My Favourite place to run

I was reading in a running magazine the other day an article that featured a readers' favourite place to run and i thought about it for all of about 2 seconds and knew what my answer would be. Or certainly know what my answer is for Malaysia where i live.

Situated about 15 miles from the centre of KL is the Forestry Research Institute of Malaysia or FRIM. It is awesome. Most of the trails are shared by walkers, the occasional runners and quite a lot of mountain bikers.

courstesy of "my first blog" on blogspot

It is very quiet, has some challenging climbs and descents, has wide, well maintained trails and provides over 40km of decent trails if you really want to stretch yourself. I really discovered all of the trails on my mountain bike with my "crew" but it is running that i love it for now. I am still not really sure how many people read my blog, but if there is anyone who would like to know which trails i reccomend or would even like to meet for a run, i would happy to assist.

FRIM has a soft space in our hearts because it is also where, before officially moving to Malaysia, Lauren and I got engaged. As two people who love the outdoors and hiking over a mountain on a Sunday morning, we drove our hire car up there in our walking boots and day packs and when we found a suitable, secluded spot just off the trails, i pulled a sparkling ring from my bag and asked Lauren to make me the happiest man on the mountain!  At the time we didnt really know where we were in park, and thought it was very secluded. It turns out now that it is quite a busy part and i pass it every time i go up there.

New Balance 15km Race Report

This 15km race was hosted by KL Pacesetters and was held around the town centre of Putrajaya just outside KL. It is a new town, with excellent roads, lots of parking and a nice gentle breeze blowing in from the sea.

It was a really well organised race.

Having had lots of water, and a carb-packed dinner the night before, i got up on Sunday morning feeling pretty good. My legs are a little stiff at the moment, because i am really picking up the miles every week, but all in I felt pretty good. Had a nice hot shower and breakfast and we headed out bright and early. Lauren was running this one too, so it was good to head out together.



thanks to blogger, lifeisxtragreat for the photo



We easily found a space near the start line and i set of for a short warm up jog around a couple of blocks and was surprised to see such few people (these are normally bigger). For some reason I got the time a little wrong and realised i only had a couple of minutes to make it to the start so i jogged down to the line, jumped in the crowd about 10 metres back, checked my trusty Garmin and we were off.

The route was great although climbing a pretty steep hill in the middle was a bit of a surprise as I thought i had read that the race was flat. The roads were really wide and i was sitting relatively close to the front so I had so much space. After about a km, my legs finally started to warm up. It seemed that everyone around me was keeping a 5:15min per km pace so i just sat tight and ran on the shoulders of a small group. I was feeling pretty strong and comfortable and was able to maintain the pace without any real difficulty - something i put down to the cooler temperature that morning.

I hit the 10km mark in 51:30 and was pretty pleased with that as i felt i had quite a lot left in the tank. I struggled a little at the 11-12km mark as we had to cross a long bridge, the ascent of which seem to go on forever. I think i tucked in behind someone who was a strong climber and probably went up a little fast. It kind of knocked the wind out of me, so I didn't descend as quick as I probably could have.

The last 2km was a long open out and back. I was about 500m from the turn when I saw my friend Robin on the other side of me (1km in front) and that gave me a little boost to try to finish strong. As it turns out, Robin is an animal and had a great finish almost 6 minutes ahead of me, but i did the last km in 5:10 which i was happy with. I crossed the line in 1:19.21 which I was really pleased with in the end.

There was plenty of food and other goodies available at the finish line, including a huge supply of Gatorade (which was great!) but sadly, no water. Hopefully this is something that they will think about for next time as there were a lot of people complaining.

All in all a great morning out. My friends Will, Sarah and Robin all had great races and of course my gorgeous wife finished strong in a great time. Will is training for his first half and is relatively new to running and it was awesome to be able to support him for his strong finish.

Just a couple of weeks really until the KL half.

Equipment that changed my life

First it was the new Garmin. Now it is my new water belt.
Let me start by saying i have never liked running with a hydro pack. Particularly in this climate. It really drives up my body temperature and as often as not, i am needing water just a time when i am not want to suck down on a hose coming from over my shoulder.

Then I bought myself a North Face Enduro Belt 2. It is Awesome.

This piece of equipment has really changed my life. I am able to plan longer routes without needing a refill and the belt is comfortable and really easy to slip bottles into on the move. I actually took out the two TNF bottles that it came with as they were a little small and upsized them to two regular bike bottles that it just fine. Really reccomend this!

New York New York.

I got a space in the New York Marathon. Third time lucky.

I came to know about it when i was looking at my credit card statement and saw this USD charge (for quite a lot) and it was to NYCM. What is that i thought. A space in one of the greatest races on Earth! Absolutely.

Cant wait until November. It will be awesome. Better get training!

Garmin has changed my life

For my birthday a few weeks ago, my wife bought me a new running watch. I had a Garmin before, but it got wet (in the rain) and stopped working after a couple of months. Since then i have been using my trusty Polar, which i love, but all i was getting was time and (when i remembered to wear the strap) my heart rate.

As a result of this amazing new toy, my running life has changed. Forever. I am an addict. But now, not only am I addicted to running, I am also addicted to the gadget. I look at the Garmin Connect site when I am home in the evening on my ipad. I look at it when I am at work on my pc. I even looked at it at on an internet hub in an airport lounge the other day.

The garmin connect website is brilliant. Easy to navigate and (one of the best bits) easy to export runs to Google earth. 

For those of you who dont have one; it is GREAT. Seeing the miles clocked up on the calendar every week, comparing runs on regular routes, downloading the data as soon as i walk in the door from a run and looking at my stats as I stretch - it all makes me want to run more. And faster.

Energizer half marthon race Report

I completed my first half marathon of the year at the weekend and it was, well, shocking. It was without a doubt, the worst organised race i have ever been to. The race was held at night on the formula 1 circuit in Malaysia, Sepang. We got there early, parked and made our way towards the start line. There were no direction signs anywhere and we wandered around aimlessly trying to figure out where to go.

When evenutally  i found a single-wide door leading to a tunnel under the track, I realised that this was the only way to the paddock. Terrible! We filtered through slowly, only to find that there was no water or drinks available, no toilet facilities on that side and the headlamps for participants had run out. All i hoped was that the course was not too dark!

For some reason that organisers kept us corralled away from the start line and off the track. I couldnt figure out why, until i realised that they wanted the band to lead the runners on to the start line. Very ceremonial, but a pain in the a**. All we wanted to do was line up and run. It caused a lot of confusion and everytime someone went on the course to line up, the security guards shouted at them to go back.

When the race started, the route wasnt too bad. There was not a lot of water available on the route and i got quite dehydrated on the course. This meant that my quads and calfs were really cramping by the 18k mark and slowing me down. The last ten km were run on the F1 track which was very cool. It is really impressive when you see it up close. It has the huge sweeping bends that stretch out and give you a great sense of the size of the place. I can see why they run races there at night. It has no shade and would be a nighmare in the heat.

I crossed the line in 2:01 which was fine, given that i am still building base and did not expect anything better than that. I have a lot of work to do to improve my times over the next few months; especially if i am hoping to shave 15mins off my marathon time.

The race organisation got even worse when i crossed the line. There was no water. Only some warm gatorade. The line for the race packs was so bad that people started to riot (literally) and the police closed the area. I was beat and just wanted to go home. My gorgeous wife who was not running that day had come to watch and was happy to hot-foot it out of there and drive me home. I had a stretch, thought about my race and was generally happy. As it was an evening race, i got my hydration and nutrition quite badly wrong, so this is something that i will need to think about for the next couple of races. 18k was really my limit, so i have to start to up my miles in the coming weeks.

Energizer (batteries) have issued a very nice, exceedingly embarrassed apology over the last couple of days and a promise to refund us the entry fee and send out our race packs and medals in the mail. well done them for turning this around. Shame on the events company for putting them in the situation in the first place.

2011 Race Schedule

Every man needs a goal. Or several. My race schedule for the rest of the year looks like this...

Energizer half marathon (night) Malaysia 16th April
New Balance Pacesetters 15km Malaysia 5th June
Standard Chartered KL half marathon Malaysia 26th June
Siemens KL 10k Malaysia 10th July
Marina Bay half marathon Singapore 23rd July
Shape Run 12.5km Malaysia 30th July
Nike 10k Malaysia tbd August
Freemantle half marathon Australia 25th September
Addidas King of the Road 16.8km Malasysia 2nd October
North Face 100 25km Singapore 15th October
New York marathon USA 6th November
Singapore marathon Singapore 4th December

as you can see, this year, I am focussed on the running and have not been able to find any triathlons or duathlons that fit with my schedule. Pretty full year though!