Hill Training!

Managed to get away from work at just past 6pm. Did a quick change in the gym and headed down to the LRT station. I'm sure I got funny looks but who cares. Ran up Jalan Parlimen from Masjid Jamek station. The meeting place at Lake Gardens is quite a distance away from the traffic lights and Bukit Aman car park! Already all warmed up by the time I got there. Want to know how it feels to gain weight? Try running uphill with some weight in a backpack, which is what I did.

Coach Chan had some interesting things in store for us today. Unlike nearly two weeks ago, today was not a "taster" session. Part 1 was 4x up the long hill, part 2 was 6x up the stairs (this time it was longer because the gate was open). Both involved 25m of ascent for each interval, giving a total of over 250m of climbing.


Altitude chart for hill session on 10 Aug 2004

Nearly all the fast boys were here today - Cecil, Eugene, Wei, Goh, Don etc. Makes it a bit more competitive and hard. As usual Cecil, Wei and Eugene were up front. Goh went hard only on the last two times up the hill. In my case I was just behind them, either in 4th place or 5th place to the top of the hill. Usually started a bit slower but put in a kick in the second half. Indeed I am often not very near the front at the right turn where the road is steep. Eugene didn't seem like he was at 100% today because I managed to catch him at the top of the last interval. My times uphill were pretty consistent - 2:48.2, 2:44.4, 2:44.7 and 2:44.2.

Didn't feel like running fast downhill today so nearly every man and his dog came past on the downs. Was actually running down slower than going up. Partly because I felt a bit of a niggle in my left IT band at the beginning. Better safe than sorry as the saying goes. Had a quick break and then we hit the stairs. Thanks to my slow overall time, I didn't have to start near the front of the 1st group. Legs felt a bit more tired than last time, hardly surprising as I had already run around 2km most of it uphill, then four times hard uphill and we had further to go up the stairs on this occasion. Managed to get to the top in 1:05-1:15, again taking it easy coming down especially it was getting dark.

Just missed the 20:48 train so had to catch the 21:18 train. Got home just before 22:30, a bit tired. Getting worried that I am not getting enough rest and not getting in enough carbohydrates. Usually a lot of vegetables and other protein stuff left over so I get given not a lot of rice in the hope that I finish off the other things. Another excuse for poor running performance. A bit different when I used to cook my own food. Will be doing that from next week again. Also find it quite hard to fully rehydrate before bedtime even though I start training fully hydrated by drinking like a fish all day at the office. Maybe I am just worrying too much...

Location 3°N 101°E