Spent my entire weekend preparing (or pretending to) for my last paper on Monday. Prof very generously loaded us with two sets of 70pg "supplementary" readings on Thurs night, and expected us to digest all of that over the weekend. :( Alber was off to Kapas for the 6.5km swim in Malaysia and I was stuck at home with the stacks of papers and notes.
It poured heavily on Saturday morning, the land-sliding kind of rain. Perfect excuse not to run and get focused on my readings. Goodness gracious, the readings were so dry, it took me an average of 1h to get through 10 pages. And in between that, I managed to wipe the floor and do my laundry (that showed how uninspiring the cases were...). I finally finished the first set of readings after 6-7h! Tak boleh tahan (Malay slang for "cannot take it!"), it was now late afternoon. I decided to ditch the case and head for the trails. A short run became about 1:40h but it was nice and cool in the trails by evening time. I ran through the MTB trail, Zhenghua 3x loops, and back the MTB trail. After the run, I contemplated ordering pizza delivery, or MacDonalds, or KFC... yes all that junk! And then resisted all of that and drove to a nearby coffeeshop for dinner instead. After an entire day of cereals and yoghurt, I needed something savory.
Sunday morning, yes! Bright sunshine and very hot weather. Time for another long run, uninterrupted, no time pressure. I was about to step out when I spotted a dead bird in my balcony! The poor thing must have kamikaze-d into the glass doors thinking it could fly through, smashed right into it, thud-ded onto my outdoor table (there were feathers all over the table), before dropping dead on the floor. Ouch. :( It was a rather pretty bird, with yellow and green feathers. Quite big-sized too.
Anyhow, I finallly managed to get to my run. It was blazing hot out there, and I sought refuge in the trails. But even then, it was extremely humid. My shirt was sticking to me and I was literally dripping with sweat. By the time I got to MR, I had almost finished my water. I extended my normal route slightly by about 30min (a few kilometres). The extension was to the Ranger Station and to the barricade, and back, before continuing with the normal MR loop. At some point I regretted the extension because suddenly my legs were feeling very unrecovered from last night's run. And I was simply wilting under the weather. But I had a study group discussion to get to, so I had to get home in time by hook or crook. So no choice, pressing on.... Finally finished the 3:30h run. Possibly about 26.5km?
Monday - last paper! Rest day too.
Tuesday - Labour Day and a much-needed public holiday. Woohoo! Again, a blazing hot day. There were some intermittent clouds, but otherwise, it was hot. I ran my usual BT-MR route, and saw Jancy & Vincent. They were training for the Great Wall marathon - wow, that's a tough one. There were many hikers and families in the trail today, and they were sitting/ resting everywhere on the open grass patches, especially near the golf course area. I was part amused by the sight (have never seen so many 'picnicking' groups before) and part worried that they might get hit by flying golf balls! I also saw a guy who managed to hook a beautiful fish - not sure what it is called, but it had a white-silver base, with black and yellow stripes. It was quite a big fish, and he then released it back into the water. Running on.... after my third bottle of water, I got out of the trails and bumped into Jancy & Vincent again. We were all drenched and dying from the heat. Managed to get home in 3h. Whew! Absolutely toxic with sweat! But loving it. :)
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