Blink Blink Run

Friday night. SGRunners Blink Blink Run. A night long run that started at 930pm, F2, ECP. Route: 30km to Esplanade and back. Aim: Slow run to condition for Sundown Ultra.

I arrived at F2 carpark at 9pm. A handful of runners were already there. I knew a few of them - Jancy, Anthony, DO, Ronnie, and Benny. The rest went by their SGRz nicks which I could not recall. Everyone switched on their blinking lights for safety, hence the name of the run tonight - Blink Blink. We started off trying to keep to a 6.0 - 6.5min/km pace. The guys deliberately slow jogged behind me for the entire stretch of ECP. It was stressful having such fast runners slowing down and right on my heels. That was my usual easy pace, but for them, it was more like a braking pace. To compensate, they kept up a contiuous chatter behind me. We continued that way to B1, Fort Road, and Mountbatten.

It was a cool night for a run. Not humid, quiet and fresher air. But I was sleepy. I suppressed a few yawns throughout the run. Maybe then the conditioning was not so much the mileage, but getting accustomed to running after bedtime, to overcome that 'sleeping wall' when the body just wanted to shut down and lie down.

There was only so much "braking" and holding back the guys could do. After we turned into Stadium Walk at the McDonalds, we broke into a few groups of runners. I maintained my very-metronome pace throughout. We reached Esplanade in about 1:30-40h, approximately 15km? There was a live band performing at a makeshift outdoor stage. I think it was some Nokia promotion. There was loud music and many people around the area. We stood out in the crowd in our running gear amidst the Friday night party goers. Short toilet break at Esplanade. We wanted to find the ice-cream man, the uncle who sold the $1 ice-cream cones and bread. But Uncle was nowhere to be seen, so we headed back to the next alternative - Kallang Mac.

By then I could feel my hip joint flaring up. Was that the infamous ITB joint? I tried to stretch the band, and continued the run back. It was a good comfortable pace to Mac. The runners bought ice-cream cones and ate as we walked out. However, once I stopped running, the pain returned. Panic! It was a new sensation to me. I could feel the tightness pulling all the way down to the base of the leg. It felt painful just walking. Ok big-time panic. Injury-free was my motto. I strolled out a short distance to Mountbatten and decided to bail-out. That was not the time to be hero and finish another 10km. Mileage was not a problem now. I flagged down a cab and returned to my car at F2. Massage therapy awaited.

Bright New Orange Jersey

A meeting ended late and I only started my run at 7.15pm. Drove into Safra club and saw Julie running alone towards clubhouse. Probably doing her own long run today. Everyone else had started by then, not a single runner in sight. I was wearing my new NB top and shorts. Thought I should test them out for short distances first. NB tops typically are not very absorbant and tend to be heavy with sweat after 20km. So mine was a new Lightning Dry series, bought with this month's 40% Safra discount. An orange top so bright, the traffic can't miss me! The cutting was flattering, and fabric soft. Maybe I should get 1-2 more. The shorts were an acceptable length and had a zippable pocket behind, handy for key & cash.

Went down Henderson Road. My calves were really really tight from Tuesday's hill work and yesterday's crazy spin. Met Linda at the junction of Morse Road, she had just finished her MF loop. I lumbered on, up MF slope. Calves killing! Stopped at the top of slope to stretch both calves and ankles, and saw Teck Hou coming from the opposite direction. Continued the usual MF 10km route, and met Heng and Alber coming up Morse Rd slope again on their 2nd half of run. Somewhere along Harbourfront, Alex appeared from behind. Since he caught up from behind, technically his pace would be faster than mine. But he neither went ahead of nor slowed down behind me. That made it difficult and distracting to run alongside because our natural gait and pace were mismatched.

End of 10km, back to club. Decided not to continue another 5km loop since everyone else was back, and I had lost my running rhythm. Another long run awaits tomorrow. Did a quick abs routine and headed for the shower. Happy with my new top and bottom.

Fresh RPM

My first RPM Challenge in almost a month! KL was finally back from reservist, thank goodness. The freshness of my long-rested RPM legs felt encouraging. Sitting on a bike felt good. The familiar aero-position felt powerful. I went crazy with the music and pumped up the high cadence, spinning and spinning, getting lost in the workout. Sucked in the core, heart pumping, legs flushing with lactic, sweat beads dripping to the bike. One hour, high intensity. Yeah. :)

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....

I am what I eat

Perpetually hungry. Since Sat's and yesterday's long runs.

Sunday 2 Mar 2008
11.45am: Post-run. Huge plate of yummy soya chicken drumstick add-noodles and a horlicks at the hawker centre opposite clubhouse. (Auntie missed us and gave extra noodles!) Still not satisfied.
1.15pm: Drove to IMM. Rumbling stomach. Bought an Azabu Sabo Hokkaido green tea ice-cream (smooth smooth texture)
2.00pm: Had sips of Alber's McDonalds strawberry milkshake (luscious & creamy)
2.45pm: Ate a Crystal Jade almond milk bread (savoury milk powder)
3.00pm: Pinched a couple of my sister's french fries (Mac does the best fries)
7.00pm: Huge bowl of fish soup with brown rice. Added more fish, meat and ginger. (Mum's cooking is the best)
9.00pm: Taiwanese green bean kueh snack
Past midnight: Better sleep or else would feel hungry again!

Monday 3 Mar 2008
7.00am: Woke up, stomach rumbling. Chewed a wholemeal sandwich on way to work.
9.00am: A pack of No-frills sesame soda crackers. Hungry.
12.00nn: Set lunch at Viet Lang with colleagues (3 pcs ngoh hiang appetiser, prawn noodle soup, green bean soup dessert)
2.45pm: Hungry! Crystal Jade almond milk bread (had foresight to buy extra :))
4.45pm: Discussion. Hungry. 2 packs of No-frills sesame soda crackers.
6.00pm: No gym today. Spent an enjoyable 2h catching up on backlog of readings in office.
8.00pm: Petrol kisok. Spotted 2 new flavours of Cornetto Royale ice-cream cones - Chocolate Brownies, and Almond Praline. Hmmm.... mental note to try both soon.
8.30pm: Dinner, finally! Black bean paste fish slice beehoon & vegetables.
9.30pm: Hunt for new Cornetto Royale began. 3 petrol kisoks. Disappointing. No new flavours.
10.00pm: Home. Raided the Cornetto normal vanilla-choc cone from fridge.

Eat and eat... unhealthy junk. This is bad... Need to run.

I am a Metronome

Another back-to-back training weekend, albeit a shorter one. There were surprisingly very few runners this morning. I reached Safra at 720am, the lobby was empty and so was the carpark! I thought the runners had left, but it turned out that there were only a handful of us - Freddy, Ricci, Jimmy, Trevor, Yong, Lai Chee, Alber and myself. All such fast runners (except me lah)! There was also a young chap who came today for the first time. We set off, and the fast ones were soon a couple of hundred km ahead. I would be the sweeper again today. Yong and Alber ran and chatted slightly ahead of me. Yong needed no sweeping, he was so fast at his age, very inspiring.

The weather was very humid this morning, I was drinking a lot from my new Nathan toy. I was going to try and survive on plain water and no gel for as long as I could. I ran at a constant pace. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. So consistent I felt like a metronome! Tick-tock-tick-tock. Flashback to childhood piano playing days, with the metronome going tick-tick-tick-TING in the background. :)

I lost Yong and Alber at the Nicoll Highway. They were behind me after going for a toilet break, and somehow did not cross the junction at Raffles Blvd. I waited at the end of Nicoll bridge before running back to try and find them. I spotted them on the other side of the bridge and motioned for them to take the underpass over. We were using a new route today, Tg Rhu to Fort Rd & ECP B1, instead of the usual Mountbatten Rd. That was my training route in the past, when I trained for marathons before joining Safra. I led them through Indoor Stadium to Tg Rhu and out towards Fort Rd. Deja vu. I had not been on that route for about 1yr. Yong commented that my pace was still very constant. Haha yes, not a metronome for nothing. But maybe I should set this metronome to a higher speed ticktickticktick instead. As we wre running out along Tg Rhu, Lai Chee and Freddy had already u-turned and on their return run in the opposite direction. We reached ECP B1 carpark in about 1:45h, and saw Ricci, Jimmy, and Trevor just turning around. They were orientating the new boy.

I met my friend, Yihui, at the toilet! Surprise! She was there to run at ECP too. After a water break, I set off with Yong and Alber. We decided to take the Mountbatten Rd back and went to buy drinks at the petrol kiosks. Took a few sips of Pocari Sweat - hmmm.... that stuff was quite refreshing. Pressing on. Still no urge for power gel. Good. After 18km, Yong had powered up and went ahead. We lost him around Nicoll Highway. I suggested to Alber to take the Kallang detour to compensate for not returning by Tg Rhu. From Kallang Dragon Boat Association, we looped to Geyland/ ICA, following the dreaded segment of Stanchart marathon to Crawford Lane and back to Esplanade Park. Made the mistake of entering the park because the place was under renovation and we missed the only exit out to Marina Promenade. Which meant hitting a dead end and having to backtrack to the exit. I was reminded again of how I disliked running through the park. Not fainting from lack of power gel yet. There was a nice wind blowing through the park, making the segment more bearable. I started humming to myself for distraction, and psyching myself to go farther without power gel. Hmmm.... I would need a wider repertoire of songs to last 84km!

Exiting onto Raffles Blvd, we ran past the newly opened Singapore Flyer. Was it my eyes playing parallex error trick on me, or was the flyer spinning slowly? The capsules seemed to be moving towards the ground ever so slightly. Mental note to myself - maybe I should try to get tickets for a ride. By now, the wind was giving way to an overcast sky. Soon, little droplets of rain fell. We stopped at the Esplanade Mall for a water refill, when the clouds opened up. Totally. It was a torrential downpour. Luckily we escaped the rain in time. Unluckily though, the run was disrupted. Had $10 on me, tried to get loose change to take a bus, but the shops were not opened yet. No choice, hopped onto a cab back to Safra. Everyone else had returned by then.

Today's achievement - managed 3h with only 6 sips of Pocari, water and no gel! Yes! (So why was I still buying so many gels and drinks if I was trying not to use them? Haha....)

Singapore Biathlon

The annual Singapore Biathlon was held this morning. No, I did not take part. I could not swim to save my life, let alone meet a time trial of 40min for 1.5km. Anyone who tells me that he/she cannot swim, and yet go below 40min is so not in my league of non-swimmer. Many of my friends were racing, so I went to ECP to join in the fun. After dropping Alber off at the F2 carpark in the morning, I drove to B1 Fort Road for a run.

I thought of doing a short run since there was a long 30km planned tomorrow. The weather was nice and cool this morning. I set off, relaxed, and enjoying the morning serenity along the beach. There were a few groups doing morning exercises. One Chinese lady was teaching a group some dance and workout steps, another Malay lady was leading her group in stretching exercises. Further down, a group of uncles and aunties were enjoying their regular dip in the waters. I saw Angela in the opposite direction, who was doing her own long run. There were 2 SAF soldiers patrolling the beach near Marine Vista, and a police patrol car driving up and down the cycling path. Probably a stepped-up patrol presence in response to the recent detainee escape.

I ran from B1, past the seafood lagoon to the hawker centre. It was the biathlon 1km u-turn point. The early waves of biathlon participants had completed their swim and started on their 10k run. From afar, I could hear the incessant beeping as runners crossed the timing mat with their champion chips. I stood at the mat for a while, trying to spot familiar faces. Finally, I saw Helen from Tampines Safra. Shouted 'Hi' to her and she looked momentarily surprised. I continued my run back to B1, bumping into Angela again. I think we must have criss-crossed each other about 4 times today since we were both running up and down repeatedly along ECP.

There was a slight drizzle on the run back. I hoped the organizers would not call off the race, as what happened during last year's OSIM and Triladies. There was no thunder or lightning, and the rain was not heavy, so the race should probably continue. I reached B1 in a start-stop-start-stop rain, and decided to do a quick tempo run to the end of Fort Rd fence and back to the carpark. Distance clocked: about 12ish km. Probably had sufficient time to cover another 5-6km before rushing over to meet the bi-ing group. Took a quick water refill and set off in the direction of Mac about 2.5-3km away. The rain got heavier, but no choice, I was midway into the run. By the time I returned to B1, I was totally drenched. Angela had finished her run and strolling back to the carpark, soaked as well. Completed about 17-18km today.

Called Alvin Ong and found out that the guys had finished their events. Oops! I hurriedly drove over to meet up with them. Getting into the car with squishy clothes and dirty shoes was a challenge. I tried to minimize my contact with the seats etc. Grrr...... I would need to clean the car in the afternoon.

Met Peter and Margaret as I was walking towards the race site. She came to cheer his inaugural biathlon, how supportive! :) Sumiko won 5th prize so the guys were waiting for her prize collection. I think she gets a healthy extra allowance each month simply by winning at events. Haha. Melvin was there with his boy, and Trevor too. We took a couple of photos in various combinations. Everyone was in a jovial mood and we went for lunch at the hawker centre.

I really cleaned out the car when I reached home. I could now totally understand why guys were obsessed with polishing and waxing their cars. I pulled out all the carpets and vacuumed them thoroughly. Then I wiped every inch of the interiors with an anti-bacterial spray. Even wiped parts of the exterior, though I think the $6 car wash would do a better job. There, the car's interior was sparkling clean and smelling fresh. :)