Trail Running Training day 60

I have passed the 60 days training for trail running. Still recuperating from last week 18km trail run competition at Kg Kemensah. It seems that my body requires almost one week to recover. During the KOKK, my left calf hurt at the last 2km. I just blocked the pain in my mind and keep running. At critical moment, its amazing how your mind can be used to push your body to the limit ignoring the pain and exhaustion. 

After the race its a different story. So no hard training, just light strength workout this week and next week. The objective is to regain my fitness by the the time for Bario 50km trail run race next Sunday.

While recuperating my body, I went for brisk walk and walking up the stairs just to remind my body on the hard work for the past 60 days. The swelling at my neck bothers me a lot. It has been 'pain in the neck' for few days and I hope I can shake it off by the end of this week. The pain weakened my body and its more like a benign fever. 

Last nite is quite stressful as I still cannot shake off this feverish feeling. I put on my sweater hoping to sweat out the fever from my body. So I spend most of last nite studying about my next race. Make copies of my flight arrangements. Then saw a whatsapp message from my contacts at Bario saying that my caretaker is not available at that time. So he asked me to call another caretaker for my lodging. 😓 tomorrow have to call another caretaker to arrange for my stay at Bario. 

For the past 60 days, I have seen lot of changes. Leaner and fitter body that's for sure. I also managed to changed my daily routine habit. wake up at 4am every morning, week days or weekend for work out. 

I also changed my eating habits. Previously whenever I walk into a supermarket, it will be snack, junk food and sodas. Now, it will fruits and vegetable in my basket. Less sodas for me now. It will be plain water or infused water. At the most I will take fruit juice. I drink Redbull only after my trail run. Basically after each training session I will consume energy drink and energy bar and gel to replenish and recuperate. After one day, back to veggie and fruits, mineral or infused water with honey...and instead of junk food in between meals, I munched roasted almond nuts. 

How about Rice? I took rice maybe like four times a week but most of the time at home because we use bhasmathy rice. 

I woke up this morning feeling fresher. Full strength workout and another 1 hour session on cross trainer. Quite confidence that I can regain my fitness just before the race next Sunday. No choice, have to. 

After a refreshing shower, I log in to KOKK 2017 website and check the e-certificate. Yup its out and print out my e-cert. I'm quite surprise that I clocked in 3hours 7 Minutes and was ranked 76th out of 169 runners overall. It's a morale booster for sure. It's a good performance considering I never did trail running before and its a 18km compared to my usual 10km road running event. 

I make a phone call to Julian Rang, my caretaker at Bario and he sounds very friendly. He promised to call me back when he had finalised my lodging arrangement. He will be waiting for me at the Bario airport. Our initial conversation seems to suggest that I may choose to stay at a home stay house or at a long house. Long House 🤔eh? It may be a good idea... depending whether it has sufficient electricity supply to charge my phone and GoPro camera. It was said that internet may be a problem. Probably I have to go "dark" without internet access for four days. 

Maybe its an opportunity to enjoy 4 days of uninterrupted life without social media and really enjoy the nature at its best.