Rain 1 Tennis 0

Once again, my tennis plans have been thwarted by the rain. It's just been raining so dang much. Of course a lot of it is just also my plain bad luck - it'd be bright and sunny all day till the time my courts are booked. Bah.

I've been on a mission to get to bed early and get out of it just as early. Over the weekend, I managed an early climb on Saturday and an early bike ride on Sunday. By early I mean my standards of early - pretty much anything before noon! The climb on Saturday wasn't great because I'd gone out for drinks with Merle the night before and I was so completely dehydrated after the climb that my pee was neon yellow. Probably not good for the poor kidneys.

My bike ride was a bit of a disaster as well. I pumped up the tyres before I left home, but thanks to what must have been a slow puncture, when I was 7km into the ride and finding it harder and harder to cycle, I looked down and saw my flat tyres. Had to turn back and ride my baby all the way back to the car. Not very fun.

Swim training starts tonight again!

What I've done:
Saturday - 2hr climbing
Sunday - 14k bike ride and 6 sets of 10 crunches
Yesterday - 1hr personal training

A Week into 2011

What I've Done:

1st Jan (Saturday) - Climbed 2 hours
4th Jan (Tuesday) - 3.5k run
5th Jan (Wednesday) - 1 hr Personal Training
6th Jan (Thursday) - 600m swim

So far....so good...probably need to ramp up the distance on the runs!

My 2010 recap

The Good:

1. I did my first triathlon ever and then some - even if they were only minis
2. Got 2nd in a swim race - yes, out of 5 but well I'll take anything
3. Met up with some awesome friends and my cousins I haven't seen in ages!
4. Got me a sweet Bike who as yet remains nameless
5. Went on a bunch of holidays with awesome travel buddies
6. My foot didn't give me that much problems - could be because I hardly ran
7. Read some really really good books - If This Were a Man, Anne Frank, The Cider House Rules to name a few
8. Got re-inspired (though short-lived, laziness trumped inspiration) by the Youth Olympics and Steve Stenzel
9. Made some really good friends (at a bar, no less)
10. Started playing a wee bit of tennis again
11. FINALLY lost all the beer weight - beer is bad, kids!

The Bad:
1. Talked more (about training) than actually doing any
2. Pretty much wussed out of all my running races
3. Stopped muay thai and windsurfing because I just got lazy
4. Had a whole bunch of pooping related issues which someday I shall regale the world with someday
5. Found out my bike needed to be treated like a lady instead of being the hard core macho bike I thought it was
6. Spent too much time focusing on lame issues and neglecting the important stuff
7. Wasted much too much time feeling sorry for myself
8. Jenny, my bestie, went overseas for a whole year!

And how was YOUR 2010? Happy New Year guys!

It's Been A While

And since then I've been on a build with Habitat for Humanity. Or shall we call it a full day workout? I was aching more than a real workout at the gym, what with hauling around buckets of cement, straightening wires...but all for a good cause, so it's all good!

Despite waking up with my trepezius (I only know this because my personal trainer felt the need to enlighten me as I kept calling them 'wings' which of course is totally wrong) and biceps aching, I hauled my ass out for a short 2.5k run in the evening followed by a bunch of crunches before meeting the two sisters who introduced me to alcohol back in the days of university. Obviously we met for vino and obviously we hung out till 2am despite it being a school day the next day. Somehow I got through Monday without feeling like I needed to die. I even managed to go for personal training! Even if no one is impressed with this, I am pretty much impressed with myself!

Following that I've done a big fat nothing. I've made plans to wake up at 6am every morning to hit the pool but I don't even know why I bother. To date I've succeeded only as far as waking up to turn off the alarm. Still I always believe in living in hope...someday, somehow I will wake up and feel bright and chirpy and head off for an early morning swim!

What I've done:
Sunday: 2.5k run + a bunch of crunches
Monday: 1 hr Personal Training

Updates

I haven't really done much since last week. Thursday was spent sleepy, but I still felt the need to go out and play with Rich till way too late. It started off sensible (as it always does) with a pantomime - Cinderel-lah - and ended off at my new favourite bar, Sabroso, with more or less 2 bottles of vino between us.

I felt lousy on Friday but because it was my friend Ed's 40th and we felt we should do something for him, we ended up at Ink Bar for the jazz where I took it easy and had only 2 Jim Beam cokes (with a lot of coke). Then I went home to crash. I was in bed by 11pm on a Friday night. That's how tired I was that day.

Soooo, the weekend wasn't a total blow-out because I got enough sleep for it. Of course I ruined it all by meeting Rai for dinner on Sunday and then going for 'one drink'. Obviously I only left when Rai'd finished all his 3 sets and by then I had ingested close to 4 glasses of wine. Lovely.

What I did:

Saturday:

Ran 1.2k, walked 1.2k in the AM (yeah, apparently I hadn't fully recovered from Thursday's madness)

Climbed for 2 hours in the PM

Sunday:
Cycled on the spinner at home for 3 x 15min sets because it was just too boring (and tiring...mainly tiring) to go for any longer

Monday:
Personal Training x 1hr

Tuesday:
Dinner + Drinks with Rich before his flight back to UK

Back in Singapore

And lazy as hell! Just canceled my Personal Training session today because I was just feeling tired and well....lazy. Tomorrow...tomorrow I shall run. It shall all start again tomorrow.

What I did:

Sunday - 15min run, 45 mins arm and core work
Monday - Swam 20 laps
Tuesday - 2.5k run, 30 lunges and squats and a bunch of core work

And nothing since!

Hong Kong Update

I got to Hong Kong yesterday, well technically the day before since it's 2am on a Sunday. So far I've managed a swim in the bleeding cold...well, cold by Singapore standards. It took me 5 minutes standing waist deep in the pool before I got the nerve to start swimming. Back home, I used to think swimming in the rain in Singapore was pretty hard core, but I've realized now, that's nothing! All the same, I did 10 laps in a 10m pool (I think it was 10m at least) and the did another 5 laps 'fartlek' (ie 5 lengths mad swim with a length easy swim in between). I also felt like dying at the end, but that's pretty normal. Of course I managed to negate all this work-out with a very filling lunch and a dinner with 3 very unhealthy, but yummy hairy crabs. Aiming for a gym session at the hotel tomorrow, but it's almost 3 now and I'm probably going to be uber sleepy in the morning.

What I've done:

Thursday - 1hr personal training which is why my back and arms hurt now

Saturday - (assuming the pool's 10m in length) 10 laps easy, 5 laps 'fartlek'

My Middle Name is 'Bruise'

This weekend was not spent as fruitfully as I would have liked it to be. Saturday was pretty much a lost cause since I spent almost all of it feeling crazy tired and slightly hungover from playing till too late on Friday. Sunday was my saving grace because I hauled my aching ass and legs (from my PT class on Friday) over to East Coast (by that I mean, I drove down there) and did a short bike ride. All of 14km (ooooh!). Met some of the windsurfing folk, who gave me a hard time for giving up the sport...which I haven't! I just hate my sail. And now I've gotten rid of that, I might just go back to renting equipment...but that's another story.

Now after my crazy night on Friday, I found a nice big bump on my shin. Probably from kicking myself unknowingly or something. I tend to do that after having some vino...I suspect I have some masochistic streak in me! Then I found 4 more shiners this morning after my bike ride. I have no idea how I'm riding the darn bike that I would get 4 weird bruises in completely random places. I don't think I've ever been bruise-free in my life, come to think of it! Firstly I bruise easily and secondly I'm clumsy as hell. It'd actually be amazing if I were ever bruise-free!

What I did:

Friday: 1 hr of leg/core work - torture getting in and out of my chair now!

Sunday: 14k bike ride in I don't know how long, but my legs were jelly after. Weak, I know!

Friends Once More

Rain and I kissed and made up last night, and I had one of my most enjoyable runs in a long time. The light drizzle coupled by the coolness (which in Singapore is very, very, very rare!) made everything so comfortable and well...pleasant. I had a bit of a stitch, but the weather was just too good to stop. It was just one of those nights where everything in the run fit from the moment I stepped out of the house till the moment I got back in.

And Jim Croce - you're my man. I tend to run listening to this upbeat playlist of random songs I like, but last night I took a break from that and put on the Jim-man. And he did a good...no great job. Like I said, everything fit last night and I can say (at least, just for last night) I do actually love running!

Rain + Gerry + running = BFFs

What I did
Ran 3K

Rain Makes Me Fat

Sharon and I had a tennis session all set up yesterday and (story of my life) it starts pissing down - the heavy, I'm-not-going-to-let-up kind of rain. Darn. So we decided to meet for drinks instead. We're just terrible influence on each other. I, however, felt bad enough that I did a 600m swim before. Ooof, having not put in any swimming in the past weeks, my arms were ready to pop out of their sockets after the swim! Then I met Sharon for dinner and vino. Lots of vino! My left deltoid aches today! Poor weak arm!

What I did last night:
Swam 10 x 60m

A Date with the Sports Doctor

So early this year at the adventure race I fell and hurt my little toe. After a couple of months of it hurting I went to see the sports doctor about it and on doing an ultrasound on the toe to check that no tendons(?) were torn, established there was nothing wrong it. Still it continued to hurt if I put any weight on it.

Early this month, being the total klutz that I am, when I entered CMPB to get a couple of drinks I tripped over a step and made a very unglamorous entrance. And OBVIOUSLY I would land on the very same toe that has been hurting all this while. So after a couple of weeks, and in the course of them I've squeezed my toe into heels twice (I had to attend fancy dinners! They required heels!), my toe still ached if I moved it back which meant another trip back to the sports doctor. I'm not complaining, the guy's great eye-candy so I'm happy to stare at him all day; but I felt so stupid. It's the last toe, and really in my day-to-day activities, it hardly affects my life, but it's still annoying and I'm a little bit of a hypochondriac - so really, half of me wants to get something sorted and the other half is just going 'this is sooooo lame!'

After looking at the X-ray of my toe and finding out nothing was wrong again, he said the joint might be a bit sore and if it was really troubling me, I could get a cortisone jab. Now I have no problem with taking jabs, but frankly if it's not absolutely compulsory I have one, then I'd rather just lay off the jab. So the plan B is icing the crap out of my toe and going on a week of anti-inflammatories. Hopefully that'll wipe out all the pain on the toe and I can go back to....well, it's not like I stopped my life because of the toe! I guess the upside of all this is I got another look at the doctor, I just wish I didn't come across like a complete klutz!

Another Weekend Another Run

Well, a teeny tiny run. A little 2.5k run. A run up and down a 'hill'...or rather a bunch of slopes. That makes it a 10k run, no?

Ever since my training session last Thursday (and that includes today even), I've been aching madly. Deciding to do the run on that 'hilly' (I'm going to keep using 'hilly' because it makes me sound hard-core) road was probably not the brightest idea since I haven't run in ages and since I was already aching. Obviously Sunday wasn't so great for me. Oh hang on, I forgot to add that after my run, I went off to meet Merle and Sam in the evening for drinks and Rai for further drinks at stupid-o-clock. Very very stupid. I actually managed to get a headache mid-way through drinks with Rai and I woke up the next day aching even more than ever. Way to rest up those muscles.

My dad decided he wanted to do a walk on Sunday, so that meant dragging my poor achy legs to Botanic Gardens with both my dad and mum doing a fast-paced walk for a good 1/2 hour. My butt ached after. Well to be specific my right butt cheek ached after. I'm not sure why but I'm putting it down to just pure unfitness.

Today it was back to the gym with my sadist of a trainer again. I said my arms ached, so we did boxing. Make sense to you? Sure didn't to me. I essentially spent an hour whining away to him. I also convinced him to get me on core work. And of course I proceeded to regret that since my core is the only part not aching. I guess....achy abs tomorrow then! Gah....can't feel my arms now!

What I've done:

Saturday - 2.5k at grandma speed
Sunday - 1/2 hour walk

Today - Personal Training: 1/2 hour boxing, 1/2 hour core work

Tired!!!!!

Yowza!

After taking all the time off the past weeks and doing nothing very much but put my liver to the test, my trainer finally bugged me enough for me to show up for training yesterday. He said it'd be an easy session. He lied. Did a whole bunch of inner thigh/outer thigh, shoulder blades, back, arm work etc etc etc. Guess who's aching today. Well, aching and sleepy...namely because I played till 4am last night. And I wonder why I fall sick so easily! Must be ALL that sleep and rest I'm getting!

Hopefully, this training session kicks me back to a more normal human sleep cycle, or at least one where I get a nice 7 hours of sleep. I was supposed to go for the Choo Choo Trek tomorrow, but it got canceled, so I may at least be able to sleep in! Maybe I'll be able to fit in a bike ride/rock climbing/swimming/golf over the weekend! Although it seems highly likely I may just wind up doing nothing in the end.

What I did yesterday:
1 hr personal training

Sleepy but Happy

Because I'm still not fully well, my solution has been to hang out with friends till late lately. It's been really good fun in a whole chill-out, no-fuss way. Minus the complete lack of sleep because we're yabbering till early morn, I actually love the camaraderie, the vino and the mad conversations. To all my friends out there I love, here's sending good thoughts your ways! I'm really glad I've got you all!

Yes and all these emotional flighty updates are purely because I haven't done much training....hang on...I actually do have something more meaty to put in here...

So I met Sharon at a bar. As one does when they want to make new friends - they go to a bar and pick up random strangers (kidding!). Anyway, Sharon and I realised we were super alike and somehow became really good friends...at least I take her as my really good friend, she may not....Last week Sharon and I decided to be good and do some sport so I had my first game of tennis in ages! And we went for a walk over the weekend. It was a load of laughs...and chatter. This weekend, I join the British Club for their Choo Choo Trek. I shall see if I can get some pictures of that trek!

What I did last week:
Wednesday - Tennis (1 hour)
Saturday
- Walked (Jln Kampong Chantek - Bkt Timah Nature Reserve - Rifle Range Road: 2 hours)

Crosswords, Vino, an Old Friend and the Arts

**Warning!!! slightly emo post!!**

Since I've been unable to do anything too strenuous lately and since I've had my heartbreak a couple of months ago, I've been trying to fill my time with things I've always wanted to do but didn't because I had no one to go with me or because I was too busy training (or at least thinking about training, not doing it and then feeling guilty about it). So in a whole bid to seek this independence that I seem to have lost over the years, I went off and got myself a ticket for Jeremy Monteiro (one of Singapore's more famous local Jazz talents) to see his solo piano recital. Right after I did that though, a friend, Ed, and his wife decided to join me - okay, so I didn't go solo in the end, but the thought was there! The three of us also got tickets to watch Natalie Cole at the Sun Festival and did that just last Sunday.

I have to say, I've really been enjoying these recitals/concerts . Previously I would kind of wait around for my man (now, ex) before I could do anything...not because I really needed to have him around, but just as a whole 'if I enjoyed the moment, I would really want to share that moment with the person I loved'. So I would always wait for my man to be free and he wasn't free a lot for me somehow, which meant I didn't end up doing a lot of things I wanted to. I guess it is a blessing in disguise that I now have the opportunity to do all these things now. I've been reading a lot, going for blue-sky holidays and attending more jazz concerts - things I could never seem to make time for. Also tonight I'm off to watch Jose Carreras in concert - I'm not sure I'll fully enjoy it, but who knows? Mainly I'm once more starting to get out there and be curious about the world again.

Along with this life change, an old friend has also reappeared in my life. A very good friend and a friend who I've shared certain important moments in my life with. It's been weird because in the last week I've seen more of him than I have in the last 2 years. For 2 years, we've had, at most, a handful of half-hearted calls; if we met up, it was because we ran into each other and nothing more - then all of a sudden he rings up one day, we meet up and magically we're the best of friends again. And it is nice. And I realise I do actually miss our little chats and that bizarre chemistry we share as friends. We've met up about a good 4 times last week - as if to cram in 2 years worth of yapping - and we'll play crosswords over a glass/bottle of vino till late into the night. Did I mention I've become a huge crossword buff as well lately? Really really love doing them! So, a good friend, some vino and crosswords - what more could one ask for?

Side note - I've not been doing much by way of exercise. I did 10 lunges on each side on Sunday and my hamstrings were aching the next day (I'm totally in fighting shape). Also did a 3k walk with my folks and a bunch of crunches. I think I need to watch an episode of Tomb Raider for inspiration again!

Story of My Life

On Saturday I made big plans to go for a walk. Mind you, I've been sick for what feels like ages now, so I wanted to get out and do something. I even asked my colleague along since I figured I'd do the good Singaporean thing and introduce the Englishman to Singapore and to take him on the Tree-Top Walk.

I'm all excited, packed my backpack, picked Al up, drove down to MacRitchie Reservoir and start our hike. About 45 minutes into the walk, lightning flashes, thunder claps and it starts pissing down. Not the 'passing rain cloud' kind of rain, but the I'm-here-for-the-next-2-hours-rain. It doesn't rain for a week, but obviously when I decide to go on a walk and I'm stuck in the middle of a rainforest the sky takes it on itself to just burst open. So we took shelter for a while before deciding it probably wasn't going to let up anytime soon and continued on our merry way before we hit the carpark at the Singapore Island Country Club where I proceeded to beg one of the guards to help us call a cab to send us back to where I had parked my car. Such is my luck.

What I did
Saturday: Walked 45mins - not very fast or very far
Sunday: Did 2 reps of 50 crunches / 40 arm work and 10 squats and lunges

The Only Real Medal I'm Ever Going to Get

Second for my sea swim that I took part in ages and ages ago, but only just got the medal for!...okay there were only 5 people which is why I got 2nd.







Meanwhile, more evidence of mud!





Big thanks to Rich for being so sweet to come down to share this moment with me and be my designated photographer!

Sick....again

Bah, I am so sick of being sick. Seriously. Been down with bronchitis since last Thursday and all I'm doing is hacking up yellow phlegm (I'm sure no one needed to know that but well...), blowing my nose constantly and just feeling so darn tired. I'm on the 3rd round of antibiotics (the first for the infected toe, the second for this bronchitis thing) and I am so over taking medicine. I finish my last round of antibiotics tomorrow and, fingers crossed, I shall be magically better and I'll be able to go for a nice 1/2 hour or so walk on Saturday. I'm going to be realistic and assume that I'll be in no shape to run or do anything too tiring.

In any case, somewhere in the last week (before I got hit by this darn bronchitis), I think it was Tuesday, I did a 2.5k run. I had to walk off my stitch midway through. Not that that is particularly surprising.

After a Short Hiatus

Yesterday night after going stir crazy from doing nothing very much since the race, I went for a swim in the pool. A nice, easy comfortable 600m. I've an infected toe from the gross mess at the race, so running's been put on hold!

What I did yesterday:
Swam 600m

Incidentally, I went for what has to be the best massage ever the day after the race. My shoulder blades were aching and my neck was stiff, but after this amazing rub-down they were all gone...and remained all gone! Two thumbs up for the guy who gave me my massage at Ashi!

Meanwhile, pics from the race, courtesy of R. Thankeeee!


Gross mud slush at transition as I was 'running' out to bike leg!

Tri-Factor Series: HP Freshmen Triathlon Race Report

I woke up at 4am to some crazy ass storm going on and first thought was 'you gotta be kidding me...after all my training, the race is going to be cancelled?!?!?' Well, it didn't but it sure made for a very muddy race.

So thanks to the storm, everything got pushed about 20 minutes back, which meant, the banana I ate on the cab ride to the race had pretty much digested itself when the race started. Note to self: Eat slightly nearer to race as opposed to 2 hours before!

Essentially, the condition of the race area sucked through no fault of the organisers. The rain had just pissed down and made the entire field just one gross mess. I got to a stage where I just gave up with the flip flops because they just kept getting stuck in the mud and wound up walking around the muddy field barefoot. Not that that was any more pleasant. Mud stuck between toes...yech!

After setting up, and trust me it wasn't easy with all the crap I was stuck in, I bumped into Gina and we both started doing our warm-ups. Not good, crap loads of swells! And after we finished, we realised our wave was going to start later. By the time the wave started we had taken to sitting around somewhere and wasting all the 'warm-up' we'd done before.

The swim leg was...well...crap. I think in all the sea races I've done, I've never been kicked and hit so much. I know I whine about this every time and say that 'this is the most I've been kicked!' each time, but I swear that it does get more and more painful each race I'm doing. I've the bruises to show for it, if anything. So essentially when I got into the sea and started my swim, I got stuck in breast-stroker's hell. Every dang person around me was doing breast-stroke and it was just impossible to make any progress. I was doing too much and not getting anywhere. I decided to slow down, because even before I got to the first turn, I was pretty wrecked. My brain then kicked in and I thought I'd go out of the mass of breast-strokers and swim on the outside bit. Then my brain stopped working and somehow I ended up going the wrong way. Yes and I did that twice. Real bright. Near the end of the leg, I couldn't feel my arms and I was pretty out of it. Baaaaad start to the race, especially since the swim leg is my best leg and if I screwed that up, I pretty much can kiss good-bye to even completing the rest of it.

Transition was just a mess. I tried to run carrying out my bike but almost lost my shoes in the sticky mud and was just short of falling flat on my face. Plus after the gruelling sea swim, thinking I could 'run' whilst hoisting my bike on my shoulder was pretty far-fetched.

Bike leg was okay. I was panting like a dog and I guess my heart rate was all over the place. I tried to pedal as fast as my little legs could go but kept tiring and slowing down. Also to all those asses out there yelling and screaming at me...argh! Ugly ugly sports people, you bunch are! I was supposed to turn right at the 5k loop and you guys were in MY way! Plus it really isn't my fault that they set up the race in THAT way. Gah. Asses.

My run went rather dismally. I blame my mud-caked shoes which felt like I was running with weights on my feet. Well, I guess at least I didn't walk the whole while, but I did stop to trot every 5 minutes or so. I did make a friend whilst strolling and met another chica I'd talked to previously at another race, so the race did get a little more fun. After all that walking, running slowly and talking, I finally mustered up what little energy left to stick myself behind some chick's ass and used her as a pacer. Did some desperate dash (used fast and loose here) in the last 100m and pretty much died!

Overall I thought I had a lousy race yesterday. I was disappointed in my swim most and just the muddiness that was yesterday was just well...gross. I went to collect my medal for my swim race from ages ago. R was super nice and came down to watch the race as well to stand around and be my camera-man during the awards ceremony. Pictures to follow when I get less lazy.

Today though, the provisional results are out and what a difference a day makes! After spending the whole of yesterday feeling lousy, I realise I didn't suck that much! I finished 17th of 55 people - placed 8th for the swim leg, 18th for the bike leg and (a rather embarrassing) 30th for the run leg. So to all my friends who always believed in me, more than I believed in myself (and trust me, I have a pretty big head) - I love you all! Thanks for the encouragement and good thoughts sent my way!

Provisional race results:
Swim leg (200m) - 05:06 mins (vs 08:20 mins at OSIM)
Bike leg (10k) - 25:57 mins (vs 33:18 mins at OSIM)
Run leg (2.4k)- 16:13 mins (vs 15:38 mins at OSIM for 2k)
Overall - 47:16 mins

I kicked my OSIM triathlon self's ass! - Yes I know the sentence just doesn't seem like a very grammatically correct one...