Time to tempo

Through the festive period of Lunar New Year, I did some tempo runs after my son advise me to trry after reading the triathlon magazine. Wow, what a surprise. While I was doing good for 10km comfortably hittin gslightly over an hour, my short runs are actually in pretty bad shape. It was the other way around 5 years ago. I used to run under 12 mins for 2.4km. But now, I felt like dying just doing 250m and 400m sprints. My breath was running out, my legs quickly became dead weight and I cannot pump my arms adequately. At this moment, my quads still hurts. I think I better do the tempo thingy to take care of parts that I have neglected. I also found out that my lung capacity or technique to breath in burst mode has degraded. My first 400m dash was 100sec, rest 2 days, the next try became 97 sec. On both occassions, I tried to do a second burst run after getting my pulse rate down but the repeat attempts end up being aborted, legs/quads yielded. Nice to discover the things I lost ... time to get it back.

Run for Health

Run for Health, Run for Fun, Run for Life.

Long term good health with regular exercise even until very old age. Those who do not exercise regularly loses their muscles sooner than those who do as they age.

http://www.everymantri.com/everyman_triathlon/2012/01/at-74-years-oldthese-are-your-legs-on-triathlon-these-are-your-legs-without-triathlon.html

At 74-years old...these are your legs on triathlon & these are your legs without triathlon

40-year-old Triathlete

A new study called, "Chronic Exercise Preserves Lean Muscle Mass in Masters Athletes," which you can read HEREgraphically illustrates what happens to your muscles (with and without) the type of regular and beneficial exercise that the sport of triathlon provides.

The image above is a cross section of a 40-year-old triathletes legs and the associated muscle. But the two images below are the really interesting and telling ones.

74-year-old Sedentary Man

74-year-old Triathlete

As you can tell, the 74-year-old masters triathletes legs are not unlike that of the 40-year-old triathletes legs. The study's authors go on to write:

"It is commonly believed that with aging comes an inevitable decline from vitality to frailty. This includes feeling weak and often the loss of independence. These declines may have more to do with lifestyle choices, including sedentary living and poor nutrition, than the absolute potential of musculoskeletal aging.

In this study, we sought to eliminate the confounding variables of sedentary living and muscle disuse, and answer the question of what really happens to our muscles as we age if we are chronically active. This study and those discussed here show that we are capable of preserving both muscle mass and strength with lifelong physical activity."

They conclude by writing:

"The loss of lean muscle mass and the resulting subjective and objective weakness experienced with sedentary aging imposes significant but modifiable personal, societal, and economic burdens. As sports medicine clinicians, we must encourage people to become or remain active at all ages. This study, and those reviewed here, document the possibility to maintain muscle mass and strength across the ages via simple lifestyle changes."

Another great fun run at Sengkang Riverwalk Park... our new favoured route.

11 Hot-Runners turned up for today's fun run at Sengkang Riverwalk Park... our new favoured route. HC ran this new route for the first time and loves it!

No cars & monkeys unlike the UPR route. No alarm bell warning of gate closure. A lot of trees and greenery and by the river. Wonderful! Big and free carpark with a nice clean toilet nearby and a small restaurant (name Mushroom) beside.

We will likely be running here much more often going forward. This new route along Sengkang Riverside Park (along Anchorvale Street) may very well replace our regular Upper Pierce Reservoir route.

HC was reminded that we need to take individual photo for the new members (I think it was HT's idea). So here it is. Another 2 gorgeous young lady runners coming on board the Hot-Runners group.  

Two new hot-runners joined us today. Chai Lee and Sheralyn.



Chai Lee said she is 16 years old (probably an illegal child labour?). Welcome!

Sheralyn is 18 years old (someone leaked that ?) and dressed like a professional runners. She signed up for last Dec Standard Chartered marathon but could not make it due to illness at that time. Welcome!

Our regular veteran runners.... sweet baby HweeChwee and macho Bok.

- end -

Another green space

Warming up.... notice not many trees? Yes, this is a new place to run. This is the newly opened Sengkang Park. This route offer a clear view to rolling plains and waterway. This is the second time the notrunners have tested this route for their Tuesday run to give an alternative to the evergreen Upper Pierce Reservior.

Welcome to 2 more new participants. We hoped they have enjoy the run and the company of hotrunners.



By evening, the view turned even more alluring. Hope to come back to the park to run.