Just Keep TRI-ing

The famous Night Run series has finally made its way to Doha. Thanks to the good people at Doha College and Aspire, especially the tireless event director, David Thompson. So it was only natural for us Doha folks to be excited about it. Why? Because where else would we have the chance to wear shiny clothing, fluorescent sticks, torch lights or anything that emit or reflect the lights to outshine each other during an official race? The DBRC Ladies got all glam up I was not particularly keen to run the race initially, as it was scheduled to start at 10PM on Thursday night and I have to wake up early at around 4 AM the next morning for my compulsory long run. I only registered for the event at the eleventh hour before the registration closed just to support our local races and as encouragement to my friends from Pelari Stylo Yo!. My plan was to have fun, soak up the festive atmosphere and run this race easy. Well at least that was the plan. I tried to run it easy, but a race is s...

I am now in a tapering period of my training with 17 days left to my biggest race yet. I will only have another 2 shortish long runs, a 21km this Friday and a 16km next week on top of 1 more tempo run and an interval session. I don't know, I think I do not have enough miles logged leading up to this race and feel that my endurance level has drop considerably. But the good things is, my knees seems to be a lot better since I changed my running style to 'Short Stride-High Cadence-Mid Foot Strike'. I did not have the same excruciating pain when I did 30km run last week. Just a little sore, but its was gone in a couple of days. And I am getting faster and stronger. So I am quietly confident that I will do well in Paris, Insha Allah. I will try not to think about it too much and focussing on the holiday more than the race itself. For the first time my family will be there cheering me up by the road sides. My wife and all my of 3 children will...

I participated in a 10km race organised by Al-Khor Community 2 weeks ago. I was not very keen to participate in this race  because I had a 30km long run a day before the event. I only submited the race form at the very last minute in support of local races and motivation to my wife and 2 other friends (Lolyta and Nani) from my newly formed running club of which i am the captain (Pelari Stylo Yo!) to run their maiden 5km race. So my plan was to treat this race as a recovery run. Come race day, I just could not hold on to my initial plan. It was a 2 laps race, I was driven by the pace of other runners and ran the first lap fast. My first 5 km was in fact is my new Personal Best (23:41). I started to get tired by KM6 and slowed down well inside the 5km/min pace. I was so fatigued from the long run I did yesterday plus I have not had any breakfast yet (read excuses excuses). My energy level was so low that if I was an Ultraman, the indicator light on ...

Like many marathon runners, my next big target is to compete in Ironman races. So I took a little baby step towards that ambition by participating in the Aspire Aquathon 2012/2013 series. The race consists of 500 meters swim followed with a 5 km run including one transition in between. There were 5 races in the series which took place every month started from October 2012. Unlike all my elder brothers, I was never a good swimmer. I was more a recreational swimmer and I never liked freestyle. I cannot swim 100 meter freestyle non stop before the series. I was lucky to have a swimming pool in my compound and a swim instructor. So I took seven lessons crash course on freestyle swimming prior to the series. Seriously I thought swimming was hard and I still have not master the art of swimming economy, so I ended up spent too much energy where it should be done effortlessly.  My swimming still was not great but it enough to carry me through the 500 meters swim leg, but by the time I fini...

Remember I blog about my Runner's Knee or Patellofemoral problem a month ago? See  HERE . I finally had the chance to see Dr. Hellemondt, a Sports Orthopaedic at Aspetar recently. After a breief chat, I introduced myself as a marathon runner and my goal to qualify for Boston. Here how the consultation went: Doctor: How long have you been running? Syafei: About one year Doctor: Before that, what kind of sports you did? Syafei: TV, watching sports programmes on tele, that's about it. Nurse: That's very honest Doctor & Nurse : (Laughing) The Doctor asked then checked on my knees and asked me to do squat and one legged Squat After the assessment, Doctor: I have a good news and I have a bad news Syafei: What's the good news? Doctor: There's nothing wrong with your knees. Syafei: and the bad news? Doctor: You cannot qualify for Boston now...Period Syafei: Huh? Doctor: You are suffering from a condition called Patellofemoral .. bla bla bla (you can just Google abou...

I was still at my infancy in running when I participated in this race last year. I thought finishing a sub 3 hours half marathon was already a remarkable achievement at that time. RAK really changed me. I'm no longer a weekend casual jogger. Running has been my passion after RAK Half Marathon 2012 and I was anxious to see just how far have I improved in a year. I did not really have a specific target other than trying my best as I did not have the best of preparation leading to this race, but I was quietly confident of finishing around 1:45, plus I will be running with my running buddy Stephanie Schneider from DBRC and she was planning to run it sub 1:45. I ran with her and she is a good pacer, so if I can keep her within sight, I should be all right. On top of that, we were also accompanied by many others from DBRC. Oumhani, Claire, Sheila, Evelyn, Gareth, and Becky among others. It was a great boost for my morale to have them here. I a...

My 1st experience at Losail International Circuit  Yesterday was the Qatar National Sports Day for this year. This is a public holiday where the residents of this fortunate land get to enjoy the many sports and recreation programmes organised by the private and public sectors. One event that interest me was the Doha Dash. Largely because the race was held at Losail International Circuit, home of Qatar Motor Grand Prix. I participated in the 5km while Hani took part in 3km race. We were joined by our close friends Aizal and Yasir in 5km while Yeen and Lolyta ran the 3km. On top of that, a 5 year old Myra (Aizal's and Yeen's daughter) also took part in the 1km mini marathon. I was supposed to run a gentle 5km  according to my Half Marathon training plan yesterday as I cannot afford any injury or muscle fatigue when my half marathon race at Ras Al-Khaimah was just 2 days away. But at the same time, I really thought that this is the best opportunity for me to rewrite my 4 month...