"Blacksmith" At Work...

By Frank

A night run in preparation for the upcoming Sundown Marathon 2009 was organised by Terence at Putrajaya yesterday night. It starts from 9pm till 6am this morning at Dataran Putrajaya. Anyone is welcome to join no matter the distance or the time. Being the pinnacle of my training, I would really like to hit 50KM though I failed to do so.

A good crowd of around 20 runners showed up. Some familiar faces were Alex, Keat Seong, Mohan and Victor. Even Jamie and Pueh Tian came for photo shoots. However, Luc got lost and decided to detour back to his place after a long drive. After a short briefing by Terence, off we went.

The run route will take runners around a 11.5KM loop. But as most of the runners do not know the way to the convention centre and back to the Prime Minister's office area, I had to lead the first loop as I ran here last year. Started the run at an easy pace with Keat Seong and Victor. Managed to chat while running till hitting the convention centre when we all started to break away. After completing my first loop, I stopped to refuel myself as my car was just park at the roadside which makes things really convenient.

I started my second with Victor. However shortly later, Victor had to detour back as the potty-pot was asking for him. With this, I had to run the second loop all by myself. Upon returning, I started to feel my legs and decided to change my Nike Air Zoom Vomero+ 3 to the adidas Response Control 7. The Vomero which already hit more than 800KM, is calling for retirement. During my change, Lawrence just arrived and we managed a short chat before taking off our respective self.

Was joined again by Victor for my third loop, his second. Really struggled here. And by the time I got back to the starting venue, my legs were already in a world of pain. To make things worst, there was still about 5KM more to run to complete 3 full loops. I decided to take a 15 minutes breather here. before continuing. Upon completing it which totalled to 34.5KM, myself and Victor decided not to push our luck and opt to quit. Though sad that both of us did not achieve our targeted distance, there is certainly no shame on it. Besides, there's still the second session in 2 weeks time.

So what made this run so tough? Concrete pavements covered at least half of the running route. Not only it was hard, it was also uneven at certain places where some pavements were raised or chip off. This contributed to the extra pounding my legs had to endured. And besides, the weather was just too hot and humid. I brought 4 liters of water but still, it wasn't sufficient. Running the regular Hartamas route wasn't as tough as this.

34.5KM ran. Another 50KM to go! How am I going to complete the Sundown 84KM ultramarathon? My legs isn't as tough as I would like them to be yet. How do I "reinforced" them to be as tough as "iron". There's certainly more work to do, but time is running out. Will the "blacksmith" be able to transform his legs? I do not know, but time will tell.