The training was to start at 6 am last Sunday. It's impossible for me to reach there before 5.30 am. Dear and myself decided to give it a miss and do our own long run around Punggol. One loop around Compassvale to Punggol then to SengKang and back from Yio Chu Kang Rd. The distance is about 15.5 km.

 

We started at 8.30 am, a bit late but the sun was still resting. Did a short warm-up and proceed on. We have a slow run, around 7 min/km and i was alright to follow Dear's pace. The Punggol area was quiet with nice scenic and some runners have started to notice the area there. The sun woke up at around 9.15 am, slowly we started to feel the heat. Passed by Punggol MRT and we hydrate ourselves with interval timing.

 

By the time we reached Seng Kang Sports Complex, the hot sun was already in full blast. Dear was seemed to struggle to hang on with the run. As the pace was easy for me, i seemed to have half tank of fuel with me. She did very well to test her endurance and soon we reached Yio Chu Kang Shell station. 13 km with a time of 1 hr 25 min. We grabbed some cold drink and proceeded on with our last 2 km. Dear reached BuangKok MRT with a time of 1 hr 42 min and i proceeded on with another battle with the hot sun.

 

Looped around the big grass patch in front of BK MRT, distance of 2.2 km. It was basically endurance with the sunlight hitting hard on my body. I raised my tempo to 4.50 min/km. My first loop clocked 10 min 17 sec, and then 9 min 52 sec. I stopped from there and finished the distance of 20 km. Not totally satisfied with my mileage for this month, clocking lower and lower. It seemed like i have 1 month of tampering ... hahahaha ...

 

16th Nov 2008. Distance: 20 km.

 

 

I was missing in action from my running blog, it shows i was slacking from training. Never actually hit training mileage for this marathon. The longest distance i have covered prior to the training is 32 km. A lot of rest in the last few weeks due to injury and weather condition. After missing from Jimmy's tuesday session, i joined back into his interval training in TBH.

 

As usual, we started off at 6.50 pm and a short warm-up run to the hill top. Gathered at the second carpark awaiting for further instructions. This will be the last hill interval in TBH. We were to do 8 sets of 1.2 km, never hit 8 sets since 2 years ago.  I was determined to complete it. I was able to complete more interval training sets nowsdays but i was missing out on mileage training. Teck Hou was with us for the training, adding more spice to the front runners.

 

I led out the first set and as usual, Melvin & TH followed closely behind. The first set clocked 4 min 14 sec, i was shocked with the timing. It was considered slow compared to 3 weeks ago when we did the same training. I was already running quite hard for it. The second set went back to normal, 4 min 07 sec. The third was 4 min 09 sec. TH led the 4th set, adding more speed to the run. My time was 3 min 56 sec, under 4 min (the only under 4 set). I maintained well on 5th with 4 min 08 sec and took a gear off on the 6th (4 min 35sec). Anyway, i got back my authority to claim 4 min 02 sec for the last 2 sets.

 

I was a bit disappointed with the timing. It was a slowdown compared to the previous training.  What's went wrong at this corner of the time when the marathon is coming?? I was able to sustain the hardship but slowdown.

 

13th Nov 2008.