I'm Spinning Around

One hour of butt-busting spinning does not rested legs make. But boy, oh boy, to feel my heart pump harder than it has the past few months was awesome. I've been running and swimming at a very comfortable pace where my heart barely races and though I'm dripping with sweat, it doesn't feel half as fulfilling as my spin class yesterday. I was dripping with sweat in about 10 minutes and my legs were burning not long after. Between the huffing and puffing and wheezing on the bike, I'm quite sure I burned off a bunch of calories. Well, I hope so at least. I'm thinking maybe it's time to start doing some sessions at the track soon.

What I did yesterday:
1 hour of spin class

You Can Get Hurt Swimming?

Swam 20 laps yesterday. Now my ribs hurt. I'm not sure why. In fact I'm not even sure whether I swam 20 or 21 laps because halfway through swimming, I was thinking of what I wanted to have for dinner and lost count. I did an extra lap just in case. And yes, it's so obvious that I'm not an athlete seeing as I was not at all focused on breathing, stroke blah blah blah and the only thought in my head was how I would kill for a steak.

Random note: I finally got the Tropic Thunder dvd although I paid waaaay too much for it, but what the hell, 65 bucks for more than an hour of laughs is more than worth it!

What I did yesterday:
Swam 20/21 laps in 35:44mins

My Version of a Long Run

Seeing how pathetic my mileage has been, yesterday's run qualifies as a long run to me and I completed it, albeit with the company of my best friend, the side stitch. Did a different route this time because I was meeting R, so ended up running from work to his place to shower and go for dinner nearby. Shorter route than running back to mine, but every bit as painful and grueling (if no one has realised this by now, there is a common pattern to every one of my runs all of which involve suffering!) Final note - the pork rack at Fosters really kicks ass!

What I did yesterday:
Ran 6.95k in 51:03 mins (I stopped a lot because my right side hurt like a b***h half the time)

Land of the Rising Sun, A Wedding and A Dry Run

I'm just back from my company trip to Japan and it was exhausting! Which didn't make sense since I spent most of it just eating and sitting for hours on a coach. Well, I suppose walking up and down the bus every couple of hours makes for some exercise. Actually I have nothing really much to say about Japan. Food was great, people were great and well I got to meet up with a good friend I hadn't seen in over a year.

On landing in Singapore, I had to rush off to KH's wedding. I came back a day early especially for this because I just love sharing in my friends' big days. I live vicariously through my friends, what can I say. All the same, the wedding was grand and I got to catch up with a whole bunch of my old church friends. So that was a laugh. And best of all, I am proud to announce that I was very very sensible and went to sleep instead of going for drinkies. Well, I suppose it wasn't so much a choice as much as sleep forced itself on me.

Yesterday, after days of eating non-stop (it was cold! I had to keep warm, so I ate!) and doing close to nothing, I decided to go do a sort of 'rehearsal' of sorts for the Biathlon in February. But too many things went wrong yesterday. For one, I chose to do this in the middle of the day, which meant every other kid and his clone were at the pool, which also meant I spent the whole while meandering around a strange obstacle course choke full of adults throwing beach balls, children jumping off ledges and babies in plastic floats...which was distracting, and I kind of lost count of how many laps I had completed. I did an extra lap anyway, in case I undercounted. Right after the swim, I dried off quickly and threw on my running gear and zipped out of the house. Of course, my foot pod chose this exact day to run out of battery. So I decided to just run 5k. Needless to say I got a stitch about one millionth way through. Long story short, yesterday was one of those 'Murphy's Law days' where everything that could go wrong did. Of course I ended the day off with a bunch of JD cokes. What's new, right?

What I did yesterday:
Swam 15/16 laps in 25:29 mins
Ran (approximately 4k or so, I think) 30 minutes

Another Slow 10-er

Yesterday I ran 10k again. A week after I did 10k and it doesn't feel any easier. My legs were still sore and my knees...oh my knees, I had to spend a good part of last night icing both knees. It was a weird run yesterday, most of the lights worked in my favour so I didn't really have to stop much, but I had two strangers on the street stop me to ask to ask for directions. Which I'm fine doing, but isn't it strange that of all the people on the streets to get directions from, they had to stop the one who's got her earphones on and clearly looks like she wants to get places fast (or fast-ish)? Also, there were more familiar faces in this run than any other run I've done. I ran by the bar where R was and where he shouted a quick 'hello' and my old friend and neighbour, Jamie, happened to drive past me and asked if I needed a lift. I must have looked completely out of shape!

What I did yesterday:
Ran 10k in 1 hour 10 minutes

Detox

I'm freaking out. I've got the Biathlon on 22nd February and I've just realised that with my being in Japan followed by my trip to Canada, I'll only have 2 weeks to train (1 weekend to train) before the Biathlon. On top of that, I'm eating all this crap that can't be helpful to my cause in any way. Sooooo, I've decided I'm going to crank up the training by a notch and not eat anymore junk. It's just a bit more than a month anyway right? I'm sure I'll be able to resist the draw of oily, fatty food...urgh, saying that out makes me feel disgusted, I've no idea why I still eat all that!

The Southern Ridges

Early Saturday morning, R and I decided to do a short trek. My sister and my folks had been telling me about the Southern Ridges walk in Singapore and we decided to go check it out. It was actually pretty fun getting out and walking for slightly over 2 hours amidst a whole different bunch of routes. Given that this is Singapore and there's a dearth of rugged nature walks in this part of South East Asia, the routes were mostly on man made paths, but I have to say, they did a fantastic job in the planning of the Southern Ridges route.

R and I started off at Kent Ridge Park and cut through a canopy walk down to Hort Park which I found fascinating (and I'm not even that big a plant person). We did the floral walk (okay, this was very disappointing because there really wasn't anything much to see), followed by the Alexandra Arches (a fancy name for a bridge) and then the highlight of the walk, the Forest Walk. Seriously, a bunch of raised steel walkways raised really high up was just sooooo cool. Next time around though, we're thinking of taking the Earth trail through the forest for variety. The hilltop walk and the Henderson Waves (another name for a crazily high pedestrian bridge) came after the Forest Walk and the entire thing was wrapped up with the Faber and Marang trail.

I forgot to bring my camera and R's camera wasn't charged, so we didn't take any photos, which is a shame because it really was very pretty. Nonetheless, I'm definitely going to do the walk again (R is more ambitious and wants to run it) and will be sure to remember to bring the camera then.

What I did all weekend:
Sleep a lot, walked 6.5k in 2 hours 15 minutes

Allergies

I've always laughed at people who were allergic to something or another - how much they miss in life - but it seems I now have managed to develop some allergic reaction to dust of all things. My Karma.

R and I went for a run on Tuesday, fair play to him, he could still run after a 14 hour flight. But I may have over-exerted myself, because I had a little fever on Tuesday. I had to call in sick for work and go see the doctor. That's when I found out that this nagging cough I've had for the past few months that refused to go away, was brought on by a dripping nose, which was in turn brought on by dust.

So training has been put on hold since the Doc only allows me to run when I'm feeling a hundred percent (which'll be pretty soon), but I have to lay off the swimming for a while because he doesn't want me to catch a cold. I suppose it's just as well, that I'm going to be out of town the next couple of weeks in places without swimming pools, so it's not really like I'd miss it all that much.

What I did on Tuesday:
Ran 4k in 29 mins

Holiday Weight

I'm quite sure I overate during the Christmas and New Year period. How am I sure? Because I just feel a bit bloaty and it could be psychological, but it does feel like I'm carrying a lot more weight when I'm running these days.

Nevertheless, I managed to do a 10.1k run yesterday. T'was a very painful run, starting with the shins and followed by the ankles, knees and (here's a weird one) my right hip. You cannot even begin to imagine how many times I wanted to throw in the towel. The last fifteen minutes more or less went like this - Okay, 2.5k, that's like 6 rounds on the track, that's alright...1.5k, that's the distance to the main road and halfway...

So after a month or so I have finally completed 10k again. And I'm very happy once more. Now to cut down on drinking and making the runs more consistent! I'm probably heading for a nice, easy 4k today.

What I did yesterday:
Ran 10.1k in 1 hour 12 mins

Misadventures in the Gym

On Saturday, I did my 'circuit training'* again and don't ask me how but I managed to pull my left quadricep(s?) stretching. So much for my lunges this week, I had to settle for squats and they hurt because my thigh was sore (I'm using that as my excuse as to why I didn't do my long run yesterday as well).

As usual ("usual" being all of two times) I did the "tens" (7:26 minutes - I remembered to time myself!) but this time I cheated. I started the first 9 push-ups doing proper pushups, but then the rest of the push-ups that followed were girly pushups, on my knees. Somehow despite cheating, I managed to hurt my left wrist. Don't ask me how I did that, I have no idea. In fact I don't even know whether I hurt it doing pushups or I hurt it when I was fiddling with the weights. Aaargh, clumsy clumsy clumsy.

So as I said earlier, I didn't run on Sunday because my thigh was sore, but more because I was just too darn lazy. And 'Zohan' was calling to me from my DVD player.

What I did over the weekend:

Saturday
- Circuit training (approx 45 minutes)
- Swam 15 laps (25:36 minutes)

Sunday
- Went shopping with my good mate (that's like cardio exercise!) who's back in town

*I really have no idea what to call what I do in the gym, so I'm just going to keep calling it 'circuit training'.

First Run for the New Year

And it sucked big time. Note to self: Don't run after 10am in the morning, it's just way too hot.

I was supposed to run 8k yesterday so that I'd start the year on a good foot. I had a relatively quiet New Year's eve, opting to stay at home and watch Friends instead of drinking my body weight in alcohol, so in theory my body was all well rested when I woke up on New Year's day. At first I thought I'd go run in the evening, since I hadn't woken up early enough, but then it struck me that if I did that, I pretty much had to spend the whole day sober, which was a pretty depressing thought. That's when I decided to go for a run at 11am, with the sun high overhead. It was complete insanity. The heat was just sapping my energy and my feet felt like there were stones tied around them. Which is kind of why I ended up only running 5.5 pathetic kilometres. My first failed run of the year!

Nonetheless, I'm sure this won't be the only failed run, so I just have to get over it and move on. Meanwhile, HAPPY NEW YEAR one and all!

What I did:

Wed: Ran 4.2k in 29:02 mins

Yesterday: Ran 5.5k