Bad Drivers

I've always been relatively mild when it comes to bitching about how bad Singaporean drivers are. But last night I met one of those I'd put up in my list of irresponsible drivers. Yesterday I did my 'longer' run home. I figured I'd been taking it easy long enough since I've fallen ill and I should put those legs through more. So I started off from the train station and ran back...and almost got hit by a car.

It's bad enough that there are selfish cyclists on the pedestrian pathways half the time, who have no qualms about knocking every person on foot down. But yesterday as I was just about to run across a zebra crossing, this ass of driver decided to plough through the crossing regardless of human on it or not. I had to jam to a stop (okay, I exaggerate, I wasn't running all THAT fast) and suffer the humiliation of him banging on his horn. Hello?!?!? He was completely in the wrong by speeding through the zebra crossing and not slowing down to see if anyone would be using it. BAH! If he had knocked me down, he'd be behind bars now. Needless to say, I spent a good 20 seconds shaking my fist at him and yelling a whole string of not-so-nice words his way. Not that he heard any of it, since he was speeding off anyway.

This whole thing really rattled me last night though. I don't get these drivers who don't give two hoots about how they could potentially be killing someone with their idiotic driving. Since I've started drinking, I've been hard on drink drivers because I hate how selfish and irresponsible it is. I've once driven past a club before and the cars coming out of there were driving stupidly. I don't feel sorry for people who get fined/have their licence suspended/jailed for drunk driving. It's one of the most stupid chances to take and quite frankly if they wanted to kill themselves, they can go right ahead, but to put other random peoples' lives at risk, that really pisses me off.

So to all the irresponsible drivers out there, I hope you just knock it off. It's not cool to drive drunk and it's not cool to drive in a way you endanger other road-users especially runners who are also making it home (and would like to get home alive) just like you are.

Yes, I know I've ranted for 4 paragraphs, but I'm so mad at all these selfish jerks!

What I've done:
Last Wednesday (haven't updated in a while!): 4.5k
Saturday: Swam 1.2k
Yesterday: Ran 7k (and almost died) in 55 minutes

I'm Back!

So my return back to sport has been slow and gentle so far and other than my shins aching, I'm actually feeling pretty good despite being laid up for 2 weeks!

Over the weekend, I did a short swim. My neck was still hurting from my inflamed lymph nodes and the 2 weeks of non-activity had turned any muscle I had to mush. Other than my arms feeling the strain, I thought the 600m I did at the pool went pretty well.

On Sunday, R and I went for a long long walk. We started off at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and hiked it down to MacRitchie Reservoir. All in it took us a good 3 hours to do a 10k trek. Because it was insanely warm (although we did get rained on for a good 1/2 hour before it got really hot again) and we didn't bring any munchies, I was pretty miserable at the end of the walk. In spite of that, I thought the walk did me good. My legs got a good work out in preparation for training this week.

Yesterday I stepped things up a bit more. I went for pilates classes and followed that off with a run to R's house (4k). Although there were moments where I was worried I'd be too tired to go further, I made it all the way through!

I'm back!

What I've been doing
Saturday: 600m swim
Sunday: 10k trek

Yesterday:
Pilates for 45 minutes
Ran 4k in 31:53mins

Still Resting

No pilates, no nothing yesterday. My folks are freaked out that I have hurt something badly, didn't help I was whinging the whole of last week, and demanded another week of bed rest and just sitting on my flabby ass twiddling my chubby little fingers. In the meantime, I've managed to hurt my neck from heaven-knows-what (sure as hell ain't anything exercise-related) and I've got a little man attacking the back of my head with a tiny ice pick because I couldn't sleep last night. I'm grouchy and my frustrations need an outlet for release!!!!

Sick

I've been sick the last week. Goodness knows from what. All I know is I had a crazy backache, I couldn't raise my legs and my eyes were throbbing. I was on a nice cocktail of anti-virals and painkillers and I slept away the week that I was supposed to be building on distance. So here I am this week, no clue what hit me last week (despite having seen a troop of doctors and specialists) and still not hitting 10k on my runs. Nonetheless, I'm still going to thank God for small mercies - at least I'm feeling a lot better now and tonight I'm off for pilates!

Hong Kong

Off to Hong Kong for the weekend to celebrate me mom's birf-day. Aiming to squeeze two runs and a swim in during the 3 days there. Yes, I am exceedingly ambitious!

Slow and Steady Does It

After all the failed runs in the past week, I decided to give running a shot again. I've been a running wreck lately and running was just starting to really suck big time. I've never been the kind of runner who experiences a great running high in the middle of my run. On the contrary, I just feel miserable all the way to the end. So what gets me going is really the sense of achievement at the end of the run. With all the incomplete runs, the more-walk-than-run incidents in the past couple of weeks, I was just getting really fed-up with myself and the world, because it really didn't feel like I had achieved anything running related.

Yesterday though...Yesterday the light shone brightly at the end of the tunnel. I started easy - did a little warm-up and a couple of stretches and embarked on a slow run back from the train station. I didn't dash through any lights worrying that they'd change; if they did I'd just hang back and wait. It was essentially a very nice slow plod home and if I can think of any analogy, last night's run was almost similar to someone sticking their toe into a hot bath to check if the temperature's just right. And it turns out, the temperature was just right.

I made it home, slowly and steadily. Of course I was exhausted after the run, but it was a different exhaustion from the previous few runs. I finished the whole distance, and I could have gone further (albeit at a very slow, almost pathetic pace) if I wanted to, and I didn't feel like dying. Most of all, my confidence was back once more and, truth be told, I've missed that good old cocky friend immensely.

What I did last night:
Ran 7k in 57 minutes

I Ache...

Muay Thai and Pilates have taken their toll. Today, my ankles and every muscle in my body that could ache are aching. I feel so hard core! Aiming for a 6.5k run tonight. Judging from my complete lack of running lately, I think it's going to be a bit of a struggle.

What I've done
Monday: 1 hr of Muay Thai
Tuesday: 50 minutes of Pilates

I had some big plan to wake up at 6am on both of those days to run/swim, but that evidently didn't quite work out!