New beginning

It's been coming for a while. Actually it has been years but I decided to hold it back. I decided to split my blog into two. The running aspect here & the more personal stuff of mine over at tumblir. However, it would take time for it to get interesting as I kickstarted the other blog so I am still fine-tuning it here and there. I would still blog here because there is some commercial thingy here, not exactly earning but well I just chose to leave it here. And there are people who stumbled upon my blog through running forum, SGRunners, so I guess not very well to be blogging personal stuff here.

So back to running, I decided to KIV Coach Robin's training program. And just do my own. But I have made big changes.

I have been making use of the Ulu Pandan Park Connector to run nowadays. Instead of running 4km one shot as I do in the past, I break the distance into two parts. A 2km. Then followed by 400m to 500m walk. And lastly another 1.5km. Sounds ultra short to many hardcore runners.

But the main difference now is that I resisted myself to control my pace. In the past, I always worry if I have enough in the tank to complete 4km or any other longer distance. Many often than not, I started controlling my pace, I run slow at 8mins to 9mins per km so to make sure that I can complete the run. But doing it for years since the ankle reconstruction, I finally realized that I got it all wrong. I realized that I can go faster, despite my slight permanent disability. I just never push myself hard enough these years.

Yes I completed the training long run in the past. But the effort that I put in is not much. And it seems to me that I am training myself to run slow for years. So when it comes to races, my leg muscles already accustomed to that kinda slow pace, the race just become a normal slow jog in the park as well.

Now I am accustoming my leg muscles to slowly going back to the pace that I can run in the past. But I am and would be really patient on this form of interval training. Of coz I got to beware my limits especially on my ankle, and my breathing system which has not been pushed much for years. I would stick to this distance to build up my base and speed until I feel comfortable to go a little further by either increasing distance or sets. I am not expecting to see drastic improvement in race timing this year. That is not enough time for me to build up to half marathon. I am still crawling back to shape.

Anyway I did 12:15 for my 2km. And 10:40 for 1.6km on Thu. I guess that it is kinda one off coz the other day my 2km was 13:30. Yes not exactly fast if we talk about a hardcore runner. But for someone who has been doing 8-9mins per km pace and overweight. I am just so glad that I still have something left in my rusty tank. And this training will stay to re-discover my joy in running. And I got to stay disciplined to keep going.