8hrs44min: A Good Beginning of Ultra Marathoning

One of my 2012 goal was completing a ultra marathon. I skipped TNF Singapore because I was full participating running event in during that time. The year end MR25 Ultra Marathon looked like a better choice. It was 4 weeks after Singapore Marathon and I should have enough time to recover. The 12hrs event requires completion of 5+ laps (51km) of designate route in MacRitchie Nature Trail (total ascent less than 1000m in 5 laps) to claim the medal, and the most laps in least time won. And it was cheap, only S$40, as much as a 10k road race. I joined with some of my SAFRA running club members.

2 days after Singapore Marathon, when the DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) is gone, I resume my training and clocked 100k each week followed. I also visited the venue and did on site rehearsal 1 week before. The 2 laps run killed my quads for lacking of trail running mileage. I had to rest 3 days till it recovered. I didn't think I was ready to run rehearsal pace (8:15/km) an so I decided to slow down to 9:00/km. To play safe, I planned to walk the 1st and final lap and rest 10min between each lap for refuel. I only need to run 3 laps now. And it would take 9hrs, hope my Garmin305 could survive.

Race was started 7:05am in front of MacRitchie Reservoir Park Amenities Centre. Around 400 runners participated and it was slightly raining. We winded our way about 500m along the lake to reach the trail entrance.

Then followed by a upper slope. The out going part of the route was mainly ascending and muddy terrain. So walking the 1st lap was a good idea.

After the largest slope in 3.5km mark, we climbed to the Island Club Road and switch to Terentang Trail, mainly gravels.

Before 4.5km mark we entered the most tough part: Sime Track.

First we need to pass a sever ponding area which existed since the raining season.

Then the uneven rocking part.

After ~600m we finally reached 5.1km turning point, Petaling Hut. I planned to cover the part in 1hr but I was fresh and walked really fast despite the climb, I was 10min ahead of schedule.

The return part was much descending and I began to run. Forget about the plan, I was warmed up enough. I was careful to be relax and not to push during upper slope. My lap time was 1:39 instead of planned 2:00 when I get back . I was in the mode and not hungry at all. So I just pick up 3 bananas, leaving my supplies in  the package deposit.

The 2nd lap was even more smooth. I just follow my strategy: run at down slope and walk to climb, taking pictures all along the way. 

The 2nd lap only took 1:31. This time I use my supply: 1 piece of bread and 1 pack of pickled cabbage. The  pickled one was a genius idea. Most supplies were carbos and sweets, the pickled cabbage brought juicy and fruity flavor and provided sufficient salt in more natural way. The 10min refueling break totally refreshed me. 

I headed out for another round and hope to be back by lunch time. The 3rd round took 1:38, the legs were a little bit tired and even in the more descending back part I walked more. I was right back in lunch time and finished another piece of fruit bread with my favorite picked cabbage. I left organizer's supply along because I had no experience to eat much normal food during run--They supplied rice, mee goreng.

The 4th lap was full of eateries. At the turning point the staff handed me a red bean bum. They must worried about the runner missed lunch at start, so sweet! And 1km before the trail exit. A group of supporters were cheering for the runners. They handed out fruits, drinks, and even Sng Bao! I picked up mu favorite flavor, Ribena. These people were really adorable! 

The 4th lap was slow and took me 2hrs to finish. I had already finished my pickled cabbage and this time only ate 2 pcs of bread with peanut butter. The last lap I had planned to walk, but I still try to run on the flat part, avoiding to run both upper and down slope to save my quads for the next week run. At the same point I encounter the supporters again, this time they offer me a Tau Huey treat. I was full of surprise and gratitude.    Eating Tau Huey and ran away.

In the final lap, every step was a achievement. I walk, run when not tired, and took photos to record the moment. At last stretch, I met one of my colleagues and we walked together the finish line. As well, we were greeted by the group of supporters and enjoyed another round of muscle spray : ) At last we clocked 8:44 for the 5 laps. We qualified us as ultras!

In this race, there are a few iconic figures encouraging me on future running.

Uncle Oliver Ker, was in his seventies, very active in the running field. You would hardly missed him in most long distance races. Salute!

Sifu Rich Chai, a veteran barefoot runner, founder of Malaysia barefoot running group "Bare with Me". This time he finished 6 laps with handed made huaraches! MR25 is just his training run for next month's Vibram HongKong 100. Wish him good luck!

Torren, my SAFRA running club barefoot buddy. Inspire me a lot in barefoot running. It was him I decide to train more hilly session and increase my weekly mileage to 100km. This time he complete 8 laps in 11hrs, looked like still could run another day, awesome!

The organizer and supporters for the race are first class. We have many volunteer photographer following all the way, thanks to there great effort! Kudos! Here is their albums, enjoying the tons of happy faces!

Thanks Thomas Leong ambushed to catch us! His FB album: 

MR25 Cross Country Ultra

Marathon 2012

Thanks the lady from "Running Shots" follow up all the way through out the route! Their FB album: 

MR25 Ultramarathon 2012 Dec 30 - K1

MR25 Ultramarathon 2012 Dec 30 - M1/2

MR25 Ultramarathon 2012 Dec 30 - M2/2

Thanks Daniel Chia! His FB albums:

MR25 Ultramarathon 2012

MR25 Ultramarathon 2012 (Part 2)

Thanks MH Chua! His FB albums:

MR Ultramarathon Part 1/2 2012

MR Ultramarathon Part 2/2 2012

Thanks Ashe Ek, His FB albums:

S'pore MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 #1

S'pore MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 #2

S'pore MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 #3

S'pore MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 #4

S'pore MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 #5

S'pore MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 #6

S'pore MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 #7

Running Kaki's albums

MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 - Album 1

Eye-See-Eye-Shoot's FB albums

MR25 2012 (Album 1)

MR25 2012 (Album 2)

Finally comes mine!

MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 (1)

MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 (2)

MR25 Ultra Marathon 2012 (3)

Workout details in Garmin Connect and route map:

A New Start: Singapore Marathon 2012

My 5th marathon, 3rd Singapore marathon, 2nd barefoot marathon. Clocked a PB (4:24:40) after 1.5 years MAF and barefoot practice. I finally found the way of comfortably running a marathon, and in barefoot.

The route was similar to previous editions, only the stretch in Marina South different. I was quite familiar with the major part and run barefoot through in several events, including my 1st barefoot marathon. I'v planned to slow down between 30km and 32km mark due to road condition, and 1km up slope after 38km mark. But never expected to walk through 1+km between 36km and 37km mark exiting Gardens By The Bay. The road is not yet a road and still a trail. My had not enough budget in this stretch, and cost a lot before 5km mark. I was 9min slower than my target timing. Despite this, I ran a rather even pace and could even charge 38km mark bridge and dash last 2km to finish. The training really improve my stamina, endurance. I had no diarrhea as in last two marathons, I felt no hungry throughout the race and ate only 3 "Sng Bao" (a local flavored ice tube) provided by SAFRA running club (I joined the club at the race expo of SSBR&AHM) supporters at 16km, 26km and 35km mark. I was going to eat the banana get from 30km mark until I was too boring walking between 36km and 37km due to the bad road condition. I did not even care where the gel station was. All I had been carried is just a bottle of water. It kept me hydrated throughout. 

My feet was perfect after the race, much tougher than last time. Last time I got a blood blister, this time it was clean and refreshing. Thanks for the 2400km mileage, and also the 100km peak week seasoning. My 4 years old daughter also joined the race for Kids Dashing, she finished 750m in barefoot. So proud of us!

1 and half a year, I was searching for the key to succeed a marathon. I sacrificed my speed, ran slow to improve my aerobic capability. Too run slower, I even kick off my shoes to run barefoot. It worked, I became injury free and more immune to "hitting the wall". I had thought marathon full of misery during my first  two marathon. But it had changed. Marathon is totally leisure and enjoyment to me. 1 and half a year, I back to the start (last time my PB was 4:27 in 2011 Sun Down Marathon) with smiles, strength and confidence. Next time you will see me fly, very soon...

3 Races In A Month: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

I registered 3 races in October: Swim For Hope on 6th, New Balance REAL Run on 21th and Newton 30km Challenge on 28th Oct. They really exhausted me out and I ended up with only 5 runs, totally 77km that month. These were precious experience for me: I had break through in swimming by finishing a 10km swimming marathon, set 2 PB in running, and learned that more races spoiled the training.

Swim For Hope was a annual event raising funds for Children's Cancer Foundation. The organizer, SAFRA Tampines intended to break the record raise S$40,000 in the event day. 1 lap (50m) $1, it should be 40,000 laps from 9:00am to 4:00pm. It finally recorded 21,898 laps and I contributed 204 laps, or 10.2km, S$204 to the CCF. I was proud not only did a good deed, but also break my personal record in swimming. I finally conquered swimming marathon (10km) in a time 4:53:53, after practicing TI for 10 months.

New Balance REAL Run was a annual running event famous for its beach part. This year the 21km route included 2km trail 17.5km road and 1.5km sand beach. The trail part is actually loose sands and I had no problem running on it as warming up. And the road part was best for barefoot and was where I accelerated to overtake. When I reached the beach part, I had already reach my top speed ~4:30/km. I tried to run along the tide and avoid to weaving among the 10km walker. I finally record my PB in 21km, 1:50:56 (rank92, MO4152). The sand sacked my feet and I end up with 2weeks calf strain (not recovered even in Newton Run).

It my 2nd time to join Newton Run. Last time was 2 years ago and I recorded 2:52:51. Most people joined Newton Run for their Singapore marathon rehearsal. I joined just to use up my U-sports 2012 credit. With the stiff calf, I managed to finished in 2:48:22, rank 260/1508. I ran a little bit slower than my target timing (2:45) but still made a PB. The ranking was not so good because the participant were most serious runner. I could get much better ranking after casual runners diluting the pool. (Workout detail)

Weekly Mileage Reaches 100km

After 1 year barefoot running, slowly my weekly mileage increased to over 100km. Last week I completed 101.2km. And it was not achieved at the cost of next day training.

http://www.dailymile.com/training?group_by=week&workout_type_id=1&field=distance_in_miles
To achieve this, I have been made myself comfortable with 7 runs per week without rest since this August. There should be no speed works until I made myself adapt to the training style. Every run was aerobic (under MAF heart rate) so that stress was minimized. And there turns out to be large stress cushions under such training loading. That is, may MAF pace improvement stopped around 6min/km; and even when I violated 10% rule, increase weekly mileage from 60k to 100k, I still stayed injury free and even without DOMS after 34km long run. After all, I found it goo way the increase weekly mileage while staying injury free. And by this I could increase my yearly mileage to over 4000km. The only thing I need to figure out is how and when to incorporate speed/hill workouts in it, let me do with cautious and stick on 10% rule.

Cold Storage Singapore Triathlon: My First Triathlon

I'v completed an Aquathlon and a Duathlon early this year. So it came the final test, triathlon. Singapore Triathlon (organized by Triathlon Association of Singapore) used to be sponsored by OSIM and held in July. However OSIM dropped out from the sponsorship and just before the race TAS announced Cold Storage's taking over. All are same, the course, the age group, as before, except there was no more elite group. So it was totally a amateur triathlon race : )

I planned to finish the Standard Distance (1.5km swimming, 40km cycling, 10km running) within 3:30 and didn't want to rush, not only because I'v not been cycling for several month due to my wife's concern (more road accident recently and several cyclists suffered), but also I didn't want to push too much to interfere my marathon training.

29 Sept, I cycled to the race venue East Coast Park CP F, in a 10km route through Bedok Town (I used in Singapore Duathlon). I arrived at ~8:40 and my wave would started at 9:00am. I hurried to set up my transition and rushed to the swimming start. Sun was hot then, I plunged into the sea and found to water hot too. I met my TI coach Tang Siew Kwan who was in pink swim cap (I was in yellow) and supposed to start 10min later than my wave. We wished good luck to each other. I though he would catch up me but I wished I could catch up him in the run.

My wave started 9:00 sharp, I stuck at the back of the wave and swam south towards the 1st buoy. The tide was a bit strong and  towards west so I need to peep every a few stroke to make sure on track. From the 1st buoy to 2nd buoy it was much easier despite the head tide. After the 2nd buoy we headed back to the beach for the 2nd loop (750m per loop), again I was struggling with the side way tide: I often found myself  far away from the other swimmers. It took me more time to complete the loop for lacking of open water sighting skill. I finished the 1st loop in less than 22min. The 2nd loop was exactly the same experience to me. I found myself over took by a lot of pink caps (10min late starter), and even blue caps! (20min late starter). I was sure Tang was with them. When I crawled on the beach, there were just few yellow cap left. I packed me up and dashed to the transition area. The system record my swim leg to be 43:39.

The following bike leg I still rode my MTB as in Singapore Duathlon. I did not invested in bike because I was not ready to commit my self to triathlon, to me swim and cycling were still cross training to running only. The course was almost same as in Singapore Duathlon except the start turn not so abrupt (I did hit the barricade in the beginning of 2nd loop of Singapore Duathlon), and head wind not so strong. I maintained the same speed (24kph) as in Singapore Duathlon and kept my HR ~160bpm. It took me ~1:40 to finished the 6 loops cycling leg, system recorded my T1+Cycling+T2 timing to be 1:48:12.

Unlike in Singapore Duathlon, I did not ban by any official from running in barefoot. Instead, the marshals gave me applause when I ran out. The running leg was not so sweet as it looked. I suffered HR spiking an leg stiffness right after switch because I never trained bike-run brick. My breath was hard and had not a little strength in quads at all! I tried to run with only hamstrings and calves, it works. Only after 1st 5km loop it became better. Just before I thought I could run strong, my energy depleted, I could only run ~5km/min pace. Fortunately, I overtook my TI coach Tang at the early of 2nd loop. I finished the running leg within 51:51. It was the 19th fast within my age group. But my swim and bike really sucked. Finally my timing was 3:23:42, ranked 96 among 141 participants, beat my TI coach by 1min.

SAFRA Singapore Bay Run & Army Half Marathon 2012

This was my third time participating in SAFRA Singapore Bay Run & Army Half Marathon, and 2nd time ran in barefoot. I have been using this traditional event as my annual 21k time trial because of it's good organization and sanctioned distance (although last year we thought is was over 0.7km shorter). One week before race a strong haze hovered over Singapore's sky, with PSI and PM2.5 both rising over 50. Fortunately a big shower cleared all this away the night before the race, bringing also a cool weather.

I woke up at 3:30am and reached The Padang around 4:40am and had my bag deposited very quickly because there were plenty of NS men at our service. But I surprised to find long queues in front of mobile toilets, maybe due to insufficient toilets supplies this year. I gave up and made my way to the Esplanade Bridge starting point. This year the organizer reserved a passage for "seeded runners" (elite runner I think) to get to the front of the starting line. I joined the less privileged runner in another long queue to move onto the bridge. In the past I could use the pavement of the bridge short-cut to the front, but this year it was blocked. I had to stay about 200m away from the starting line and later it took me 2min to move past it.

Flag off was punctual as usual at 5:15am sharp. 1st 2km in Robinson Road Shenton Way was same as last year, the parade moved slowly and I took it as warm up at a pace of 6:43/km. There was pauses at each of the turning point, no matter in the road or PCN. After 3km we turned to Marina Bay Boardwalk passing through newly opened Gardens By The Bay. But in the dark we could see nothing. The running experience was much better in the PCN leading to Marina Barrage, compare with previous "Marina ST- Marina- Place- Marina Mall" route which was a part of transportation line for Marina East/ South construction, dirty and rough. After 5km mark we moved to Marina Barrage, it was already 31min and I could move no faster then 5:45/km pace. The following 3km stretch of PCN at Marina East was also narrow. It would took more energy to weaving among the people. I avoided to do so and slowly overtook people, through it was 30s slower than my target pace. I was not the only impacted one, at 6km I overtook 2:00 pacers, they also fell behind their target timing a lot. I kept it to 8km mark, then I start to pump up to 5:15/km pace, on the meadows beside the PCN of Tangjong Rhu.

When I reached 10km turning point it was already 58min. Good news is we were back to the road, and the crowd was smaller after 1hr's overtaking. Very natural. The I decided to push a little bit and geared up to 5min/km pace, even when climbing up Tanjong Rhu Bridge. When we turned from Mountbatten Road to the wide, straight and flatten stretch of Nicoll Highway after 12km mark, very good for overtaking. I sped up to 4:50/km, and decreasing by 10s/km every 2km, while other people were getting slower and slower. The speed fun was interrupted after turning into Kampong Bugis at 16km mark, the road surface was so rough and even though it was down slope I decelerated to 5min/km pace. The 1km stretch tortured my soles but it was alright since I had put 1800km+ barefoot millage on them. The bridge in Kallang Riverside Park at 17km mark was so narrow (a pedestrian crossed bridge in a park, what do you expect? ) later turned out to be the most stringent bottle neck, after the massive 21k and 10km runners merged together. I was lucky to pass without delay because most runner had not been there.

Then we were again away from the main road, ran on Marina Promenade along Kallang river. Through I didn't like the pavement, I kept 4:40/km pace. At 18km mark, we turned into F1 track at which I was astonished to find all asphalt gone, only gravels left! It was quite different to that I ran J.P. Morgan 5.6k in Apr. I wondered if it was next week's GP F1 night race requirement. The 2km track was real challenge to my barefoot. I'v anticipate it to be rough base on previous experience, not expecting it to be so worse. I did not reduce cadence, just change mid-foot landing to "whole-foot" landing to ease the impact, my pace maintained steady without deceleration. The ultimate torture was over in 9min, at 20km we turned into Esplanade Drive. I started to sprint, pace increased from 4:30/km to 4:10/km. I also turned the tempo trainer (YAMAHA ME55BK clip on metronome) which help me to maintain 180/min cadence, striving for a free run. Before entering Pandang, I noticed my average pace reached 5:16/km, I almost hit my target pace, and also meant I would get a PB this time (Last year I ran 1:52 in 5:19/km pace, though it fell 700m short). I finished in 1:51:15, based on my Garmin305.

The distance was accurate, my watch shown 21.11km. I believe the course was sanctioned on IAAF criteria, as the organizer claimed. I think my last year timing should be 1:56 had not been the course falling short. So this year I'v improved by 5min. Thanks for the MAF training I dedicated since last December. My boy was comfortable throughout the race, starting in a slow pace with prolonged warming up, speed steadily increase to the end of the race. And my bare soles were also seasoned and could deal with tougher surface, without blisters and worn out. I hope I could ran into 1:45 next year.

Timing chip tight on Nathan ankle band

The medal was nice too, compare with last two years. I notice there was a mark of "ELM" on it, same as Standard Chartered one, very good design and quality.

Official timing was out, 1:51:13. The Runpix analysis shown that I had passed 295 runners during last 5km, second to another runner who passed 303. Both us ran a reverse pyramid scheme. I was forced to because the human wall, what about this guy?

Appendix:
Running statistics: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/220384722
Run pix analysis: