Long Time no Blog

Gosh! It's been a while since I last updated this. OK, I'll make sure this doesn;t happen too often. :-P

Anyway, almost crashed and burned during tonight's swimming training. First, as usual, this is the training covered tonight:-
100m warmup
3x200m Freestyle
3x100m Freestyle
3x200m Freestyle with Poolbouy
3x100m Freestyle with Poolbouy
200m Freestyle drills
Total Distance Covered = 2100m

Thinking that training starts at 7:30pm, I had a solid plate of Char Siew Rice at 6:30pm - an hour before training, right? On arriving, I only realised that training was at 7pm - I had remembered wrongly!! So there I went, with the gung-ho attitude that was all me, and jumped into the pool and started warming up. When I started on the sets, my arms didn't seem to work at all. Try as I might, my arms and shoulders literally couldn't hold water.

This was bad, and I was holding everybody else up. It was only moving to the slower lanes and taking a few more laps to warm up that I was finally back to my normal speed. By then, half the training was already done. :-(

Well, I moved up to the faster lanes again and gave it my all. Somehow, tonight's training just wasn't as satisfying as it was supposed to be.

Note to self : closest meal before training in the future will be at least 2 hours beforehand!! Argghhh!!!

The MotiBoard

This is it. As per the requests from those in SGRunners.com, I have uploaded the picture of my MotiBoard (Motivation Board).

Though this might appear humble to some out there, but this is actually my sweat and tears. This board represents hours and hours of training and gruelling tests. Sometimes when I am down, I will just stare at this board. My eyes will dwell on each badge and my mind's eye will recall what I had to go through to achieve that badge. And slowly, goosebumps begin to run through my skin. As I relive each triumph, I am reminded that challenges in life will never cease. As such, if we take courage and endeavour to overcome them, you will look back later at that moment in life as a turning point, a milestone - a medal of honour.

When I reach that state of mind, I know perseverance and endurance will serve me well - be it in training or in life. So why not go back today and look for YOUR MotiBoard - you will be surprised at what you have achieved so far. ^-^

Wed Nite Swimming Training

Did the following at TriFam's swimming training tonight:-

400m Warm-up
10x200m Free with Pool Buoy
250m additional
8x50m Sprints
Total 3050m

Pretty intense. I slowed down a little tonight. Instead, I concentrated on my body roll. Did this by keeping my head from turning too much, this way, I have to roll my body on the side more to breathe properly. Felt a bit strange initially, but as I kept on trying, it seems that instead of being slower, I can feel myself gliding more. Hmmm...Will have to keep trying this in order to feel the full effect of it. that's pretty much it from me tonite. Cheow y'all..

A Bit of Running

Tried something new today - interval running. Here's how it went...Got to the stadium around 5:30pm. Managed to consistently run 1:47 per lap for 4 laps. Time rest in between running is 3 times the time spent running, which is about 5:15. Before that did a 1km warm-up and after that did a 800m warmdown. Followed by stretches.

Gosh! Although it was only 4 laps of running, it really takes alot out of you! During the 3rd lap, I was struggling after 300m. Never had 100m looked so unattainable to me before. Even after the 5min rest, the last lap was a real test of mind over body. But it looks like I am supposed to increase these kind of training technique if I am to improve on my running.

The book I am reading from says that this is all part of strength training, and it goes a long way to improving your timing. So it looks like no way out for me - I'll have to stick at it if I'm ever going to run the marathon by Dec this year.

Tuesday Thoughts....

My thoughts are still hovering over the Aquathlon completed over the weekend. I must say that I really enjoyed myself and I met quite alot of friends that day. Let's see...

From primary school(I haven't seen him for more than 15years!):-
Guoping

From SGRunners:-
The Lonely Runner - Sukaimi
Ironmandreamer - Ben
Cyberkinetic - Alex
Balasing - ??
Sotong & Wife - Mah & Wife?
Eunice (Nick and name the same)
Trisuccelent - David
Penguin - ??
Stanley

From Trifam :-
Johnson
Thomas
Gary
Trey (I think)

Think I got most of you. Apologies if I missed you or got your name wrong.:P

Thinking of changing my nick, maybe...Runnerator, Trinerator, Incinerator?? Hahaha :))

Went for a 5km run yesterday evening. Didn't want to rest for too long after Sat - I had already rested the whole of Sun. I tried running my race pace but couldn't do it. My thighs were feeling tight right from the start. It was hard continuing the run under those circumstances. :( The tightness only went off about 3-qtr of the way. After that I thought I could run more than 5km, but I reminded myself not to push too hard. Well, sprinted the last lap around the track and finished pretty strong. Going for another run later, will probably do intervals or something like that. Don't feel like doing any LSD anytime soon.... :|

New Balance Aquathlon 2005 : Part 4, Post-Race

As I finished and made my way slowly to the transition area to collect my stuff, who do I meet? Just about the person I least expected to meet - Guoping from my primary school days. I had been thinking on and off about the bunch of friends I used to hang around with in primary school and now I meet one of them!! What a wonderful surprise to an already great day I was having! :D

To cut the long story short, we exchanged email addresses and made promises to catch up in the future. Then I gathered my stuff and made my way to meet up with the rest of the gang.

It seems that everybody was more or less satisfied with what they had achieved and we made our way to the showers. By the time we decided to catch a ride in TLR's car, we realised there were 7 of us!! We all managed to squeeze in and started parting ways at Harbourfront. Looks like even "Jazz" managed a personal best today.

Conclusion : A WONDERFUL day spent with WONDERFUL people doing a WONDERFUL sport!!

New Balance Aquathlon 2005 : Part 3, The Run

As I exited the transition area to begin the run, I almost went the wrong direction as there were so many twists and turns to follow!! Thank goodness for those road marshals and volunteers!! Phew!

I started out at a faster pace than my usual run as I was still feeling the adrenaline from the swim. Going into the run, I was determined to improve on my timing compared to the Biathlon in March (about 1:19:xx) and also the NB REAL Run the week earlier (about 1:14:xx). Although the REAL Run's time was still an improvement, it was not as big as I had hoped for. This time around, I was really looking to make a big dent in my running time.

Coming towards the 10min point of my run, I knew I could not sustain the pace any longer and decided to settle into my normal race pace. Once I did that, my legs were not complaining as much and they started to get used to the running. I began to settle down into the run and my normal rhythm began to play itself out. Many of the competitors were passing me along the way, along with those from the SGRunners forum - first TLR, followed by Ironmandreamer. And I saw Balasing and Penguin going along the opposite direction a couple of times.

As I reached the first turnpoint(2.5km) I was still feeling quite comfortable and my watch showed about 15min+. Seeing as how this was within my target of completing the run in an hour, I was encouraged and decided to pick up the pace - just a little. This, and the initial 10min burst of speed, would prove a mistake later.

The 5km mark saw my time at about 31min+. At this point, my legs were straining and my breathing was laboured. This distance is well within my usual training limits and I was wondering to myself as to the reason for the level of fatigue when it hit me - the faster pace in the first 10min of the run. It had taken more out of me than I expected. As I came to the next waterpoint, I made an agonising decision - I needed to stop running and walked instead.

At the beginning of the race, I had determined to run all the way and not walk at all. During the previous week's REAL Run, I had walked part of the way - especially through the sand portion. This had only served to re-affirmed my resolve not to walk during the aquathlon. At this point you can imagine the disappointment I was having at myself - it lasted for all of 5 seconds.

I re-strategised. I knew I wasn't going to be able to keep running for the rest of the race, yet I was determined to improve on my timing. I decided to take breaks at all the waterpoints as well as every 7-8 minutes, but I confined the breaks to no longer than 20secs each. This strategy proved the saving grace for me. I found the strength to continue at a good pace between the breaks and was even able to summon up a short burst towards the finishing line. This was a big difference compared to the Biathlon in March as I was just walking towards to the finishing line then. Time 1:02:44 (off my watch of course). This was, in my own opinion, a significant improvement over March's timing(1:19:xx). Yoohoo!! :D

New Balance Aquathlon 2005 : Part 2, The Swim & Transition

As the call went out for my event, I made my way to the beach. It was a wet start; meaning we get into the water, tread water for a little while, then start when the horn blew. I made my way to the start of the crowd just before the starting buoy. When the horn sounded, it was a real adrenaline rush to stay ahead of everybody. Being at the front of the crowd meant fewer bodies to fight with. It also meant leading the way. Seeing as how there are always the more enthusiastic ones around (and there was plenty yesterday) I still managed to draft behind a few swimmers along the first length of the swim.

Going into the 2nd length of the swim (total 3 and a half), I had a nagging feeling of a cramp coming on in my left sole. But I wasn't kicking at all!! And to make things worse, my shoulders were starting to ache!! I decided not even to stop and stretch it but to continue swimming. Thank goodness both the cramp and the shoulder ache went off by the end of the 2nd stretch.

The 3rd stretch saw alot of us in the last wave catch up to the swimmers in the earlier wave. The "body avoiding" started and this is the time I think I slowed down a little. By the end of the 3rd stretch of swim, I could really feel the oxygen-deficiency rising in my body. I decided to ignore it and went all out for the final stretch. But along the swim, knowing as how running is my weak point, I decided to slow down a little when I came in sight of the Swim End.

As I exited the water, I recorded 31:54 on my watch. This improvement of almost 7 minutes over my last race in the Navy Biathlon on March was due to the guiding ropes along the swim route. Whereas it was an open water swim in March, this time we just have to look out for the floating line and swam along it without going off-course. This definitely helped to cut the time down.

Going into the transition area, I only had to put on my glasses, my cap, my shoes and socks and belt with my bib number. I had bought a full tri-suit earlier and this was the first time I was trying it out. It had felt a little strange during the beginning of the swim but it was easy to get used to. The excitement of the moment definitely helped too. :) I exited the transition area with a time of 1:30 - another improvement of more than 1min over the March time. I definitely believe that the tri-suit helped to cut the time down as I did not have to worry about shorts and shirt this time round.

So I started running.....

New Balance Aquathlon 2005 : Part 1, Pre-Race

Completed the Aquathlon (Swim 1.5km, Run 10km) yesterday. Here's the rundown.

Met TLR, Cyberkinetic at Harbourfront at around 9:30am. Waited awhile more for Trisucculent and then proceeded towards the race venue. Thanks the ride TLR - appreciate it!! :)

Reached the meeting point and met up with the others. Saw Sotong & wife for the first time. Later realised that both of them completed Marathon before. RESPECT TO BOTH OF YOU!! Coming back, all of us went about the business of registering and getting ourselves ready for the start of the race.

Things were going along pretty well with half the events either completed or on-going when suddenly it felt like Hurricane Katie decided to off-load one of her smaller cousins to us. We had one of our infamous afternoon showers (and this is not in the bathroom) and everybody ran for cover. I managed to cover my stuff in the transition area before coming back to help move the stuff into the shelter. Balasing and Ironmandreamer had to bear the thought of their shoes being made into new swimming pools for the ants on the beach.

During the week leading up to the Aquathlon, I had only swam once and ran once, so I wasn't really big on confidence coming into the race. And when the rain hit, it only dampened my spirits further. Some of the others who were supposed to be halfway in the race were recalled and started joining us at the shelter. After about 30-45min of waiting, the sun came back out and the events continued again. Some of those who completed parts of their event had to restart from the very beginning. Whew!! Real Bummer.

Before long, it was the turn for the Men's Open Long Distance to start. This was when things started getting interesting.....

Midweek Thoughts and Reflections

WELL! My legs manage to recover in time from the New Balance REAL Run (NBRR) on Sunday for me to join the Triathlonfamily.com people to swim@SMU. Did the following today:-
10x200m
6x50m
Total:2600m
I arrived late, otherwise would have been doing 200m of kicking with the rest of the people. I started strong for the first 3 sets but my shoulders really felt the strain during midsets. The pain only went away during the last 3 sets of the 200m swim. After that I didn't have much juice left for the 50m sprints. Only went all out during the last 100m. All in all was a good workout and hope to make it again for next week. Now that the Mrs has voiced her complaints, looks like I can only go once a week swim rather than twice a week. No worries, will do the rest on weekends I guess.

Looking back at the NBRR, I really wasn't prepared at all. I didn't do any hill training before (and there were some serious slopes!), and didn't try running on sand before the race (that was the killer). Good lesson to be learnt here; really should check out the terrain before plunging in to do something like this. I guess I should be pretty satisfied with my time. I wonder how I will do for the Aquathlon coming up this Sat..... I really hope to improve on my time compared to the Navy Biathlon back in March.

But what I really enjoyed during the NBRR was meeting the people from SGRunners.com. Here are a bunch of running enthusiasts whom I only knew online and now I get to see them face to face!!?? One of them even won a medal! Way-to-go Carine!! :) It really was fun to meet them. Otherwise it would have been just pack up and go after the race. And I got to meet one of my former Lifesaving mates from back in Singapore Poly days! What a coincidence! I remember him being a little bit out of shape then, but now he's really fit! Kudos to you Alvin!

AND GREAT MEETING EVERYBODY FROM SGRUNNERS.COM!!!

Monday Moaning

Arrgghhh!! My thighs are aching like crazy! And my shoulders too. Looks like I am paying the price now for not having done any hill training for the NB REAL Run. The sand portion of the run really took alot out of my thighs. And I had to "encourage" them by keeping my arms pumping up and down. Ended-up my shoulder blade muscles are hurting too. Looks like I will have to rest up for the next 2 days. Hope that I can recover by Wed and go for the swim@SMU with the rest of the SGRunners. Yoko-yoko!! I'm coming....

New Balance REAL Run

Woohoo!! I managed to finished the NB REAL Run! Also managed a Personal Best time of 1:15:40. Last time I did this, it took me about 1 and a half hours. Now go home and "peng san" leow!!

Friday Morning Freakout

The swim this morning was pretty good. Although I was still aching a little from Wednesday night's swimming drill, I was still able to complete the 1.5km swim in 30mins. Since I started late in the morning - about 10:30am, it was only after 11 that I started to run.

Original target was to complete 5km run. But when I hit the 4km point, legs just gave way.... And the pain in my right calf came back to haunt me throughout the run. It wasn't bad enough like Wednesday where I was limping a little, but it was naggin at me the whole time and I had to concentrate to ease up on it whenever I landed on my right leg.

Maybe the heat was getting to me. I think with my cap on, I had the impression that the sun wasn't that bad. It was only after I stopped and took a look around that I realized that the sun was in full strength and doing its best job in a long time. No clouds around to hinder it like yesterday.

In summary, swam 1.5km in 30 min and did about 4km in 22:30min. Fairly decent I guess. Gotta make sure I rest well tonight and hope I can get up in time to do LSD tomorrow morning. Will have to see how it goes - too pain then have to layoff again. :(

Thursday Break

Well, no training for me today. My right-calf muscle strain didn't go away as hoped - even after applying half a bottle of Yoko-yoko since Wednesday night. Good thing it rained the whole day, at least I don't feel so bad about missing a day of training. Really hope it recovers by tomorrow, otherwise I'll have to work out at the gym or the pool instead of running.

Spent a good portion of the afternoon reformatting my PC - dunno what's wrong and lazy to troubleshoot, so just reformat. Anyway, tomorrow should be a good day of training. I will be doing somw distance swimming and then a short run after that. Most probably be at least 1.5km Swim and maybe 5km run. Sprint Biathlon!! Yoohoo!

Weekly Weds Nite Swimming

Feeling a tightness in my right calf since yesterday's MacRitchie run. hope it subsides in a day or two. Anyway, did a pretty tough swimming workout today. Although only covered about 1km, it was combined with land exercises, so it was really tough:-
6x50m Fly pull + 20 pull-ups
6x50m Freestyle pull + 20 crunches
6x50m Freestyle kick + 20 Squats
Some of you fitness-gurus who read this might be laughing your heads off. But try this when you are 10kg overweight??!! Anyway, felt good that I completed it. Hope that my right calf recovers by tomorrow and I can go for my run again.

Good night everybody!!

MacRitchie Reservoir Dash

Just finished a quick 4km dash around MacRitchie with a friend. Running with somebody is really different - I really received a lot of motivation from just trying to keep up with my friend. He used to run alot (in the Commandos) but he's laid off alot the last couple of years. Even so, when I suggested that we make a dash for the last 1.5km, I totally lost him!! Man! There I thought that with my weeks of training, I might at least keep up with him. Maybe even finish faster than him. Alas, it was not to be. What a humbling experience.

Morale of the story : know your limits - and keep training to break them!!

New Brooks Shoes in the Long Run

Have been running up a storm since the beginning of August. So far my longest run was yesterday, which took about 51min. Although I clocked 10min for every 2km the other day, I don't think I manage to cover 10km yesterday. I was totally breathless after doing just 4km when I did the timing run. Think I probably covered about 8-9km instead.

Well, managed to buy a pair of running shoes the other day that I think is value for money. Costs S$59.90 from Sportslink. Original price was S$80 or something like that. Anyway, did the long run in it and it felt all right. Might not be the latest model, but I reckon should carry me through to the marathon.

First Post

Hi all, this is my first post of the blog. Though I have my own website and all, looks like blogging is much more popular these days. Well, more to come in future. Cheers.