Xmas 2.5 on 25

Grand xmas plan - To do a long long run, for instance, a meaningful 25km. Grand reality - A long long sleep under the comfort of silk blanket and aircon. For the entire morning, the angel and devil were prancing around my head. One pointing to the gloriously cool weather outside, perfect for a solitude run around Macritchie. Mental image of Runners' World cover page lone runner whisking through the trail, lost in the tranquility. The other pointing to the grey clouds tossed like candy floss in the sky. Mental image of lone runner getting chased by monkeys in the rain.

Laziness prevailed, unfortunately. I settled for the guaranteed session of a spin session at the gym. It was a holiday special 1.5h Interval Challenge class by Kee Leong. I had no idea what Interval Challenge was, except that 1.5h seemed a decent workout time. It was raining when I arrived, but the class was full nonetheless. As it turned out, Interval spins were not as fast and furious as RPM (= adrenalin pumping excitement), but focused a lot on hill climbs and building strength (= very very heavy resistance and low cadence). Since I seldom attend Interval spins, I had no way of predicting what was next. I suppose that implied a higher caloric burn? We had 20mins of pure climbs, each songtrack building upon the previous to up the resistance. By the last climb track, our legs were slowed to a crawl. If one should lose the pedalling momentum, one's legs would be 'stuck' in position and unable to 'step down'. That was how heavy the resistance was, so much so that one really had to suck in the abs tightly and crank out power to move the pedals.

The rain stopped by the end of the class. I decided to go for a short 10km run to Marina South Pier and back. Pity the gym was closing soon and there was only time for an 1h run. Deja vu. I had ran the same route 2 days ago. There were less millipedes though. The sun was out and I had no sunshades. Only my trusty water bottle and a packet of Hammergel. I was trying the Tropical flavour, which tasted slightly sour/ fruity, but was less sticky than Powergel.

After the workout, I caught up with Dom and Cedric at the new North Face shop. Quite a decently laid out store, except that I already had too much gear and had nothing else to buy. Cedric's girlfriend from Kaz had just arrived in Singapore yesterday. It was nice to see Cedric in a happy mood, a great xmas and new year present for him. :) Dom had a book on Extreme Running and we pored over pages of extreme races held in various continents - desert, polar, altitude, heat, cold... you name it, they have it. I was extremely fascinated by the Polar marathons in the Antartic and North Pole. Participants ran in snow shoes! These are devices that look like skateboards but with metal 'teeth' underneath so as to have traction on snow. I used them on my Mustagh climb, and clambered about clumsily. Running with them would require a totally different running gait, style and leg power.

My xmas workout felt like a mini duathlon. A meaningful 2.5h pushing the quads and hamstrings, on the 25th day of the month. A compromise between the angel and devil. Merry xmas!