getting stronger after each setback.

Of course I can’t say that I ran as much as the Jan-Apr period since this is only the 2nd month into my current cycle of training but the difference is that I am running further per run on average and taking my slow runs even slower – to the point of finally calling it a jog. I am also running harder for my fast runs and tweaking it here and there to better suit it for long distance training.

I used to think that in order to run fast, one has to train fast but after reading about Japanese marathoners, they really emphasize on clocking mileage and they are extremely fast in the marathon – If I dare say, the fastest group of marathoners one can find in Asia. Some of the Japanese run as much as over 1,200-1,300km per month. That is 300-325km per week and 42.9-46.3km per day even if you ran everyday. A f**king marathon everyday! Crazy much? Haha!

Interestingly, most of their mileage is done at a “slow” 5min/km. Seeing that they race 42.195km at 3min/km, 5min/km is definitely slow for them.

As an Asian, I shall look up to their training (instead of the Americans) and hope that one day, my “slow”  jogs will be as fast as their “slow” ones.

Last year, I finish the Singapore Bay Run/Army Half Marathon in 2hrs 43mins 32secs. I shall aim high and say it here…

I’ll finish the half marathon at Standard Chartered Marathon in under 2hrs on 5th Dec 2010!