Archive for the ‘Random Thoughts’ Category

Wow! It’s been a while…

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Wow!!! It’s been 2 months already since my first marathon. Also, it’s been quite a while since my last blog post. I know I’ve been slacking on my blog but that does not mean that I’ve been slacking on my running. Since my first marathon, I’ve run a couple of 5 mile races (one of them I PR’d at a sub 8 minute average pace!!) and tomorrow, I’ll be running the Gate River Run 15K. The race that’s starting to become a tradition for me since it was the event that got me started into running.

Since I’m now fully recovered and have used up all my runner’s high from my first marathon, I’m now ready to get back into blogging about my runs. I’m also starting to think about my next marathon. No idea when and where yet, but the idea is already there.

So much has actually happened since my last post, I noticed a lot of improvement in my endurance and mechanics. I’m really excited to try new things and add new stuff to my training.

But for now, I will have to sign off early because I have to be up early tomorrow. Here’s a photo of me at the finish from my first marathon:


Run a marathon before you die – CHECKED!

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Day 45 – Is ‘it’ really safe?

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

After hearing the news about the 3 runners that died this past weekend during a half-marathon event in Detroit. I had to do some researching around because I just heard the story yesterday, and after telling everyone I know about my goal, I’m sure sooner or later, someone will come to me and try to talk me into not doing it anymore. My overly nervous parents, or aunts will probably be calling me anytime soon because they watch the news like hawks. But to be honest, the incident this past weekend did get me thinking for a little bit because I will be running my first half-marathon this Thanksgiving and then the Disney Full Marathon in January. According to the news reports, the three men died within the span of 16 minutes. Their ages were 26, 36 and 65. Very bizarre indeed. Upon reading this news, I also found out that a couple of runners have died two weeks ago in San Jose Half-Marathon. Now why all of a sudden the number of people dying in a race jumped up this past few weeks?

Apparently, no one has an answer to that question yet and probably, they’ll rule it out again as a fluke. I’m guessing that because the statistics show that marathon deaths are so rare. According to a study by the American College of Cardiology, “the risk of sudden death during a marathon is 0.8 per 100,000 people.” That risk goes up a bit in triathlons by a few percent (1.5/100,000). That’s still way lower than odds of getting heart attack or stroke or poisoning.

So, are marathon’s safe? I guess I will take my chances out there. I would rather die out there than die sitting in a couch while getting fat. The only thing I can say is that this incident should be a reminder to all of us (especially us newbies) to make sure we get a visit to the doctor before we jump into marathon training. I visited my doctor earlier in my training to make sure everything is OK. I even paid a visit to an Ortho two weeks ago to make sure I don’t have any stress fractures before I ramp up my mileage.

I still went out today for a six mile run. I carried water bottle with me and simulated the water stations at every 2 miles in Disney. I took a 1 minute walk break and water break every 2 miles. During the run, I thought about those runners died and said a little prayer about their families.

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Week 6 Schedule

Monday, October 12th, 2009

This week is another step back week. But I have to shuffle my schedule around a bit to accommodate the 5K Race For The Cure this coming Saturday. My original plan was to do my long run on Saturday (i.e. run 2 miles as warm up before the race then continue running after the race to meet my 7 mile target), but I like to keep it simple and just do the 5K and not worry about all the logistics. So here’s my revised schedule for Week 6:

Mon – Cross Train
Tue – 5 mile (Easy w/ hills)
Wed – 7 mile (My long run for the week)
Thur – 3 mile (Easy)
Fri – Yoga
Sat – 5K Race For The Cure
Sun – Cross Train (Upper body workout at home)

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Day 33 – Breathe Baby… Breathe!

Friday, October 9th, 2009

Photo Courtesy of: Cristina Nichitus

I have designated my Fridays to Yoga and some form of stretching or balance exercises (If there’s no instructor). To me, it fits perfectly in my schedule because it helps me loosen up all the tight muscles from all the running and training I’ve done during the week and it helps me prepare my body for the long run on the weekend. I always feel like I got new pair of legs after I’m done with the class. Based on experience, I suggest that everyone should integrate this practice or to their training even if it’s just once a week.

Today, Yoga reminded me about something that I often overlook while when I am running: Breathing. After the class, the instructor and a couple of us were talking and I brought up a question about breathing. I always find my breath out of rhythm near the end of the class. I asked if it was ok to hold my breath on some of the hard poses and he said the breathing should be continuous. He said the most important thing about yoga is the breathing and maintaining that constant rhythm throughout the practice. Most beginners, myself included, get caught up trying so hard to get all these crazy poses and forget to focus on the breathing. That got me thinking about my running. Most of the time, when I go out there, I get so caught up focusing on my form, pace and conserving energy, but I never really take much time to check my breathing rhythm. Looking back, most of my bad runs were because of me starting out with my breathing out of rhythm and never bothered to stop to get back in to rhythm. Especially on those hot and humid days when breathing was so much harder.

During our class, our instructor always makes us do the “Ujayyi” breathing technique. It’s like taking a long deep steady breaths and giving it a little bit of sound especially on the exhale, by slightly constricting the root of the throat. For a more detailed description, read this article about breathing. I wonder if I can somehow apply this technique to my running. Probably not the ujayyi entirely but at least focus on long steady breathing rhythm throughout the run. The ujayyi technique requires you to breathe (inhale and exhale) through your nose. As far as running goes, I think the jury is still out on whether you should breathe through your nose or through your mouth. I did some research on this earlier and end up more confused and frustrated because I kept getting conflicting articles. Marathonguide.com article says “it’s the mouth, not the nose” while Runner’ World says “The oxygen will come through your nose and mouth to your lungs.” Some people claim that breathing only through the nose is the right way. Whatever…I’m just going to do what I feel most comfortable with.

This coming week, I will try to pay more attention on my breathing during my runs. The key is I need to have a good consistent rhythm. 2:2, 3:3, 3:2…(The ratios between inhale and exhale based on foot strike), I will play around with those ratios next week and find the most comfortable ratio that will work for me. As usual, stay tuned! :)

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Day 32 – Today’s 3miler, Athlinks and other random ramblings

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

The temp was in the lower 90s again today and the humidity was at about 68%. This time around I knew what to expect before I left for my run. I ran with my friend John today and he’s a lot faster than me so I started out a little too fast. At around 3/4 mile, I decided to step back and slow down and let John do his thing. I was supposed to take it easy today anyways. I even took some walking breaks at every 9 minutes but still finished at a 9:27 minute/mile pace (31:56, about 2 minutes behind John). We did the bridges today instead since my 10 miler this weekend will be mostly flat, plus I just enjoy running the bridges route more than the Berkman route anyways.


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Last week, I stumbled upon this website called athlinks.com. The site is more of like a Facebook for endurance athletes. It allows you to search and connect with other runners, triathletes, etc. Have a little bit of a friendly competition and create a rivals link. You can also schedule your upcoming races and events, keep a workout log, twitter, etc. But I think the best feature of the site that I like is it collects all of my race results from previous years and organizes them into one list. I think the site connects to the race result database because it remembered my first race that I did back in 2008. My friend told me, he found his race results way back in 2002. Definitely a great site to check out if you’re a runner who wants to keep track of all of his official race results in one place.

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I’ve been thinking about picking up some of those GU gels this weekend. Not sure what flavor would be the best. I might try it out this weekend’s 10 miler and see how it is. I will post some updates later if I found something I like.


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Someone gave my us a free one night stay at the Hilton in Orlando tonight. So we’re going to drive there tomorrow night after work and spend most of the day on Saturday. The Magic I believe will have an exhibition game against the Rockets tomorrow night. We’ll see if we can make it. Hopefully, the hotel’s got a gym there so I can do some cross training while we’re there.

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The Bucket List Marathoner

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

For today’s “No Run” Thread, I’m going to share some of my opinions about an article from Runners World Magazine. I read an article titled The Bucket List Marathon: Yea or Nay today at Runners World website. After reading it, I felt like a grenade just exploded in front of my face. The author did say something about “tossing a rhetorical hand grenade.” (Click here to read the complete article as well as the comments).

The article got my attention because I consider myself a “Bucket List Marathoner.” Bucket List Marathoners according to the article are “folks who run a marathon for the sole reason of crossing it off some sort of bucket list.” Ok, so I may not be training for this upcoming marathon just for the sole reason of checking it off my bucket list. I have plenty of reason why I run. Also, I’ve added this marathon to my bucket list after I fell in love with running. But still, I think the author of the article was an elitist jerk especially when he suggested that “lumping marathon running in with bungee jumping, seeing the Grand Canyon, getting a tattoo, reading Moby-Dick, and (you can’t make this stuff up) owning a Miata. Just another “thing to do” before he dies. One more square in the hopscotch game of life. Tra la la…” as “irritating” or “insulting.”

The author was Mark Remy, and I think he’s the Executive Editor for Runner’s World so he can say whatever he wants, because hey, that’s his website. So to Mr. Remy, how about I catch that grenade you just threw and throw it back at you. I hate to burst your bubble but what have I done to irritate you? Only because you can run your marathon under 3 hours does not mean or earn you exclusive rights to run a 26.2 mile event. To me, I consider marathon as one of the greatest test of human endurance. I did not put the marathon on my bucket list to insult all the elite marathoners out there. In fact, I have a lot of respect for those people who can run it under 3 hours. The more I train and prepare myself, the more I realize what it takes to run, let alone compete at such a distance. I’m sure there are a million reasons why people run or join a marathon. Most people run not to compete with other people but to compete with themselves, to prove to themselves that they can do it.

I’m sure there are people out there who just sign up for a marathon without even doing any research or putting in due work and training to complete and I’m sure most of those people fail, end up getting hurt. Those people, if they were lucky enough to survive would finish maybe let’s say 7 hours then go out and start proclaiming themselves as a marathoner or a finisher. Now, do I find that insulting? NO! Why would I care? They have not done anything against me. In fact, I’m happy for them because they even had the courage to go out there and make a run for it. Everyone knows, including those people, deep inside they know that they did not put the effort and that they do not deserve to be elites.

I consider myself far from being an elite. I run because I love to run. Running is not about time or about winning. It’s about the experience, the journey. God gave me a pair of legs and I’m using them. So that’s my answer to your question Mr. Remy and to elitists out there. Let me remind you that being always on the top can get quite lonely sometimes. Choosing to run a marathon does not mean I’m trying to insult you. I run because I want to have fun and achieve something that means a lot to me. Stop worrying about us non-elites, lighten up and have fun.

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