Wednesday, December 3, 2008

3/December - 4 days to go

honestly my right ankle feels like a crap... the achilles are really painful, so Sunday it will be a long long way. Since yesterday I am taking huge doses of Voltaren (Diclofenac Sodicum), to at least placate the pain. I would be happy to run on a single leg like on the Half Marathon, 10 days ago.
At 8.30am Sunday (GMT+8), I will hang out the shoes for a good while until I am settled.

Tuesday 2/December (HK): interval 4x2km at Marathon Effort, recovery 1'30". Since it was really chilly, it was easy to hold 7'15" for the 2k. HR was around 165/170, but after 3 intervals the ankle was painful (not yet taken Voltaren)

Wednesday 3/December(Dongguan): took the car and drive to the edge of the forest (to avoid the 5k on concrete). Run 10k easy on soft surface, but calf tightened more than expected

Friday we fly to Singapore. I will receive the running uniform only then, so I will go live on Sunday with a brand new kit (hahah... this goes against the rule #1 of marathon: use only tested gear..).

Race strategy: I will try to run at 3'50"/km until is dark (from 5.30am to 6.45am) and than settle for a more modest 4'00" under the sun.
That should bring me to finish in around 2h45' that is quite respectable for the Singapore's heat. Obviously if the ankle goes for the worst, then I will fight Km by Km to reach the end...
One issue is that the tendons are obviously more painful in the morning than in the evening, because of the shortening during the sleep. The race starts at 5.30am, so not the right time for my achilles...

2 comments:

Sling Runner said...

Good luck, by 7!

I hope somebody got the bib for you and there is a special lane for overseas runners. Local runners have to queue up to 2 hrs to get the pack since there are 50000 runners doing 10, 21, and 42k.

The forecast is morning showers with thunder 24/31c. But this might change.

by7 said...

Thank you Sling,

I guess and hope that we should be in some kind of "Elite runners" arrangement... because I think we were invited by the organizers to beef up the Elite field and under one of those mutual invitations between Sports Associations..

The weather looks good... for my standpoint, the worse, the better for me,,,