This October month marks my one year journey to the world of WJR, walking-jogging-running. It was one great
year. Don’t ask me about my running logs, since I didn’t have any. That was
because there were too few runnings to put into the log. My now-shutdown
miCoach reported 25 km during January to April 2013. The Nike+ recorded 48.87
km so far since January 2013 (I used miCoach or Nike+). That made the average
of 2 km per week or less than 1.5 miles/week. Haa.
But let me put it another way. That might also mean I (slowly) did a good job of taking off my butt then putting one of my foot in front of another repeatedly (please put some serious consideration on the word “repeat”, that’s probably the success factor in nearly every thing in the world). From that angle, 2 km is better than zero km.
Don’t ask me about my
running pace. I always hide behind the slogan “Neither distance nor pace really
matters”. This perfect jargon suits me, pampers me when I was down, realizing
there were too little improvement during some specified periods I worked on. I
have everything in the world to blame on. Works interrupted. I got sick. My
Nike+ must had some error in calculating the pace (I got slower each time!
Can’t you believe it?). We had a whole fasting month and holiday travel. The
office gym was too crowded. The weather was too hot. I got up late and missed
the Commuter Line. I barely had the energy to tightened my shoe-laces. I forgot
to bring the apparels. My kid (kind of) needed me at home. And the list would
go on and on…
So here I am, a faithful
member to the turtle-crowds after one year. I felt a little terrible about
that, but what could I do beside not moaning and keep going? In every 5K event I was in, I foolishly hoped the timer would
somehow slow down so I could make my PR. Amazingly, that happened one day. It was Adidas King of the Road 5K, Sept 29, 2013 at BSD City. The route was a long up-and-down road around a nice newly-built neighborhood. Although it was not too steep, my untrained legs and huffing lung were protested after the first 2.5 km. I dragged them until the 4 km distance mark. I wanted to finish this 5K strong and not walking. I have had myself prepared a little bit more serious this time: I started logging my running, training the 3-2 breathing pattern, doing postrun stretching, also putting attention on nutrition. The fact that I had to take a walk break during AKoTR just dropped my confidence and made me wanted to scream. But I nodded and said to myself “Keep going. Breathe. Keep going.”.
After the up road ended, I could
manage to boost the pace in the last 500 m (flat course, of course) and booked
40:55 min on my chiptime. It was far off my office runners’ time who are in sub
40 or 30 minutes but I got my 5K PR.
I learned something from my
5th race: it is the (wrong) perception (of walking) that slows us down. Walking is not a sin. The reality is: the walking time had saved me (and millions of
other beginner runners). It gave us time to refocus, recharge, and refuel to
let us running strong again. 
After the photo-taking with my office-runners, we dismissed with some endorphin left in our system. My best guess after the Adidas King of the Road 2013: we had something in our mind about running, about the upcoming races in town, about the goal tapping, about all we can think about when we think about running.
Just like I did. I’m all in for 5K Mandiri
Run this week end. I am super excited. It will be a familiar 5K route. My
family will join to run or walk. My co-workers are also thrilled by the event.
I want to have fun, yet I still have the same things in mind: to finish strong
and not walking and to make my new PR. Let’s see what happens this Sunday. If I can make it, be happy with me, guys. If I don’t, at least it is the first time my little family run together. Also there are other races and runs I can do to make it up. It’s a win-win game. So let’s play it.