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Monday, August 29, 2011

Full Marathon in Penang Bridge International Marathon 2011

It's been a while since I completed my last half marathon run in the Energizer Night Race 2011. It's not that I've quit running altogether but I just do not have enough time to put everything in words. In fact, I've been continue training for my life aim which is to complete the full marathon by this year. With my average result in Energizer Night Race 2011, I'm struggling with my mind if I'm ready for a full 42km marathon run by end of Year 2011.

The tussle in mind went on for a long time after the Energizer Night Race and finally I took the plunge and register myself in the Penang Bridge International Marathon 2011 for a full 42km event! I'm excited but also nervous wondering on my irrational decision. Anyway the registration is done and I will just have to cope with my life schedule and plan up to train my body to endure the pain to reach there. It's not a choice anymore.



10km is a good start for the mass public, it's not too short but long enough to push your body out of your comfort zone but it's achievable at the same time. With a normal jog at the park is good enough to ensure you to complete the run, not a problem. Most recommended for recreational runner to keep themselves healthy and be part of the running group. Qualifying time is 1 hour 30 minutes

21km is long distance run, punishing every aspect of your body. You will reach the limit of your body threshold after breaking the 10km distance and you will feel the pain throughout your whole body upon 15km. You will struggle to even lift your legs and you will force to stop if you don't plan your running strategy properly. It's one of the extreme event you can join to punish your body to extreme and have difficulty walking on the next day if you are not prepare. I personally think 21km is even more challenging than conquering the KK mountain. Qualifying time is 3 hours 30 minutes.

42km is the ultimate marathon event that it's said to be only achievable by extreme sport person. Actual distance is 42.195km and there are less than 1% of the world population that has completed a full marathon. It's so extreme that it's said to challenge the human threshold from total collapse if you are not prepare. It's explained that there is "the wall" of human threshold, determine by the glycogen that's hold by the body for immediate burning to produce power for muscle and movement. The estimated storage is meant for 30km of running and once a runner body hit "the wall", human body will collapse and hit dramatic fatigue. When that happened, you will need to take a long rest for the glycogen to replenish itself before you can move again. I've not done it before, so I'm not sure how it works. Qualifying time of a full marathon is 7 hours and I'm aiming to complete it within 6 hours.

The life achievement of a full marathon is so tempting to me so that I can join the 1% elite of the world. It meant so much for me as it's also my dedication to my new born to bring him up in the best way I can.

An overview of the route that I'm going to run. There is no clear indication but you can guess the distance

My Training

I'm 82 days away from the full marathon event and I'm still training. My philosophy that as long as you can run non-stop for 1/3 of the marathon distance, you should be alright to join the event. 10km meant 3km non-stop. 21km meant 7km non-stop. It has been serving me quite well so far. 42km meant 14km non-stop. I'm not able to run 10km non-stop and I'm pushing myself to achieve the 14km mark. In addition to that, I'm also drawing up a plan for myself as following:

1. to be able to run minimum 14km non-stop
2. to achieve minimum 42km in a week combined running distance
3. to be able to run 10km in less than an hour

With the above, I believe it's the minimum that I must achieve by October 2011 or else I will withdraw from the event. Hope all to support me and give me the strength to achieve my life dream.

For those that's going, find the download link here for the guide book on the event. In contained lots of essential information such as event information, routing, pacer colour, water station, and etc. However, latest copy is on 2010, not sure if it's the same for 2011. I will check again and update when it's available.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Waze - Best Apps voted by Me!

Since I started using iPhone, I've been enjoying the availability of best apps for the iOS operating system. It has been great experience but it never fails to amaze me on all the idea that you can get with ever improving technology. I recently came across this wonderful apps named Waze, that provide free GPS turn-by-turn and live traffic information. It's free!

Waze is an apps that's developed by Waze Mobile, but how it works? It make use of mobile connection & GPS signal that's readily available to feed information to the online server. When a user register with Waze, you can contribute by running the Waze in background while driving around. The information is then feed into the server to generate a map of an area. With more and more people, a full complete map is easily generated to function as GPS map that the apps provide turn-by-turn direction. Importantly, the apps also track your movement speed and determine if the traffic in your route is free or jammed. 1st real-time information for small country like Malaysia, such a wonderful idea! I've been using it for a few days and it's accurate and works very well. Hope more are willing to contribute and make this apps success. I'm sure it will benefit everyone.

Waze is currently available in Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, Symbian, and Windows Mobile platform. Sharing the Waze apps here with all readers and hope everyone become a contributor to this best apps that I'm more than willing to vote.



For more information, check out their website of following:
http://www.waze.com/

Saturday, August 13, 2011

First Baby, Cedric Lim!

After a long 9 month, finally our first baby boy Cedric joined the family on 29th July 2011. My wife is estimated due on 25th July 2011 but Cedric is so naughty and decided to continue stay in the comfort of mother's womb despite our "persuasion". We are worry that he might grow a little too big to go through natural birth if we wait any longer, so we agreed to the Gynae's suggestion for induction by another 4 days. Cedric is a very big size baby and he weighed 3.94kg and 53cm in length when he first see the world. Here is Cedric saying hello to the world =)


The first photo of Cedric and he is comfortably wrapped and placed under the warmer to keep his body temperature up.

The journey and experience itself is so incredible and I'm sharing it with you here for the memory of our joy.