January, A Good Start...

By Frank

"Here we go again"! That's what I told myself when the new year started on 1 January 2015. A whole 365 days  new year awaits but what beckons is 150 days throughout 5 months of training otherwise known as blood, tears and torture. The training for my fourth and "toughest" to date Comrades Marathon begins.

Why did I say that it's going to be my toughest even before the race? As mentioned before, my target for this year is set pretty high and I am not sure if I am able to do it. Outrunning last year's time seems pretty realistic though but hey, I got nothing to lose to try what has been set for me. To succeed is a bonus, to fail is to go back to the drawing board and try again. That was my mentality, that was what I told myself. And I've got 2 messages lock into my mind, "Mind Over Body" and "This Can Be Done", both given and reminded to me by someone dear and also my coach.

January 2015 marks my 6th month of transition into the Maffetone training method. It has so far proven to be very effective and hoping that the journey ahead will be better with it. And January 2015 like my others January's' the previous years seems to be an easy month to build the foundation to the training ahead. But with the fitness gained at the final quarter of last year and with very minimal fitness loss during my down time, this month is all about maintaining and perhaps improve on it.

I stood with the program that was given to me, and didn't get over adventurous in trying out new stuff. Pretty easy runs for the first 2 weeks of the month before a 100KM race at the Hong Kong 100 Ultra Trail Race, an eye opener for me. Took me a while to recover from that though as I went down with cold for a couple of days. I guess that's the results of defying the doctor's order. Yeap, you did not read this wrong. I didn't mention this before but I underwent a medical checkup a couple of weeks before the race and was not given the green light for the 100KM race. Then the final week of the month introduced speed session for me with time trial being the first. Speed isn't something I favour but I guess it's a necessity to improve on my timing.

And all in all, I slightly overshot my estimated targeted running distance by achieving 300KM worth of it.Certainly a nice number to start the first month of training with but as a reminder to myself, it's not about the distance, but time. And it's going to get tougher and tougher for the next 4 months as not only I train myself for this year's biggie but at the same time to look after my health. I may not be 100% but I will go on and on, till the day I can't anymore. Embrace myself I need!

Time to burn those rubbers! 

Thanks Saucony Malaysia for supporting myself, Zijill and Jason for our 

Road to Comrades 2015.