I must be getting used to this early morning running lark. Today, I woke at 4:30AM, twenty minutes before my alarm. Only a special occasion will get me out of bed that insanely early and today’s event was the Malaysia Women Marathon training clinic at Universiti Malaya.
The plan was to run and discuss pace management under the guidance of Race Director Karen Loh and guest speaker, Ironman Richard Tang. The plan was to run two 5 km loops, one as a warm-up and one as a time trial. As often happens, we deviated from the plan. I wasn’t going to do the time trial as I’d already put in a lot of miles this week and my legs certainly felt it. My body was saying ‘no’, so I replied ‘That’s ok, I’m exhausted too. You’ve done the warm-up so why don’t you sit your weary self down on the kerb and watch everyone else running their asses off’.
After the 5 km loop in the dark, which I and two others stretched to 6 km by getting lost, Richard and MWM mentor Lorna Wong, led some interval training work on a hill. The hill, which had featured in the 5 (6!) km loop, was over 1 km long with a gradient that went as high as 15 %. I think most runners did three intervals up and down. On the final interval, Richard allowed the slower runners to start off up the hill first, then the faster paced, and he followed behind. The idea, he explained, was that all should reach the top at the same time as they maximized their efforts to try to catch up on the person in front of them.
Now Race Director Karen always sports very pretty running skirts and the Full Marathon finishers at MWM will receive a finisher skirt, so the skirt has become an emblem of the MWM event. We bet Richard that if he didn’t make it to the top of the hill with or before Lorna Wong, the second last runner to head up, he had to wear a skirt. Here is Richard being very sporting and rather fetching in said skirt. (He’s the one with the Ironman tattoo on his left leg in case you can’t tell).
I met several new runners today. The first question from one was ‘How old are you?’ I will never get used to such direct questions no matter how long I live in Asia! Since turning 40, I haven’t got used to the answer either; I feel like I’m speaking about someone else when I say ‘almost 43’. Another lady asked me if I was The Expat Runner. That’s the kind of direct question I’d love to hear more of. Lisa, you made my day.
Finally, as unexpectedly I didn’t get lost on the way to Universiti Malaya this morning – I did get lost going home though – I turned up early enough to receive this lovely MWM notebook, which Karen offered to first arrivals at the clinic. They say the early bird catches the worm; this morning I didn’t see any worms (nor snakes nor monkeys thankfully), but I did what I am now calling a ‘lazy girl’s recovery run’, I encouraged a man to wear a skirt AND I got a notebook 😉The next MWM clinic is scheduled to take place at Stadium Universiti Malaya. However, the venue has been booked for another event, so MWM will run the training clinic at an alternative location, yet to be decided.
All photos courtesy of Karen Loh.
