Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur Marathon 2010 & Monday's Upper Body Workout

Yesterday’s race was a toughie! I was practically floored and could only lie back on the sofa after getting back to SW’s place – and this was after having trouble negotiating the steps at the LRT station. This was unusual since 10km is just a tad longer than our usual training of 9.2km but I guess the hill-and-slope littered route sapped everything out of me. Guess? No, it should be “it was definitely the 4-5 hills-and-slopes” that did the job. I’m also taking this opportunity to blame them for my poor timing – 57:55 minutes on my Garmin. Since we are on a roll here, I shall add the 540 meters extra added to the route as another excuse for my timing. Ok, let us recap why my timing was so lousy:
a) zero hill training since my fracture
b) 10 weeks from a fracture
c) 4-5 hills and slopes (I think the 21km guys had the easiest route since they were running in the city vs the 10km which wound through Bukit Aman and Lake Gardens and the 42km which tackled the Parliament and Bank Negara hills)
d) 540 meters extra

Then again, this year’s race was so much better than last year’s nightmare because the organizers took note of and rectified those shortcomings. A recap of some of the better aspects:
a) indoor race collection though I think this can still be improved in terms of availability of parking spaces; else they could take a cue from their Singapore counterparts and distribute the race packs earlier for the locals and leave the last 3 days for the overseas runners (and those who didn’t manage to get them the first time around)
b) more than sufficient water and isotonic stations – believe it was every 2km after the first 4 km
c) porta-loos just after the water and isotonic stations – none were visible last year
d) separate routes for the various categories with the merging only on the last km and the 5-6 lane Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman was wide enough to accommodate everyone
e) new route for my category – it was interesting to run through Brickfields and KL Sentral
f) better directional finishing to collect the finisher’s medal
g) an angel by the name of Vijay smiled and encouraged me at the last 2 km by shouting “keep going girl” – I needed that desperately at that point!

Photo "stolen" from the official site.

I was saddled with aching quads, hamstrings and shin splints yesterday and this morning so Michael and I gave the legs a respite. Today’s upper body workout consists of:
Supersets of:
a) Nautilus incline chest press
b) Nautilus chest pec fly

Supersets of:
c) Life Fitness cable back row
d) Life Fitness cable back pressdown

Supersets of:
e) Combo of DB shoulder press and walking lunges
f) Chin ups
g) DB lateral raise

The finale was abs crunches on the fit ball.