First Race Bling of the Year - NM Galaxy Road Race 2nd Series
Life has been super crazy. Blog has been neglected super long. I have not slept for so long as well.
This week is exam week. 2 papers altogether, with 1 day apart. Work has been super crazy in the weeks preceeding it, hence not much revision was possible. Multitasking was my bestfriend. I simply multitask everywhere. Read while eating, nursing and even driving. If I nurse at night, in the dark, I studied using the ipad. Lucky it all over now. But it's only a closure of 1 chapter. Another scary chapter awaits me. The crazy work chapter. So, since the kids were sound asleep, and I, for no reason wasn't feeling all that sleepy, I figured it's time for me to clear some backlogs. Now that I don't have the morning run to do. When else will I have this privilege. And my backlog was on work mind you. It's 1.26 am now, on a wee Saturday morning. Before I shut everything down, I thought of paying some visit to my little blog page of mine. But before that, I have woken up since 3.00 am Friday morning, had my exam, been everywhere, had a 30 mins run and I'm still up at 1.28 am now. Close to 23 hours of no sleep. It's a record for me.
So back to the topic. I had my first race bling for the year. Yippee...Finally.... I wonder why it took this long. And it had to happen during the crazy weeks. Ok fine, enough with the craziness.
So, I have not been racing for quite a while. I've been training longer distance now, and had no measure of my fitness level in races. By right it should have improved. I have ramped up my long runs to 20 ish ranges compared to the teens before. So, with the NM Galaxy, I had secretly hoped of reaching certain level. But I know it can be too much to ask for, given the super hilliness that of the route. It's the 2nd super hilliness for me, the first being 2XU. Somehow, expatrunner agrees as well. Well, dragon back is definitely non-challenged I think. And I heard the Bukit Jalil Brooks route is quite crazy. but never been to those. So the Bukit Aman 15km route hills is super hilly in my definition.
So off we went on the race morning, only managed to leave home at 5.50 am from Shah Alam, since baby was up for no reason, of all the time. Lucky my maid wasn't grumpy. And the good thing was I got to feed him just timely. So, of course, if you leave house only by 5.50, going towards KL, U definitely didn't get to be there in time. But it's no biggie. At least it can cut our waiting time there. I didn't go to do a proper warm up and got straight into the run the moment i stepped out from the car.
Gosh, my eyes is killing me. I just gotto stop.. to be continued.
Back up in the morning and back into the race report.
Everything else with the race was normal, except that my sunnies dropped within the first 3km I guess, and a guy has nicely picked it up and handed it over to me. It was so cool, he just passed by (ran of course) and handed me the sunnies without even looking at me, and it was still dark with no roadlight at the moment. He was so certain that it was mine, and I was the person despite the lack of light. After that, he seemed to be having a good pace, and being the normal me, tried to follow his pace. But he slowed down and I picked up, off we were separated again. about km 5 or so, Hisham from office caught up. We ran together for a good 3 km or so, until midway to the Highway to Hell as some might call it. He said I was fast and asked me to run ahead. But I don't think he was so slow neither. But off I went. And as I had known from the training at my neighborhood, front foot strike is extremely important going downhill. This is where to put it to test. And of course it's true. The downside was, I felt a slight uneasiness with the foot the day after the race. Guess a lot of pressure was put in it, with the front striking, with the speed downhill. The upside, definitely less pressure felt to the knee, the abdomen...yes, I feel some abdominal pressure in my long runs, speed and of course fast downhill. That's I have been thinking on doing the headstand. More on that later.
Done with the Highway to Hell, off with the Mayor Hill. Hubs called me around that area, after the downhill I guess. He has reached and waiting for me, 1st time that I was pressured having someone waiting for me uneasily at the finishing line. Mayor Hill was of course challenging, but getting to experience the 2 hills the 2nd time, I was better able to cope with it. Plus I had braved the slight hilliness at my running area, hence the body is slightly better conditioned now than before.
I was expecting that we will go through the exact same route as 2XU. But there was a major turning point at the mahameru junction I guess. I was almost taking the 5km path, and had asked the far policeman before I headed further. And lucky I did. 15km and 10km runners supposed to go to the opposite site. 2km plus is still left of me. I had tried to speed at 3km but I didn't put on the full force since it's quite a good distance away and I couldn't predict the level of hilliness. Suddenly there was a turn nearby Padang Merbuk and sprinted the remaining distance away. Final distance clocked in was a mere 14.11 km. It was very close to my target, being a conservative me, that is acceptable. Slight regrets was due to the feeling that I still have some energy left in me. If only I have not been that conservative, I could have reduced the gap from my target further.
Nevertheless, I have secured my Padang Merbuk 15km route at 6.08 mins/km. Good enough improvement against last of 6.44 in 2xu. But I feel the same regret as expatrunner felt. The cheated feeling with the underdistance route. You want to give it your all, but it got stopped before you actually could. An under-distance race is frustrating as you hold off on your final sprint – if you’ve got any puff left in you-only to find you’re over the finish line with a medal around your neck before you’ve even hit your top pace as expatrunner has put it. That's the only frustration. And the possibility of having the.08 at the back to become .00. But I know it's just too much to ask for.
We made it very short. I was at the car when the watch strucked 7.59. My maid thought that I have cancelled my race, since it was too early. So everyone wins. I was at the top 20. Nothing to be proud of much. Plus, at least I get to reserve some muscles for this week's FireFighter Half
This week is exam week. 2 papers altogether, with 1 day apart. Work has been super crazy in the weeks preceeding it, hence not much revision was possible. Multitasking was my bestfriend. I simply multitask everywhere. Read while eating, nursing and even driving. If I nurse at night, in the dark, I studied using the ipad. Lucky it all over now. But it's only a closure of 1 chapter. Another scary chapter awaits me. The crazy work chapter. So, since the kids were sound asleep, and I, for no reason wasn't feeling all that sleepy, I figured it's time for me to clear some backlogs. Now that I don't have the morning run to do. When else will I have this privilege. And my backlog was on work mind you. It's 1.26 am now, on a wee Saturday morning. Before I shut everything down, I thought of paying some visit to my little blog page of mine. But before that, I have woken up since 3.00 am Friday morning, had my exam, been everywhere, had a 30 mins run and I'm still up at 1.28 am now. Close to 23 hours of no sleep. It's a record for me.
So back to the topic. I had my first race bling for the year. Yippee...Finally.... I wonder why it took this long. And it had to happen during the crazy weeks. Ok fine, enough with the craziness.
So, I have not been racing for quite a while. I've been training longer distance now, and had no measure of my fitness level in races. By right it should have improved. I have ramped up my long runs to 20 ish ranges compared to the teens before. So, with the NM Galaxy, I had secretly hoped of reaching certain level. But I know it can be too much to ask for, given the super hilliness that of the route. It's the 2nd super hilliness for me, the first being 2XU. Somehow, expatrunner agrees as well. Well, dragon back is definitely non-challenged I think. And I heard the Bukit Jalil Brooks route is quite crazy. but never been to those. So the Bukit Aman 15km route hills is super hilly in my definition.
So off we went on the race morning, only managed to leave home at 5.50 am from Shah Alam, since baby was up for no reason, of all the time. Lucky my maid wasn't grumpy. And the good thing was I got to feed him just timely. So, of course, if you leave house only by 5.50, going towards KL, U definitely didn't get to be there in time. But it's no biggie. At least it can cut our waiting time there. I didn't go to do a proper warm up and got straight into the run the moment i stepped out from the car.
Gosh, my eyes is killing me. I just gotto stop.. to be continued.
Back up in the morning and back into the race report.
Everything else with the race was normal, except that my sunnies dropped within the first 3km I guess, and a guy has nicely picked it up and handed it over to me. It was so cool, he just passed by (ran of course) and handed me the sunnies without even looking at me, and it was still dark with no roadlight at the moment. He was so certain that it was mine, and I was the person despite the lack of light. After that, he seemed to be having a good pace, and being the normal me, tried to follow his pace. But he slowed down and I picked up, off we were separated again. about km 5 or so, Hisham from office caught up. We ran together for a good 3 km or so, until midway to the Highway to Hell as some might call it. He said I was fast and asked me to run ahead. But I don't think he was so slow neither. But off I went. And as I had known from the training at my neighborhood, front foot strike is extremely important going downhill. This is where to put it to test. And of course it's true. The downside was, I felt a slight uneasiness with the foot the day after the race. Guess a lot of pressure was put in it, with the front striking, with the speed downhill. The upside, definitely less pressure felt to the knee, the abdomen...yes, I feel some abdominal pressure in my long runs, speed and of course fast downhill. That's I have been thinking on doing the headstand. More on that later.
Done with the Highway to Hell, off with the Mayor Hill. Hubs called me around that area, after the downhill I guess. He has reached and waiting for me, 1st time that I was pressured having someone waiting for me uneasily at the finishing line. Mayor Hill was of course challenging, but getting to experience the 2 hills the 2nd time, I was better able to cope with it. Plus I had braved the slight hilliness at my running area, hence the body is slightly better conditioned now than before.
I was expecting that we will go through the exact same route as 2XU. But there was a major turning point at the mahameru junction I guess. I was almost taking the 5km path, and had asked the far policeman before I headed further. And lucky I did. 15km and 10km runners supposed to go to the opposite site. 2km plus is still left of me. I had tried to speed at 3km but I didn't put on the full force since it's quite a good distance away and I couldn't predict the level of hilliness. Suddenly there was a turn nearby Padang Merbuk and sprinted the remaining distance away. Final distance clocked in was a mere 14.11 km. It was very close to my target, being a conservative me, that is acceptable. Slight regrets was due to the feeling that I still have some energy left in me. If only I have not been that conservative, I could have reduced the gap from my target further.
Nevertheless, I have secured my Padang Merbuk 15km route at 6.08 mins/km. Good enough improvement against last of 6.44 in 2xu. But I feel the same regret as expatrunner felt. The cheated feeling with the underdistance route. You want to give it your all, but it got stopped before you actually could. An under-distance race is frustrating as you hold off on your final sprint – if you’ve got any puff left in you-only to find you’re over the finish line with a medal around your neck before you’ve even hit your top pace as expatrunner has put it. That's the only frustration. And the possibility of having the.08 at the back to become .00. But I know it's just too much to ask for.
We made it very short. I was at the car when the watch strucked 7.59. My maid thought that I have cancelled my race, since it was too early. So everyone wins. I was at the top 20. Nothing to be proud of much. Plus, at least I get to reserve some muscles for this week's FireFighter Half
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