Ep.2. Road to a sub 90 minute half marathon | 23km in Hong Kong heat, dim sum, leg workout

0:00 [Music] Let me say this one time. Got one time. You make me feel all right. So nice. I know you want to do more. Say last. You can say the night. You don't got to go. We could take this lonely. No need to be lonely. All right, guys. Welcome back to the YouTube channel. And it is Friday. It is currently 1000 a.m. So, starting the day a little bit late um because I was up all last night trying to edit the previous YouTube video. Ran into a few

0:45 issues with, you know, copyright music and all of that stuff. So, apologies if you weren't expecting the previous video to go out on Friday evening UK time. But, it's time for our long run. the first long run that I'm doing in Hong Kong and the first one of this new training block. We have here three eggs and also some carbs in the form of fruit. So, some mango and also a Chinese pear which I really like. So, we're going to eat this up and we'll get ready for our taste. I don't want to rush you. [Music] We wouldn't be sad if we let this We got the section.

1:32 [Music] All right, it's time for the run. So, let's do a quick fit check. I'm wearing the ASRV half tights cuz they've got two pockets either side so I can keep all of my gels and my phone. On the feet, we have the A6 socks. I think these are like half ankle socks. Not too sure how well this will go, but I've got a cotton t-shirt, a black one from ASRV as well. I've also got the Chorus Pace Pro on my wrist. These sunglasses, which I can't remember where I got these from. And on the feet, we're going with the Nike Vomero 18s for this long run. So hopefully it should be pretty good. Man, I am kind of not really

2:21 wanting to go for this run. So yeah, the temperature is 28°. Feels like 29. I think now it's fairly cloudy. Sorry, there's a lot of noise going on. There's the laundry machine beeping. There's the blinds that are rustling and ringing. But yeah, got these my protein hyrox gels. These are the ones that I've been using throughout my marathon prep towards the end. Actually, can I try and turn this off? Sorry about that. I think the beeping might have been a bit annoying for you guys. Um, but yeah, I've got them Hyrox my protein gels, raspberry lemonade flavor. I was using these up until my marathon and they've been serving me really well. So, I'm having two of these. Probably going to take one every

3:06 seven or 8 km. That should be all right. Um, and then also got some electrolytes in this very nice squeezy bottle from Shelter Athletics. So, if you're watching this, Jason, Jason is the owner of Shelter Athletics. Thank you very much. I really appreciate this cuz I actually needed a bottle like that. So, yeah, that's pretty much the nutrition I'm going to have on this run. There are actually quite a lot of water stations in Hong Kong. So, if I do need water, I'm just going to go and fill it up. I don't think I'm going to really like go all out and try and hit my paces, but we shall see on the run. I'm also going to carry my DJI for you guys as well. So, oh, and obviously the AirPods. So, yeah, let's get

3:57 going. All right, so we're outside. It's actually a little bit of light rain, so that's good. [Music] [Music] All right, this is it. Heading off now. 6 km conversational pace. Easing into it.

4:43 [Music] Heart rate is pretty high at the moment, 147. So, I'm going to slow it down just a little bit. Running at 530 pace, but I think obviously it's very hot today. [Music]

5:34 Top had to come off. Super super humid. Literally like sweating buckets. Yeah, that uphill didn't do any good. It's hot today. I need a walk cuz my heart rate was getting to the 170s. So, I don't think I'm going to hold any paces. I'm going to put my top here and let's see how safe Hong Kong is. That extra weight there that I'm carrying, it's heavy. Bye-bye. See you maybe in an

6:22 hour. If it's gone, then it's gone. [Applause] [Music] [Music] 10.27 into the run. Current time is about 58 minutes to do that 10k. So, it's not bad. having to walk every few kilometers. It's very hot out there and also stopping for the water stations as

7:08 well. I'm really enjoying it. I look like I'm suffering and I am suffering, but I enjoy [Music] suffering. I'm not even finished. I'm halfway. But just need something cold, you [Music] know. Definitely underpredicted how hot it will be. My top is still here. Ah, and to prove it to you, it's like 1:00 now,

7:54 Friday, and this is the watch time. Don't know why it's flickering like that. I just don't think Chorus has decided to update the refresh rate to match the frames per second. But you can see if I resume 14.3 km is the distance. 1 hour 22 time. And the top is still here. That's like kind of nice and dry now. And I'm going to put it on my shoulders cuz I feel like my shoulders are burning a little bit from the heat. [Music] It's cooling down a little

8:40 bit. Still got 7K left, but there's more [Music] clouds. 20.5, just two and a half to go. But I'm taking it real slow these last couple walkers. I can really feel my body overheating like crazy. [Music]

9:58 Oh my lord, that was that was something. So humid. I kind of knew like within the first kilometer, 2 km, I was going to hit nowhere near those paces that runner has suggested me to do. Already my heart rate was like 160 from the gate. So yeah, just held back a little bit. Obviously, the temperature is very hot out here. Um, but just get it done. Had to stop a lot as you could see. Um, lots of water, lots of fizzy drinks as well, which isn't the best, but what can you do? You need to get through it somehow. And yeah, I'm just really glad that I

10:45 managed to finish it. At no point I thought I would want to stop. I think that's something that I always credit myself is that even if it's not going to plan, I'll always finish a run. I think the only run that I never finished was one long run. I think it was like a 34k, which was supposed to be my longest run before the London Marathon. The first time I tried that, I didn't get it. I think I got like 31 km. I just couldn't push past it. I think it might have been a mental thing as well because I was running around Victoria Park literally in circles and it was just so easy for me to just quit and just say that was enough. But I did go back the following week and then I did the 34 km.

11:30 So I guess I didn't really miss it. I still hit it but that session was the only session I believe where I had to call it quits. And I think, you know, it's nothing wrong with it. I was watching, you know, some YouTube videos um about how to, you know, get faster as well. And, you know, they're saying, you know, the majority of your run should be very easy conversational pace. Not that this one was easy, uh, but it was a progressive run, so I'm assuming it's not supposed to be easy run. Um the way the run app and program works I think it's every other week you do a progressive sort of run for your long run and then the um alternate week is

12:17 just very easy just conversational pace. So maybe next week I'll do the progressive run. I guess today was supposed to be the easy run. Um but also I just need to make sure that I don't go this late in the day. Maybe I'll have to get up at even 5:00 a.m. to run just to avoid those, you know, high temperatures because I just want to have a look at the app actually to see what the temperature was like today during this run. And it was 30°. Can you believe that it was 30° outside? So, yeah, I will give

13:05 myself some um grace. Let's say that. Anyway, that was a little debrief of the run. I only actually had one gel um because I didn't think I needed the next one because I wasn't really pushing hard and also had like Fanta and the other thing as well. Uh so yeah, just going to get changed, get dressed, go and chill with my grandma. Actually might go and get some dim sum actually. So yeah, we are having a feast out here. [Music] [Music] Say

13:52 [Music] [Applause] [Music] All right, guys. We are back in the K11 gym. We did a 10K easy run this morning with Shelter Athletics. So, overall, the training side of this week is done. We wrapped up around 50 km for this first week of training, and we're going to do some

14:39 lower body strength and conditioning. Today I will be following my strength program that I made for myself which is based on the conjugate system which was made famous by Louis Simmons from Westside Barbell in the US. And essentially for lower body and uh upper body you would do four workouts a week. So you'll do two lower body, two upper body and each workout will consist of a max effort and a dynamic effort. So max effort essentially is basically lifting a very heavy single in a different exercise each week to avoid the laws of accommodation. And in the dynamic effort days we'll be lifting at submaximal weights and training for explosive power

15:27 which will then help with the one rep maxes. Today we're going to do a bit of the explosive stuff, the dynamic effort stuff. We're going to start with some box squats. We're going to do nine sets of two reps. We're going to rest very short in between, maybe like 45 seconds to 50 seconds. I won't be using bands for today, but in the future, maybe next week, I'll start incorporating bands into the exercise. Um, but yeah, at the moment, it's still getting back into it. Still want to manage the load. Don't want to go in too hard right now. just still just get the movement patterns um you know good again because I haven't trained legs for a while. So yeah, let's get into it. Also, my legs are really

16:13 itchy. I think I've got a lot of mosquito bites and it's super super hot outside. It's like 30 something°. So definitely not one for being outside today. So going to stay inside. Stay in the air. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music]

17:09 Heat. Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] [Music]