More Update on My Bowel Movements

Still crapping/leaking oil out my ass. Am really beginning to wish I didn't have the dang white tuna. 5 sashimi slices...that was it...and here I am paying for that 'indulgence'. Hopefully all will be well tomorrow. I have big plans to go for swim training and I'm not sure I really want to whilst I have this embarrassing situation on my hands. So...this serves as a word of warning...avoid white tuna/escolar/butterfish/whatever the hell else it's called with your life! Well unless you feel a great need to experience the joy of oily poops. Consider yourself warned! Let's pray that this is the end of my poop stories for now!

Is there such a thing as over exercise? - My Mad Weekend and A Short Story on Poop

This weekend I went a bit mad. How mad? Well, listen on...I started off Saturday morning rather dehydrated. I'd been out for dinner the night before and we had some wine - also I didn't think to drink loads of water before I slept. So my attempt to do a 2.5k run was pretty much shot down when I had a stitch barely 100m into the run. I pretty much walked the rest of the way. How could I have gone on last week about how great running was only to have it come back and bite me in the ass?

After my rather pathetic run, I headed off for Pilates. This weekend Karrie's off on a course so Theresa took her class. It was mad hard. It's usually mad hard as it is, but I guess I arrived late and didn't have any time to warm up so it was pretty darn rough.

So, still on Saturday activities...after Pilates I went on to Muay Thai and Robert was taking the class. It's almost like everything was meant to be tough that day. Muay Thai completely kicked my ass. Robert went through a whole bunch of speed drills...NOT.FUN. I could barely feel my arms after. When I tried to send a text to a friend on my phone after my hands were shaking. Yup, I did feel kind of pathetic.

Had myself a ramen and sent my bike to the bike shop to get it sorted. I realised how dense I was. I didn't know I had to pump my tyres regularly, so essentially I was cycling on them flat...which meant I had to get both inner tubings changed since I probably wrecked them. I informed them that my gears were sticking and they told me my chain wasn't lubricated...I was all 'er...we have to lubricate it?!?' Well, they lubricated it and cleaned it up for me...it was filthy! And I felt ashamed. Almost like you invited a friend to your house and forgot to clean it up when they arrived. Sigh.....

So that was Saturday. I was completely exhausted when I was done with the day. Although still had time to meet D for dinner and drinks. Next thing I know, it's 2am, I had a bike ride planned for the next day and I was very aware that I was going to regret playing till so late.

Sunday, sure enough, I regretted not sleeping earlier and not hydrating myself properly. I kept pushing our bike ride till later and by the time we actually met up it was almost 11am and it was bleeding hot. We cycled from the hawker centre to the start of Changi Beach and back wherein Gina managed to crash into a lamp post and screwed up her front tyre...which resulted in a grueling ride for her all the way back to the Windsurfing Club before a good samaritan there helped her do a temporary fix on it so she wouldn't die the last 2.5k back to the hawker centre. The great part about working so hard and sweating everything out has to be the guilt-free pigging out you can do after. And believe you me, Gina and I pigged out!

That was my big weekend. I went a bit mad and I did ache kind of crazily after, but well it's been a while since I've ached so much and masochistic as it sounds, I took a sick pleasure in aching that much. Plus I had the best sleep ever on Sunday night so I'm not complaining. What I will complain about though is this lovely welt-rings I have around my thighs I suspect because I'm allergic to the material they stick at the bottom of your bike shorts to prevent them from running up. Very very sexy welts. Sigh.

On a completely random note, today I crapped oil. I thought I had some medical problem and was dying before I thought to google 'sh*tting oil' - yes Google is my best friend and I google every damn thing. It actually makes me feel good when I feel something completely random and you find other souls out there who are going through the same thing. Anyway, long story short after piecing together different information from different sites, the cause for my oil crapping today was....wait for it....white tuna. You'd think they'd warn you this might happen when you order white tuna sashimi. NOT.FUN.AT.ALL.

What I did over the weekend:

Saturday:
2.5k run in 20:29 mins (Avg speed: 8:11 min/km)
50 mins pilates
1 hr Muay Thai

Sunday:
26k bike ride

Very Lazy

I had a 5k charity run on Sunday and I didn't go for that. Somehow I've managed to fall into this rut of laziness...or I've just gotten used to not turning up for races. Sigh....

That aside, last Thursday I went for my first swim training at the British Club and it was tough. Good tough. The coach (whose name I really don't recall!) looked at my swim stroke and I'm proud to say that my right arm stroke (what on earth do you call it?) was very very good. But he also said that my left arm stroke was really really crap. I could be a brilliant swimmer, but for my left arm! Damn left arm! The last bit about the 'brilliant swimmer' was my own swim analysis, don't think the coach said anything close to me being brilliant.

I did a crappy 2.4k fartlek run on Friday and drank too much wine after, which meant my Saturday was more or less a lost cause. My grand plan to do muay thai in the afternoon, became an afternoon of hitting the beers. Gah.

And to round up my already lazy weekend, I didn't turn up for my 5k run. Terrible terrible. I did go to the gym for some core training though, so that made me feel a little better. All the calories that might have burnt were put back at dinner. On a whim, I decided to make Beer Butt Chicken (I basically took a bunch of recipes and came up with something) and a very sinful apple crumble. Guess this week'll be spent working off all those added calories!

What I've done:
Wednesday: Ran 7.23k in 58:40 mins
Thursday:45 minute swim training
Friday: Ran 2.4k in 16:49 mins

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)

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!

Recap for the Past Few Days

I've eaten way too much this festive season. Since my last post on Christmas eve, I'm proud to say I actually managed a 4k run back to my kitchen to roast a chunk of beef. The beef turned out pretty darn good, but the gravy, not so much. Ah well, at least I got half of it right.

Christmas day was spent eating the whole day. Well eating and fitting in a nap in between because I had a massive food coma. After two consecutive meals of festive fare, my dad who's a closet Chinaman, had enough of 'ang moh' food so my sis and I built up on our brownie points and brought the folks to Si Bon for a swanky (and in hindsight, ridiculously expensive) Japanese dinner. The service was fantastic, the food was up to standard, and thank goodness no one ordered alcohol...yes, I am cheap like that.

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I've eaten way too much this festive season. And I didn't do much by way of exercise. I managed to squeeze in a pathetic 2.5k run on Friday. It was one horrific run. I was running late meeting a friend, so I figured I'd run faster. Only the lights worked against me. So every 200m I came abruptly to a stop. I tried to lie to myself that I was doing some strange sort of tempo, interval training thing, but frankly, I was completely exhausted just running the 2.5k. I blame the Christmas gluttony. Of course, instead of sitting home and feeling remorseful, I went out and drowned my sorrows in a lot of alcohol instead.

Needless to say, Saturday was a complete bummer of a day. Yet despite a crazy headache for the whole day, I managed to have two dinners. Well, actually I ate about half of all the leftover turkey stuffing from Christmas eve and then went over to my friend's house to have another Christmas dinner.

Did I say I've eaten way too much this festive season?

After all the eating, sleeping and doing not much else, yesterday I decided I needed to get off my lazy (probably significantly bigger) ass and do something by way of training for the biathlon in February that G and I are almost definitely taking part in. It was too sunny to run yesterday, so I decided to hit the gym where I stayed and do some core training and then head for a swim.

I've wanted to try this Crossfit workout that I've seen on one of my favourite blogs, but was too chicken shit to try the whole twenty one. I figured 10 was good enough for me seeing as I hadn't been doing much core training for the past couple of months. So in essence here's my wuss version of the Steve's "Twenty One" or what I shall un-creatively call "Ten":

9 sit-ups + 1 push-ups
8 sit-ups + 2 push-ups
7 sit-ups + 3 push-ups
6 sit-ups + 4 push-ups
5 sit-ups + 5 push-ups
4 sit-ups + 6 push-ups
3 sit-ups + 7 push-ups
2 sit-ups + 8 push-ups
1 sit-ups + 9 push-ups

No clue how long I took to do it because I was completely exhausted (even after modifying the whole darn workout) and forgot to check my watch.

Following that I did one set of lunges, two sets of split jumps, a whole bunch of crunches, worked on the plank twice (which essentially was all I could manage) and did some arm work with weights. I rounded all this up with 15 laps in the pool which took me approximately 40 minutes.

Cocky, arrogant me. My training log yesterday writes 'Lower back aches a little and thighs are quite fatigued. Everything else fine'. Guess who woke up this morning aching from neck down? And I mean aching to such point where it hurts lowering my ass into a seat, coughing, laughing, reaching for something...in fact, I can't think of anything that doesn't hurt doing at this point.

I'm taking a much needed break today. I couldn't sleep the whole of last night despite lying in bed since 10.30pm at night, which could be because I overworked my body, overate at dinner or overworked my brain by reading when I got sick of tossing and turning. Whichever the case, I'm meeting good, ole Keithie for dinner in what I hope is a sensible night-out.

What I've done other than ramble for 10 paragraphs:
Last Wednesday - Ran 4k in 28 minutes

Last Friday - Ran 2.5k in 15 minutes

Yesterday
- 45 minutes core/weights training (essentially circuit training)
- 15 laps in pool in approx. 40 minutes

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

And a Happy New Year's Eve to one and all! Being brilliantly efficient I've more or less finished all my work by 1pm, but here I am waiting to go home, where a chunk of raw beef is waiting for me to magically transform it into roast beef for tonight's dinner. Essentially, if I screw up, we get no beef. No pressure on me at all.

So anyway, I had big plans today to go for a run, prepare my beef, save the world, but instead I'm here in the office watching time pass me by and stalking waaaaay too many people (who really aren't worth stalking) on Facebook. Hopefully if all goes well, I'll be off at 4pm (my fingers well crossed) wherein I'll try to squeeze my favourite 4k run into journey home. It's a grey, rainy day here, which translates to a nice, cool run...something I haven't had in a while.

Last random point, I went for Carols by Candlelight at church last night and I love it to bits. Singing carols in a place that could potentially go up in flames has that nice christmas-y feel with a dash of that adrenalin rush that one needs in life. God bless everyone and have a great Christmas eve!

All About Fish

Long time ago, I mentioned that I had too much body fat and was trying to eat a bit more healthily. I can't remember if that's actually what I wrote, but in my head I knew I had to start eating more healthy.

Since that entry, I've made only a half-hearted effort at eating healthy. The moment I started running 7k and upwards, I convinced myself I could eat anything. So I've been eating all kinds of junk - McDonalds for breakfast, curry for lunch, fries in the afternoon and the list goes on...

This week, I decided to make some effort to eat a bit healthier and have more fish. Fish to me is the miracle food group. Every other runner goes on about having more carbs, but I'm more about the fish. There are so many health benefits in fish and it tastes oh so yummy when it's cooked just right.

So, my fish intake this week has been as follows:

Monday: Asian Grilled Salmon with buttered bismati rice and stir fry vegetables
The recipe for the salmon is here and this time around I went easy on the sugar, so the fish turned out just nice. Tasty and healthy.

Tuesday: Grilled Sanma with Curry Udon
Sanma is one of my favourite fishes. I know it's strange, but it tastes soooo Japanese. And it's so easy to make, just season with salt and pepper and chuck it on the grill. The curry udon was a bit on the dodgy side though. Coupled with the fact that my sister completely overcooked the udon and added too much water to the curry, the whole thing just tasted like it was choke full of MSG.

Didn't do fish on Wednesday

Thursday: Grilled Italian Sea Bass fillet with Herb Butter
I didn't cook this. One of my close guy friends and I went on one of our dinner dates at this lovely Italian restaurant on Bukit Timah called Casa Roma and they served a really mean fish dish. My dinner date had a lovely squid ink pasta with prawns in white wine sauce. It was a kick ass dinner!

SO that's my fish roundup for the week!

Bangkok Gluttony

So Thursday night to Sunday afternoon was spent eating A LOT...and I am not exaggerating. W e had all sorts of varieties of Thai food - green curry, sharks fin, suckling pig, abalone and so on and so forth. I love Thai food and I'm also very happy that I'm no longer in Bangkok, because I was just completely over-eating at every meal.

Food aside, I managed to get my run and swim in. That meant I had to wake up before the entire family (wasn't too hard since everyone slept in on most days) since the moment the whole gang got up, it was off to eat, shop, get a massage and save the world! So although I was half asleep when I got to the gym, I managed to finish a 7k run! Woo Hoo! I'm just 3k away from the target 10k! I quite enjoyed the morning run as well, it feels nice to get the run over with and then have the rest of the day to do my own thing, rather than fit my run in the middle of the day and have to plan everything around it as I do usually. So I guess the plan now is to try to wake up at 6 in the morning and try to get my run in before I head off for work. I guess that means I have to start sleeping earlier than I do now.

I managed to get a swim in the day after my run in the world's stupidest shaped pool. The pool was octagonal in shape and just completely inconducive for swimming. I ended up swimming 50 laps from one corner to the opposite corner, and managed to get a neck ache from constantly trying to lift my head up awkwardly to check I didn't end up in the wrong corner...which I still did, many times. If I ever meet the designer of the octagonal swimming pool, I am so going to whip his ass.

I'm not a big on massages, but after all the running and swimming and the past week's rock climbing session, my shoulders and upper back have been a mess and the Thai massage was so welcomed. My shoulders feel a lot looser now and it's kind of weird not having the permanent ache there. Of course I undid all the benefits of the massage by going off rockclimbing for about an hour the moment I got back home. But, the loose shoulders were nice, if only for a couple of hours. Speaking of rockclimbing, I think I need to get back to it, because well, I just miss it. It's a real bother having to find someone to belay me and all that though, which is why I have only been making very half-hearted attempts to get back into the sport.

Back to the grind again today, so I'm off for spin classes tonight. Hopefully I'll do a lot better than I did last week!

Over weekend
Ran: 7km in 46:37 min
Swam: 1 hour / 50 laps in stupidly shaped pool