A Weekend of Wind...NOT

This weekend I decided to get back windsurfing. I've actually managed to morph into the kind of windsurfer (if I can even qualify for such a term) I used to hate. I go all the way to the club nowadays to sit around drinking and barely touching my precious board and sail.

I made a change this weekend. I went down to the club on Saturday and went out for about a half hour or so...and realised because I have been so out of touch with windsurfing, I couldn't remember half of what used to come somewhat naturally to me. The sail felt heavy, my toes hurt from gripping the board and when I woke up on Sunday, everything thing waist up that could ache, ached.

But being super motivated meant I dragged my ass down to the club on Sunday and went out and died. I spent five minutes shooting out and the rest of the time struggling to get back to the bay I set off from. The current was too strong, the wind too light and wee old me was not a happy bunny.

Needless to say, the aches from the weekend are more painful today. Yet in a sick way, I rather like having them. Makes me feel like I'm doing something at least.

What I did this weekend:
Saturday: 1/2 hour of windsurfing
Sunday: 1/2 hour of windsurfing

And yes, I do recognise how pathetic it is that I'm sore all over from a mere 1 hour of windsurfing this entire weekend.

Last note:
I watched Tropic Thunder on Sunday night and it kicks ass! One of the funniest films this year!

Trippin' on Guilt

I'm supposed to run tonight. I probably won't be going to do that because I went out last night for my monthly alumni drinks and as usual I ended up staying till the bar shut and they kicked us out. I'm tired, I probably still have a blood alchohol level that's waaaaay too high and mainly I'm just too darn lazy.

I'm going to go home tonight and try and get some much needed sleep as well as catch up on the latest episode of Heroes. I actually know what's going to happen in that episode because I had no self control and went to read up on it on heroeswiki. I'm a nerd like that.

What I did yesterday:
Drink....aaargh, I feel sooooo guilty!

Bad Run

Yesterday's run was really crap. I've no idea why my legs were aching, but they've been aching since my trip to Dayang. I suspect a lot of it has to do with the squatting toilets, but I digress.

The moment I started on the run I knew it was going to be a lousy one. Everything hurt, I was hot, I felt tired and I just wasn't in a mood to run. But because I was all changed in my running clothes, it seemed a bit lame to hop into a cab and ride home. I had to at least make some effort to sweat a little.

I sweated buckets and I managed to pick up my least favourite side-stitch, the one that aches around the ribcage area. My run ended then, and I grabbed a cab home. All in, it was a disappointing and crummy run. But this isn't my first lousy run, and I'm sure I'll have many more like these to come. So I'll just write it off as a bad day.

Meanwhile, I really really need to fit some sleep in my schedule. I haven't had enough sleep since last Wednesday and I'm building up a giant sleep debt.

What I did yesterday:
Ran 4k in 28 minutes

Open Waters - Pulau Dayang

(warning, this is a real long one)


What a complete failure! I am officially a dive drop-out. I went for the first shallow dive and decided to give up altogether, so the dive trip became a beach holiday for me. Let's start from the beginning:

After travelling for 4 hours on a bus and another 3.5 hours on a boat, our whole dive group got to Dayang at 4am in the morning. Barely 4 hours of sleep later, we were woken up and the bunch of us drowsily trooped off to wash up and have our breakfast.

In the first dive we were supposed to run through the drills
1. ditch and don the mask,
2. ditch and don the BC,
3. ditch and don the weight belt
4. ditch and don the regulator

The first dive was the most shallow dive (well, from what I heard, since I only went for just the one) and round about when I reached the bottom, I had a massive headache and my breakfast was more or less ready to come flying out of my stomach. In my defence, I managed to tolerate this general queasiness for quite a while, but when I was going through the 'BC ditch and don' drill, I stuck my hand through the wrong hole and then things started getting bad. Subconsciously I kept finning, which meant I was slowly shooting upwards. Just before I hit the surface I realised I was too high, so I stopped finning and sunk down. When I tried yanking my hand out of the wrong hole again, I subconsciously started finning again...essentially I was shooting up and down for all of 6m. Needless to say, if I was feeling sick before, after that bouncing up and down in the water, my breakfast was ready to be unleashed. I signalled to the instructor that I had to go up and up I went.

I know everyone's going to go on about how it's so beautiful under water and that there are so many different kinds of fish, but frankly the sea is just a big seafood menu to me, when I see any sea creature, I think of how best to cook them, and I end up getting mighty hungry at the end of any trip to the aquarium. Fish just don't interest me all that much.

So I spent a lot of the time this weekend alone chilling by the beach. Thank goodness the beach was lovely. Powdery sand, clear blue waters...Saturday was a beautiful day, so I spent it swimming, sitting in the sun and just being lazy. At night, I watched more football than I ever watched because there really isn't much else to do. Not that I'm complaining. I'm all caught up on football now so I can go back to neglecting it for another month.

In all, despite not diving (which was why I went to this wee little island in the first place) I rather enjoyed this weekend. I made wonderful new friends and I had a lovely time sitting around really, really relaxing and not having a care in my mind. I wish the living conditions had been a bit more 'tourist friendly' though. I didn't feel clean my entire time in Dayang, and sleeping with a sleeping bag on the bed, is not my perfect way to be resting. All that aside though, I'd give this holiday a 7 out of 10, simply because I haven't had a beach holiday in such a long time.

Just a Little Bit Further (My Longest Run So Far)

Yesterday I did my longest run and about 20 times along the way, it almost turned into a short run. But by some strange rare determination that descended on me, I made it all the way to 1k from my place and walked the 1k in.

I was an idiot really. At half 4 in the afternoon I got hungry and went down and bought me a bowl of noodles. Real bright of me. Because I was just burping noodles the entire way home (I know this is in the 'too much information' territory) and it was not fun.

It's been really humid lately as well. With the monsoon season coming upon us, it's been raining on and off...which is fine, however, in between the rainy parts of the day, the air is still and muggy, which makes running just that bit more uncomfortable.

After all the running, I went out to meet K for drinks. One always has to gain back the calories they lose running, so I did my share of 'gaining'.

What I did last night:
Ran 10.48k in 1hr 19 minutes

A Slow and Steady Run

After a whole week of booze, rich food and utter sloth, the guilt finally hit me last night. I brought my backpack and running gear into work yesterday morning, but it was mostly just a meaningless gesture to make me feel like I was making an effort when I expected to be out boozing after work. However when work drinks got cancelled last night, I ran out of excuses to slack off further so finally(!) after one whole week of laziness the roads of Singapore found me once more.

Despite having had curry for lunch again (like I said, I didn't actually think I'd be doing any running), the run was actually alright. It was insanely humid last evening, so that was a bit uncomfortable but otherwise, yesterday's sloooow run was just another one of those uneventful runs. I had a side stitch midway through but that disappeared on its own after a couple of minutes. All in all, I have nothing really much of value to report on the run.

Next up, I'm planning to do a long (by my standards) one on Wednesday since I'll be off on my open waters dive this weekend with the lovely Ms T.

What I did last night:
Ran 4.5k in 32:26 mins

One Giant Wasted Weekend

I achieved absolutely nothing this weekend at all. For that matter, I don't believe I achieved anything the whole week that went by. In fact it's not a matter of believing or not, I officially declare that my entire last week was spent eating a whole lot of junk, drinking a whole bunch of alcohol and doing not a whole deal. Nonetheless, I've had my week of rest and relaxation and now it's time to get my lazy ass off the couch and back on the streets again. G is trying to convince me to do a Biathlon in February and I probably need to get what little training I can get in before that.

What I did the entire weekend:

Sat around at the windsurfing club drinking a lot of JD Cokes and doing absolutely no windsurfing

Ouch!

I went for my last session with my personal trainer yesterday and in a nutshell, OUCH! I wasn't actually in that much pain the whole of yesterday but this morning I woke up and realised my triceps were in soooo much pain! My obliques also have a small appearance in this symphony of pain I'm experiencing. I guess I won't be doing any pull-ups today.

On a totally separate note though, remember the period in life where I was all moody and cranky? Well, all's been sorted-ish now and I have been getting a full 7 sweet hours of sleep every night since Sunday. People eat when they're stressed up, I just wake up at 3am every night.

What I did yesterday:
1 hour of personal training

Post Race

I have done nothing. And would you believe I feel so guilty for that. I should be enjoying my week of absolute nothing, but all I'm feeling is strange and uncomfortable, as if I should be doing something, but I'm not.

Since Sunday I've been feeling a certain sense of loss. Which is odd, because before the race I couldn't wait for it to be over and now that it's over, I actually miss having something to look toward or just having a reason to run. I know there are people out there who love to run just because, I'm not one of those people. I need to have a reason to run otherwise it's just waaaaay too much pain, misery and effort. Of course I could stop running altogether, but I guess there's a sick side of me that kind of enjoys the suffering I feel I'm putting myself through.

G and I have decided to take part in a bunch of runs next year. I want to be able to do a 10k run comfortably (maybe even get to the stage where I don't have to stop for water!) and do a few 5k runs and work on my speed there. She also wants to do a mini Aquathlon in February next year. Well, we'll see how all that goes...

In the meantime, I've got my last session with my trainer this afternoon, I'm planning an nice short run on Friday morning and I've got big plans to get back to spin classes and pilates.

Great Eastern Women 10k 2008 Race Report

Good news first. I made it through all 10k without walking! Woo hoo! Bad news, I didn't do the run under an hour.

I woke up bright and early yesterday morning and had a banana and some dried cranberries. I made sure I drank a whole bunch of water the whole Saturday and I drank a whole lot more after I woke up. Yes, I realise I do have an unhealthy obsession with being constantly hydrated.

My running mate who I'd never actually run with before, G, picked me up in a cab and we headed on our merry way. I have never seen so many women in one place. Nor have I seen so many people wake up at some godforsaken hour in the morning just to run.

After dropping our knickknacks at the baggage counter, we went off trying to figure out how to get the running chip on our shoe. Needless to say we probably tied it completely wrongly, but what's most important was that it stayed on the whole run, and that it did.

Because G and I hadn't run together before and G hadn't run 10k before this, we compared our individual pace when warming up and agreed that I'd tuck myself behind her for the first 5k and then we'd switch for the next 5k. Brilliant idea since I always tend to start off stupidly fast and end up getting tired and miserable about 4k through.

Apart from there being tons and tons of people (we chose to start somewhere in the middle), I thought we did pretty good for the first half of the run. G was keeping at a good comfortable steady pace and that worked out really well. I grabbed a powerade at the 5k drinks station (after fighting off a few women who were shoving others to get their drinks) and decided to pick up the pace a little.

By now I had more or less lost G amongst the masses of women, because unlike me, she isn't crazily paranoid about being dehydrated and she didn't actually stop once throughout the run to get any drinks. So I was flying solo. I tried to pick up the pace a bit now and wasn't completely winded, so kept at that for a while. At about 7.5k, I grabbed some water and decided to push the pace a little bit more because I figured I could. Not good, I started getting a little floored at this stage, so held back again.

I hardly remember the last 1k. My shoulders were aching, I had a stitch, I was thirsty, I was tired...all I wanted was for everything to end. I vaguely recall making a mad dash for the finish in the last 500m, more because I wanted everything to be over than actually thinking I'd make better time. G came in about 4 minutes after me, despite having walked from the 8k mark to the 9k mark. Just goes to show how slowly I was running then.

So there, my first 10k race, which I didn't complete under an hour, but yet strangely there's a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt in a while. I conquered the 10k without dying, and that left a sweet sweet taste in my mouth.

Race Time: 1:09:47
(956th out of 3900 people...which is within the top 25 percentile...anything to make myself feel better!)

2 More Days

and I'm freaking out...well sort of. Somehow a part of me has acknowledged I'm probably not going to make the run in less than an hour. I've been drinking too much and just lazing around waaaay to much to be able to feel like I'm at a 100 per cent fitness level....more like 50 per cent if I'm truly honest with myself.

I'm off to do my last run this evening. Going to go just the 2km today because despite lazing (although I prefer to refer to these past few weeks as 'tapering') all this while, I don't think I should kill myself today and try a run on Sunday with achy leggies! Soooooo, 2k today, a swim tomorrow, maybe the driving range tomorrow evening, and conquer the world on Sunday!

Foray into the World of Morning Runners

I woke up at 5am today. I planned to wake up at 6am, but I spent the whole night tossing and turning, fretting about getting enough water into my system that I managed to wake up a whole hour earlier than planned. So I spent an hour lying in bed over-analysing life. Essentially, after the hour of over-analysis, I managed to get very angry. The story of my life, I make up dumb scenarios in my head that gets me all riled up...over nothing, really.

Anyway, at about half 6, I got out my shoes and headed out for what was supposed to be a 5k run. Because I started too quickly or was just dehydrated (this was my fear all night!), I ended up getting my good ole side-stitch and dragging myself back home after just 4k. Now my legs are aching for some reason and I'm not sure why...actually, I lie, I know why they're aching, I've been lazy for too long and my legs have gotten used to the good life.

Nonetheless, it was interesting to run that early in the morning. For one, morning runners are a lot friendlier than night runners. Maybe because it's dark and no one really thinks the other person can see them, but I've been past runners at night and given them a grin or a wave only to have them run by me oblivious. There's something about the fresh dew and morning sunlight that must make people look happier, even if they're dripping in sweat.

Would I go running again in the morning? Maybe, even though I still feel like throwing up and dying when my body is shocked awake with the early morning exercise. Meanwhile, I've got a feeling I'm going to be really sleepy for the rest of the day.

What I did this morning:
Ran 4k in 26:55 mins

Incidentally I didn't swim yesterday. I got home and proceeded to get very lazy.

Champagne

My entries seem to revolve around alcohol lately and this is no different. Went for a work do last night and ended up getting quite shit-faced on champagne. I hate champagne, it tastes like soda but packs a huge punch. I prefer drinking my normal drinks and choosing to make myself shit-faced rather than being shocked by the fact that I suddenly am very very drunk. No running today then, I figure I'll go for something more headache-friendly like a nice slow swim. And then a nice early night tonight for a change.

The Last Minute Hong Kong - Macau Trip

So I more or less knew I had to go to Hong Kong for an awards dinner a couple of weeks ago. Procrastination again won the day and I only had my tickets sorted out the day before. Nonetheless, after a mad rush on Thursday, I made it to Hong Kong in one piece and stayed a night in the lovely Four Seasons. Very very fancy. Being only a night in HK, I ended up gathering a whole bunch of my poor suffering friends who resided in HK and forcing them to stay out till late with me on a school night. You guys know I love you!

Friday was off to Macau with the family. To cut the long story short, there was a lot of alcohol involved this weekend (surprise surprise) and I only managed to squeeze in one tiny run. I'm not even going to be pretend I'm ashamed that I was lazy (and drunk a lot), because I had a lot of fun. Especially on Saturday night where I met up with this wonderful couple (who happened to be in Macau the same time I was). It was a laugh catching up with them again and drinking wine like the world was running out of grapes.

Great, somewhat hazy, weekend aside, I do need to get my act together and really do some serious training this week. I have collected my race pack though, so I'm all set for the run this Sunday!

What I did over the weekend:
Ran 3.2k in 21:43mins

Pool Session

Had my diving pool session yesterday. It felt completely unnatural and was essentially one of those 'why am I doing this? No human being should strap on flippers on their feet and breathe under water' moments. Not that I've had a lot of those moments. I've still got my doubts about whether I'd enjoy diving, but we'll see what happens. It's off to the gym for my personal training now and an hour of torture. Not that I haven't had enough last night!

Finally a Decent Run

Despite having slept just a wee bit the night before, despite eating Indian Curry for lunch and despite feeling crummy...I did good on my run yesterday! Woo hoo! I'm back! It wasn't that I was running particularly fast or anything, but it was one of those days where everything just clicked. The lights worked in my favour all the way so I didn't have to stop too many times, and my legs just did what they had to do. And the strange part is, during and after that run, all the irritation, angst and misery just melted away - like Slimer in Ghostbusters (if anyone even remembers it!)! Hopefully the mad, insane, irritating me has gone away for a while!

What I did yesterday:
Ran 6.7k in 46 minutes

The Round Up to a Bad Week

I've become whiny lately. I'm tired of hearing myself talk nowadays and I feel sorry for all my friends who have to listen to me go on and on and on about the same things.

I did a short run on Friday, I had planned to do the same distance as Tuesday, but I couldn't go the distance. Ever since the Run for Hope, I realise I get tired after 10 steps and the rest of the run is just painful and miserable...and so the whining goes on...So anyway, Friday's run wasn't a whole bunch of fun, I think I got about 3.7k and I walked the rest of the way home. Had my dinner and went out for drinks till 4am with a bunch of mad Irish people.

Saturday afternoon needless to say was spent in a daze watching 'Twister' on the telly and feeling sorry for myself. Did I learn my lesson? Not so much. I headed off for windsurfing mid-afternoon and followed that off with a lot of Jacks and Cokes. Then I went off for a girlie night at my girl friend's apartment and finished off the night happily helping myself to a ton of wine. Was I the guest from hell? Let's see...
1. Arrive at the party 4 hours after it started? Check
2. Stumble into house half drunk? Check
3. Come in empty handed, bearing no gifts for the host? Check
4. Ask to borrow the shower because it's 11.30pm and I'm still in my windsurfing clothes? Check
5. Whine to anyone who'd listen and bore the bunch of them at the same time? Check
6. Proceed to get even more drunk? Check
7. Stick around and refuse to leave even though everyone has left? Check
8. Eventually left because the host calls a cab and kicks me out? Check

Here's a warning to all of you out there to not invite me over to your houses because even I wouldn't invite myself to my house party.

So what happens Sunday then? Let's just say 'vomit' was a large part of the day. Or well, the thought of it at least. I must say I was rather proud of the fact that I managed to drag myself all the way to the windsurfing despite feeling like complete crap. I was supposed to go for my diving pool session in the morning, but between feeling sick and tired, I missed it. Which means I've to go for it on Tuesday evening and hope and pray I learn everything in a matter of 4 hours. Otherwise, I'm going to have to postpone my open waters.

All in all, I really need to get out of this rut I've gotten myself into. I hate that I haven't made church 2 weeks in a row because I'm getting up at stupid times of the day; I hate that I'm just no longer that much fun to hang out with because I'm just mad and unhappy a lot; I hate that I'm so stressed up that no matter what time I go to bed, I'll wake up at 3am pissed off; I hate that my weekends feel shorter now and I'm not eating properly because I'm just spending most of the day hungover; and most of all, I hate that I've gone on about wanting to run during the weekends, but I don't bother to do any of that at all...

Ah well, hopefully the next couple of days will bring a solution and an end to my wrecked head!

What I've done over the past couple of days:
Friday: Ran 3.7k in 25:17 minutes
Saturday: Windsurfed for a half hour
Sunday: Windsurfed for about an hour and 15 minutes

Here's something that's so classic - because my weekend was spent in some alcoholic stupor, I happily forgot to collect my race bib and chip for the run I've been pretending to train for. Goes to show how I've managed to throw all priorities out the window lately.

Sports Massage = Sheer Torture

After the run on Sunday, I took a day off work on Monday and thought I'd head to the sports clinic and get me a sports massage. I had previously bought a package of 6 physiotherapy sessions which I could change to a sports massages so I thought I'd collect on those massages.

It was beyond painful. I can't even begin to describe the pain because it was pain on a very unfamiliar plane. The masseuse kneaded and kneaded at my knots and I spent a good part of the 45 minutes pinching my hand to distract from the pain (didn't work very well), biting into a towel, grimacing and just seeing stars. And I now know that I would make a poor spy. If someone hurt me like the masseuse hurt me, I would have divulged all confidential national secrets. So it's pretty good no one actually does trust me with information like that.

I read that I was supposed to drink lots of water after the session. But I probably ruined all effects of the massage by going for a whole bunch of drinkies. I realise my self-control when it comes to drinks nowadays is more or less zero.

So Tuesday wasn't so happy a day for me because it felt like someone had take a big wooden stick and hit my legs numerous times - I'm pretty sure I'm not that far off in using that analogy. Nonetheless, because I'm so dedicated and devoted to my cause of running 10k under an hour, I decided to do a 5k run home. Wasn't my favourite run. In fact I think I might have done better resting the legs for one more day before hitting the roads. But I was in a bad mood and I needed the run, so run I did - maybe not as fast as I'd run before, and maybe not as graceful (well, in my head I run gracefully), but I felt a lot better for it at the end. There are moments where one just needs a run to get through a bad day.

Totally random note - I'm taking my first drum class tonight and I'm really excited about it. Sometimes, I think the silver lining on the storm cloud of a 'bad mood day' is the spur-of-the-moment things that one chooses to do and would never have bothered to do any other ordinary day.

What I've done so far:
Ran: 4.7k in 37 minutes

Run For Hope

I ran for the fight against cancer yesterday and sadly cancer won. But only by a little bit. I didn't run the whole 10k route set out by the organisers (although my watch says I did 10.2k). I did complete it, but I more or less strolled along the last 500m.

It was a terrible, terrible run. In summary:
1. I started off too fast, tried to slow down but never really could
2. was really thirsty throughout the entire run despite stopping at every single water station
3. had a stitch about 3k into the run
4. Felt like throwing up my entire breakfast almost all the way through (point to self, cereal with milk an hour before running doesn't sit so well in my stomach)
5. I effectively ended my run when I thought the finish line was 500m before where it actually was and sprinted all the way only to find I had 500 m more to go

It's kind of upsetting overall I suppose because not only could I not make the 10k set out by the organisers, but I have a particularly soft spot for this run. So not making the 10k feels almost as if I've failed my sister and the darn cancer has won yet again. I suppose I have next year to give it another shot.

Meanwhile, I guess, I've to start learning to run in the mornings, pacing myself properly and gearing up for my run on the 26th. Well, also get the whole feeling of nausea that I picked up at the run out of my system. For some reason, the thought of food now makes me want to throw up and as a foodie, that really, really is depressing.

Run For Hope 2008
Ran 10.21k in 1hr 9 mins (I stopped the watch when I gave up and walked to the end point)

Fake Runs

I've been boozing way too much, sleeping way too little, and doing almost no running at all. So far, four days have gone by since the alcoholic weekend and I've only managed two very short runs. More to lie to myself that I'm keeping up with my training than actually train. And my guilt over my laziness didn't last too long because on Tuesday I was merrily drinking till 3 in the morning.

What I've achieved in the last 4 days:
Tuesday: Ran 1.84k in 11:07 minutes (was a 'tempo' run in my head...I actually have no idea what a tempo run is but it sounds cool enough)

Wednesday: Ran 2.45k in 17:01 minutes (I dressed this up as a 'hill run' when in reality I just ran up and down and gently sloped road)

Today: 1 hr session with my trainer where I climbed the rock wall in the gym for the last time before the new management pulls it down.

A last note:
I really have to get my ass kicked for being such a lazy ass, and I would welcome said ass-kicking from anyone at this point.