Running Academy and I

Had a great time this  morning. Instead of going for my normal Easy run this morning in my Merrell Road Glove, I decided to join the Running Academy at Lake Garden, jointly organized by Skechers Malaysia and KuMoves. The workshop is conducted on every 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month and registration can be done at here. They start the workshop at 7.30am and I was there by 7.15am. I was surprised to find that the parking was nearly full! Apparently there's 2 entrance and I've headed to one of the more popular one. I'll try the other one next time round.

While there, I bumped into Lorna Roderick nee Wong and Markus Kus who's part of KL Runners. It was a nice and pleasant surprise, especially after I found out they're helping out with the Workshop. There were quite a bunch of us there, approximately 15, with a healthy mix of Noobs like me, and more experienced people.

Apparently I got into their 4th session where they have a performance check/challenge going on. We started off with a 2K warm up where we had a group of runners chasing another, kind of like Police and Thief. Once caught, the one chased became the chaser. We follow that up with other games to get the heart rate up. What really got to me was the stairs repeat. 10 years of lack of exercise really catch up to you then. My quads tightened up and I had difficulties coming down the stairs. Needless to say, I'm pretty much bummed after that :P

I would say that, the workshop is very very nice, with lots of information and different type of exercises which you can pick  up and incorporate into your ordinary routine. It may however be a tad tough to newcomers. We had a bunch of early leavers and a girl that stayed for all the exercise emptied her breakfast after a very valiant effort to hold it in.

To people who sees this as a challenge to overcome, and as a new baseline  to work on and get better at, this is a good workshop to come for. Personally, I found out the weaker points of myself where I need to improve on in 1 session and will be working on it to get better.  For others however, they may get the wrong impression whereby this workshop is not too friendly/useful for new runners. Don't get me wrong, the organizers are nice and friendly and I can see that they are trying to make things fun and interesting to the runners. It's just that some newer runners than me may find it a bit tough to keep up.

Hopefully the organizer can address this issue especially since it's in their agenda to get people to run again. Looking forward to more sessions and more people joining in the workshop.

New to the Running Sport

As a new runner, I'll always have questions in my head. How should I start running? Is my form correct? What type of shoes should I get? How often should I run? Where should I start?

Out there in the InterWeb is lots of information. Unfortunately they're all scattered and some are even contradictory. Hopefully I can use this blog as a stepping stone for people who, like me, would like to pick up the sport of running. In no way

So, where do we start? We start like all manner of things, in the beginning. Nahhhhh. I'm not here to give you a history lesson (yet = P). Depending on whether you're like me, a couch potato, or already running short distances, you will want to start off on one of the following level below.

Walks: 
Walking is a good way to start. I would recommend you go to a park and pick up walking. Do your walks with a friend or relative to alleviate any boredom you may face. Yeah lots of people will say I walk enough when I go out shopping. The truth is indoor and outdoor walking differs. Some of these differences are:

• Indoor walks do not face Wind Resistance. A strong head wind can force you to use more strength to counter the push back factor.
• Walking surfaces for outdoor walks have subtle unevenness, forcing your muscles in your leg to adapt to the surface you walk on.
• Outdoor walks have slopes and elevation you have to deal with, helping to build up your leg strength in many ways.
• If you walk in the evening, the heat and humidity of the weather will force you to exert more.

The objective of the walk is to build up your leg strength as well as to build up some level of stamina for you to progress to the next step.

Walk/Run: 
Once you feel that you are ready to start running, you can transition into it by adopting a Walk/Run Program. A walk/run program such as C25K is used to help people who are not used to running to get into running in a systematic, controlled approach. The program is designed as “Intervals” to ease you into the habit of running.  These intervals can differ. For example, you can have a 1 Minute Run X 90 Second Walk interval. As you progress along, the intervals between Run and Walk will get Longer and Shorter, till you’re running a full 5KM non-stop.

When are you ready? For me, I walked up to about 6km in 1 hour after which, I couldn’t stand the itch to start running. Some things to consider when you do walk/run program:

• There is no Hard and Fast rule that you have to follow. Everyone is different. You can always slow down the program or repeat 1 plan till you’re comfortable to move on to the next step.
• Take it slow and don’t overdo it. That’s what everybody tells me. Problem is, how would you know you’re gonna overdo it till you’ve overdid it? So instead of telling you that, I’ll say, Take it slow and listen to your body. If you hurt, don’t push it.
• Be patient. Sometimes it may not be apparent that you’re improving. It is important to remember that you’re building your foundation at the moment and will reap the fruit of harvest in the near future.

The objective of the Walk/Run program is to get a person used to running for longer distance in a systematic and gradual way. If  you'd like to try one out, go on and head to Cool Runing's Couch to 5K Plan.

Run: 
Congratulation. You’ve made it to your goal of being a runner. Take your time and slowly build up on your mileage, from 5K to 10K to half marathon to full marathon and etc.

Disclaimer: All the rambling above are from a crazy old man and should be taken with a healthy dose of caution and self-censorship. ;)