Barefoot Pua's blog (aka lspua): Week 14 of 14 (KLM10)

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Week 14 of 14 (KLM10) - Race Week

14th Week, race week

This is the final week, I am going easy this week, 3 runs inclusive of the race.

Week Mileage

Plan : 60.595km

Actual: 61.395km

Mon(21 Jun)

AM:

Plan : Rest
Actual:

Tue(22 Jun)

AM:

Plan : 8.4km@5:00

Actual: 8.4km@5:04
5km-24:37.44, 3.4km-18:02.75 (42:40.19@5:04)

Wed(23 Jun)

AM:

Plan : Rest
Actual:

Thu(24 Jun)

PM:

Plan : 10km@5:00

Actual: 10.8km@4:55
5.4km-26:16.66, 5.4km-26:52.94(53:09.60) @ 4:55
This is the last training run before KL Marathon.

Fri(25 Jun)

PM:

Plan : Rest (My darling baby girl 2nd birthday celebration)
Actual:

Sat(26 May)

AM:

Plan : Travel to KL from 07:15hrs onwards with SGRunners.com

Actual:

Sun(27 May)

AM:

Plan  : KL Marathon - 42.195km@5:30

Actual: 4:12:56.00@5:59
10km-48:46.83,
20km-1:40:15(51:28.31),
21.1km-1:46:26.00(6:11.56),
30km-2:41:26.00(54:59.35),
42.195km-4:12:56.00(1:31:30.00)@5:59.

The race started on the dot at 5am. It was raining heavily and I was quite worried about the wet road surface which might cause a lot of blisters in my soles. For the first 5km, all the runners were basically running in the heavy rain. I was running at the speed of 5min/km within the first 10km, the next 10km was slightly slower at about 5.10min/km.

The road surface in KL was very bad for barefoot running. I was running side by side with another barefoot runner from Malaysia up to 21km, he was Tan Wah Sing who has been doing barefoot running for more than 10 years. He was as fast as me and he was more experienced in barefoot running especially in KL. After 21km, I had basically gave up on my aim of doing a sub-4 timing because my soles were very sore and hot due to the rough road surface. I changed my aim to a marathon completion so as to add on to my barefoot marathon experience.

I ran slower but I was brought to a halt or walking through bad patches on the road. I told myself not to walk unless it was impossible to run. I had made use of the lines on the road, I ran on them whenever possible. Physically and mentally I was very well prepared for the run except the road surface, I could handle the hilly slopes in KL without much problem. I predicted that if I were to wear a something on my soles, I could possibly do a 3:30 or below marathon.

In the end, I finished the race in 4:13 comfortably except for the soreness and hotness on the soles. The top of my left foot was injured 2 weeks ago due to interval training but this did not give me any problem during and after the run. Incidentally, I discovered that I had sprained my right foot while holidaying in Hong Kong about 1 week back. After the marathon, the right ankle started to get painful twigs.

After resting for a night, my soles had recovered and I am back to normal. The sprained right ankle took another day to recovered and now it is painless.

This KL marathon was a great experience for me, be it the run and the company from SGrunners. I enjoyed the company from these newly made friends and hope to have more of such experience in future.