Il Giornale di RaDragon

Archive for May, 2010

Updates mashup! Mashup update?

Monday, 31 May 2010 | 11:18 pm

Whoa. Talk about radio silence.

I haven’t posted much lately, not because there’s not that much to share but there’s too much to share that it’s somewhat overwhelming at times! LOL (but not really overwhelming…  I was just being lazy)

Anyway, updates…

I’ve been keeping up with my training (sort of). Since my last post (Bay to Breakers recap), I’ve done some strength training; did my midweek barefoot runs (by the way, I’ve been tweaking my right arch during the barefoot runs so I’m going to lay off those until after the marathon!); did my weekend runs and had some swimming and more strength training sprinkled in-between. Overall, it hasn’t been an inactive 2-weeks.

Even then, I think it’s around this time of the year that my body refuses to cooperate with me — injury-wise, the right arch tweak during the barefoot run and then just last Sunday (i.e., yesterday), just at the beginning of my long run, my right knee suddenly gave way. I had to walk a bit to just shake it off and warm it up, but that was kinda freaky. On top of that, my mind is winning in terms of telling my body that it’s not supposed to be working out when it’s too hot outside! Or, it could be possible that it’s just me nearing the “B” stage — yesh, burn out. >_<

I’m sooooo going to take a few weeks off in June before I jump right back into training! I totally won’t give up on running, though (since I’ll just be hurting myself later on — and I definitely don’t want to lose that precious base that I’ve built) but I’m definitely going to include more indoor workouts, evening swims and either early morning or dusk running — the key is cooler temps! Or something like that. I haven’t really decided yet on what I’m going to do during my “recovery” month, but I suspect it’ll be well-thought out. Hehehe.

What I have thought about is what I’m going to eat days after the marathon! :D They include, in no particular order:

- KFC Double-Down (540 cal., 52g fat, 1380mg sodium) +_+

…then if I’m still alive after that, a day or two later, I’m going to treat myself with:

-  Shakey’s thin crust pepperoni pizza, fried chicken and mojo potatoes (~500+ cal., ~41g fat, ~1800mg sodium total )

…and then if my heart’s still ticking, days after that:

- Jollibee Spaghetti and fried chicken (nutritional values, unk)

Now that I look at my “food wish list,” I think I’m going to need a week or two to recover from it and then go for the next fast food choice. Either way, I would NOT recommend this diet… Unless, of course, you’re willing to up your (bad) cholesterol by like hundreds (or however you measure that) >_<

Anyway, time for my beauty rest — will try to do some lap swimming at 6:30AM tomorroz!

G’night! ^_^

p.s.,
“Happy” Memorial Day. Here’s to the men and women that served in the Armed Forces and gave their lives in defence of our freedom.

Bay to Breakers 2010

Tuesday, 18 May 2010 | 01:14 pm

On Sunday, my sisters, Irene, Dexi and I (with a couple more friends) “ran” the 99th annual Bay to Breakers 12k. I put ran in-between quotes cos you couldn’t really run this event (unless, of course, you were part of the elites at the very front corral).

The Faeries

The Faeries

Getting to corral

Getting to corral

Jabba and Leia

Jabba and Leia

Tightly packed

Tightly packed

Nearly there

Nearly there

The Start Line
The morning started off well — since my sisters, friends and I were in the official hotel, the start line was just two blocks away. We had our oatmeal, coffee and went through the morning routine. ;) Then, we donned our costumes (we were faeries!) and met up with the rest of the fairies and non-costumed members of our group at around 7:15AM.

By 8AM, we were still NOT at the start line. LOL. Yes, there were that many participants. Whilst waiting, we were being pelted with flying tortillas. Apparently, it’s tradition — people would bring tortilla rounds and just toss them in the air. Then, the tortillas are picked up off the ground and re-tossed. If you think they’re harmless, tortillas travelling at like, breakneck speeds really hurt. OK, they really didn’t hurt that much but they were annoying! In fact, I used my wand to swat away any incoming tortillas. >_<

We did see some interesting characters whilst attempting to get into our corral, though. From Jabba the Hutt and the slave Leia to the Gingerbread man, to a group of “ka-cawing” ladies dressed as, er, I’m guessing they were crows or summat. LOL. No naked people sightings yet, but I’ll talk about those later. The atmosphere was essentially West Hollywood… On steroids! Ha!

It felt like forever, just standing in place and waiting for the crowd to mooooove. At this point, you can start smelling people who are already drunk and the smoke off the participants who were lighting up (yesh, you can tell they brought their recreational smokes to this race!) I guess that’s an omen for things to come. +_+

When we were finally close to the start line, my Garmin still wouldn’t find a signal (I suspect it’s cos of the buildings and how packed we were) — it’s not like it would’ve mattered anyway but I would’ve wanted to see the route, as recorded by my own watch :)

We finally crossed the start line an HOUR after we made our trek towards it! We thought we had found relief as soon as we crossed the threshold, but we were only able to jog for a few yards when we were met with a big wall of runners and walkers. The suggestion by the race announcer over the PA asking walkers to keep right and runners to keep left fell on deaf ears. >_< I don’t blame them, though. How would you really enforce this when a great number were already half drunk! Haha.

As I mentioned, this was not an event you’d race unless you were at the corral for the elite runners. :)

The Course
As if getting to the start line was a challenge, it practically took us about an hour to reach the three and a half mile-mark. The course was sooooo packed and it did not let up until mile seven (this was a 7.45 mi race). ACK. I’m not saying we weren’t having fun, but it was kind of frustrating to run/jog and then be blocked by walkers.

When we did run, we were weaving through the crowd with our faery wings flapping and moving about our backs. At one point we had to stop  (I think around mile 4), to fix our wings because it got so bad, we were hitting people left and right! HAHAHA. We weren’t getting any nasty looks, though, cos the people we hit knew there wasn’t really any space. Irene’s friend, Patrick, helped “straighten” up our wings so that they weren’t so spread out, and that totally helped.

The hills on this course were equally challenging! I mean, it’s San Francisco, so it’s expected, yeah? But even jogging/walking up them was laborious!

Towards the end, we really needed to keep running — we were about to hit the 2-hour mark and we needed to get back to our hotel to check-out! It probably took us another hour to get back to our hotel (the $15 we paid for to get on the official shuttle back to the start line from the finish was NOT worth it, btw. I think walkers would’ve made it back quicker than we did!)

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Blisters heal…

Friday, 14 May 2010 | 07:00 pm

…but glory is FOREVAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!

Healing Blister

Ok, not to gross people out (too late), above is a pic of the blister that bothered me on my 20mi run last weekend. As you can see, it’s all but healed, but I’m still amazed with its size. It wasn’t pus-filled, either (just to clarify!)

I guess I have to replace my Wright Double-Layer socks since it’s not doing its job any more. Ugh. See, I train wearing my compression tights, so wearing my compression socks (which I wear during races) would be overkill. Enter the Wright double-layer socks: it’s perfect and I’ve been using it, though it stretches out after multiple washings :(

I’m actually going to try some Injinji toe socks again and hope they last longer than the Wright socks. I think I’ll feel ok wearing those since I go on barefoot runs with my Vibram Five Fingers… We shall see!

 

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