Priorities

It's been a while since I took part in a running event. The Salomon Jamboree doesn't really count, ok. With the postponement of the SCKLM and the fasting month currently in progress, the race calendar is practically dry. The focus has just been on training, training and more training.

The Standard Chartered KL Marathon would have been my platform to put all that training into reality but the haze put a damper on those plans. In hindsight though, it's sort of a blessing cos it gave me the chance to put in more training. I mean, more time for training can't hurt, can it?

But the postponement and my eagerness to try out new things has also slightly screwed with my race calendar a little making me doubt myself all over again. I initially planned to do three marathons this year and without the SCKLM postponement would see them spread over a period of a three month gap between each marathon, giving me ample time to train for each of them.

Now though, I'm saddled with running the Standard Chartered KL Marathon at the end of September and hardly 20 days later, the Putrajaya Night Marathon but NOT before I attempt my first 'ultra' (if you can call it that) at the Back 2 Endurance event. That's a lot of running that needs to be done in a space of three weeks and that's not including the Shape Men's Health and 2XU Compression run which will be sandwiched between these three! I am a little worried.

I have no idea why I dived into signing up for the Back 2 Endurance Ultra event. Maybe it was ego, maybe I was out to prove something, I don't know. It was sheer lunacy. Even the wife was trying to dissuade me from signing up but do I listen to her? Nooooooo ... I just go and sign up anyway. She put up a lot of valid reasons why I should not take part but that egoistic and senseless voice in my head kept saying otherwise. I should have just listened to her.

I am a person who takes races seriously. It's a matter of personal pride for me to do well in races. I train hard for them, I run even harder in them. I get very disappointed when I don't do so well and mope around for days. So it's a little headache concentrating on which event to gear my training for. Do I concentrate on one and set myself up for disappointment with the other two?

I guess for now I'll just take one day at a time and leave the decisions for a little later. I've currently moved my entire training programme to the morning part of the day (so they don't get scuttled by last minute late night work commitments) and placed priority for the SCKLM seeing as how that would have been my main race for the year. Training wise, I'm enjoying these early morning sessions though waking up is a real bitch. The wife has to force me up on certain days when the sleepy genes are in overdrive. Once I'm laced up though, it's all systems go.

With the current training phase I'm going through, I feel pretty confident of doing well for the SCKLM but don't know if I can actually hack if for 12 hours from dawn to dusk, hardly two weeks after and followed by the PNM a week later. There's hardly even enough time for the body to recuperate properly. I guess I'll just have to wing it and see how things go.

Photo courtesy of Jamie Pang ...
I really have to give more thought into my race calendar for next year before signing up for any race. I'm gearing my training for trail and ultra running by the year end or early next year and will be sitting out from a lot of races unless they complement my training plans. A helluva lot more time will be spent on training to make sure I'm ready to take on these new challenges.

It's going to be tough trying to juggle the training timeline with the family and also around work seeing as how I'll have to spend a lot more hours on the roads and trails toughening up the body and legs to withstand the rigors of trail and ultra running.

So many things to do yet so little time to do it in. A lot of meticulous planning and detailed scheduling will have to be looked into. What's more important, a lot of money will need to be saved cos some of the races I plan to run in next year will be more costly than the regular local races. Then there's also the gear to think about. Let's not even talk how much that is going to cost!

With that said though, I'm eagerly looking forward to the racing season to start again after the Hari Raya celebrations. It would also mark an increase in my work schedule once the races start again seeing as how I'm lined up to be doing some work for quite a few of them. It's going to be hectic, that's for sure.

See you all at the start line!

Comments

  1. you signed up for it cos the coach was slowly poisoning ya ... but then, the blame is all yours! LOL :D

    anyways, it's a different type of event altogether as it will be purely mental. it'll be a good way to test out whether you were a hamster in your past life. :D

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    Replies
    1. LOL at the hasmter mention. ;p

      All the best Nick in all your races.

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    2. @Yvonne - This one cannot blame the coach la. Like you said, it's entirely my doing :D

      I did own some hamster before, does that count? LOL!

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