Mixed Bag Of Feelings

Today's been rather a roller coaster ride. To put things simply I'm gonna blog in point form.

1. Woke up to the news that Man Utd lost in extra-time (Lousy)
2. Finished a banana and a cereal bar en route to arriving Bukit Aman (Good)
3. Stomach churning. No problems at home and cleared bowels 3 times the whole of yesterday. Could it be the overconsumption of bananas? Desperately cracking my head on where to find open toilets at this insane hour (Lousy)
4. Walked over to the Police HQ cop on duty (who was busy SMSing) to ask him on where is the nearest shit-hole. Was directed to the nearby Tanglin Foodcourt (Good)
5. Hopped onto Geraldine's ride to the Foodcourt and quickly got the act over with (Good). Flush didn't work, water from tap trickling (Lousy).
6. Back to the car park and already wasted 15 minutes. Quickly changed and started off (Good).
7. Felt out of sorts the first 7K (Lousy). Thing came together only after that point (Good)
8. Despite this we reached the station in 56:18 (even faster than the previous 2 long runs. What the heck?!). Took the loop in 5:08 (Good)
9. Beginning to feel real good. On the way to the IRB office, a medium size pebble somehow got into my right shoe. Continued to cast aside the irritating distraction (Lousy)
10. Reached Petronas in 47:01 which I think was fast. Had a great time chatting with Geraldine over a wide variety of topics (Good). Right arm tingling (Lousy) perhaps from carrying the 21kg Carbokid 1 up the stairs last night. Carbokid 2 has also been putting on his fair share of weight too. Shook out the tightness periodically.
11. Took the loop for the second time in 5:12 (Good)
12. Felt we had been running a bit too fast and slowed down a tad on the return to Bukit Aman (Good). Met up with some of the 15K runners who were undertaking their 2nd loop. Saw Haza among others. Quite a few were walking but they were all amazing with their never-give-up attitude (Good). The course is not an easy one.
13. Time was running out for me as I've an appointment at 9:15am with the tenant and contractor back at my leased out apartment regarding the broken bathroom tiles. I won't have enough time to complete the extra 5K (Lousy). Decided to wait for Geraldine a bit to tell her that I won't be running the Carcosa loop. It was to be a play-by-the watch thing.
14. At this point the feet felt a bit sore (Lousy), though the calves and upper legs were fine (Good). Somehow the lower back felt tight with a little dull pain (Lousy). I don't know if this was because of carrying C1 but it had never happened before. I think it ought to be a one-off discomfort but I will monitor it tomorrow.
15. Both feet weren't feeling that good (Lousy). Back still hurt and losing my running form but I needed to stay on my feet past 3 hours (Lousy). The longest I'd been on my feet was 2:40+ done the week before (Good). Decided to cut it short and run/walk up the slope leading back up to the car park (Lousy).
16. Met Krishnan adidas and chatted for awhile - the King Of The Road 21K is on! Forms out end of this month. Tried on the new Supernova with Formotion - fabulous feeling. It's a fight between the Triumph (lighter) and the Supernova (more solid) (Good).
17. Surprised to see Lonerunner Martin (Good). Chatted for awhile and then realised that I was going to be seriously late for the appointment!
18. Noticed that my back and feet were totally fine. What gives?! (Lousy)
19. Drained my water bottle and downed another banana en route. Completed the meeting and headed home. After doing some laundry and showering, replenished with Endurox and a bowl of beef noodles (Good).
20. Played with kids and C2 enjoyed his ride on my tummy. He's so cute nowadays. He's teething now and is pretty playful. I was surprised to find myself totally fresh unlike just a few hours ago. I didn't feel wipe out post long runs as previous weeks (Good). It's all very strange and I put it down to body conditioning. On one hand the body has grown accustomed to the long runs but it's just started to get acquainted with 3 hour runs. As it was I've exceeded the longest time spent by about 13 minutes, though I didn't meet my targeted distance.
21. Snacked throughout the day, re-watched T3 for some mindless action (and Kristina Loken!) and napped for 10 minutes in the afternoon (Good).

So where do I go from here? I've to keep my optimism up. There are just a few more weeks to go and all of them are critical. Achieving my medium goal of a sub-4 is going to be very tough but I have to believe that I can do it, perhaps just a little teensy weensy chance. Else what's the point of continuing all the hard work right? The next 2 Sunday long runs may be lost to travelling which means that I will need to do a 23K for the next 2 Saturdays to complement the 2 shorter Sunday runs. Then the final Sunday will be a 3.5-hour run regardless of distance. Of course, this is also the time to make sure the week's mileage are consistently high.