Start of Hell Week: Raya Run

In the nearly 1 month period since the last post, many things have happened in my running. My fitness had really picked up, only to plunge after holidaying in Taiwan for 9 days. The long road back to form was compounded by a bout of fever after arriving back home with a few new additions to my shoe arsenal. Still, I have to be grateful that the expected long journey back to my previous fitness turned out to be much shorter after the initial jolt to my body.

Easy steady run - Botanical Gardens, morning

Jog to the gardens

Light drills

14 small loops - 1.02.40

Shoes: Brooks Launch (newer, older pair retired)

With this week consisting of national and school holidays and rainy season wreaking havoc in the late afternoons, I decided to shift the main workouts to the morning. This way, the rains and holiday crowds can be avoided, somewhat. We avoided neither this morning, but they were still at a manageable level.

I woke up this morning to chilly temperatures with biting winds every now and then. It was a real struggle to get out of the door but the conditions were quite nice once I got warmed up a bit. I reached the gate of the gardens expecting an odd morning walker or two. Surprise, surprise the place was filled, especially considering it was 6am in the morning and it was dark as night.

Hoping to take advantage of this holiday week to log some serious mileage, I had early issued a clarion call to all my running buddies, but only 2 showed up today, Kok Leong and Andrew. Never mind, we just got on with the day's plan, at least 1 hour of easy steady running. This will be my longest run since before I left for Taiwan, so I was careful to not overextend myself.

The guys must have felt quite good though, as I constantly have to rein them in and remind them to control the pace a bit. A few laps in, it started to drizzled, but thankfully did not turn into a full blown downpour and stopped a couple of laps later. Right around this point, Boon, the veteran marathoner with a lifetime PR of 2.3x steamed by us. The temptation to ramp up the pace was really great at this point but I held myself back. There will be a time for that.

The pace got a bit faster the last few laps but still within relaxed levels. I threw in a few short surges as planned to break up the monotony. The last lap was supposed to be run as fast as possible while relaxed. Unfortunately, I felt my left calf start to twitch towards the end of the penultimate lap. That developed into jolts whenever I tried to extend my ankle forcefully on the last lap. Kok Leong took the lead and maintained a steady rhythm. Damage control was in order and I tried not to limp too much to the end. After we finished, Andrew told me that he was also suffering from similar twitchiness in his calf. I guess the cold conditions played a part.

All in all, it was an enjoyable run, as I told the guys halfway through, just like riding a bus.