Love Life Live Strong

  Seoul Marathon 2019 march 19, 2019  by  francis yeng A mere 28 days. And the count down starts in less than a minute. The cold still air of Seoul was as chilling as it promised to be. Hearts were racing. The excitement was palpable. Looks like one of those defining moments poised to go down in history. For better or for worse… 28 days. That was HK a short while ago. What was racing through my head was not the debate of whether or not there was enough recovery. That is already a foregone conclusion any rookie would be able to tell. No, I was only concerned about two things. Would I be ready to do my best? If so, what IS my best? Post HK euphoria of 2:53:52 ended with the realization that it’s only a figure that I would have to go on cracking. Not that it has to be that way but since I don’t plan on hanging up the shoes, then the logical thing to do now is to be like Dory: keep moving forward. And see what I can discover along the way. So, training took on a modified form...

  BLAZING SCHKM 2019 february 18, 2019  by  francis yeng It’s one of most improbable of outcomes. But dreams, they say, are often made of these. SCHKM has become a default event. For lack of choices?? (or too lazy to explore other options), this has become almost an annual pilgrimage. Shy of 2018, 2017 topped all my SCHKM experiences. Thoroughly enjoyed the run and managed to clock the event PB of 3:04:09. That being the case, it would seem fair to deduct that SCHKM would realistically set you back your MT (marathon time) by a margin of ~5 minutes. The key factor being its sheer hilly terrain! This held assumption was based on the fact that a fortnight after SCHKM 2017, I finally clinched my first ever sub 3 hours at Himeji Castle Marathon. In light of this, my latest PB of 2:55:25 in Osaka (Nov 2018) would seem untouchable. No measure of positive thinking could convince me to shift that paradigm. In order to break that 2:55 in HK, it would not only require a gigantic eff...

  Osaka Marathon 2018 november 26, 2018  by F rancis yeng Osaka Marathon 2018 was a much-anticipated marathon for me. Not just because I would be meeting the wife and kids (flying in from Melbourne) as a rendezvous point for the week’s break, but it’s also a test-out for months of hard work…if any of that mileage thing really mattered. It’s been a busy month since starting work in JB. The workload had multiplied and it was taking a toll on the training. Life happens I guess! Despite that, I kept anchored mostly to my 10km-twice-daily routine, clocking in a manageable 120-130km weekly mileage. I say “manageable” not to connote any air of conceit but it’s only so because most of these runs were actually very slow. In fact, 80% of this was on a 5:30-6:30 min km. Sometimes even a 7 min km snail pace. The remaining 20% fell on the occasional “crescendo” runs as I would term it. And some odd tempos here and there. These would be no more than 6-12km at a stretch. Mostly done on ...