Year in summary

Swim: 115 km; 49 hours
Bike: trainer 2,032 km - 76 hours
Bike: road 4,584km - 174 hours
Run: treadmill 407km - 47 hours
Run: road 610km - 63 hours
Strength training: 27 hours
Others: 60 sessions - 76 hours

Total time to-date: 533 hours
Total calories burnt: 220,000

S: 115, B: 6,616; R: 1,017km 

Swim-focussed week

Did a 4.6km long swim this evening: 300m warm up, 4x1km, with 2 min recovery, 300m cool down.

This would be the longest swim todate. The last long swim was 4km in Feb, and it took a lot out of me. Surprisingly it wasn't as bad today. Guess I swam slower :)

Total swim mileage this week: 13.2km. That is close to the monthly average this year.
I need a massage!

TLog: summary statistics

Since bumming around in June and early July (vacations, conferences and a prolonged bout of flu), I only managed to get back on track since mid July. The past two weeks in August had been intense:

June (month): S18.3, B437, R84
July (month): S9, B690, R51
Week ending Aug 7: S4.3, B176, R28 (total 12 hrs)
Week ending Aug 14: S6.6; B227, R42.5 (total 18 hrs)

Long way to go before IM-ready.

It's not only about the bike

Lest you think I should change the title of this blog, I hasten to say that I have not forgotten the other two disciplines.

Swimming with SportInc has been rewarding so far. Made several changes to my swim stroke and had been working on my technique.

Running has taken a back seat but not neglected. MRK made a comeback and is limiting my mileage on my feet.

Would be piling up the distances after BnB.

Training updates

This week was a watered down recovery week, not by design, but by fall-induced and travel-related reasons. Four days to Hong Kong, where the only exercise was a 10km treadmill run.

Which is larger (in area) - Singapore or Hong Kong island? No, not Singapore. It's Hong Kong island flattened out. (Modification of the Colorado - Texas question posed by Philip Yancey).

Did a 7 km hills training run yesterday. Supposed to find a steep hill and run up and down it continuously. No good hills in the east, so I picked the slopes of Parbury and Lucky Heights.

Sat's 70km ride was rained out - a no starter. Incidentally, the rain was so bad that it caused flooding in many areas.

Sun's 60km ride was two loops of KB, and one CCR. Only IN, JN, SC, CS, MH and SY came for this ride. TC and DG were no-show at the 6:15 RV. Overslept/alarm not working. :\

Enough rest already. For better workouts next week!

24 hours, 3 runs, 50+km

Another double run session. 18 km followed by 23 km within 6 hours. It was my wise idea to do this at night, so as to get accustomed to night running. So I scheduled the 18 km run when MBH was engaged with her alpha LG Friday evening. Did it real easy and had dinner around 10:30 pm.

Felt tired and sleepy - it was a long day after all. So I decided to take a short nap. Which turned out to be a long sleep. Finally stumbled out of bed at 6 am, feeling guilty for over-resting. The good news was that the 23 km run turned out pretty well, and I managed to hit my target pace for the last 5 km.

Rain disrupted my plan for a recovery swim, but it stopped in time for an easy 10 km jog at the stadium. That made up a total of 86 km this week so far. Another 10 km run to reach the bare minimum mileage for the double marathon.

One thing that bother me of late is that with all the training and long runs, I am becoming what I vowed not to be - an absentee dad. :(

TLog: back to long runs

Received the overview of my training plan for SD, and it is both expected and unexpected. Expected: mileage buildup with back to back long runs, the highlight of which would be two 42km btb runs followed by a 60km run a few days later. Unexpected: my race plan of keeping HR below 140 is thrown out of the window. In its place HR of 150, a stepped up intensity from WDWM training.

Coach has a target race time in mind, and I almost fell off my chair when I read it this morning. Too embarrassing to declare the target here. Some things are best kept private. Let's just say that I would work toward that target but I'm going to keep my original strategy as the fall back plan.

Anyway, after all that hot long runs to prep for Aviva, it was a joy to run in the cool evenings. More so because of the recent rain. Yesterday's 18km run felt - dare I say it - relatively easy. In this evening's short 5 km run at HR150, pace went as fast as 6:04. Just a temporary blip after two weeks of R&R. Let's see how I feel after a few more weeks of high mileage runs.

One friend commented recently that I don't write much about running these days. Guilty as charged. The fact is that I find cycling to be a lot more fun, especially with the FOTRers. But running is the inescapable core, providing the best mode for retrospection and meditative therapy.

It is good to return to the core.

Checking the boxes

I heard many experienced triathletes say that it is crucial to spend enough time in the saddle in order to surmount the 70.3 and full IMs. What's intimidating is to be able to run 21km after clocking 90km for the 70.3. Which is why we had been pushing up our mileage on the bike.

What's supposed to be a 100km ride last Sat was reduced to a big ZERO as I came down with a fever the night before. Good thing I was back on my feet (er ... butt) again on Sunday, doing a 40km ride with the FOTRers. Anxious to make up for lost time, I went out for a long ride this morning, but my legs were feeling the effects of Sunday's ride and I headed back home after two loops, settling for 70km.

For this morning's session, my objectives were (a) get used to extra weight from another two water bottles - discernible increase in weight, (b) nutrition on the bike - which worked out reasonably well (except that I have to figure out how to get the small electrolyte pills out); and (b) short brick run - which also turned out well. This being the first brick run, I'd expect some difficulty finding my legs. Surprisingly, I didn't. In fact, it felt good to use a different muscle group instead of the cycling muscles.

More brick sessions are likely. What else?

(1) 120 km rides x2
(2) ride in the morning sun
(3) brick session around lunch time
(4) run in the afternoon sun
(5) open water swims x2

Back to training, getting over rusty kinks

It had been a long long three weeks away from biking and swimming. It felt good to be back in the pool - an easy 30 lap swim just to get back into it. Lots of work to do to get back on track.

This morning was an easy 40km ride to Changi Village and Selarang. Couldn't sleep due to jet lag, so at 4 am, I went out. Streets were quiet. Somewhat startled by a car parked along the coastal road without lights on. It was certainly occupied, but hey, keep the lights on for safety reasons!

Good to work those cycling muscles, focusing on high cadence, pulling and the aerobar position. Back in time to say hi to the boys before they set off for school.

Gonna sign up for the Tribob Bintan training camp in Feb. 120km ride on Sat and the OD course on Sun.

Water, water everywhere ...

Never thought that it would be cooler to run in Singapore than in ADL. But the temperature reached 43 deg C on Wed, the day that my family and I returned to SIN.

Tuesday was a decent day for another 16km fartlek run (2km@HR155 and 1km@HR165) along my favorite Torrens River NE route, and I managed to squeeze in a short 8 km run on Wed morning round the oval for the last time.

Thursday was Christmas eve, but I was able to do a 15 km easy run that evening. It was fortuitous in some sense for it rained on and off most of this past week. HR was a little erratic, but I think it is just the HRM.

Christmas day run was another 16km fartlek (same workout as Tue's). I was quite pleasantly surprised to attain the same pace as in ADL, even with the higher humidity. Caveat - it was a cool evening run.

Boxing day was a ride with the 5 am gang, now nicknamed FOTR (Fellowship of the Ride). Good to be back feeling the sweat and humidity. It just didn't feel right to complete a long ride with a dry jersey. For more details about this ride, read post by thebesttaticanbe. I wasn't sure if my legs would be up to the challenge of Mandai and RRR after 55 km of running this week. But surprisingly, muscle memory pulled me through. And the legs felt better after the ride :)

Sunday was supposed to be a rainy day, but it rained only in the evening, spoiling my plans for a long run. Never mind ... enjoying the cool wet respite from the hot dry weather of ADL, and enjoying my favorite Asian food as well.

Would love to get back into the pool ... missing on the swim for the past three weeks.

Festivities

Tis the season to be jolly. Christmas is round the corner, and the festive spirit is in the air.

I couldn't help but notice this on my run yesterday evening. It was 6:30 pm when I started off (summer days in the southern hemisphere), and there was a big concert at the Torrens river. Further up, there was a Christmas display by the riverbank. Both events attracted hordes of people out to enjoy the cool Sunday evening.

Headed on the path westwards, as far as Adam St where the path was under construction. Covered 12km, fartlek-style.

That was the third fartlek run of the week. Yes, this week, I ran more than I biked. Partly training intensity was stepped up for the Jan race, and partly, I had to burn off all the excesses from the good food and wine consumed over the past two to three weeks. I had more fine dinners and great wines during this period than for the entire year.

Overall, 45km run and 40km bike. Coach has scheduled more higher intensity runs instead of long easy runs in view of my high mileage for TNF. Good to feel the burn of hard runs.

Mandai and Rifle Range Road

There's nothing like some nice slopes to get excited over, cycling-wise. Have not been up Sembawang Road since our first ride. Usually turn left into Seletar Reservoir, and since Jodan told us that going straight up is more challenging, we thought we'll check it out.

There are two long slopes. At the top of the first slope, we turned left into Mandai Avenue for the second long climb. Certainly longer than the reservoir route and yes, it was challenging! The other factor was the wind along Mandai Avenue. Somehow, I felt the crosswind today, especially with the 50mm wheels.

Towards Mandai Shell, AY and JN overtook PK and I on the fast sprint portion. JN would later overtake me on the incline towards Namly. He is really improving!

Next up was RRR. As usual, the first 1 km or so set the tone. It was tougher going up than coming back. Good workout!

Distance: 44km.

Total Immersion revisited

Read Terry's latest book on TI swimming while on the plane to Chengdu. It's an update, less wordy and covers more pointers such as imagining a track with shoulders on each rail (hence not crossing over), lowered arm and curled hand, etc. There's also a few chapters on TI for breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly style.

So what's theory without practice?

Today's swim session was mainly to put the latest TI tips to work. Slowed down considerably just to get the gliding motion back again. The key change was to hold my hand by the side (or in the latest TI terminology, tucked into the jeans pocket) so as to glide more. Another was to start counting strokes again (18 to 20 per 50m). With the slowdown, I had to resist the temptation to kick more. The most significant improvement was a better sense of balance.

The verdict? I was happy that I could cover 60 laps comfortably (HR would be in the 140s) and for the last few laps, I was happy to shave off 15 sec per lap just be increasing the pace.

Longest swim session todate. Good workout.

TLog: Of perfume and sweat

The smell of perfume is unmistakle, especially when you don't expect it. There I was, doing my drills at the pool when the wiff of perfume caught my nose shen I rotated to breathe. And I smelt it before I could see the swimmer.

Talk about distraction. Perhaps I am just becoming more sensitive to olfactory stimulus?

I suppose we are more comfortable with the smell of sweat. The very next day, I was pedaling down coastal road when another cyclist overtook me. Usually, there weren't that many cyclists on the road at 6 am on a weekday. I decided to draft him, and came close enough to smell the sweat off him. I'll take sweat over perfume any time.

Anyhow, I increased my cadence to over 90 to build up to 30kph (at big chain ring and third largest rear gear), and went closer to 100 to overtake. At least I had the satisfaction of knowing that my speed could be achieved at that gear combination with high cadence. So the past high cadence sessions seemed to be working.

Then there's the smell of stale sweat that goes with gyms and workout machines. The handles and floor reeked of musty fetid sweat. That's me going back to the gym for weights training. Must have been months since I did weights, so started light with just three sets.

TLog: new focus

Now that TNF is over, this is a recovery week before restarting training with a different focus to prepare for next year's Aviva 70.3. The shift in focus will be more intense cycling and swimming workouts.

Mon: 24 lap easy swim
Tue: easy 5 k jog/walk
Wed: 41k bike ride focusing on cadence
Thu: rest
Fri: rest
Sat: 30 lap easy swim
Sun: 41k bike ride focusing on cadence

Essentially the same route for Wed and Sun - Changi coastal and Selarang, with minor variations. But Wed was on fifth cog while today's ride was on third largest cog. Average cadence went up to 89 cp 70. Speed fell about 1 to 2 kph while HR went up from 133 to 140 average. Good to feel the spin. Now to maintain 80 - 90 cadence while working to smaller gears. Hopefully speed will improve. :)

TLog: a taper variation

Under any other circumstances, I would have gone out on the streets for my taper runs, after all, it had been two years since I last visited Macau. But being stuck in a conference and seeing the low lying mist (smog?), I decided to hit the treadmill instead.

Four Seasons hotel is only one year old, and like most new hotels in Macau, it is ostentatious and opulent. The most recent hotels are bigger, taller and louder than those built more than 2 years ago. Being away from the old Macau town has its advantages.

The gym at Four Seasons is huge. About 10 treadmills, half a dozen cycling machines and weights etc. The gym overlooks the adjacent Venetian hotel, Hyatt and the Hard Rock hotel (didn't realize they'd diversified).

Tue: 1k warm up, 3x1k at 6 min pace, 4 min recovery, 1k cool down
Wed: 10 k easy at HR 145

Could remember when was the last time I ran on the treadmill. It's boring, but fortunately, better treadmills have TV screens mounted on them. So that helped to pass time.

Traveling back to SIN today.

New cycling route and SCSM training run

This was a tricky week mainly because I had many guests in town for a symposium. Between hosting lunches, dinners, research seminars and of course the symposium, I had to juggle my schedule around. In reverse order, this was what I did this week:

Sun - a 44 km ride covering the same Mandai route as last week, with the addition of a detour to the end of Rifle Range Road. IN first suggested this a couple of weeks ago. Apparently TriBob uses this training route frequently; in fact, during our 36 km run last week, we saw a number of cyclists going up and down RRR.

From the BTVC, the road starting inclining, gradually at first and then increasing in gradient. The slope was not that bad, but it was the length of it that sapped our energy. In fact, I felt the burn in my quads (the left in particular), the first in many months since I'd felt that. Two nice declines, especially the last, where we reached a top speed of 48 kph. That meant that we had a tough first incline to negotiate on the way back. PK was very strong on RRR - overtook me and holding the lead to the end, and then putting a large lead on the way back. What would he do with a better bike?!

Great training route - the 3.5km long RRR. Was hesitant on the descent as I couldn't see very well in the early hours of the morning. And I didn't know the lay of the land too well.

Sat - a 22 km PMC run with DW and OPK. OPK ran just 5 km, and returned to PMC. The two of us slogged through the increasingly hot morning, at a modest pace of about 8 min/km. Took a couple of breaks, finishing in over 3 hours. This was the second in our training runs in the lead up to the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon for PMC running community

Fri - R&R

Thu - R&R

Wed - 8.5km trail run with increasing pace.

Tue - 30 lap easy swim

Mon - R&R

I guess the key question is how do my legs feel? They felt much better this week, even though I did 36k last Sat compared to the previous 30k. No pain in the right knee, which was a relief. Still some stiffness so I did a lot of stretches on the off days. The weekend workouts were good to burn off all the excess calories I took in during the week as a result of hosting lunches and dinners.

Nothing much to do except to taper for NF100 next Sat.

TLog: preparing for another LSD trail run

Mon: rest
Tue: 1 hour easy trail run
Wed: 1 hour easy swim
Thu: rest
Fri: 6 k easy on-road run

Tomorrow: 36 km trail run. The last LSD before NF100.

TLog: And here comes the haze

It was unmistakable - the first thing that hit me when I walked out the office this afternoon - the smell. Next, I saw it - the haze.

Good thing the morning was clear when I went for an easy 30 km ride. Easy saunter along PCN toward Changi V. Would have gone on the roads before dawn, but it was drizzling then and I popped back to bed. Worked on the pull motion, which was described as scrapping mud off the shoes. But I simply thought of it as flipping the feet. Felt the strain on the hip flexors. And yes, I could feel the increase in speed. Now to commit that to muscle memory.

Yesterday's 30 lap swim was another easy affair. It just felt good to be in the water again after one week. Corrected the tendency to over-rotate when on the right.

Coach planned a semi-recovery week in view of last week's 30k trail run and 30 kph ride(!). So all easy workouts this week :)

Hopefully the haze wouldn't get too bad ... Remember the bad haze was in 2006 when training for my first half marathon. Had to do a lot of treadmill running, which was really boring.

TLog: Be careful what you wish for

So I was lamenting that I wasn't doing enough trail runs, and when I read my training program for this week - yes you'd guessed it - coach prescribed four trail sessions!

Wed: Explored the jungle trail at Tampines MTB. It's more like some of the Zhenghua trails - narrow and windy. There are a number of wooden bridges/rams for bikers to get their highs. Most are short and straight but the curved ramps are more interesting. One sharp curve is angled ... ought to be fun. Each extended loop (perimeter + jungle trail) is about 3.7km. Did 2 loops plus a cursory run up the slopes to make 10km.

Thu: 1hr 45 min run, which turned out to 2hr 15 min.

MacRitchie reservoir at 7 am in the morning is really pretty. But many tai-chi enthusiasts were already there. I thought the mist floating above the reservoir was so reminiscent of the scene we saw at the control towers lake during our Monday's ride. However when I took another look at the sky above the mist, it was strangely dark. Just 100m into the trail, I knew it was going to storm. The light became so dim that I could hardly see.. it's like twilight, minutes before dark.

It felt like running in a temperate country. The temperature inside the nature reserve would have been lower than 20 deg C.

The weather held up for a good hour, before it drizzled and then poured. Buckets. "Why is it that it usually rain when I run trails?" I asked rhetorically. Of course! The trails are in the nature reserve. And nature reserve collects water for the reservoirs. Duh.

For the first time I turned right toward Rifle Range Link. That segment is rocky, with a small stream and make-shift steps up a brown slippery bank. I took a turn after the bank junction on the right (there were two pillars at the entrance), but that led me to a path besides a wide downstream canal (with teeth at the end of every step). The path became narrower as I went, and my suspicion was confirmed. This path led to a dead end (electrified?) fence with a no trespassing sign on it.

Back tracked and took the left path instead. This turned out to be the right one, and stopped at another military-like camp and a well paved road. The map said that this road would lead to Bt Timah Nature Reserve, so I went down the road. Up and down. Not fun, considering that my trail shoes were well and stiff. Met a Caucasian runner, and we seemed to be the only two crazy souls running in the heavy rain.

Made a u-turn even though I wanted to go to the end of Rifle Range Road, coz of another appointment at the office. The way back was more challenging as I had puddles to contend with. I avoided puddles as I could not tell what's under, and didn't want to risk a twisted ankle.

By the time I got back to golf link, the rain had subsided, but not the swishy sounds of my wet shoes. So much for goretex.

Oh yes, I must mention the lovely song birds - must be dozens of them - singing and congregated among trees along one section of the golf course. Delightful.

And I could have been mistaken that I was not in Singapore: met 6 caucasian ladies - two pairs running together, and another two by themselves. These two passed me during the last stretch. One had a nice perfume on. Perfume for a run? Then there was a group of three caucasian guys running in clockwise direction about 2 km from the end. Not to mention several others. There was a pair of French (?) guys even. I also recall seeing a high proportion of non-locals at the progressive run. There must be some cultural thing about trail running, no?

Pretty much drained by the time I reached back to the carpark. 15 km, averaging a shade below 9 min/km pace.

Would my legs hold out for Saturday's 30 km run? We'll see.