All FEET fall in!

Vibram FiveFingers Mileage

From left to Right:

VFF Classic Black

929km

VFF KSO TrekSports Black/Green

436km 

VFF Sprint Red/Black

593km 

VFF Brown/Walnut

1048km

Total VFF Mileage: 

3006km

Vibram FiveFingers Ads in Runners' World

Finally, we are seing Vibram putting more marketing $$ into ads...There is the pullout from Runners' World jan 2011 edition:

and they launched a new webiste called http://www.youarethetechnology.com/

Runners' World ZA recommending Vibram Fivefingers

400km milestone....high mileage?

Last Nite run has made my VFF exceeded the 400km milestone...

Someone recently said she thought my mileage was quite high......hmmmm

Actually the answer is no.....as shown in the daily and weekly chart (all done in VFF) below...as you can see, my longest run is only 20km at MR last sat and I rarely exceed 15km per run....My weekly mileage was kept below 35km most of the time except for one of the week with a race.

Daily Chart

 
Weekly Chart:

Mileage will increase from this wek onwards in prep for half marathon at KL marathon next month...but weekly should not exceed 45km

The Evils of Strength Sucking Modern Shoes

I like this title ever since I got my ITB and switch to Nike Frees and VFF...

Here is a good article on it and barefoot running and VFF:

Barefoot Training, Vibram Five Fingers and the Evils of Strength Sucking Modern Shoes

The new Vibram Bikila in Boston Marathon

CEO Tony Post and Corrado Giambalvo at the Boston Marathon from Vibram5fingers on Vimeo.

F1 Eq Nature Run 2010

This a old skool kind of race....no timing system...just plain stopwatch...other than the MR25 events...this is probably the only proper running event in MR.

And this is my 2nd running event in MR...first one was the MR25 12hrs ultramarathon 5 years ago.

This is also my 2nd running event this year and with my VFF Sprint.

I ran MR almost every sat and did a trial run on this route last Sat so no surprises...in fact, I hope for rain last nite so that the condition will be more challenging and it did.......

The race suppose to start at 8:05am...unlike last 2XU Run in Sentosa which was delayed by 15min...this start was brought forward by 5min...at 8am sharp.


The trail can accommodate not more than 3 runners running side by side so I decided to squeeze myself to the front right from the start......being conservative....until we hit the first big slope....a row of at least 10 runners began walking up or slowed down to a jog....I attack and overtook these slow pack...when I hit the top of the slope...more jogging/walking runners as they tried to recover from the challenging upslopes....I took the chance to push forward even further.....kept myself out of a pack of slower runners, I ran with controlled pace.....

It was towards the end of northern route out of the gold clubhouse that my stomach muscle strain came back (got it since tuesday's tempo run)......I was biting my teeth and slowed to a jog.....the pain got worst as I reached the ranger station....the rocky path was a torture for me....i slowed down almost to walking pace after ranger station and it was until I hit the drain where everyone was walking that I managed to feel better afetr a short rest while climbing up the mud wall..

Saw ultra runner Bernard with his VFF KSO carrying a camelbak in front of me....and saw this speedy jorn with his VFF Classic 2 steps ahead...my muscle strain recovered and the crowd slowed down a lot in front so I pushed ahead and overtook many runners walking up the killer slope along this stretch.....reached the rifle range road U-turn point and grab the wrist band and took a mouthful of ice-water and carry on.....then I realized that since the first upslope...I was able to push fast upslope..and recovered very soon along the down slope and before I hit the next upslope, my feet are fresh again to push for the next upslope.

Out of the rifle range trail and back to the normal route in MR was not good for me...it was a stretch of 3-4km of flat which I will struggle.....I jsut tried to put one feet forward follow by the other as I just tried to maintain constant pace for the flat....only 1 ang mo overtook me for this stretch...it was until the next killer hill that I got energized again....however, in order not to agitate my muscle strain again, I kept to conservative speed....

It was about 2km fromt eh finishing line that Bernard with his VFF KSO caught up and paced me for the rest of teh trail...I hit the flat road and there I struggled (as usual becos my big gear not working well)....and push on to finish in my personal best time in MR for 14km in 73min

My last run was 87 min which means 14min improvement since the last and if the route is 14km...average speed will be 5:17min/km which is my best for MR Trail as well.
Consider I slowed down for about 1km to almost walking because of my stomach muscle strain, I was very surprised by my timing when I finished.

But the best part of this event is the collection of the CamelBag (Hydration Bag) after the run.....for $38, you get a nice quick dry tee and a quality hydration bag...probably the more value for $$ race in Singapore. I paid $12 more for the bladder..

Nice Red bag which fit my colour theme, the blue wrist band is given at the rifle range road U-turn:

The mouth piece for the bladder is surprisingly the one that only exist for expensive branded bladder with the on/off switch:

The hydration bag even got a raincoat cover hidden in a small pocket in front:

It is also expandable by unzipping the side and it was a small holder for handphone at the waist strap:

It has a small pocket for keys and wallet and the main compartment for the bladder:

The back cushioning is placed at strategic location and to provide airflow when carry it:

Now I have 3 hydration bags...which...I havent event started using the new yellow one I got from Guangzhou. 3 different colours....3 different choices...I can use the one that fit my colour theme for the particular run...

That's a total of 360km completed in my VFF Sprint after this run....

2XU Compression Run 12km@Sentosa....crossing the 300km

The first "proper" running event of this year for me and also the first event that I run with my Vibram FiveFingers. After this run, my mileage with VFF Sprint has crossed another milestone of 300km.
 
Satisfied with the result for this run as my timing for thsi 12km is the same as my 10km timing 2 years ago for Nike Human Race.

I kept my first 3.5km of the route conservative because it is totally flat..I started at the front end of the crowd and was overtook by at least 25% of the runners and pushed to the mid-pack.....I only pick up when I hit the first slope and start overtaking runners who have difficulty runing the upslopes. It was the same with the rest of the 4-5 upslopes and when I reached back to the flat beach side, I was already at the front quarter of the crowds.....able to sprint strongly for the last 400m and the result shows that I was came in 200th out of 1020.

This event however the management for this rest is a bit below par consider the organisers are not first timer:
1) Delayed start, the race is supposed to start at 7.45am but the MC delayed until 8am because a big stream of runners just arrived at the race site at 7.40am. Apparently, the shuttle bus cannot cope with the crowd and caused delay in transportation. Next time put 8.30am lah....No need to go toilet wait until want to go toilet

2) The race route was changed at the last minute. If you look at the map above, The yellow solid lined route is the original route posted on the website with the runners running clockwise. However, the arrows are added at the last minute causing confusion to the runners. As a result of this change, there are points of crossing over the other runners' path at junction at the beach. There was a small confusion afetr the first U-turn at the beach as well

3) No plain water at the end point. Only 100plus and concentrated 100plus that can cause diabetes

4) Stage at the hot beach. Most people kept themselves away from the unsheltered beach after running the hot sun for an hour....it was real hot after 11am whent he lucky draw starts....I din stay


........one more thing, D-tag on ankle straps works!!

Good Friday Torture...Bukit Timah nature reserve adventure

Just as Tekko mentioned

While saintly people go to church and the more saner people slept in on a nice public holiday, 6 of us slightly cuckooed people decided to brave the rain and made our way to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve for our virgin run there. Fortunately, the rain did not came and so begin the longest ever 12km of my life.

Since the details are covered by Tekko, I should covered the unmentioned...(OK...I know that is laziness in blogging...) The original plan is to the followings:

The plan is to the blue loop first as warm-up..then the red to dairy farm park and the orange back to the summit...


But in the end, we only did about 50% of the planned route....

part 1, we did the planned route for warm-up




 Then after the warmup...we decided to cut short because we took 1hr to complete only 5km...so we went


and we took 1hrs 30min to cover just 7km..... So the detail of the run are covered at Tekko's Blog

My Quads are aching today and have problem walking up and down the stairs...........

We should go again to conquer the rest of the 50% of the planned route....and we did not get to the summit also.......8-(

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!

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!