Sea Swim & Trails

I was late for this morning's sea swim. Oops. Too tired from last night's outing. I missed a few laps and only did 1 warm-up lap of the 250(?)m triangular loop. Then we were grouped into 2, 3, and 4 loops. Coach instructed us to try all sorts of 'stunts' - backstroke, sighting, overtaking etc - while doing the loops. We ended with relay sprints in teams of 4 swimmers. My group had a really young Sec 2 boy who was very very fast. I swam first, then 2 others, and he took the last slot. While we were around 3rd placing, he managed to propel us to 1st spot each time. He was not even sprinting nor panting. The way he cut and glided through the water was so effortless, it was a joy to watch from the shore. He took his time to breast-stroke and once clear of the crowd around the buoy, he took off into front crawl. It was like watching a musical symphony, in harmony, smoothly executed. While the other swimmers were furiously pumping arms into the water, he just cut ahead. Wow.

Late in the afternoon, I went to BT for trail training. As usual, 3x SRJ paths. Pack felt heavier even though the items were unchanged from before. It was almost dark when I finished my training. Had to rush back for a wedding dinner.

Night Safari Visit

I had a couple of corporate passes to Night Safari this weekend. So we went for a visit tonight - Heng's family, Eddie's family, Alber and I. The evening started off with a very nice home-cooked dinner at Heng's place, thanks to Eve's cooking skills. :) We brought a cheesecake and 2 tubs of new-flavoured B&Js ice-cream (One Cheesecake Brownie & Cake Batter). B&Js never failed me, and those were no exception. The ice-cream was rich, creamy and ooooh. The Breadtalk cheesecake was not up to my expectations though, more like fluffy whipped cream-cheese.

We made it to Night Safari, hopped on the tram and took a ride around the enclosures. It was a good experience for the children. Some of the animals were pretty close to the tram, grazing on the grass or sleeping, and generally ignoring the human visitors. We took a short stroll in the trails, and ended with a Nights of the Creature animal show. Pretty decent stuff and great visitor experience overall. :)

MR Trail Test-of-Reflexes Run

I love running in the trails. Back at MR this morning (well, it was more like noon) in the blazing heat. There was a new carpark in construction, it looked really big and would be a great help to easing the parking limits at MR. I decided to run to Pierce toilet and back.

It was certainly a test of my reflexes. I almost stepped on a sunbathing grass snake, which was brown and looked like a twig. It slithered away fast and furious before I even lifted my foot over it. I was more shocked than it. The monkeys were out in a troops today, seldom saw so many in MR. I kept slapping my thighs to create 'warning' noise (lest they attacked), and almost missed a giant monitor lizard in the middle of the path. Had to jam-brake! As I was afraid to jump over it, I had no choice but to jog on the spot and wait for it to slowly crawl across the path. A little further up, I saw another monitor lizard again. Gosh! Met Chairman and a Safra lady runner as I was finishing my run. Hmmm, clocking mileage at this stage of marathon training?

The run was good, legs felt bouncy. Love the softness of grass and trail. :)

Yellowfish Swim - Conned to Sprint

I had a good tui-na yesterday. After the kneading on my neck and entire spine, I could breathe much easier today. Consequently, swim class was a lot more productive and manageable (compared to last week's heaving and puffing and blocked nose full works).

I was late and reached only at 7pm, and missed 15min of drills. :( I joined in for some side rolls and then some 50m of back-stroke, breast-stroke, butterfly, front crawl, before we started on training laps. There was a weird soreness in my left biceps/ shoulders. Could it be the effect of my Tetanus jab yesterday? Sure it was not that lasting.... but the muscle around the jab prick was really sore. I could sort of rotate my arm, but not really 'pull' the water.

We did 450m, 350m, 250m, 200m. Then 50m sprints. Coach said 8 sets for lanes 3-4, and 6 sets for lanes 1-2. After the 1set however, he claimed we were very disorganized, so not counted and restarted from zero. Wah seh, kenna conned! Haha. So we dutifully did 6 more sets. Then another con. He said rest for 2min and do another set of 6 sprints. *blink* Mental calculation - that meant 12 sprints?!? Breath got faster. Maybe Coach was teasing us, and after some protests, he ended after 3 sprints. Whew....

TB Stairs

I did 8 sets of TB stairs tonight. I was slower, but legs definitely felt more conditioned for stairs than my last 2 trainings. I met Lihui in the stairs, the girls had a media launch this morning. My knee hurt a little on some steps. Hmm....

Run Alone

I did a run by myself from Safra to Portsdown, Buona Vista, Queensway and back. 14km route. It took me forever. I decided not to wear the patella guard today. So knee started hurting after 8-10km. Sigh. The 14km took me a long long time to complete. Felt so disgusted with myself. Totally envious of those who can run fast and pain-free. :((

Climb or Not?

Felt well-rested today (slept a lot yesterday). Did RPM Challenge tonight, but was very distracted. I was planning several things in my mind, and did not feel like pushing hard. Oh well. The class was full, I almost could not get a bike.

Friends were planning another major climb next year. Contemplating if I should join them or not. Times are bad, cash is tight, USD is expensive. Maybe I should decide after my year-end climb and judge my condition. La-li-la...