Week 1 training set with 120 days more to go

Off and on I was able to get back in shape no matter how far back I got in the days when I was super fit. At 40 hitting 41, the motivation to pick up the shoes to run or even bike gets harder. I really needed to get inspired to do that run lately. Remember the days when you were a school athlete and the mantra then was "no pain no gain", I lived that motto to the T, I ran so hard I got shin splints. The shoes I had got worn out in 3 months. I even ran from home to school when I was 14 years old. They were the days of real hard running, when I was able to push my body and soul, thinking, there was Satvinder Singh, Maran and Adrian Singh who will be doing the exact same thing, running hard.

This week, I have decided to have fun, not to run hard anymore. It does not have to be hard push every day. I decided to look at the trees and even stop to have a drink when I started to run this week. That had made me enjoy my daily workouts even more. This week I cap my training session with 3 runs and a bike ride.

The bike ride lasted 48K, with 8 K long run accompanied by two 5k runs.

So instead of working your butts off, I have decided to pay attention to the journey instead of the race. John Wooden, in his book "Wooden on Leadership" wrote an insightful piece on leadership. Success is what you find not in the end, but how you run your race. Its about,

- Planning

- Preparation

- Practice

- Performance.

That made sense for me. The journey has to be better than the Inn. So this is my journey now. Heres a link to his life accomplishments should you want to read it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wooden

120 days more to go before the Aviva half ironman 2010, the D-day for my race.

Running and Climbs

Its been a while, I have had the time to make an update on my blog. In between, I was grappling with the time to manage my son's examinations, developing a marketing campaign and developing new curriculums that we can market for year 2010. Well my son's examination are ending and so begins my downtime to just focus on work and running back to shape in the weeks to come.Todays run, took me out to the Punggol Jetty and back, about 4 km to the jetty and 4 km back. The time taken was 44 min 35 secs, I was in the zone for 28 mins averaging 158 hbts, with max of 176 hbt. In lieu of a training partner, the next best thing is the heart rate monitor.

How do calculate your max rate, all you need to do is use this formula:

220 - 41 (Age) = 159

Work out 80% of the answer you got (which was 159 for me) working out to, 122. Hence technically I should be running at 122 beats per minute, but this is not taking place in my training runs. For an easy run my training zone has been targeted at between, 160 - 165, hence the 158 results I got today. There are days when I am able to sustain 170 range for a 5 k run.

I am enjoying my runs now, because, before starting my work in the morning, that run, creates a sense of focus, I don't usually get if I had stuck to doing my daily routine. It feels so good, I would be doing a bike ride tonight after tutoring my son for his last paper on Tuesday.

I am looking at my own experiences and the way Musiab is developing. I have realized that for me to push Musiab to go beyond his capability will require setting, hard goals that he can reach comforted by physical activities that will invigorate him. For a ten year old, he has since started to rock climb with me at Climb Asia every Friday night. A real joy for me to see him enjoy this activity and as a father creating a bond with him as I belay him.

Team performance starts with a commitment that is required on part of any team that comes together for a purposeful goal. As a parent it starts with you. How do you teach a 10 year old to stay focus, I saw the answer, when I saw Musaib rock climb. He began to understand the routes in the wall and he also realized that each has a defined difficulty marked by a route. I used the rock wall to get him to understand what I meant by saying "Be focused" and always finish what you start.

As a family and a Team, be committed to ensuring we play the part to see our children develop to be best they can be. This translates to sacrifices you are willing to make for your children and your spouse. It relates to my training runs as well, focus on the training zone, I don't need to get distracted by the competition around me, cos at the end of the day, I am still able to push my body hard at age 40 hitting 41 in January. Likewise, hitting the 40's now, my focus is my family. Fatimah at 6 is starting to surprise me as she picked up a book her brother was reading. Either the book was two simple for him, or the phonics classes has started pay its dividends as she finished 17 pages out of 120 pages on that book.

My family is packing off to India on the 24th of Nov and 1 crazy dream I have is to spend 1 week biking up north and see how far I can go on my bike. That will help a lot to break, the rut and push the mind and the body just one bit further. I did a 400Km ride at age 22, nostalgia is gearing me to do this again. All I need is a tent, a good collection of MP3 songs and podcasts and I think I am game enough to do this.