The Run of Your Life

"You start at the Hawara Pyramid at Fayoum (which is located 100 km from Cairo), and your run will take you past the pyramids of Kafren & El-lesht, and to the bent pyramids of Dahshor before you head for the end-point at the step pyramids in Saqqara just south of Cairo."



Some of you may already be asking, "Why not end at Giza, the most famous of them all?" Some of the more observant are likely thinking, "Did I read this right? Was the route just described 100 km long?"


The Meidum Pyramid, site of the first pyramids built in Egypt will be one of the few you'll run through

Yeah... the observant ones are correct... this is indeed a 100 km run and I suppose given that you've traveled 100 km by foot from Fayoum, the organizer probably thought you might want to visit Giza on another day.


The step pyramid of Saqqara, where you end the race

The route takes you through some of the lesser known pyramids of Egypt which I would think likely escape most tourists if you are on those 5-day Europe/Africa tours thingie. Even if they do get to visit, it's one thing to be driven by car from one pyramid to the next; and another thing altogether to tell your frens or children that you ran from one pyramid to the next!

I suppose the only (ahem) slight problem is the 100 km distance. Ahh... but me thinks you are not one to let a little problem like this stand in your way. LOL

They call this an Ultra Marathon (ie anything more than the usual 42K). In Egypt, they call this the Pharaonic Race and is held yearly. The upcoming one this November will be their 10th race.

It all started when someone found a rock (no, not this Rock) way back in 1977 that suggested this race took place around 690 BC (now you understand the power of rock-o-logy ler). This race was conceptualized to remember that historical event, and takes place at the same area covering almost similar route.


The route map for this 100K Pharaonic Run

According to the rock, the winner of this race back then completed the route in about 8 hrs. So what's the qualifying time for you to get a finisher's medal? Well, I suppose they are pretty flexible with that.. considering you likely want to hang around some of the pyramid sites and take a photo of two.


This will be the most beautiful sign you want to see when you are in this race! :P

But try to come back before it gets dark, as it's very hard for the sweeper bus to find you in the desert when it's all dark. :P

Link to official site: http://www.egyptianmarathon.com/EgyptianMarathon/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=41

p/s On closer inspection of their race categories, it seems they now have a Relay Option where you can form teams of 2-5 and take turn running the route provided each leg is at least 10km. Hey! If we get 5 ppl then we are talking just 20 km each... anyone interested?

Band of Brothers 2 (Pacific) to premier March 14 (HBO)

From the people who gave us the awesome "Band of Brothers" TV series, comes the sequel "The Pacific" which premieres in the U.S. this March 14.


Official site: http://www.hbo.com/the-pacific/index.html

From the HBO Official website, here's the summary for this mini-series

The Pacific is an epic ten-part mini-series. The Pacific tracks the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S. Marines Robert Leckie, John Basilone, and Eugene Sledge across the vast canvas of the Pacific Theater during World War II. The mini series follow these men and their fellow Marines from their first battle with the Japanese on Guadacanal, through the rainforest of Cape Gloucester and the strongholds of Peleliu, across the bloody sands of Iwo Jima and through the horror of Okinawa, and finally to their triumphant but uneasy return home after V-J Day.

The Pacific is based in part on the books Helmet for My Pillow, by Robert Leckie, with the Old Breed, by Eugene B. Sledge, with additional material from Red Blood, Black Sand, by Chuck Tatum, and China Marine, by Eugene B. Sledge, as well as original interviews conducted by the filmmakers.

Enjoy the trailers...





If you enjoy the Band of Brothers miniseries, you'll want to watch this! Can't wait for it's blu-ray release.

Fried-out Kombie to pay Kookaburra royalties...

,Oops... an Australian court rules that Men-at-Work, an Aussie band famous in the 80s, used part of the melody from a popular children song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree" for their hit single "Down Under".

Traveling on a fried-out Kombie, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie....
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast and she said...
Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder...



Source: NY Daily News

Those who knew me would have heard of their other popular & catchy song "Who Can It Be Now?" as a ringtone on my HTC. :)

Sad they now have to pay back royalties to Kookaburra...

How *NOT* to do sms marketing!

I received this sms a few days earlier...

CNY 2wks special starts now till 12th FEB. *Storewide 30% ! Check out our new arrival too &Join us at facebook for latest news. Happy Chinese New Year!

Interesting offer.... they even have a Facebook page!! But alamak.... I've no idea which company sent this!! :P

Pretty smart, they are.

6 Feb '10: Putrajaya Night Run 2010

This Blog Looks Dead.... :P
Gosh.. has time flew past that fast? I just looked back at this blog and realized the last update I made was July last year! phew....

That last entry was for the Jog for Hope event which preceded the first run I did at Putrajaya ie. the Shape & Men's Health Night Run 2009. I've a draft copy of the Shape Night Run's entry in my laptop... will promise to review and upload that soon.

Given that I've now resumed my blogging on the Boardgame meetups, I'll also allocate time to do regular updates here as I've given myself a target of doing one run per month for this year (oops.. I missed January!).

After last July's Shape Night Run, I did one more run at Putrajaya ie. the Ekiden International Relay with my Datacom colleagues. That was a short 5 x 3km relay.. but it was fun (and different) taking part in a relay race for the first time. :)

Besides Ekiden, I did another 3 runs last year including the DNF* (haiz) Adidas King of the Road and ending the year with  StanChart's Singapore Marathon. Rest assured, all these will be blog-back retrospectively here. hehe.

*DNF = "Did not Finish" in running lingo

BACK TO THE PRESENT
Hope that was a quick enough summary of what were "missing" here for the 2nd half of last year. Let's move on... and come with me to the just concluded (and also the first in M'sia) Night Marathon held at Putrajaya (again).


URL: http://www.putrajayanightmarathon.com/

Technically, Shape & Men's Health holds the title for organizing the first night run in M'sia. However the Shape Run did not include a full marathon (42km) category. Yesterday's Putrajaya Night Marathon 2010 have all the key categories ie. 42km (Full), 21km (Half), 7.7km (supposedly the 10km Quarter) and 5km (Fun) hence they laid claim to the title "First Night Marathon in M'sia".

That's Marketing for you... :)

Wayang during Running Kit Collection Time
We'd registered for this event rather early (16 Dec 2009) and I'd somehow misplaced our registration receipts which we need when collecting our running kits!! Duh...

We tried to search high-n-low to no avail, and on Friday (5-Feb), the last day for the running kit collection, I decided to make a desperate long-shot by just dropping into the collection point at Wisma OCM; walked up to those I-hope-they-will-be-helpful people manning the collection booths... and told them, "I lost my receipts. Can I still collect my running kit ar?" while putting on my most forlornly sad look.

Silence... a few looked at each other... but no one said anything. Hmmm....

Now I was trained that in a negotiation, once you put the "proposal" on the table, you don't say a word coz the next party to open his mouth loses the balance... so I kept quiet... :P

Someone finally spoke.... "Well, since it's now 6pm and there's no crowd, let's see what we can do. Which category did you sign up for?"

YES! :)

They located the large ring binder file that contains all the registration form... and started flipping thru the forms one-by-one starting from the first registration. The forms were loosely sorted by date; I say "loosely" coz there were quite a number of forms that appeared out-of-date sequence.

Took them about 15 min.. but they finally found my registration form!! The other guy was quick to locate my running bib number, and gave me a M-sized t-shirt (no running vest; they are for the half- & full-marathon runners only). I asked them to cross-reference to the Fun Run category to locate the reg form for waiyan - which they did, also without hesitation or complain. Aren't these people nice? :P

I've to say I need to take my hat off and express my grateful appreciation to those who helped me search and find my registration form. They do not have to do this... by policy, they could have just asked me to bugger off... try again next year and oh, dun lose your receipt again.. now go away, horrible man.

But they didn't... and were more than helpful! Now that's GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!



My bib number was M024 (I did say I registered very early la) and it's not a very "ong" number for Chinese.. it means "easy to die". gulped.

I was thinking, hmmm since these people have been so nice and helpful perhaps I can ask them to change my number... given there appeared to be some running kits left uncollected - and it's like 10 more minutes to close of collection.

A man who appeared to the be supervisor, seeing that I'd already found my reg form and running kit, said gently to me, "You are lucky you came at this time when we are free else we won't be doing this for you. Don't do this next time yeah?"

Hmm... maybe I better not push my luck too far. M024 looks just nice to me!! hehe...

THE RUN
The trip to Putrajaya was smooth, traffic-free and took us only 30 min (probably less) via MEX (Maju Expressway) from MRR2. We reached Putrajaya Presint 3 in good time; parked our car a couple blocks away from Istana Kehakiman - where everything starts and ends for the run.

I took a few minutes to do a quick jog to warm my body up, went to the portable toilet to do what needs to be done, and then wriggled my way into the starting pen where runners gathered to be flagged off.

My 7.7 km run (which was supposed to be the 10 km quarter-marathon) was to start at 9 pm. waiyan's 5 km Fun Run starts 15 minutes later. Qualifying time for the 7.7 km is 80 min and medals given to first 400 finishers only.



I think I'm about 20-line deep inside the kandang (starting pen).... which would probably take like 20 secs before I reach the starting line (where the arch is). Given that I'm not racing for a podium finish, this is not an issue. Anyway I normally start the timer on my Garmin only when I crossed the starting line. :)



Putrajaya at night can be very beautiful. Too bad the crappy phone on my HTC can only do so much... and my sis laiwah who carries a behemoth Canon DSLR did not come along for this event else you can see photos of this quality -> SCKLM09. hehe.

GETTING READY TO START
The race was started 3 min before 9pm! It caught me slightly by surprise as I was still fiddling with my MP3 player when I noticed the rows in front my me started moving off....

Seems like some runners carried water bottles into the starting pen.. and after finishing the water, they just chucked the empty bottles on to the street! The empty bottles can be a danger to the runners from behind if they stepped on the bottles and slipped... aiyoh, learn some civic-mindedness la!!

The 7.7 km route is very similar to the 5 km Shape Run route. We essentially take a straight line (flat terrain) towards PICC in Presint 5. Where it differs is that in Shape Run, we do a short turn around PICC but in this run we take a larger circle, and there's a branch-out at the 5 km mark to go around Presint 4 before coming back to the straight stretch heading back towards Istana Kehakiman.


The 7.7 km Route

Why does everyone run so fast at the start? tsk tsk
After having been to a few races, I always noticed (especially in the short distance category) that people seems to RACE off at the starting gate... vvvrrrooomm, vvrrroooommm.. zzoomm!! Why the rush ar?

In the past, I tend to follow their pace... Nowadays I just ignore all these ppl running past me and followed my own starting pace which is usually just a slight notch above my target pace for the run (in this run, I'd intended to target 5.30 pace).

"Pace" means minutes per km; so a 5:30 pace means I intend to do one km in 5m30sec

I kept this pace until I reach the Equilibrium Point ie. when the number of runners overtaking you has dropped to more or less equal to the number of runners you are overtaking. :) In this run, I noticed that it happened around the 1 km mark (ie Lap 1 below). hehe.


We flagged off at the Istana Kehakiman (top of the picture)

If you then maintained this pace for another half km or so (actual distance differs from race to race), you'll soon find you have reached the Overtaking Point ie. when you are overtaking more runners than being overtaken!

You can upped your pace or just retained the existing pace...  either way, you can be sure you are slowly improving your finishing position with each forward step you take. Obviously the sooner this point is reached in the run, the stronger you'll finish.



At around the 2 km mark (see picture above, Lap 2), I got a little scare when I saw a large group of runners coming around the opposite side of the road. OMG, am I so FAR BEHIND!! I thought these were the lead runners of my 7.7km category who have already went one loop around PICC Presint 5 (see map below) and were coming into their 5 km mark!!

That would mean I'm probably more than 500 pax behind!! And they are like.. 2+ km ahead of me!! I'm so dead.... all these ponderous talk about Equilibrium Point, Overtaking Point must be slowing me down!! LOL

Thankfully, I noticed the blue bib on their vests and realized these were the half-marathoners who were coming around the bend. They flagged off half an hour earlier than us. Phew.... still got hope for my finisher medal!



It was at the 3 km (Lap 3) point that I saw Mdm N3271 (aiyoh.. I didn't get to ask for her name!) whom we first saw at the SCKLM09 (see picture below) where she clocked an impressive 60 min for her 10.4 km run (and I did hehe, 68 min for the same race, oops).


We chatted with her after the run but still I forgot
to ask her name (where's my manners, duh!)

I first overtook her during an elevated stretch of the run but she caught up with me a short distance later. I decided to just pace with her as I noticed that she runs at a steady brisk pace of 6:00 min/km.

At this point, both of us were very much running by ourselves with some runners scattered in front and some at the back. The gaps were widening both front and back. Occasionally a few strong runners will go past us.. but we were overtaking more runners than being overtaken.

I would probably say those casual runners were behind us and in front of us would be the strong runners who are likely running at a faster pace than us. To catch them, we need to put on Turbo mode... (if we do have a Turbo mode, hehe).

Both of us kept pace with each other until the 6 km mark.. when I decided to step up and go for the home stretch of the last 1.5 or so km. I bet she was not too far behind either... If she had kept to her steady 6:00 min/km pace, she should finish this run around the 46 min mark.

I really admire her stamina and endurance given her age. I'll be happy if I can still complete a 7.7 km run at that age; never mind in 46 min. :P

RACE SUMMARY
There were only a few runners coming into the home stretch together with me so there was no crowding and we were smoothly ushered into the finishing queue. Were given a card indicating our position, then hurried along the queue to collect our medal and certificate before getting a pack of food and a bottle of water.

Distance: 7.66 km (Garmin)
Time: 43.5 min
Position: 167
Average Pace: 5.42 min/km

Target pace was 5:30... so FAILED... hahaha



My timings (above) as shown from my Garmin FR405. Kept a pretty even pace. The vertical axis should be "Pace" (ie min/km) and not "Speed" (which would be km/h).

Here's another look at the 7.7 km route as shown using Google Earth below. You can the PICC building which is like the halfway point for this run.



WINDING DOWN
Drinks were a-plenty everywhere... ais milo, 100plus, Nescafe.... they'd a few stations set up so it's not like all runners cramming into one long queue. Well thought out.

I refueled myself while waiting for waiyan to finish her 5 km Fun Run. She came back around 10 pm which was pretty good timing. According to her Garmin, she clocked 42 min but the distance was marked as 5.4 km. Not bad...


waiyan with her 5 km certificate


me with my first running medal for this year :)

Front & Back of the 7.7km Finisher Medal

My Adidas running flats that's been with me since SCKLM last June... It's mileage is around 200+ km so it should still last another 300+ km for me.

We also bumped into Yim who was doing the half-marathon. You can bump into him at almost EVERY RUNNING EVENTS in town!! LOL He's aiming for his sub-2hr half-marathon which I've no doubt he'll crack that soon.... before moving to do his sub-4hr full marathon (kekeke).


Hi, Yim! :P

REPLACING LOST CALORIES :P
We were supposed to take MEX (Maju Expressway) back to MRR2... However I took the wrong turning and we ended up driving along the old Putrajaya highway which took us towards Kajang. We ended up having Kajang Satay for supper....



Wow... the Haji Samsuri stall was brimming with runners from the Putrajaya Night Marathon! Seems like everyone has the same idea that satay is good for you after a good run... haha.

NEXT RUN
Yep, that's it for my first 2010 run! My next run was to be the Energizer Night Race on the 27th March (hmm, "night run" seems to be the trend now) but we could be doing the Bareno Run @ Bukit Jalil which is two weeks before the Energizer Night Race.

There was also another run held on the same day Nuffnang's Tiger Run 2010 which is *not* your typical run. A FB running fren of mine took part in it and came out 1st!

19Jul09 Jog for Hope - A leg forward for charity

A missed call in the morning apparently came from a running fren Yvonne - read her blog on tis run here - (whom I first met thru boardgaming) asking if I was willing to help support some teens in their charity work. Why, yes.. why not?

The event is The Treehuggers Club's Jog for Hope, organized to raise funds for the spastic children of SCASF&FT. The Treehuggers Club is a society from Taylor's College Sri Hartamas.


Official website: http://jogforhope.wordpress.com/

Was told the run was a rather last minute event, and it double-dated the Siemens Run which was also slotted for the 19th July (Sun) morning. As I did not register for the Siemens Run this event provided another running opportunity for me.. plus doing something for the underprivileged children.

Was there quite early actually and got myself parked inside Hartamas Shopping Complex, registered, got my bib (#089) & JoH t-shirt and it was just 5 min shy of 7 am. Run was set to flag off at 8am.



Met Yvonne and Ling (hope I got her name right), chit-chatted until 7.50am and still no sign we were going to start. Finally close to 8 am the emcee came up - not to flag us off - but to announce some Datuks need to give a speech or two! Duh....



Run was finally flagged off around 8.07 am. The no. of runners were low (partly due to Siemens Run I suspect) and most of them were in the Taylor's category, so we in the Open category were very much left to our own small group at the front of the starting line.

Strange feeling being in the front first 4-5 rows compared to SCKLM's start where I was right at the back of like 4000+ runners which took me 4 mins just to slowly crawl to the starting line. :P

The Open category route was 9 km while the Taylorian's category was 6 km. Since I'm doing the Shape & Men's Health Night Run next week @ Putrajaya where I registered to run the 5 km, I was not keen to do a full 9 km this week (even though the week after next I'll be at the Adidas King of the Road for a 11 km run). Wah.. so many runs, week on week... as if I'm a seasoned runner. tsk tsk.



My two-mind on whether to do the 9 km or curi-ayam on the 6 km was resolved when I saw their route map. It seemed all runners take the same route for the 1st 6 km and while the 6 km runners end their run there, the 9 km runners continue for another 3 km loop.

So this meant I could just go for a fast 6km (I mean as "fast" as I could manage hehe) and when I'm back at the 6 km mark, to decide if I want to continue the remaining 3 km or call it a day.

I started at a brisk pace close to 11.7 kph. The run started off along Jalan Sri Hartamas 1 heading towards Jln Duta so it was a downhill run. Well.. since we were coming back via the same road, it meant we'll be asked to navigate this uphill run in the 6th KM... aiyoh.

In this run, you get to meet lots of the "sprint-walkers". They are the runners who'll sprint as fast as they could... until they pancit. Then they'll walk until they recover... and back to sprinting.. then walking.

Can be irritating sometimes.... you see them sprinting past you... wooo hooo... then while they were walking as they recover from their pancit, you overtake them, yah.... only for them to sprint past you again not too soon.. .woo hoooooo.... This sequence repeats itself until they put you out of your misery by sprinting away.

hehe, kids have that luxury of pace.

There were 1 KM markers along the whole route and I think there's a water station every 2 KM. Traffic police were around to control the cars and volunteers were stationed at key turning points to ensure you were headed in the right direction. Things looked pretty organized.

Managed to keep a rather even 5:41 min/km pace for the next 3 km even though some of the roads were sloppy. Until we hit the uphill climb from Jln Duta heading back into Jln Sri Hartamas 1 (yes, that same stretch of road we started downhill)....

And that climb seemed like an eternity.. eerr.. okie la.. mebbe it's just about 1 km but it sure felt like an eternity then. My pace dropped to 6.22 and I was most tempted to just walk out the last few hundred meters.

Until I saw Mr Ironman overtake me around the 5.5 km mark. Now, we've seen him earlier during the warm-ups and around the Starting line. He was then clad in a sarong - yup, a sarong - and he was doing his warm-up jog barefoot! We were just not sure if he was waiting for some buddies of his to bring along his shorts and running shoes. :P



Seemed like the sarong and kaki-ayam are his running trademark! LOL
Click here to see his photo in another run.

That kicked up my reserve tank and I pushed my way to the finishing line. All-in my Garmin recorded a time of 33:29+ min for this 6 km run. Should set me up nicely for next week's Nite Run.

HOW WAS THE FORERUNNER 50?I mentioned in my blog about the Forerunner 50 (FR50) sports watch that I'll write about how the FR50 performed in this run where I get to use the sports watch and foot pod for the first time.

Let's talk about the footpod first. Works like a charm without much calibration out-of-the-box. Just clipped it snugly to my Adizero laces and it started tracking my speed & pace thru-out the run. Told me I started brightly at 5:30 pace and dropped to 6:22 towards the end of the run. Average pace was 5:50 (this is slow as I shud be aiming for 5:40).

The package I bought came with a heart-rate monitor (HRM) but since I only got the package last nite (Sat), I didn't have the time to get the HRM set up for this race. Will do that for the Nite Run so expect another update from me there.

Back home, the sports watch wireless synced my running stats into my laptop and once the data got into the (free) Garmin Training Center (GTC) software, it provided some useful analysis on my run (see below).



Beside tracking speed, average pace, calorie, etc I can also see how much time I spent in each running zones (eg Zone 6 is a Fast Jog were the speed is from 9.66 - 12.07 kph). Apparently I spent 26 of the 33+ min at this level. My target is to spend most of my time in Zone 7 (10.71 - 13.79) :)



Lastly it provided a nice chart to show your run's progress... Looking at the chart, I know that I generally maintained a >10 kph speed and you can also see where I hit those "slopes" ie where my speed dropped, especially at the 5km mark, hehe.

WILL I BE BACK AGAIN NEXT YEAR?



Overall this was a quite well organized run (except for the late Datuk speech) considering the organizers are just college students. If they are doing this again next year, I'll certainly be back!

More photos available from the official Jog for Hope Flickr set.

Garmin Forerunner 50

After my first run at SCKLM a few weeks back, I realized my biggest challenge on Race Day is not knowing how to pace myself. I did most of my running at the gym (True Fitness) and only does one on-the-road (OTR) run on Sunday evening at KLCC.

On the treadmill, it's easy to pace and vary the speed coz you get all the info right in front of you! You can get to set speed, elevation, distance and even monitor your heart rate using the treadmill's control panel. Guess I am spoilt by the treadmill. :P

The obvious way to solve this - beside doing more OTR runs - is to get a "running watch" which can help me track distance, speed and pace during run days. These devices can also monitor your heart rate and if you get those with GPS built-in, you can even map your run on Google Maps. Cool eh?

I do not know what's the official name for these devices; some just call it "sports watch", some use the term HRM (heart-rate monitor) while I've also seen them refered to as pedometers.


Nike's sporty looking SportBand

A quick google narrowed me down to two choices - Polar or Garmin. There are a few other brands on the market - Timex, Suunto, and even Nike has their own Nike+ built into their new running shoes - but Polar and Garmin seem most popular with our local seasoned runners.


Here's the Nike Sportband shown next to their running shoes.

What these devices basically do are to track your movement as you run so as to be able to provide you with stats such as pace, speed, split, finish time, heart rates and calories spent. They do this via two common methods - i) a footpod device attached to your running shoes that transmit movement data back to your device, or ii) a GPS-based device that uses global positioning to measure how far you've run.

A footpod from the Garmin series

I'd wanted to know how Polar and Garmin are different and which target market they are aimed at. Couldn't seem to find much info about this from Google.. all they'd were mainly product specs etc. And what I knew about Garmin were their popular GPS navigational devices for cars! Didn't know they sell something for runners.

Luckily I came into contact with phoenix, a seasoned runner in the LowYat forum, who carries the Polar brand here in Msia and is knowledgeable enough to know how Polar and Garmin target their products.

He told me Polar is a heart rate monitor (HRM) centric company while Garmin is GPS-centric. This means if your primary need is to have a device to monitor your heart-rate, go get a Polar. Add a footpod later if you wish to track distance/speed.




The Polar RS300X recommended by phoenix

Note: Feel free to contact phoenix (at his website) if you wish to know more about Polar devices.

However if your need is more like mine ie distance/speed is primary and heart-rate monitoring is secondary, a Garmin might be a better option (especially if you intend to use GPS to map your runs). Garmin has made its name in its GPS navigational devices and it's carrying over it's GPS technology into it's Forerunner series of running devices.


The latest catalogue of Forerunner sports watch from Garmin

Initially I was going to get myself the Forerunner 305 but hesitated at its price (rm1,280) and the fact that the FR405 and FR310XT are newer models made it hard for me to splash the cash on the (older) FR305.

After careful study of their manuals (downloadable from Garmin), I decided the Forerunner 50 (FR50) would best serve my needs. The FR50 is fairly basic - compared to the newer FR405 - and it doesn't have GPS built-in but it has the two essential components; the footpod and heart-rate monitor. Not to mention the FR50 looks better on my wrist than the bulkier FR305.


The FR50 which looks just like any sportswatch

The full package (ie FR50 watch + footpod + HRM) is a few hundred ringgit cheaper than the FR305; and it does seem to do all that I need ie track my distance, track how fast I'm running and later analyze my splits, pace, and heart-rate.

The only thing missing is the GPS function but since I'm not going to run that many races in a year - with most of my training runs being done indoors at True Fitness - I can't justify getting a GPS device for the sake of being the Joneses with the latest gadget. Call me cheap. :P

Hunted around for shops that carry this product... and found one at Low Yat ie. Premier GPS in UG Floor. They made me an offer I can't refuse.. hehe. Well, actually it was more like I needed it the following day for the Jog for Hope run which would be the best run for me to testdrive this before the following week's Shape Run.



The picture above shows the Garmin footpod attached to my Adizero Tempo trainer. That was when I used it on the Tempo at the gym to compare the stats taken by the FR50 and those from treadmill. The footpod's more permanent home would be on my Adizero Ace (race day).

How well does the Forerunner 50 perform up to my expectations? Was it useful to help me pace throughout the run? How can it be used as a training tool? Stay tune for my Jog for Hope report where I'll also write about my first impression of the FR50 in my first run using it.

Now the only thing left to do is to find that dude who told me "running is a cheap sport, all you need is yourself and a pair of shoes." hehe

p/s: To those wishing to get the FR50, pls note that Garmin has just released the FR60 which has newer features plus a much smaller footpod.

SCKLM '09 - Interesting Photos

PHOTOS FROM AROUND SCKLM '09
Just sharing some interesting photos taken by laiwah during the run. :)


#1926, that's the bib number for Muniandy Ramadass who's the first local finisher for the Full Marathon. He clocked 2 hrs 31 min for this run. That's about 36 min for 10km (it's a 17 kph speed) sustained over 2.5 hrs!!

The overall winner is a Kenyan clocking in at around 2 hrs 17 min! :O


#2516 is Ruburn Kummar (MAS) who's first in the 10km category. He completed in 36.5 min.


Some of the Kenyan runners coming in for the 42km finish.


#1246 Georgine Beech was the winner for the Women's 10km category. Her time was 44 min.


Running is not all about winning. You also need to do it with style like our young fren here. :P His time is not bad though at 52+ min for the 10km.


I like #0439; she's a half-marathoner (see her blue bib tag) and she's clocking in at 2 hrs which's impressive. I like her running posture/form where she is a forefoot strike runner (vs "heel strike").

The runner next to her #2480 is also a forefoot strike runner. He's from the Pacemaker group, easily recognizable with their red running vest. They sent in quite a large number of runners.

What is "forefoot strike" running?


Never too old to run... and the grandma (above) deserves a bow from all of us! She not only completed her 10km run but did it in around 60 min!! That's a good 10 min faster than my finishing time.. aiyoh!

Next time anyone tells me he or she is too old to run, I'll pop this photo as my response, hah!


Interesting "twist" she has on her calves as she ran... looks dangerous to me oh.



Saw a few of these pairs of runners. Basically a runner leading another runner who's visually impaired. Warms the heart. Pity the photo is out-of-focus.


Turning into the Big Walk now... :P


Yes, that's the way to finish - smile and wave!


Okie.. now let's come to the "baby strollers". Firstly, how did the organizer allow non-registered runner to get into the route? Only those who clearly displayed bib numbers shud be on the running route, no?

Secondly while I understand why they are doing this ie strolling the babies - must be all nice and warm to have baby running along with daddy towards the finishing line - but HELLO, this is an International Marathon. Do they not realize they could be road hazards to the other runners who are coming in strongly to the finishing line either for their personal best time or position??


ah.. see.... #1240 is a Full Marathon runner and he's almost going to crash into the stroller as he tried to wriggle his way past the crowd.


Ah... eye candy :) The #0002 kid is super cool... btw I was not referring to the kid as eye-candy ;)


This is Peter Lee (#0169), who's leading his visually-impaired fren for the kids dash. Good for you, Pete!


Luv the way kids run... with such abandonment and stamina!! Go Kiddo Go

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The full set of 170+ photos can be viewed at my Flickr site - click here. If you find your running photos in it, email me and I can send the source file to you.