Tanjung 10K - The Huh? race.

After 2 months of not racing, this was our first race post ramadhan and raya and our last before PBIM. Just a simple 10K.
Or so I thought.

• Race kit collection was such a breeze. I love small races.
• It was also our first race with my brother in law, Din. And his first race in Malaysia. Previously he used to participate in races in UK.
• Din innocently asked whether they'd have water stations and I replied ," It's a 10K race, they'd probably have two." Boy, was I wrong. They had none.
• And no St John's either, because I could see none, and because none attended to Din when he collapsed ( But that's another entry, I promise),He collapsed just in front of Penang's General Hospital, Thank God.
• I ran, noticing the same people in races in the Nothern States. There was ' Uncle tak pakai baju', 'BM Leopard Runner who had cramps in Taiping Run', our friend Bakri, and a few dozen familiar faces we've seen more than once.
• Hubs zoomed ahead for a PB. I thought I zoomed too, but I guess I didn't zoom enough.
• Overall course was in Penang City itself, us weaving in and out from this road to that,inhaling carbon monoxide along the way from passing cars who don't give a f about us runners. But we had a long incline of almost 1 mile, which slowed most of us down.
• Slowed most of us down except this one lady mat salleh runner running with a baby stroller who whizzed past the rest of us up the hill and made us feel like burying our heads in the dirt.
• Ontahlah, rasa cam winded sket in this race. Probably due to lack of training outside ( just started two weeks ago) and lack of racing? Or maybe because I wasn't wearing my gray pants? Nununununu ( lagu twilight zone)
• So I achieved PB in an official 10K race. 61 minutes. It was actually 10.2 K

• But I've recorded better 10K time in a 15K race and a half marathon. But who cares. A PB is a PB is a PB. Bukannya menang pon. Kuang kuang.
• Hubs got his PB : 49 minutes. Here's a proof running slowly everyday helps.
• Din got his first experience in the ER but like I said, I'll save that for later and let him rest.
• When I got home, my daughter played with my medal and somehow 'lost' the darn thing. I'm still searching for it in the TV room.
•  Haish, ni mula la doubt berbunga-bunga untuk timing marathon PBIM nih.
• Pastu, kenapa bullet ni lari ke tengah pulak dah.

Isk.

 Exhibit A : Di depan Kolej Pergigian Penang. My legs look freakishly kurus like alien one and pose like Ultraman taro. Spelled p.o.y.o.

Exhibit B : Err..none sebab camera kaput lepas tu. 

Sekianlah.

• 
  

Get your barf buckets out.

When I went out running today, waddling my way, sweating like anything and panting like a rabid dog, a young driver in a flashy sporty spanking new Mercedes flashed me his lights and gave me a thumbs up.

And for a millisecond there, I felt like I was Kara Goucher.
I really did.

Okay, you can puke now.

Note: What's with the short entries? I'm still on call and my next race is this weekend. You'll have a race report and gory on call stories by next week. Till then, I'm still shutting up.

Bardebi

Yesterday's LSD was fun.We balik-ed kampung and used our kampung route. All was well except for the dead wild boar lying on the side of the road en route.

And oh, while we ran on the opposite side of the road ( of where the boar was sprawled) , we almost got ran over by this driver in a BMW who took an overestimated swerve to avoid the pig.

Huh. Sanggup langgar orang dari langgar babi. Ye la, kalau langgar orang  tak payah susah-susah nak samak kereta.
Haduuu..

I'm on call this weekend and so far everything is ok. But I don't want to comment much because I'm afraid it'll jinx me so I'll shut up now.

Free finally

Today in the menu was supposed to be an easy 3 miler.
Easy? Not quite considering what I had to go through at work today. Y'see, my department was scheduled for an audit from SIRIM today, with the auditor coming straight from Shah Alam.
And as a neurotic key player, I was bracing myself for the worst.
Thankfully, they found nothing major, just some glitches here and there that are correctable.
And after 2 months of patching things up and worrying my ass off, I can finally heave a heavy sigh of relief.
Glad to cross that one off the agenda finally.

Unfortunately, the closing meeting ended late and I had 10 minutes to do my Asar then hit the tarmac at 6.30 pm. It was dark post rain and twilight was creeping in but I ran anyway. Halfway, my left leg felt heavy and then it drizzled. By this time I was getting harassed by senja weirdos left and right.
That wasn't the worst part.
The worst part was on the last stretch of my run, I saw one of my neighbors releasing his dogs from his gate. Okay, I have no qualms about people having dogs as pets. Dogs are cute, yes but please, for goodness sake, don't have  dogs if you're too lazy to take them out for a proper walk. I mean, this guy lets his dogs loose and they roam freely in the residential area like they run the place. Sure, most of the time the dogs hardly bark. They're comparatively well behaved dogs behind the gate but well, accidents can happen kan?

So anyway, I was running and I noticed these two huge dogs running towards me. I know they weren't charging at me, and they did turn into another lane but it freaked me out to think that I may have to practice the Ape Effect so near to my house. Jiran-jiran mesti blacklist. Hehe
So I ran faster and faster towards my home, praying all that while the dogs won't catch up with me.

When I got safely home and checked my Garmin, it told me I did the last stretch  with a 7.09 min/mile pace.
What's cool was I did that minus the conscious effort without even wheezing, gasping for air (much),collapsing and dying (not necessarily in that order)
Now if I can only maintain that as my race pace.
Sigh. A girl can only dream.

Oh, and to the people of my taman who are reading this ( probably not), for Pete's sake, I'm RUNNING not jogging. Consider this your first final warning.
Huh.

Bananas

Hi kids! For today's lesson, I will introduce you to the action-reaction theory of The Ape Effect.

Okay, so imagine yourself in a zoo. You'll most likely see a bunch of kids gawking in front of the ape cage, hooting and making weird noises to attract the poor creature's attention. They will continue doing so until suddenly , the ape roars. This is the action. The reaction that follow will probably be : the kids will stop, giggle nervously then slowly disperse. This, is the Ape Effect.

Hail fellow runners, we can apply this theory in our daily runs.
A runner, while running in his/her running route will most probably get the occasional rude or smart alec crack from uninvited roadside spectators. What one should do is, one should make weird noises ( such as a caw or a bleat) or better yet, make a 'back-atcha' wisecrack, confidently to the spectators while maintaining direct eye contact. The usual reaction from these people to this would probably be : stop, nervous giggle then look/walk away. Thus, The Ape Effect.

I have tested this many times and can give my sound testimony that it works. Sure they'll think you're weird but at least they'll stop bothering you.

Anyyywayyy...I've entered my 10 week training period this week. And let me tell ya, after a month of running on the thrillmill, I've lost sight on how hard it is running on road. On the machine, I could do 10 minute/mile for 5-6 miles easy. But on the road, nak maintain 11 min/mile pun macam apa ntah. I was wheezing like anything, and coming across a slithering snake on the road doesn't help either.  I hope I can improve in time for my next 10K race in 2 weeks time. As usual, my hub manager says, " Boleh, boleh" while eyeing me as I munch on raya cookies. But I guess, if he's confident with me, then I should believe in myself too eh?

Oh and on the 4th day of raya, manager and I went out running and it rained halfway but we ran anyway. When we got back to my parents place ( we ran at our kampung route), my mom shook her head dissapprovingly, " You ran in the rain?"

Well, sure beats walking in the rain.

Berdialog

Pelik betul. Masa mula Ramadhan, berkobar aku nak treneng.
Badan tak larat sekalipun, aku bantai jugak paling koman 2 mile. Walaupun laki manager aku kata tu junk miles je
Tapi sejak aku demam hari tu, tetiba jadik malas pulak nak panjat thrillmill tu.
Rasanya sejak recover ada la sekali aku lari atas benda alah tu.
Pastu, hampeh.
Malam ni plannya nak lari. Kunun tercabar ngan manager yg dalam itinerary nya malam ni 10 miles. Malangnya aku mendevise plan dalam kepala otak geligaku ini untuk mengemas rumah untuk mengelakkan lari.
Kemas sini sikit, sapu itu sikit, lap ini sikit, sedor2 dah pukul 10 malam. Bed time! ( kununnya).
Tapi sekarang dah pukul 10.20pm dan secara magisnya aku dok depan komputer tengah type entri nih yang ntah pape.
Anyway, aku tetibe cuak sebab full marathon ku lagi 10 minggu. Macam tak cukup masa je nak treneng. Manager aku cakap, " Cukup, cukup" ngan sinar mata yang tak berapa konfiden dengan target time aku. Boleh ke ni? 10 minggu beb. Tu tak kira 2 minggu aku kena oncall. Adoi.

Aku teringat time aku abis first marathon dulu. Ada membe tanya, " Eh, ko abih 42K tu dalam masa berapa hari ek?" Hehe. Ada jugak ye soalan begitu.

Anyway, aku sebenarnya tulis ni saje nak ucapkan SELAMAT HARI RAYA.
Sori ek geng kalo apa2 aku tulis mengguris hati korang. Sesungguhnya aku tidak bermaksud begitu .
Lepas raya ni, kita pulun habis-habisan. No more thrillmills, lari luaq je ok ( kecuali hujan)

We can we can we can.

Sick

I have been under the weather for 2 days now. I guess I saw it coming after the 10th time my son sneezed on me.
So yesterday at sahur I swallowed 2 pills hoping that it would get me through the day. Unfortunately by 11 am, the effects wore off and I was left with severe chills despite hub telling me that it was scorching hot outside. Thank God it was a public holiday ( btw, Happy Merdeka everybody!).

But anyway, I suffered. The whole day, I was sort of bedridden. No wonder when they were sick, my children just laid on the couch and and made fun of each other from far, not wanting to move. Otherwise they  are usually up and about bouncing from wall to wall.
I was fatigued. I had a splitting headache and every time anyone mentioned food, I felt nauseated. Plus my temperature was running really high.

But dunno why, despite all that, nauseating as it was, I still decided I wanted to have a burger for iftar because nobody can resist a good burger ( at least not me, anyway). So we went to the nearest McD 5 minutes away, splitting headache and all.
When we got home, hub asked what I wanted to have first ( we ordered a whole lot, puasa la katakan),and all I could think of was two panadols. I gulped down the meds, laid down for a while for the antipyretics to kick in and tried to enjoy my Spicy McDeluxe ( yes, with a gazillion calories, I know).
Enjoy? More like forced fed. I can never recall a time I've ended a meal with , " Thank God that's over!" until then.
Tapi habis jugak.

Anyway, I didn't have enough strength to ignore the sluggishness and go through 2K on the thrillmill to complete the newly targeted mileage of 80 KM for August.
I guess 78K is still good.
( tapikan, kite baca kan, ada orang tu kan, dia buat 90 ish K in a week, puh! Kaki gazelle ke apa?)