2014; HI i am back!

Its been a long while, i have done many things and none have been recorded. 3 years is a long time to write about, during that time, i have completed 2 ironmans( 2011 and 2012), 70.3's( 2010, 2011); a long course in meta tri( 2011); 2 marathons, ultra-s; whatever.

Not too bad but after the 2012 Ironman Regensburg, everything slowed to a crawl. Sure I still rode, swam and ran but i was beginning to resent the structured training that took up all of my time; and the stress that i experienced when i miss a training slot.

After these races, i spent all of this year and last only with an occasional event and even that degenerated to nothing by this year. The fact that i developed plantar fasciitis that took 6 months to recover didn't help, as did the transition into private practice and moving house all conspired to keep all semblance of structure in training out.

This year though, i really felt my age. I really took a long time recover from a training session, i had motivational issues and i picked up a shoulder injury that till now hasn't gone away. I have lots of age lines on my face and with a thinning pate, gosh it made for an excellent paltform to wallow in some serious mudpool of self-pity.

A random watsapp from an old friend HHP perked me up. He had back surgery and was really motivated to have rehabilitation and was aiming to run the marathon again. We used to be old neighbours at school and he was the national cross country champion. I told him about my seemingly poisonous malaise and that i actually was starting to loathe the training that goes on. He put it quite in perspective and i am thankful. " racing is not about narcissm or a need to prove a point. Racing at our age would not win us any races but you will have the satisfaction of completion, the satisfaction of a quiet regimen that serves to keep you focused otherwise you will not train".

i wuoldn't say i am back to racing in a big way but i anticipate i should be racing a bit so that i can train with a purpose

Lost opportunities?

Well its been about 1 month after the Singapore 70.3. I had to nurse a bad case of road rash; daily dressings on my ever increasing scars on my shoulders and hip; i ruefully noted i had fallen on the same spot 2 times in 2 years! Thereafter it was the frozen shoulder as a result of reduced mobility that took 1 week to sort out.  I also made the ill-advised attempt to switch to barefoot running and after running twice at a grand total of 5 km at true worm pace of 8min/km, i developed a tendo archilles strain that wouldn't go away. Finally I was all ready to go and then I came down with the flu for a whole week. At the start of the week, I was all raring to go and then suddenly I had a heck of lot of cases to clear at work, including a near all-nighter of a case. Thankfully I fixed the problem by midnight but the die has been cast, no training the next day as I was dead tired from the surgery.

Lost opportunities or part and parcel of the game. My good friend CH and I always remind ourselves in our pursuit of triathletic passions that we remain grounded and not be deluded into the possibility of being podium finishers. In short, we are the Ironman journeymen, the guys who go out to race because we enjoy it; the sure act of endurance training day in and day out( ok, not quite daily) justifies and makes up for the numbers on race day. Personal victories in dealing with what we initially thought to be insurmountable odds; the pursuit of excellence other than our vocations which for the greater parts of our lives was an all- consuming passion.

But in pursuing this hobby, we end up with adopting attitudes akin almost to "resenting our occupation getting in the way of our past times" and gasp God forbid, family time eating up our training time because of our obsession and we view them as lost opportunities for training. That is what I thought would be a sentiment which requires thoughtful rejection.

As such, I am grateful for the opportunity to train and engage in what I enjoy when time permits and numero uno is family time and work time: maybe that's why I am crap at triathlons!

IMWA 2011

Well i have signed up for the IMWA; was supposed to have done it last year but procrastination, stories of shark sightings all culminated to a belated registration which of course closed a lot earlier than i had anticipated. Just as well as i would have been really unprepared for it.

Well, this year i hope i should be. After having done 3 70.3's  and some O.D's and sprints, I should be ready. Its still sometime more and I should use this"off season" to do some strength training. with renewed responsibilities at work and the prospect of being called now at ungodly hours, i worry about whether i can keep to a reasonable training program. Well all in due time.

The skin loss has re-epithelialised so i am back to some light training. Down with a slight flu I caught over the weekend so will go slow first.

Singapore Aviva 70.3 2011 race report

in truth, this erace was very different from last year's race. For one, I came into this with another race under my belt( the Asia-Pacific 70.3 in Phuket 3 months ago). I had trained and swam further than i did last year coming into the race, my bike has been upgraded to a 1080 set of wheels. i am also in an older age group!

The swim was tough this year, and with the strong currents, we kept being pushed closer towards shore. In the end i think i swam probably 500 metres more! i got out of the water on the first lap and was surprised that i took 30 minutes. the second lap was any better and i finished the swim at 1:03, a PW( even worse than the Phuket race!). KL who was 2 waves behind me came out of the water about the same time as me; but i was comfortable out of the water and in fact felt good, certainly better than last year!

The bike route was a fast course and once on the coastal road, i went aero and was averaging 33 km/hr comfortably; there was a bit of a headwind but nothing that was too tough. I finished the first lap at an average of 30 km/hour and realised the last 3 km leading into transition and out the speeds could not be more than 27 km/hr because it was narrow. i pushed a little harder and got behid kc. this time, we were averaging 35-36 km/h and going faster all the time, no doubt with a tailwind! kc pushed forward and i rode a little more conservatively; and then it happened.. as i reached aviation house, my gaze landed on an athlete on the ground. i hit the vertical grrove on the road which was a rut from the interface between tarmac and cement and went down heavily on my right; i was still in an aero position on the ground. my right shoulder hit the ground at speed and i slid for about 2 meters. i tried to get up and a sharp pain emanated from my shoulder.My first thought was i had probably fractured my clavicle . As i stood up and bore weight, i experienced another sharp stab of pain in my right hip. Skins come off i reckon and visually confirmed it. I was in amazement my zoot ultra shorts was not torn and tattered like my orca when i fell last year. Race is over for me nad i sat there forlorn waiting for the ambulance. after awhile; i felt better and a few shoulder rotations later, i thought i have what it takes to complete the race still. I hopped onto my bike and amidst protests from the well meaning stewards and promply got off the saddle again. the drivechain had been dislodged so i had to get off again and re-fixed it. As i rode on i glanced at my speedo and realised despite that 15 minutes enforced stop, i still averaged 31 km/hr. I rode a little more conservatively on the 3rd loop and because of my injuries all raw and burning averaged about 29km/hr. I got into transition at 2:55 and had some cramps building up on my left leg. I must thank all my fellow athletes who encouraged me during the race! Met CH at transition and i actually took my time to make sure i had my nutrition and all the gear on before i started the run. I got out and was doing a 5:45 pace till the 5 km mark when i developed cramps on my left side. spasms started over my intercostals( a first!) and left leg, no doubt i have paid the price of pushing on the bike leg utilising my left muscles a bit too much. i slowed to a 7/km pace and walked some stretches. My shoulder was killing me and i couldn't move it very much as any of that will send an electric shot into it. i was feeling a bit sick in the stomach and threw up when i downed a gel. that was a truly down in the boots moment. at the 12 km point i was feeling better and trotted a bit and then i saw my two princessess shouting out at  me and carrying a banner that says " Quitting is forever!" how poignant it was. I managed a big grin and the girls ran with me for a little while. they had alos picked up some powergels from the ground that some athletes have dropped. i took it but i couldn't stomach another gel. the last 9 km i picked up my pace again to a 5:30 and finished the race at 6:25. a pb for me and under these circumstance i was happy with my performance and grateful once again that i had great support from my family.

No Sweat Chicken Feed Haha all the way! TNF 100 report 2010

In case you are thinking that I sailed through the race, you are mistaken. Far from it. For months, the spectre of doing the toughest race in SIngapore dogged myself and EW. we had taken a blind leap of faith; actually it was through my constant egging that we signed up for the 100 km duo and over the months we asked ourselves whether trail running would be "any sweat?". The SAF correct answer when your superior asked you was to spew out the spinal answer " No Sweat Chicken Feed Haha all the way". A kind of SAF trainee vernacular. That became my mantra, a sort of false bravado.

The training began in earnest sometime in July but it was never followed according to plan, not least because trail running required daylight and a decent 2 hours or more to cover the distance which realistically meant the weekends, something which was taken up by cycling.

Well the mileage was not really enough and the most I had covered was a 40 km distance( over the week 0 one month before the race and the longest run was 25 km in early september.

My race strategy was to run at 8 minutes/ km and try to reach Lorong Asmara( 22 km) and then push and to 32 km and if I was really down and out i would bail out of the race at 32 km which would be the most I have ran at least on the trail.

We started at 7 am and i found that highly agreeable because when we did the 25 km, it was blazing by the time we started and in 3 minutes your heart rate would hit 160; we ran through the same route as last year, took it easy and the 4 of us ran together. at the 2-3 km mark EW had gone ahead and with the large throng of runners, I thought it best to keep aerobic and a HR of less than 140 and kept it comfortable. We chatted about chek's new dogma and was doing a decent pace of 7:30/km.

We got out to RRR soon enough and the weather was still agreeable. We got to the satellite station and stopped to refill and me to clear my bladder. we resumed at that point and i realised when we got into the kampong trail i had lost cheks and mh. we turned towards Hindhede road and entered the MBT. i had not ventured there before.  MH caught up with me and i learnt that cheks had taken a tumble and slowed down. we ran together through the Mandai PCN and caught up with EW at Mandai road and then stopped to refill at Lor Asmara at 21 km. One of the volunteers told us it was 2 km up and EW and MH contemplated re-filling only when we are out. I was out of water for the last 5 km and thought it prudent to put in about 400 ml of water and downed some more isotonics before we went on. As it turned out this was where the race began. This was where the mind games started. There was little cover( i knew that); it was pretty hilly( i knew that too) and it was 13 km!!( i didn't know that). At one point we were on all fours climbing a steep slope. the promise was the checkpoint at 32 km which took forever to reach. I was over-heating, my last drop of water in the hydration bag long gone. My toes were beginning to hurt and I felt out of breath when i climb yet another knoll.

i caught up with MH at the lorong asmara CP, got some deep heat on the legs, drank some more and doused my over heated body with ice cold water. I told MH to go ahead as i wanted to wait for my buddy. By 15 minutes, he had still not appeared and i was getting stiff so i pushed on.

The sufferfest  was truly on and once you clear 32 km and left the CP at 1045, you were always in with a decent chance. I walked and ran with a fellow dude called ray and we chatted a bit till Zhenghua park. I had a second wind and started running slowly. a trot that took me all the way back to finish at 7:10. It felt great to finish the 50 km and i was pleased that i could do it with the amount of training. It was definitely a tough race. Psychologically you always had to dig deep. Being mentally prepared was half the battle worn.

will i be back for another race? i am not sure. my memory for pain is short...