KLSCM 2025 - The New Family Tradition

And lope finally joins the KLSCM bandwagon as an adult. Wee hoo

And I cannot help to contain my excitement. My boy, whom I've been bringing to family races before, is now participating in a major event, doing the fully grown distance with us. 

Me and hubs with our annual priority slot. I managed to win the registration battle for him. So that alone, is a feat by itself. 

The bad thing though, all of us did not manage to get our best times. Guess, you really can't have it all. But having finished in 1 piece, safely is something that we should really be grateful for. Alhamdulillah. 

I was down with injury. Which I initially thought something to do with the knee. But within late September, I was starting to think that it's more of an ITB rather than knees related injuries. It had magically (of course with Allah's will) subsided a lot towards KLSCM, to the point that I  managed to put my fast shoes. I was contemplating between Nike's Vaporfly versus Asics Magic Speed. Thanks to that shakeout run the day prior, I've decided for Magic Speed, and it was the best decision ever. 

Fitness was, at the lowest ever. I failed the long run session miserably 4&5 weeks out from the event. Some decent and modest distance at 14km with a snail pace managed to be squeezed just 3 weeks prior. Alhamdulillah 2 weeks out, i managed to squeeze another 16km. And that was it. Here’s what weekly mileage looks like, with overall average of 29km. Totally undeserving of a good timing. 

Weekly Mileage	Intensity Minutes
Week 1 - 23km	646
Week 2 - 24km	598
Week 3 - 26km	750
Week 4 -  33km	825
Week 5 -  27km	638
Week 6 -  39km	692
Week 7 -  31km	795
Week 8 - 30km	557

I wasn’t looking forward to the event at all. With 16km squeezed in, confidence slowly crept in. Then legs felt better. It’s time to get some toyol or artificial stimulus in. First up was the Peakflow. I was initially skeptical but Lope said that it really does help a little bit. Then the Nike Vaporfly 4 of course, as I had mentioned in previous post. It was surprisingly on slight discount, then I could use some special coupon to have further discount. Which was unusual, given how Nike has been lately. No sales to their key products. It was the reason that I opted for Magic Speed initially. So of course, I spent no time to hesitate and complete the purchase. Come race pack collection day, came across Beet It beetroot drink, which I had totally forgotten. Grabbed 2 bottles of it and hoarded it all for myself. Maurten was totally finished. I had no caffeine based gel. Lucky I had the Koda that I had since sometime ago (luckily still not yet expired).

All things prepped up, then the day finally came. I prayed to Allah that everything would go smoothly. It was Lope’s first event and I was worried of unnecessary mishaps. Maybe he would have toilet issue like he normally would. Or all of us to overslept. Or we missed the train. Anything could happen. Alhamdulillah with Allah’s wills, none did. I prepped PB&J sandwich for everyone and peanut butter for me. Made coffee, which I think really helped. Brought kurma, which I consumed 3 before and during the run. 3 spare gels for me (just in order for me to finish them off before they become expired), 2 for qaid (cause I know they would hand out more during the run). Reminded him to cool himself down, to drink water frequently since it could get very hot and humid, to reserve ur run as much as u can even though you think you can push a bit more. Reminded him on when to solat. In any case, he still had the possible chance for a sub 2. Should he reach 18 km at 6:30 am, he would have a fair chance for a sub 2 and might be able to wait to finish the run in order to finish his Subuh. 

Despite all the reminders, I missed few pointers still. Made known based on his complaints afterwards. 

(1) He didn’t know at which point to use the gel. I did inform him, but maybe in all the info, it wasn’t that strongly emphasised and was buried among all other reminders. 

(2) The sprinkler was next to non-existent. I did tell him to always cool yourself down and splash yourself with water whenever you could. I may have not strongly emphasised the use of plain water that they are distributing at the water stations. Or the sponging stations instead of relying on the sprinklers.

(3) Forgot to really study the route profile. I had myself to blame as well on this. I have always told him to reserve it until 5km remaining before pushing what you had. He had it good until 15 or 16 km and pushed a bit more for the remaining. It was a bit more than he could handle, especially with the unforgiving ending route. He had to walk at some parts. If I had study the route a bit more, we could have strategised it better

As for my training, this is the first time that I tried chatgpt recommendation. Which wasn't too shabby. Considering it kept me recovered. Not so much on performance progress, but at least I could recover while ramping training up. Mileage was as described above. 3 weekly runs only. 1 day for workouts and interval, 1 day for midweek long with some race pace thrown in at the end of the run, very modest increments of long run and mileage. 6 days total workout a week, with 1 day of pilates included. Weekly training minutes were definitely low to produce any meaningful outcome, but that is expected and totally forgiven given the recovery state.

Given the fitness state, I have set my expectation to be very low. Secretly have that target planted, but never actually ran a specific pace. I went totally by feel. Heart rate was high, given how at ease it felt. All the previous uphills that I had trouble with before, was faced without any problems. Of course it was slow, but I didn’t need to walk, nor I face any hardship with them. By 15km, I went totally check on how lope is doing on the apps. He was just around 1km ahead. A good indicator then, since it meant that he didn’t bonk and he paced it right. As for me, usually I would have push it a bit at 10km. I didn’t this time. Thought of delaying it till 15km. I hold it still, especially since we would have the hilly Bank Negara section at around 18km. So I delayed it further still. At 18km, I thought, why not let the pace out only after 19, since it would only be 2 kms remaining. Only at 19km that I started to really release the pace just a little bit. Even then it was still in the range of 6 mins above with occasional sub 6 pace. And it turned out to be a great idea as well. The ending was a continuous roll. The last stretch was the real pain. When it showed it should be only 500 remaining, the route served us with 1 final incline, in towards the tunnel. But of course, nothing that I couldn’t handle. Looking back I think it was one of the most enjoyable run ever. Timing not too late. Didn’t break me after run. Even training runs and long runs felt more laborious. 

Ego aside, it was an enjoyable one. Especially when this was Qaid’s first. On to the next run.