Racing Towards My Half-marathon PR

When I race, I hardly ever focus. Although I do try to concentrate on the race, my mind always fly thousands of eons away. Today, as I was racing to make my unexpected personal best record for a half-marathon I am suddenly bombarded by thoughts regarding lessons learned while running a half-marathon.

The QCIM race is my 3rd attempt at finishing a halfmarathon. Although I did finish the last 2 half-maries that I  last participated in, today was definitely the finish that made me feel like I can finally call myself a legit half-marathon finisher. Why, you ask? Isn't reaching the finish line enough ticket to the claim? Well, technically yes. But those last 2 races gave me the worst cramps ever, they ended making me feel like I didn't prepare well for the race. There's probably a lot of truth to that which also was another reason why I feel I don't deserve to claim the finisher title yet. But today, yes today made me feel very, very proud of myself.

So what led me to a 'personal' strong finish? Well, I can list several things.

1. I followed my training schedule to the T. I religiously plotted the mileage requirements for the week and worked hard to reach them. I may fall a mile behind on some days, but I try to make up for the deficit on other days. And I guess, that helped a lot with building my endurance.

2. I listened to my body. I used to challenge myself and believed that all the pain just comes from my mind. And if I control my mind and psyche it hard enough to push my body to just run and not stop for a walk break, I will get a strong finish. But after 2 failures, I finally decided to listen to my body. After the 10th kilometer, I modified my strategy and chose to run in 6/1, 5/1 and 4/1 intervals instead depending on the terrain difficulty (4/1 if it requires me to climb and 6/1 if it's flat all the way). This helped tremendously. And when my GPS tracker announced I'm at the 20th km, I feel like jumping in glee. But I restrained myself, I had to save up all of my remaining energy for the last kilometer to the finish line.

3. The night before the race, I was beyond my head with panic having realized I left our power gels at home. But then, Tibs assured me I can finish it without the gels (because in our last race, he didn't feel the need to take one and yet finished it) so I resigned and just pocketed 3 pcs of menthol candies in case I do run out of energy. A bit of sugar can go a long way. 

4. We warmed up for a good 10-15 minutes. We stayed in QC for the night so we were just 5 minutes away from the starting line. We didn't have to rush and we had ample time to do stretches and sweat up a bit before gunstart. The point I'm trying to drive at here is that IT PAYS TO COME ON TIME.

5. Proper hydration is also key, I guess. The entire week before the race, I wasn't feeling well. In fact, I had a major asthma attack last Tuesday I had to call in sick for fear that I would fall extremely ill come race day. In order to hasten my recovery, I had to drink up liters and liters of water (average of 4 liters a day). That probably helped a lot as I didn't feel the need to stop for water at the first 5km. I also loaded up on carbs on Friday (it wasn't really a lot but it was more than my usual carb intake). I should remember to do that again at every long run.

So yes, I wasn't in my best form this morning (with the asthma attack still hovering over me). And yesterday, when I went to see my doctor to sort of ask permission if I can go on with the race she gave me a disapproving nod. But seeing how determined (and stubborn) I looked, she relented and just prescribed several meds to help me get through the day. And I tell ya, maybe it's my positive spirit today or maybe it's the meds (I really cannot tell at this point) but I feel better now. And the entire length of the race, I never felt the need to puff on my inhaler. As if it was a validation for me to finally say - SEE I TOLD YA, I HAVE STRONG LUNGS! haha. 

Today has been a very good day. And yes, to God be the glory. I finished the race safely. And I am now more determined that ever to train harder for my first marathon finish. 

Warning: Long Weekend Up Ahead

I am seriously wishing my long weekend is going to be something like this:

Photo from here

But I believe it's going to be something more similar to this:

Still. I'm looking forward to this because I really intend to make this weekend an infusion of family and personal fun. We're running our last race for 2012 and it's going to be a special one because we're spending a weekend in UP Diliman. Yipee! I will make sure a lot of treasured memories are going to be made. All for the sake of our little miss cutiepie who fully deserve our much needed attention. 

Have a wonderful LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG weekend everyone!

What's Your Power Song?

I've been running for almost 3 years now but my power songs have remained the same. They just revolve around these two:

Ash's BURN BABY BURN



and GOO GOO DOLLS' BIG MACHINE



Do you run with music too? What are your power songs?

Thank God For Trees

The Milo Marathon elims in Manila is nearing close and having decided (sort of) last minute to sign up for the half-marathon, we had to follow a tight schedule on our long runs if we wanted to be confident enough to make it to the 2.5hr cut off.

Unfortunately for me, having gone through a really rough week at work and being sleep deprived to boot after tending to a sick little girl this past 4 days (thank God she's better now), my body just sort of crashed last night. I had a bad asthma attack. But despite that, all I could think of was losing another training day. And we only have 2 more weekends to prepare hard so I badly needed this weekend run. I slept early and was praying hard I'd be better in the morning.

Come morning, guess what? My prayers were answered. I was better with nary a trace of that asthma bout. Tibs and I got ready at 5am hoping to start by 530 in the hopes that we could avoid the torturous heat. I took a few more puffs of my dear lifesaving inhaler (which I named Symbi wahaha I really suck at giving names) before we left but yes when we got to Daang Hari at 545, Mr Sun was already up and shining. No choice but to go on anyways.

We were aiming to cover at least 12km today. Two kilometers into the run and going through 2 hilly climbs I had to stop, catch my breath and rehydrate as I was sweating profusely. I let Tibs run ahead of me since he was looking good and pacing well. I walked for 30 seconds and felt there's no way I could cover 12km today. Not in this hot day. But a nagging thought told me I might as well try anyways. I'm here. And I'm still breathing well.

So I started running again. When I checked my speed, I was surprised to see I was running quite fast (paced at 5.30/km) for my normal pace (of usually 6.30/km). After about 5 mins, I could already see Tibs running ahead and in no time I caught up.

one of the lower climbs (but longer) we had to pass through while running this course

This route used to be hellish for us. With all the steep climbs on every kilometer. But today, the terrain didn't seem to bother us at all. We were running easy and light. Although we had to take a couple of water breaks (sooooooo hot, i tell ya), our pace didn't fall behind 6.30/km for which I was very very happy. I am now confident I can make a better finish than my previous half-marathon. 

We decided not to take our usual route when we got to the Daang Hari-Daang Reyna intersection. We chose to go straight through Daang Hari and just make a turnaround once we hit 6km. The nearest turn was short of 300m but I decided to make the turn anyway since I didn't want to strain myself hard (I reckon the next u-turn slot is probably more than a kilometer away).

Tibs and I took another water break at this point. And paused to enjoy the breeze in this area. I took a deep breath and whispered a prayer of thanks.

"thank you God for these trees."

thank you for the shade. thank you for filtering the air so they're cleaner on this side of our running route. 

When I usually reach my final turnaround point, I am always confident I can finish a race. It's probably the familiarity of the road that makes me feel like the route back is always easier. It was extremely hot at almost 7am when we headed back to our starting point. It took me longer to go back but it wasn't because of breathing problems or leg cramps or just lazy bones. It was for the lack of hydration (our 4 water containers were drained dry after the 9th km). And again, I'm pretty confident I could go even faster than today. Next week, we're up for 16km then we'll be tapering off for the 2 weeks prior to the race. We'll be ready.

What To Do (and some I did) After A Long Distance Run

It's a Monday and I'm at work (why shouldn't I be?). I climbed 3 floors (4 flights to be exact) to get to the office (yes, we do not have an elevator because we're health buffs like that lolz). There is nothing new to that except that yesterday, I just ran my first half-marathon. I'm sore. My knees are still wobbly and weak. I can still feel pain on the spot where I experienced the cramp yesterday.

But all that is not an excuse for me to miss work so I dragged my butt off the bed, fixed our breakfast (which was superb by the way) and went to work. I wasn't even too tired so I didn't bother getting a shut-eye on the shuttle bus ride to my workplace. I decided to just enjoy my running playlist again and imagine how great it feels like running on a Sunday morning. (ahhhh i am obviously officially over the heels hooked on this now)

So anyways, as I was wincing my way up the stairs, I thought I'm quite getting better at this. The climb up wasn't as painful as my previous post-running experiences. After my 16k stint last July, I wasn't able to get to work because I could hardly walk. But yesterday, I was doing really good. I was even able to do some laundry work since our househelp is currently on vacation. And I cooked all our meals (well we also ordered take out). I am starting to believe I must have done some things right this time to deserve some time major pain time off. So what exactly did I do?

Half-Marathons Are Hard Work

Yes, they are not conquered easily. But it can be done.

Despite (really dreadful for me) a big threat of a DNF looming over my head, I made a slow pagong move towards the finish line to earn this medal of victory.

I started seriously training for this race just last December and despite the confidence that I had of the training that I did, my fear of a cramp attack was realized. The biggest lesson that I learned here is PREPARATION is KEY. Had I seriously started my training when I decided to go for it last September, it would probably had been an injury-free race for me. But then again, I'm glad I was able to maintain my pace till the 18km mark. I was wondering though, had I not stopped to stretch for a bit would the cramp still have happened? Ahhhh the what-ifs. 

My Skyway Invasion Playlist v.2012

When I started putting this playlist together i didn't have any theme in mind. I just wanted to put together all the songs that make me giggly, happy. I wanted to hear songs that will give me the extra boost when my legs get heavy. And as I was listening to them a few days ago, I suddenly realized they seem to have a common theme - travel/the sky/run - suddenly they all just seemed very appropriate, and purpose-driven. Hehe. Lalim ng trip.

So without further ado I present to you, my energy-boosters on Sunday: