MR to kallang and back

Weather for the past weeks have been very predictable.....Sunshine in the morning and after lunch, the dark clouds will arrived and heavy downpour will happen...followed by drizzling until late after and by 6.30PM, everything should clear.

The same happened last evening. The plan is to do the weekly weekday MR run....today's downpour was much heavier than last 3 weeks and the rain started after lunch and stopped just before I reached MR...I thought the trail will be quite muddy and maybe I should try other option...

And I decided and went for the route below:





I deposited my bag in MR locker and went for a 14.6km loop and back to MR for washup....The first half of the route from MR to Kallang River is actually quite OK with few stoppages, the bad part came after leaving Kallang riverside park..the route back to MR has plenty of traffic crossing and waiting...

But overall is a very good run...able to maintain at a comfortable pace and considered that I did a fast tempo the day before, I am not getting any aching or pain from the run...

This is the longest single run on the road that I have clocked using my VFF...........my calves are fine

Co-sponsor for F1 Sports EQ Nature Run

Interestingly, looking at the sponsor page for F1 Eq Nature Run:
http://f1sportseq.blogspot.com/2010/01/sponsorship-opportunities.html

Vibram FiveFingers is the Co-Sponsor for this event!

Looking forward to see how many others are wearing fivefingers like me to run the trail on that day!

Ultra Runners - a snapshot of a day in the life

Longest hard road run with VFF...and first time without calves aches

My previous longest run on hard concrete/tarmac with my Vibram FiveFingers is 10.3km 2 weeks ago...and that is the only one run > 10km....

All these while, I have been running 8km or 6.3km...one of the reason to be so conservative is because of my calves.....whenever I run hard concrete/tarmac, my calves will also started to ache or strain or "burning" between 2km to 4km into the run....the last 10km started after 5km........it takes quite a lot of the calves to be conditioned to take the 100% of the load...

That is the reason why I am actually running twice in the MacRitchie Trail per week because in the trail, my calves does not feels anything!!!! In fact, at the time when I have extended my longest run to 13km (without any calves burning), I was able to run only 8km on the hard road and my calves are burning after 4km.

In consideration to the coming 2XU Compression 12km Run in Sentosa in 2 weeks time, I think I better try running at least a 12km before I going into the event.....so with a free friday nite, I decided to find a new route to run and decided to try this combination which I never tried before:



This route is similar to the 2XU Compression Run route in Sentosa such that the first part of the run is flat followed by slopes and the part part of the run is flat again.

I was glad to be able to finish the run in relatively good time and good moral!!...in fact, at a slightly faster average pace compared to my last longest 10.3km ......

runs goes on.............

100km of trail with the fivefingers

Wed's 3rd F1 Eq nature route run marks an important milestone for my VFF Sprint...it has covered 100km of trails and 120km of tarmac + concrete pavements

Below table shows all the run done so far with my VFF Sprint:

The ones in red at the bottom of the table are the runs in the Trail............

Need to increase the mileage for the hard road to 12km in 3 weeks time to prepare for 2XU Compression Run.

.....more runs to come.............

3rd F1 Eq Nature Route Run.....

 
The Sky was threatening to ruin the day...dark clouds for the whole afternoon and the weather report at one time reported that the world island will be under thunderstorm..it was an hour earlier that the report changed to only the eastern half will rain....MR was safe all along...


To be safe, I ringed up a friend staying just beside and she assured that the rain clouds has past and the weather turned great.....


True enough, it was bright sky when stepped into the park and started slightly earlier today....body was lethargic today...may be due to the long hours of working and the whole day of bowel detox


The first 4km seems slower than usual but turned out to be a minute faster than the last run.....


Sped up for the last 2km along lornie road pavement and finished 2min faster than the previous run...


No pain, no aches.......only happy feet after a nice hour of massage

Vibram FiveFingers in the news

Running barefoot and running in minimalist footwear has hit this region...somehow..there are increasing amount of reports and articles in the media for this topics.....

Examples:
1. RazorTV covering barefoot running with 3 local runners
2. Mind Your Body in Strait Times has an article on "back to bare basics"
3. Channelnewsasia also covers on "Just do it barefoot: running shoeless is better"
4.The Star in Malaysia also covers running with Vibram FiveFingers
5. Another article in The Star on the same day covers on easing into minimalist footwear
6. Not related to running, divaasia has an article on "Barefoot comfort"

This is especially so hot mainly due to a scientific report publish on the nature journal and this research is originated from Harvard. The website for this research is at http://www.barefootrunning.fas.harvard.edu/


The question is: Can this new wave of belief, research results and proven cases affect the billion dollar industry for running shoes???

KL Marathon 2010: Going to be my first oversea half marathon

 

This can consider as my first oversea running event....although 5 years back, I did went for another race in Bangkok but that was more of walking than running.


I decided to go for half marathon instead of the full considering the risk in increasing the distance with my VFF so quickly within next 3 months so half marathon will be just nice. 

My first 2 months journey with Vibram Fivefingers Sprint

189km in total.......80km of it in MacRitchie Reservoir Trails and the rest on tarmac roads or concrete pavements...

That's how far  have covered with my Vibram Fivefingers Sprint in the last 2 months after ditching my "proper" running shoes..

The journey so far has been very exciting and exhilarating. Every non-trail run is also getting easier and faster than before. I have entered physical barrier that I have not achieved using "proper" running shoes which can be seen from the following 3 run logs:

1.This route is my favourite route to test on my fitness. It consisted of first 2.9km of flats and followed 3.4km of hills



The runs that are highlighted in orange are the ones I did with my VFF. You can see that other than the first run which is the 2nd fastest when it is done, only to be slower than my PB in 11/3/2009. The rest of the runs in VFF are faster than the past when I used my "proper" running shoes

(Click on the table to enlarge)

2. This 8km route is usually the next route that I will advance to when I am conditioned to the previous route. This route is 100% flat on tarmac and concrete pavement



The first 2 attempts using my VFF Sprint broke my "proper" runing shoes PB.

3. After conditioned to 8km, I will proceed to do this route which the first 7km is flat and the last 3.4km is hills




My 1st run on this route is the one which I got the most exciting about. I did it below an hour and this is the first time in past 4 years that I have done a 10km below an hour easily.

However, increasing the distance on VFF has to be done progressively depending on how the calves can handle. The only muscles that cannot handle the load when I switched from Nike Free 3.0 to VFF are my calves. When I first started, my calves started burning after 2km. Till present when running on hard pavement, my calves started to strain when I hit more than 5km. So I am now slowly conditioning my calves to go longer distances.

However, this is not the case when I run in the trail. The longest distance I ran using VFF in the trail has hit 14km and I do not feel any calves strain at all....I suspect, I can go much further off-road.

Runing with VFF is not without its problem and injuries. However, injuries so far are minor which can recovers within 203 days...knocks and bruises on the under-foot is common, especially after a run in the trail...mainly due to landing wrongly on large sharp stone. Blister can happens sometimes but it helps in tougher than skin and the most serious injury so far is a black toesnail on my right last toe....knock against a rock during my second run in MR.

Looking forward to the 2 events that I have signed up and they will be the first road run with VFF in Sentosa for 2XU 12km run and  F1 Eq Nature Run 15km in MacRitchie Trail.

Trail Running with the Pose Method

This is the correct way of running in the trail.....at least is what I tried to practised and I am enjoying my trail running with no injuries and with less effort....with my vibram fivefinger sprint

Free beginner's guide to FiveFingers! [from birthdayshoes.com]

the [beginners guide] to Vibram Five Fingers shoes!

F1 EQ Nature Run 10km route Recce

It was raining at 5.30PM when I left office, on my way to get some fresh air from the forest......The recent haze is terrible and My throat is feeling uneasy for days....Miss last sat run due to swollen tongue and I thought today will be a good day to force myself to get in there again....


The weather looks threatening but turns out wellbefore start..Started at 6.30pm, I estimated that will not be able to finish the whole loop before dark fall so I decided to try out the F1 Eq Nature Run 10km Route...that is to head out to Lornie road before night falls.


Saw the new Mushroom Cafe at the Amenities Centre...price is reasonable.....try next time

This is my 5th Run in the Trail using my FiveFingers...so far so good...running in Trail is more exciting than the road because of the feet massage by the pebbles and the rocks.....just minutes into the run....strange sound started.....screaming of mating insects and animals.....does made the whole surrounding eerie...the whole forest suddenly felt like it came to life...............

Reach Ranger Station and the sky still bright...took reasonable time and feeling great to go.....still encountered 2-3 runners at this late night and saw this 2 Ang Mos Twice which means they ran more than One Loop.

At the golf course, everything was quiet and peaceful....the last trail over the small hill was dark by the time I entered and luckily, I brought a torch to show the path....over the hill and instead of doing the usual trail along the MR25 trial route, I scrambled out to Lornie road and ran under the street lights till the start point of the Run.

77min...reasonable, comfortable and refreshing run.......Other than the Sat must go, maybe I should go there once on weekdays as well

F1 Sports EQ Nature Run 15km @ MacRitchie Reservoir on 25 April 2010

Exactly 2 weeks after the 2XU Compression Run is the F1 Sports EQ Nature Run.
I signed up the 15km (for Men only):

 

The most attractive part of the run is the hydration pack that will come as part of the race package and I took a chance to get a new bladder for my hydration packs at home.

I have running MR every weekend. It will be interesting to take part in a event held at my "home" ground.

Singapore Running Event 2010: 2XU Compression 12km Run @ Sentosa

The number of running events in Singapore has exploded over the past 2 years....from the very handful few(can be count using fingers on one hand ) that happened only on the second half of the years to until this year.....almost every consecutive weekend or alternate weekend, you can find a running event be it a proper race or a charity run.

Race Fee has also increased so I have to be very selective in choosing which event to sign up.

The very first event that I took part is actually a charity event for the dogs. OK, someone signed me up so I just went to walk walk see see.

The next upcoming which will be the first proper running event is the 2XU Compression 12km Run @ Sentosa on 11 April 2010

The reason for signing up this race is because this is the first race in Sentosa after the IR has completed. The last race is the New Balance Real Run which has stopped and shifted to another location due to the construction of the IR.
The event gift is also very attractive.

It will be a refreshing experience to run in Snetosa again.....