2012 A Year in Review

At Akibahara Station in Tokyo. A trip to remember in 2012. 

It is difficult to write a blog post when your mind is still on holiday mood. Although my legs are already back to normal running for the past two weeks. Managed to run 13.5km at Mengkuang Dam last Sunday with a pace of 7:05/km for 1:35. Much faster than I did my 13.09km run on 25 March 2012 with a pace of 7:54/km for 1:43.  Hope to be able to run below 7.0/km for my long distance run in the coming weeks.

2012 is an eventful year for me. I really felt like a runner after going through this first marathon journey.   I started back into running in 2010 but I was doing my runs on a treadmill where I did my 10K in that year and then a half marathon in 2011. But I have never felt so much into running until 2012 when I started my first marathon journey in March 2012. Eight months of training and I managed to run my first marathon at the Penang Bridge International Marathon on 18 November is an amazing and unforgettable experience. I felt enlighten during my marathon journey where I start to see myself in a different perspective, physically and mentally.

I have actually managed to do two half marathons in August before my first marathon as a preparation.  One is the trial run for the Green Run MPSP and two weeks later is the actual run. Not many races to boast about. But I enjoyed all of it. I guess I will not be the runner that will be participating in all the races that have been scheduled. I will mostly select the marathons that I want to participate and fixed those dates first. The other races will just be fitted in for the preparation of these bigger races.

Of course after your first marathon, the next objective is how do I run faster? Have been trying to do faster run on my shorter runs and slowly surprising myself that I could actually run faster than I think I can.

2012 is also a year that I have been to my dream vacation country, i.e. Japan, visiting Tokyo and Kyoto. The timing and injury of the trip almost ruined my first marathon. Although I end up with a slower time because of the non-training of 15 days but I managed to pick myself up and finished my first marathon. And I just saw a video of two Taiwanese guys running the Osaka Marathon on 25 November 2012. It was so much fun ! My next trip to Japan will definitely be going to Osaka and run this marathon.

A video link to the two Taiwanese guys enjoying their run at the Osaka Marathon

A company trip to Bali in August 2012 was also a much relaxing trip after the work deadlines till 31 July 2012. The weather in Bali during August is just fantastic with a cooling breeze! A run on the beach in Bali in the early morning was such a welcome change in sight while tapering for the Green Run MPSP.

A company trip in Bali on August 2012.

So what is my running mileage for 2012? 1,400.24 km. But I only started my running log from 11 March 2012. But most of the running was done after this date. The distance from Penang to Johor Bahru is about 692km. Technically, I have ran to and fro from Penang to Johor Bahru which is only 1,384km. Wow....quite a distance if it was measured in this manner. Pretty unbelievable !

My Yearly Running log recorded in my Runmeter