"Four"ward To Final...

By Frank

I'm just glad it's behind now. The fourth month April has came and went. Billed as the second toughest month with back to back long runs on weekends, I am glad I survived. As coach says, I should feel tired which I was but yet strong.

April has been in tradition a difficult month for me the past couple of years. I normally fall sick in this month and this year, I took extra precautions. I was glad that the haze did not return this month so that was  a plus sign. I washed most of my clothing and bed sheet in Dettol hoping to minimize any potential bacteria building up. I also took in more supplements and drank more water to keep body heat at bay.

I carried on the momentum from March though it started a little slower due to recovery from the Twilight Ultra Challenge. And for the first 2 weeks, the gauntlet was thrown down as I kept my focus steady on what was needed. But I was unlucky during the first weekend when a bee stung me on my neck while running at Mayor's Hill. Though not serious, it caused some irritation. And then came the second weekend which was my critical back to back long runs. I almost did not survive that but with the help from Zijill, Jamie and the Gold Coast group, I completed the daunting task.

Training almost got derailed on the third week as there was the Pisang Relay to manage. No weekend long runs and hence I needed to find time on weekdays to maintain my fitness. It was really tough but I needed to hang on and am glad I did before everything went back to normal at the fourth week.

While most will be doing their last long run at the final week of April, I decided to finish off the month with the King of Bukit Larut 26KM run at Taiping. I signed up for it was an extremely hilly course but as the race drew nearer, I regretted for fears the downhill may hurt the legs after seeing the profile. However, I still went for it and took the opportunity to train uphill there while tackling the downhill with extreme careful measures. I completed it nevertheless with a fruitful uphill training there but with a little soreness to my quad muscles, but glad no injuries. And all in all, that closed my fourth month off with a total distance of 328KM ran, target achieved once again!

In this month too that I finally received my race shoe which as per my tradition will reveal it together with the rest of my gear next month.

Anyway, am so glad the 4 months of pure grit and smart training is in the pocket now. It's time to embrace the fifth and final month where we Comrades runners starts to taper off. It will be a frustrating month as intensity is greatly reduce but we just had to hang on for 30 days more and then it's RACE DAY!