This was to be my first official 10KM run in 10 years.
When I was 16, I trained for many cross-country runs and represented school. After I left SMKDJ prematurely for a ‘one heck of a ride in my lifetime’, I trained less and less and gradually stopped running altogether.
It was only a month and a half ago that I started training for the run again, after so long. Although my gym training focuses on building muscles, I still ran a casual 5KM twice about a week up until Race Day.
Waking up real early in the morning (as early 3:30 AM), driving to Dataran Merdeka and waiting at the starting line until the gun shoots at 6:30 sharp – they sure bring memories. I joined quite a number of notable runs like PJ Subang Half Marathon and Penang Bridge run back then, and I regret not taking any photos to savor those moments.
This time it’s 10.6 KM – I joined the Open Men Speed Category. And I finished in 1 hour 11 minutes. Not bad for a come back! Also considering that I took a toilet break at the 4KM mark – lost about 3 minutes there. I reserved my energy for the run and overestimated the distance, having not run for so long.
Even though I’ve trained and gotten back to my prime again now, I realized a big difference between now and myself a decade ago: I felt bulky when I run. I’ve put on 8.1 KG since 10 years ago (55 kilos when I was 16; now I am at 63.1 kilos) so when I run I felt my movement was bulky.
There’s good and bad to that – that is why I am settling to gain up until 65 kilos and then I’ll maintain from here on. Any more than that and not only will it be expensive to maintain in terms of food consumption and training time, it won’t do good to my speed and agility.
With some more training, I should be able to reduce the time to a clean 1 hour on the next run. 🙂
On another note…
