Road To Standard Chartered KL Marathon

Well, just a half for me actually not a full marathon.

"Poyo" title and "poyo" post coming up. Brace yourself!

Standard Chartered KL Marathon (SCKLM) is where I'll be doing my first half-marathon. Just a little bit more than two months to go and I've been enjoying training for the big day.

Finished the first training plan; Runner's World 9-weeks half marathon training plan for beginners (it took about 11 weeks actually since I don't count the weeks I raced).

I'd like to think that I've somewhat improved my running with the plan. Those who are friends with me on the Dailymile.com, I did improve right? ^^

(pssst... so pretentious of me putting that up, right?) hu~

Now, I've decided to give the intermediate half marathon plan a try and am now in my second week. If all goes well, with weeks for races and recovery; I'll finish and taper a week or two before the SCKLM.

The new training plan needs more focus than the beginner's plan. I don't train with other runners and I sure don't have a coach barking instructions at me. The only easy way for me to remember the target pace & target distance + whether it's supposed to be a pace-interval run, strides or speed intervals is to have it where I can easily see them.

And that's by writing the sequence on the top of my hand. What does all that numbers meant? Easy - After 2K warm up, run at half-marathon goal pace (which I ambitiously set at 6:30/km) for 1.2K, do a recovery jog for 400m then pick up pace and run 2 sets of 800m at 10K pace with 200m recovery jog before doing 4 sets of 200m speed intervals with 200m recovery jog and finish with 2K cool down run. Do you think I'd remember these if I don't scribble them on my hand? If I let my mind wander (which happened quite a bit) I will forget how many loops or sets I've done! This plan does not only exercise the legs (and body) but my brains too. Gotta keep the brain working and working sharp!

Anyway, that's my Tuesday run for Week 1 & 2. Monday will see me do a 6K and Thursday is 6K + 4x100m strides. Saturday is another day of pace intervals while Sunday is reserved for long runs.

While waiting for June to arrive, the road races I've entered/planning to enter so far :
Jan : Multi-Purpose Insurans Run (12K)
Feb : none as I cannot find any 10K races nearby
Mar : 1 Vision Run (10K)
Apr : Energizer Night Race (15.5K)
May : Larian Bersama Bomba (I'm torn on which category to enter. Women Veteran "only" covers 7K and it's the Women Open that has a 10K run. The run offers limited medal and what if I can't get the limited medal if I run the 10K? Getting a medal; limited or otherwise is one of the fun part of entering a road race for me!) I have to decide by next week as I'll go and register for the run the day I'm collecting Energizer Night Race's race kit. Whaddya reckon? 10K or 7K? Zaini told me to go ahead with 10K. After all, I sure ain't gunning to the top 10 place!