Low, Flat & Out of Sugar

Had a very good Javanese massage last night, which knocked me out totally until 10am this morning. Had almost 12h of blissful sleep. Must be the accumulated sleep deficit over the past weeks!

But anyhow, woke up somewhat panicky because I had tonnes of things to do today and still had to squeeze in a run. Fine. Got organised, drank some yoghurt and chomped a mini-Snickers, and headed out. It was hot this morning, the sun was blazing. It got cooler into the trail though. I ran my usual weekend long run route to MR and looped once. I contemplated running a second loop, but was starting to feel flat.

Ok, ridiculous me. For all my running experience and endurance sports and yada-yada, how could I screw up a run because of lack of food?! I normally only carried water and could go about 4h without feeling hungry or low sugar. But (and a huge qualifying 'but') I also normally would (a) have some breakfast before run, or (b) start early so that the body was not overly-deprived. Flouted both rules today. (a) no breakfast, and (b) started too late, plus had dinner too early last night, resulting in more than 12h of no food in the system. Brilliant recipe for failure.

Continuing on my flat plodding... I walked a couple of upslopes, ran the downslopes, strolled a little on Rifle Range Road, and admonishing myself along the way. Finally, finally got through all the obstacles without collapsing or anything dramatic. Took 20min longer than usual. Bumped into friends near home and must have looked like a disaster - totally drenched from sweat and dehydrated-looking from the sun, and just shuffling my feet along. Reached home and immediately downed some yoghurt drink, an apple and a piece of choc. Ahhh sugar replenished. Silly me...

Run & Soup

Had an ultra quick 1.5 loops at MR. The weather was excellent this afternoon but I did not have enough time to complete two rounds. :( Had to turn around about 1km to the trail exit and head back. I bumped into KC along the golf course on the way back. He was going in the opposite direction, but we had a group dinner to catch. So he turned and ran back with me. Alas he went so fast that I gave up keeping pace after a while.

Dinner was a soupy affair at a double-boiled soup place in Sin Ming. We had a total of 26 'pots' of
soup! Heavens.

Nice Long Run

I had a whole day of workshop facilitation today, so it was nice to be having a long run in the evening for the mind to tune out and reflect. We did the 14km Portsdown - MOE - Alexandra route. I was late and ran with Alber. It was an easy slow run, not that I was capable of anything faster either. We did not see any of the other runners until Depot Rd and nearing Safra.

I relished the time alone to think to myself. I had another workshop coming up and was cracking my brain on how to design it. The run was a perfect opportunity to mull over possible ideas.

A great session at work today, followed by a nice long run, that triggered more ideas for the upcoming workshop. Ended off with an entire plate of nai-bai (vegetables) all to myself! Ahh total bliss. :)

Fish Soup Sign

The cleaning auntie suddenly showed up at my lunch table:

Auntie: I was dieting. (proudly, pointing to my fish-soup)
PS: uh-huh.
Auntie: I lost kgs. (still smugly, still pointing)
PS: uh-huh.
Auntie: And I'm still losing weight. (very pleased with herself)
PS: ??!!?!?! (wonders why she thought I needed that information... a sign!)

Treadmill Rat 2

Another hour on the treadmill. It was a rainy and windy day. I was not keen to head outside. So I was stuck on the treadmill again today. It was not too bad actually, I could stare at my mirror reflection and look at my strides and try to focus on landing properly.

Dinner with colleagues at THE Cheesecake Factory. I had a Monterey Cheeseburger and shared a Stefanie Ultimate Red Velvet cheesecake with C -- Moist layers of Red Velvet Cake and Original Cheesecake covered with special Cheesecake Factory cream cheese frosting. OMG!

And pinched a mouthful of B's Adam's Peanut Butter Cup Fudge Ripple Creamy Cheesecake Swirled with Caramel, Peanut Butter, Butterfingers® and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups®.

I would need 3h on the treadmill!

Cop-out Run

The ambitious 3h super long run plan crumbled in the cool sea breeze of the evening. In its place, I did a slow trot - really really slow, took forever to reach the u-turn at G2 toilet - for 1.5hr. And called it quits. Pointless to go on with that slow pace, un-motivated and un-inspired. Must be one of those days when running beyond 40min became a hopeless pain. Junk miles? Shoo, out with them.

Bailed out plan. Semi-ran to hawker centre, flagged a cab back to my car. Showered and made my way to sashimi!

And how brilliant was it to then meet my mum and relatives there as well, after I had tucked into half a slab of salmon belly and grilled saba etc... Thankfully there was no secret rendezvous in operation. Haha. And for the record, over-ordered and yes, it was totally possible to OD on sashimi and fish. I'm now so sodium-intoxicated (from soy sauce wasabi), I'm gulping water by the bottle....

More Loopy Runs & Sinful Meals

Tues - managed to squeeze in 5 loops round the lake and ended at 915pm. The lake was well-lit and safe. Chilly weather tonight. Clocked another sub-12min loop. Had a nice beef steak for dinner.

Wed - was in Estonia, no run. Eat, eat, eat.... Only brief exercise was walking around the Medieval Old Town, and walking 2-3hrs out to a park.

Thurs - returned late to Helsinki. Ferry was delayed. Shared 3 slices of very good (very sinful) crumbles and cakes with colleague. Had to run after all the food and cakes. Cham.... Checked in hotel and dashed out. Already 830pm and getting dark. Only had time for 4 loops. :( It was getting late. Bought myself a nice reindeer roast. The restaurant kindly agreed to my request for a half-sized portion at half-price!

Conference Starts and a Mad Dash

The Innovation Conference started this afternoon. Now what is a conference without the food review? :)

Lunch was buffet and I was fascinated by the giant slabs of grilled salmon! Yoohoo, my favourite! Then a series of presentations and more presentations. And tea break - raspberry cream cheese cake, and sugared almond pies (with viscously thick caramel sauce). Die... calorie and sugar overload. The conference dinner had starters of bread, fatty slices of smoked salmon, cream cheesy stuff. Main course was veal (looked like steak until I took a bite) with potato crepes. Dessert was a traditional Finnish 'bread-cheese' pie, with cloud berries that could only be found in Lapland.

I managed to squeeze in a very fast run for 20min just before dinner. There was a lake opposite my hotel, each round was about 2ish km. I had to run fast, it felt like interval training, and did 2 rounds. But looking at the food I had been having,.... I needed many more rounds. :(

Makan Index Increased by Cold Swim

Makan index for the day -
Breakfast - sandwich, 2 cups of tea
Snack - couple of CNY cookies, 3 pieces of sugar-crackers (no choice, pack of 3, haha)
Lunch - fish soup + rice (very generous portions! and uncle charged me less for less rice, hard to find stalls like that nowadays), almond paste (waitress changed it when I commented it was too liquid, unexpected good service), 2 cups of tea
Snack - Cereal drink + muesli bar
Dinner - Claypot chicken & mushroom + rice (rather disappointing... tsk tsk), horlicks
Snack - ..... I'm working on that right now! Haha

Swimming class was not as cold today despite the rainy afternoon. I told Coach he had to explain less and make us swim more, or else too cold & freeze. :) Anyway I was late, had to rush out an email at work before I could go. Only managed to catch a few drills and we started on training - 500m, 400m, 200m, chasing-sprints 8x 50m, and then treading water (ouch my poor legs...). Shower was cold though, I came out of it shivering, goosebumps all round. Brrr.....

Off to HK tomorrow. Can't wait to check out the winter clearance on gear! Mammut, Montane, Salomon, Nike, Rockport..... tip of the iceberg. :)

Accidental Brick

A quick entry since I'm super way past zzzzz time.

Perpetually hungry the whole day and ate non-stop. Like really eat..... breakfast nutella sandwich in car, 2 cups of earl grey tea in office, some CNY snacks during meeting, wanton noodles soup for lunch + peanut butter donut (cos noodles was so light & healthy!), resisted buying snacks, 2 cups of vanilla tea in office, resisted sinful chips, oat cereals drink + muesli bar. Workout @ Safra. Shared dinner with Adam - stir-fried bittergourd with egg, + steamed fish head (enough to feed 3-4!) & rice, + assortment of munchies. Felt guilty. Made a big mug of camomile tea at home.

Training wise - swam 20 laps (because I was late), and ran a short Canterbury-Henderson route. Did not intentionally plan a brick training though, it just happened. Foot felt fine, hope it remains fine in HK.

RPM Relax!

It rained the entire afternoon, washed out all plans of run or swim. In any case, it was Challenge Day. The class was fully subscribed within 10 min of opening the registration. Luckily I went early.

My usual corner bike was replaced by a brand new one. The resistance knob was stiff and tight, and it was hard to make incremental adjustments, short of cranking up/ down a huge resistance. I rode relaxedly tonight, wanted to save my legs for HK.

On my way home, I stopped by Daily Scoops ice-cream cafe at Sunset Way. I had heard about it, but only found its exact location a few months ago, and finally got to try it tonight. After various samplings, I settled on a double scoop Crunchy Peanut Butter and Salted Mr Brown(ie). The ice cream texture was slight melty though, I would prefer it to be more frozen. Not all the flavours were creamy and rich though, I found the vanilla too 'light'. Nonetheless, the flavours I ordered tasted rich and decent enough. Great! I think I would be back very often, enroute home! :)

Monthly Eats - Ming Kee

It was time for our monthly 'try new good food'. Tonight's destination was Ming Kee Live Seafood Restaurant (556 Macpherson Road), for crab bee hoon. Menu for the night:

- iced cucumber with wasabe dip (refreshing but I could have done it myself at home)
- nai bai vegetables poached with 3 eggs (also a comfort food to me :))
- frog legs with chicken essence (soup stock was tasty enough, frog leg succulent)
- mussels stir-fried with egg-tomato gravy (no comments, I don't take mussels, but looked good. Other tables had steamed mussels)
- mongolian pork chop (no complaints)
- crab bee hoon (dry) (wow! bee hoon totally infused with crab's taste, v good!)
- steamed shark meat (generous big platter of shark meat, and bits of shark's fins still attached)
- yam paste (again, no complaints, just nice, not too sweet)

Plus 3 bottles of wine...... Sleepy....... after all the indulgence.
Plus no runs, guess where all that extra calories would lodge themselves....... Oops.

Busy Busy Saturday

It was hectic day. I had an interview early in the morning, and I woke up late because my alarm failed to sound! After a series of slow traffic and wrong turns, I finally entered the interview room 5min late. Argh. Thankfully the interview chat went well. Keeping my fingers crossed for the results.....

Then I scooted to Riders Cafe to meet Lee for brunch. She got me a set of Oakley vented persimmon night lenses for my M-frames. Yeah! We chilled out at the cafe, had an overoad of eggs - omelete and benedict, followed by a lovely creme brulee.

The sun was lovely. I stuck to my initial plan of swimming at the Home Team NS Club at BT Gombak. It was nice, about 7-8 swimmers in a 8-lane 50m lap pool. I did my 30laps before the kids descended upon the pool in their pyjamas and blazing neon swim suits.

Next stop, meeting my climb mates to discuss our Dec expedition. Hmm... would need to figure out how to squeeze in training for my climb.

Monthly Eats - Big Eater

Monthyl eats for this month - Big Eater Seafood Restaurant (34 Jln Pari Burong, opp Jln Chempaka Kuning). We had a bigger turnout tonight, which meant more food. :)

Dishes we had:
- fried beancurd skin (crisp and fresh)
- frog legs with chicken essence (first time trying such a style of cooking, love the soup broth)
- salted egg crab (I'm not a crab eater, but gravy was excellent)
- black pepper crab
- fried hokkien mee (KL black sauce style) (noodles texture was very smooth and soft, best I'd tried)
- .......
(could not recall the rest)

The restaurant had strings of empty crab shells hanging down the walls, filled with customers' wishes and greetings. We wasted no time too in getting a shell from the staff, and squeezing in our birthday wishes for Heng onto a tiny little shell. :)

Definitely worth a repeat visit, except for its faraway location.

Aching Butt Ride

Had a slow lazy brunch at Riders Cafe again. Tried the breaded fish & chips this time - pretty decent. Love the home fried potatoes. Alber had the Riders burger and it was good. The strawberry milkshake was made from real strawberries, nice. Vanilla milkshake was sinful too. Next visit I should try the fluffy pancakes and the egg benedict again. Many surrounding patrons had ordered the egg benedict and I had so much food envy eyeing those lovely sunny eggs!

Went for a ride in the late afternoon with the guys. It had been months since I last used my cleats. I tried and wobbled many times before I got my shoe clipped in, and darn, there were many traffic light junctions! Eddie, Alber and I rode from my house to meet up with JD & Sumiko at Ten-mile Junction, before proceeding to Mandai & Sembawang. It was a route with many rolling slopes. Nevermind all those, I was busy concentrating on my clumsy cleats. Eddie was super fast on his MTB and thick, fat tires. He was nice enough to keep looking back, wait and guide me along. Alber was behind me, lest I toppled over. Oops, but at least I managed to regain confidence on the cleats after some time.

We stopped at a coffeeshop in Sembawang for drinks. It was about 20km of riding. We contemplated whether to loop to Seletar or return home. Everyone felt lazy. It certainly did not help that the tables surrounding us were tucking into seafood dinners! Haha.... It was suppose to be a leisure ride, so we looped back. The plan was to go home, get a nice shower, then head out for dinner - on 4-wheels. We made it home safely, except for an aching butt. My legs were ok (RPM classes not wasted), but not the butt. Ouch, had to get seasoned with my saddle again.

Brought the group to Commonwealth cooked food stall next to the hawker centre. Cheap and good. 6 pax, 5 dishes, about $56. It was my 2nd visit in a week. Worth repeated visits again.

Carbo-loading!

Had a wonderful carbo-loading (that's a good excuse for indulging!) with a group of runners. 10 hearty delicious dishes that worked out to only S$27 per person. Quality food, good wine, great company. Makes one forget the bad timings, the poor races, the lacklustre trainings. No comparisons, no competition, no envy. Just a 3hr happy sharing of race experiences, quirky boo-boos as 1st-timers, encouraging exchanges of dos & don'ts, and a suspension of judgement on one another. That's what makes running in a group fun. :)

New GT2130 Trail Shoes

I proabably have more trail shoes than running trails in Singapore. I added another to my collection recently, the Asics GT2130-trail, and tested them out at MR this morning. This is the off-road version of the popular road shoe and seemed promising. It had the same sole construct as the GT2130 and was relatively lighter than my North Face(s) and Salomon. Admittedly though, those were Gore-tex lined so they tended to be much heavier.

The GT-trail shoe felt comfortable and familiar. As with all new shoes, my feet took a little while to get used to them, but the discomfort disappeared after about half an hour. The toe area of the shoe was roomy and did not cause any hotspots, unlike my other trail shoes. Yeah, I would not have to tape my toes anymore with this pair of shoes.

After I exited the Northern Trail and hit the tarmac towards SICC, I was pleasantly surprised to feel the shoe's cushiony bounce. It delivered more cushion on the hard road without feeling like a heavy drag. Usually trail shoes gave very good support in the trails but were heavy on the roads. Road shoes, on the other hand, were great on roads (duh...), but I would loathe to wreck them on the rocks. Yet in Singapore, it was difficult to find a stretch of pure trails for long distance running. So our trail runs always ended up a 50-50 mix, resulting in a less than satisfactory choice of shoes. The GT-trail felt like a good balance for both trail and tarmac.

I ran to Upper Pierce toilet, took a break and turned back. Re-entering the trails at the "25"kmh mark, the GT-trail offered good support over the rocky paths. Its soles were also thick enough to cushion against the jabs of stepping over sharp rocks and debris. However, I realised that its front was not as reinforced (aka hardened) as my other trail shoes. The advantage was that I would not get any more bruised toe nails from hitting the shoe. The bad news was that you could kick a rock and bruise the toe. Hmmm....

It was a hot day for a late morning run, even at MR. I was drenched by the time I finished my 15km run. Bumped into Alex and chatted about bicycles for a while. After washing up, I met KC at Riders Cafe for lunch. The cafe came highly recommended by a colleague. It was a quaint place done up in dark wooden tones, non-aircon but lots of natural ventilation and ceiling fans. It was a nice place to chill, read the papers, and have a lazy meal. We ordered a Veggie Benedict, a grilled Ham n Cheese sandwich, and a vanilla milkshake. The food was good. The egg benedict was nicely done. Atop a toasted open-faced muffin was a layer of spinach and mushrooms, topped with an egg. The egg white was fluffy and quivering, egg yolk a cheerful liquid yellow, with a layer of melted cheddar cheese over the yolk. Oooh lovely. The fried cut potatoes (aka chips) that came with the sandwich were great too - salted, crispy and fat. But the sandwich itself was a tad disappointing. The toasted bread was too dry. The vanilla shake was rather good too - thick, frothy, and well, vanilla-fragranced. Definitely worth a return to try a couple of other items on the menu. But be sure to visit only after a workout! :)

Dinner Discovery

Island creamery! Had a craving for the entire week. Finally satisfied it tonight. :) Horlicks & teh tarik double scoop, drowned in horlicks powder. Oooh luscious heavens. But first, dinner before desserts.

Went with Alber to hunt for a new dinner venue. We ended up at Commonwealth hawker centre intending to have black bean paste bee hoon, but decided to explore the area instead. We walked past the HK Street Fish Steamboat coffeeshop. Hidden at an obscure corner of the said coffeeshop was a Vietnamese stall. Cheap and authentic food cooked by a Vietnamese auntie. Everything was priced at $3.50 for a small and $5.50 for large portion. It looked good, we decided to try it.

Alber ordered a beef noodle soup. The "small" was a surprisingly large and generous bowl of beef rice noodles. The soup tasted nice without MSG. I had a BBQ chicken dry noodles - spicy, whew, my tongue was burning! But tasty. The chicken had a sweet coconut taste to it. We also had a traditional Vietnamese rice paper spring roll. It was decent, except that it tasted like a wrapped up version of my noodles. Same ingredients minus the chicken. Ahhh. And best of all, total damage was only $10.50. Immediately sms Alvin to come and try next time. Auntie was so happy when Alber complimented her food, she kept slapping him on the shoulder and even offered us some sweet tapioca dessert FOC! Haha. Of course he declined. Perhaps next time we could try some. :)

Muffin Revenge

Massage time. First comment to me "you seemed to have gained weight...". Flashback to last week's massage. Different shop, different lady. Same comment "you seemed more plump....".

Horrors (with a capital "H")!! Those muffins are back! All that running came to naught?

Probably the result of over indulgence last week. Conferences and food galore. Pre-dawn nasi lemak & oily fried bee hoon suppers after night runs. And the almost-daily Cornetto Royale Sweetheart Brownie cones. Not forgetting the irresistable melt-in-mouth peanut butter cheesecake. With the all-time killer butter sponge cake. Plus the cheese pretzel & japanese soya rice cracker snacks in the office over the last week. Bubur hitam with coconut juice. Geez.... typing out the list already makes me feel like a glut. Oops.

Mental note to myself - soupy lunch for the week.

Sashimi & Peanut Butter Cheesecake

No run tonight. Yeah. Had a feast of sashimi - salmon belly! - ended with japanese ice-cream fresh (frozen) from the freezer. Reached home and polished off a slice of peanut butter cheesecake. Something interesting from Allan Bakes.

Initially I took a pinch of the cake. Oooh, peanut butter blended into the cheese. Then I took a 2nd tiny pinch. Enough, as I placed the cake back into the fridge. I should not be eating that at 1030pm. My mum and sis came by and took a bite each, with good reviews. Half an hour later, resistance crumbled and I promptly finished the last bits of the cake. The cake was a kick, just the right balance of peanut butter and cheese.

For peanut butter lovers, the cake came 3rd to (1) licking peanut butter off the jar directly, and (2) peanut butter chocolate shake @ Steeples, Tanglin Shopping Centre.