Happy New Year 2012!

Happy New Year folks! It’s the first workday of the year but I can’t say if everyone here is that enthusiastic about it. Not me anyway – it’s difficult to come back to “reality” when you’ve had an “awesome-sauce” weekend. And I can fully attest to the often-apt saying “Time flies when you’re having fun”.

Some cliff notes, wait, no so cliff since I tend to ramble about stuff. But hey, I do always start out with the best of intentions i.e. not bore the h*** out of you.

Saturday – 31 December 2011:

• Shake the Gremlins out Run. Recap here.
• Spot of shopping in Mid Valley a.k.a. grab the stuff you want and get out of the place before the crowd descends.
• QUIET day/evening. Yes, I was that little old lady who went to bed at 9:30 pm. Lamest and most boring person in KL. Evidence / exhibit number 1.

Sunday – 1 January 2012 (also known as the MOST HAPPENING DAY of the extended weekend):

• Newton New Year Challenge Run 2012 at Bandar Kinrara. Now you know why we had to be in bed by 9:30 the previous day. Or maybe it was just me because I found out later that quite a number of peeps did stay up for the countdown. Like I said, LAME old lady.
• Rest, rest and rest for most of day – hey, those hills in Kinrara can and did eat me alive. Sort of.
• Pacemakers Annual Dinner 2012 at Sierramas – probably the most anticipated event of the year. Post dinner coffee (and lots of yakking) at Starbucks. Notice something here – not a lick of alcohol. LAME. Evidence / exhibit number 2.
• Oh but in our defence, I would counter that we’re setting an example of how a healthy happy fun living can be without staying up all night or imbibing booze. Evidence / exhibit number 3. Self-delusional.

Monday – 2 January 2012:

• Slept in a tad and went for a 10km run with Kenny and TPC. We did the Seputeh-Desa Waterpark route; first run with Kenny in 2 months I think. It was good to be back. We went at an easy pace since this was billed as a “recovery run”. I did one lap while the guys did 2 to count for a long run. Evidently, some of us would prefer hitting the tarmac than sleeping in on an extended weekend. Evidence / exhibit number 4.
• Chest and pecs session with Michael after that. Evidence / exhibit number 5. Are you guys keeping count here??? At this rate, I think the “guilty” verdict is more than secured! If memory serves me right, here’s what we did yesterday (hey, after all that “healthy living” stuff, it better be agile!):

4 Single sets of:

a) Freemotion cable chest fly

Supersets of:

b) Smith machine bench chest press

c) DB incline chest press

Supersets of:

d) Smith machine incline bench chest press

e) Push-ups

Supersets of:

f) Free standing dips

g) Kettlebell pullovers

h) Abs on wheels (I forgot the “official” or proper term for this)

• Oh wait, one redeeming point – I spent the rest of the day more or less comatose and hibernated at home except for one tiny break. A session at Serenity Cove.

Back to our regular programming…

Hill Training – 3 January 2012

Route: 2 laps of Taman Desa Seputeh + 1 lap from Old Klang Road to Kenny’s place + 1 lap around the furniture shop

Distance: 9.82km

Timing: 53:45 for 5:28 min/km pace

Taman Desa Seputeh laps

Why hello there! It’s been a long while since we met and the quads were definitely feeling it. That coupled with Kenny’s-did-not-tell-me-idea of negative splitting made for a “splendid” start to the morning. I kept pace or at least a few steps back from him pace.

Old Klang Road – Kenny’s place lap

Since we were onto attempted murder here, might as well tag on another upslope. A few upslopes with the final one being a steepest. Throw in a few stray dogs at the construction site and the heartbeat went up 10 notches! Mind: keep going, don’t turn and look at the dogs, ignore them, don’t speed up, keep to the current pace. Oh please God, please don’t let them have a bite of my butt!

Furniture shop lap

8.74km at the turnoff to Kenny’s road...ok, let’s try one lap around the furniture shop to hit 9:xxkm. Done and done.

This is probably the longest running streak since I start – 4 days beginning from Saturday. Nope, I’m not going for Runner’s World 30-day streak, so am breaking the cycle here. Will try to put up the Newton race recap sometime this week.