Simon Prepares for His Maiden 101km Run!

Swollen left ankle just after the basketball session.

Sidetrack....

I have been missing my running sidekick since November 2014. Rachel (aka Mrs. RunTheTown) was going through a long and worrisome period - being closely monitored for suspected metastasis of cancer to her bones. We were lucky. Her cancer did not spread as suspected. My dear wife fought it through once more. She, however, has been ordered for complete halt on running due to a fractured knee (bad enough to look like cancer and failing her bone scans and blood tests every month). She was feeling the pain in sleep and walk. It left me with lesser time and motivation to do my own running for a while.

Back to my own running....

On the last day of 2014, I injured myself by severely spraining my left ankle during a casual basketball game. The injury forced me to take a long term break from all load bearing exercises. In fact, the pain disallowed me to participate in any form of exercises. It was disheartening as my stamina was badly compromised. Even though time is said to be a vital factor for healing, this totally uncalled for injury has been taking me more than half a year to recover...and sadly slowly....

By May 2015, I decided to register myself for the Craze Ultra 101km. It is to be held from Saturday, 5 September till Sunday, 6 September 2015. I did the 78km last year. I would not want to miss this year's event! Despite my injury, I set my mind to complete this awesome distance, hoping for no further aggravations to my ankle. At that juncture, I believed that my ankle could heal by June and I would still have sufficient time to train for the event.

I thought I was feeling good by June. My ankle was healing sufficiently for some sort of trainings. I started running shorter distances to gauge my stamina and strength. Alas! Never in my dreams would I expect myself to be panting profusely and struggling to complete a fairly slow pace 5km run! I even fell sick after every back-to-back training session - a sign of overexertion due to my poor physique. 

I realised that I had to tweak my trainings to accommodate my injury plus deterioration in fitness. I knew I had to strictly adhere to a walk-run approach (from trainings to actual race) so that it would not trigger further injuries to my body. I needed to be disciplined!

The idea was to clock sufficient mileages so that I would have the capacity to complete the event within a gracious cut off timing of 32hr. 2015 is just not my year to talk about performance! To be able to finish the 101km would already be my greatest achievement of the year.

2.5 months on, the longest training distance that I accomplished was on Sunday, 9 August. I did a D.I.Y. SG50 Walk-A-Jog (in the wee hours of our country's 50th birthday) with one short 20-minute break due to heavy downpour. The registered GPS distance was 50km. My gut feel told me that I had probably clocked 45km instead. Perhaps my GARMIN FENIX 2 was not quite accurate (assuming the accuracy to be +/-10%). 

DIY SG50 Walk-A-Jog

Now that I have less than 3 weeks before the actual race, I shall not stretch myself unwittingly. I intend to focus on my core strengthening and maintenance walks/runs. Irregardless, I will not give up! I have every intention to turn up for the event on 5 September. 

Stay tune to my next post....I will share my strategy to finishing the Craze Ultra 101km on actual race day.

My training log for June 2015.

My training log for July 2015.

My training log for August 2015.