New Telok Blangah Hill Intervals

New training route today. Telok Blangah hills - down the slopes and steps that we normally came up by, out to Telok Blangah, Henderson, enter TB Park via the long upslope opposite Safra. I think the distance was about 1.7 - 1.8km per loop. We did 5 sets.

1st set - familiarizing with the route. The slopes and steps seemed rather steep, bad for knees and hips. Better go down slowly. Out to the flat roads for recovery. Up the long slope which was too long to "take one deep breath and chiong all the way up". Heng said at least I had the foolishness to try and chiong the slope. Could not see the front pack of runners at all. Was overtaken by Peter, Heng, Zhiwei and Hee Shen. For the next 3 sets, I maintained about the same distance behind and kept them in sight, sometimes running with Zhiwei and Hee Shen.

2nd set - managed to speed up a little now that I knew the route. 3rd set - lower calves near the ankles were burning, that old familiar numbing sensation because of poor blood circulation there. Ricci was coming down the slope in the opposite direction. I found out later that he just concentrated on dashing up the slope and jogging down slowly, skipping the steps section to ease the impact on his knees. Sounded good too, I might try that someday.

4th set - tried to recover legs on the down and flats. Puffed my way up the slope. Had to finish the assigned 5 loops, so pressed on for the last set. 5th set - butt started feeling the strain. Attempted to chiong up slope for a strong 'victorious' finish, but sustained the faster pace only about 3/4 up the slope. Finally finished, thorougly soaked with sweat. Chairman was saying something to me about doing a 6th recovery set, and how the training was .... yadahyadahyadah... Mind tuned out because I was still panting away and could not reply him! Some of the runners did a 6th loop. Saw Alber and Linda returning from their extra set. I chatted with Jimmy and this other young guy (can't recall name) about the recent biathlon.

I did my abs routine in the gym. Experimented again with that Swiss Hip Extension exercise, still wobbly and could not stabilize. Did a wobbly 10 leg lifts on each side. Legs felt very very heavy and tired after the run. One thing about a hard run was that it made me sleepy. Yawn....