Return to MF Loops

Was super tired today. Dozed off around 930am (!), drank a big cup of teh-tarik for a caffeine booster, totally zoned out in my cubicle for the rest of the day. Dragged myself to Safra out of habit.

I returned to MF Loop training tonight after staying away from it for a couple of weeks/ months. The warmup jog to the MF Loop carpark was tentative and apprehensive. A couple of cranky jolts down the hip flexor. Stopped twice to figure out what went wrong. Maybe I was not warmed up or stretched properly yet. In two minds whether to attempt MF Loops or go with a flat run. Decided that it was now or never to test my "recovered" butt/ hip, so gritted up Morse Rd. Wen Long came down Pender Rd, and sped up past me again. Morse Rd seemed forever.

Quite a large group turned up tonight. Eddie & Chin Yeh came. So did Anthony & Bev. Was surprised to see Anthony still doing hill workouts so close to Sundown. Bev was the most power one, improved tremendously. :) One group headed off for flats, while the majority followed Ong to MF Loop.

I did all my loops conservatively on the inner pavement today. Tried to push a bit harder on the upslope. Gingerly, carefully, unsure how much I should open up my strides, lift the thighs or calves. All body sensors were on high alert, more focused on 'sensing' my hip than the workouts. Psychologically, something was holding back. It was about testing the boundary bit by bit, ever uncertain when pain might snap back again. When you run so much and so in-tuned with the body, you know the different shades of pain and can tell if it is a normal "tired" soreness, or chronic problem, or something strangely new.

Thankfully, I cleared 5 loops with no pain, though still witholding a little. I managed a constant 4:47/8 min for all the upslopes ending at the peak (cafe), and simply took my time to slowly wind down to the start of the loop. Did not want to aggravate hip/ butt with every downstep extension. Each loop averaged 11+ min. I skipped the staircase, went down to Morse Rd and ran back from Henderson. A couple of runners were doing a flat run and also just returning. Henry had fully recovered from his knee, he overtook me on the Henderson upslope and blasted ahead. I tried to chiong up too, but did not have enough power to sustain.

Had a half-mind to retire from running after Sundown. Or else to totally restart from zero and retrain everything. Two extremes. Both painful.