As always, my post-race rest lasts waaaaay too long. I did nothing (except for winning a bottle of wine at a pub quiz! More on that later) all the way till Saturday when I finally decided that it was high time I got my flabbier-by-the-day ass (isn't that a real pretty picture?) doing something.
I got up at 8.45am on Saturday and made it late for swim training. Frankly the session was probably my worst session ever. I was groggy, the water was cold and my brain was hardly functioning. And to make things a whole lot worse, as I was doing my laps, the smell of fresh waffles with maple syrup floated down over the pool from the club cafe and just hovered over it. I consequently got hungrier and more grumpy.
I went back to the club again in the evening to play a game of tennis with my childhood friend, HQ and we're not great, but I feel we're improving. I mean we started off barely able to have a rally and now we can have a half decent one. Of course we had to get the court next to four tennis whizzes having a super competitive doubles match. They made us look real bad.
I was supposed to go for a bike clinic on Sunday, but I woke up at 6 and saw that G had dropped me a text saying she was lazy, so I got lazy and headed back to bed. For a change I actually felt guilty enough when I woke up, so I thought I'd head out for a run in the rain. It was nice, I took the hillier route so I was pretty much wiped out after 1.2k (yes, yes, I know it's sad and pathetic) so I continued on with a half arsed walk-run all the way back home. And the good ole stitch was there to take me the rest of that journey home.
Anyway, enough of the sports stuff - Rich, Shaz Mataz, David and I took part in a pub quiz on Wednesday and won us a bottle of wine! Woo hoo! We were completely uncreative and I nicked Steve's (from Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!) team name as ours. Steve and his team mate (the original Team Happy Pants) lately just won a duathlon and he'd put it up on his blog and I just happened to read about that in the afternoon of the pub quiz. So being ever so imaginative, when it came to team names I was like 'Team Happy Pants' - I did give credit to the original team for the name. Next pub quiz we'll think up a real good name! Anyhoooo, we won us a bottle of vino at the Games We Played When We Were Young. Mind you, we did so-so (by we I mean David and I - Sharon and Rich were both really into it and shushing us for giving stupid answers!) for the other more intelligent categories, which goes to show where our forte is. Sad, but true. Next time they'd better have a celebrity category, I think I'd do well there! Still, we came out of the quiz with a bottle of wine, so I don't think anyone's complaining! Except maybe David, since he doesn't drink any wine!
What I've Done:
Saturday
- 1 hr swim training: I didn't finish all the drills because I was lazy
- 1/2 hr tennis and 1/2 hr core workout
Sunday
- 2.5k run with lots of walking in the middle
Monday, May 30, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Race Report #2: Bintan Triathlon - Sprint Distance
My first Sprint Triathlon! In hindsight it was probably unwise to go to Bintan to do my first ever Sprint, but well, I finished it nonetheless and despite finishing seventh from the bottom in my category, I actually feel really ...what's the word now...fulfilled? Satisfied?
I got to Bintan on Friday and missed my race pack collection. No idea why I thought I would have plenty of time after I got off the ferry, but well...evidently not. The organisers were nice enough to let me collect it first thing in the morning though. A part of me was disappointed. I really really didn't want to race.
So here's the back story. I signed up for the Bintan Triathlon for the heck of it. I knew nothing about it and I thought - well, I've never been to Bintan, might be interesting to do a sprint triathlon there. A couple of weeks after I signed up I bumped into a friend at church who, in his words, said 'Good luck with that. There are loads of hills in Bintan.' Yeah...that I didn't know. Which pretty much explains why despite everything being booked and all my shit being loaded from Singapore (Big thanks to R for helping me lug all my crap from Singapore!), I was still apprehensive (read: completely freaked out) about the triathlon, namely the bike leg.
I got to the race super early because I had to pick up my race kit. It's not really fun being alone and half asleep before a race in some foreign country. I half heartedly did some warm-up in the sea. Aside - Oh what a lovely change it is to swim in waters where you don't have a plastic bag hanging off your foot or a used condom floating in front of you - Yes, welcome to Singapore waters. It started drizzling 15 minutes from the start of the race and I prayed hard a storm would come at that moment. This was the general thought in my mind the whole start - First I hoped they wouldn't give me the race pack, then I hoped they'd call off the race on account of bad weather, then I hoped I'd be stung by a jelly fish or fall off my bike at the start so I wouldn't have to finish the race.
At the race start they asked if all of us girls were ready for the 750m swim. Wait? What? 750 metres? Yup, I assumed it was a 500m swim and was so darn proud of myself for swimming 600m the week before in the pool, 100m extra than I thought I had to swim. Only now at the race start, literally 2 minutes before I was going to jump into the sea, I realised I hadn't actually swum enough. Ah well, the aim for this race was just not to die. I didn't really care how I did, so I figured I'd just start at the back and take it easy.
Of course when the whistle went off I realised what a stupid idea that was. I was right smack in breast stroke territory. And being the lone front crawler, I took a lot of hits...or rather kicks. I got kicked a couple of times in the head and took one solid foot in the chest that really winded me. Finally I pulled away from the pack of breast-strokers and tucked myself behind some chick. Since I wasn't going to go mad at the swim leg, I figured I'd just follow behind someone. This way I didn't have to keep sighting where I was going (and winding up with a neck ache) and instead I could just follow the bubbles in front of me. In all I finished the swim leg comfortably and not all that worn out.
Now the bike leg, that's a whole other ball game. So in all the mini triathlons I've done in Singapore, there have been no hills. In fact most of Singapore is flat. So having to be on my bike and face a huge slope at the beginning of a leg that I was worst at was really daunting. So when I saw a girl in front hop off her bike and push it up the slope, I figured that gave me leeway to do the same. Yes, that was shameful. I decided not to do that for any other slopes and that was when the nightmare started.
Everyone overtook me on the bike leg. Okay I exaggerate, but I know for a fact at least 10 people must have overtaken me. I've always been a bit of a chicken shit, which meant I used to brake a lot going downhill on my bike...well, that all changed in Bintan. As I went downhill I was trying to get enough speed and momentum on the bike to go up the next hill - no brakes there! I just wished I had more gears to get through because halfway through the ride the gears on my chainwheel (haha, impressed that I know that? I just had to google 'what the hell are the gears on the left handlebar called?') stopped working. Still with sheer grit...or more likely the huge huge need and desire for all the torture to be over...I made it to the end (without pushing my bike up any hills...although I did come close to wanting to a few times).
The run leg, or walk leg for me, was pretty uneventful. I couldn't even get off my bike properly, much less run. I stumbled out from the transition area and then began a slow 5k run-walk. The run leg was pretty nice. I ran by a bunch of villas where people were cheering me on, and then there was a nice long stretch of a nature trail. And then back past another bunch of villas and then the home stretch and I was done!
I never felt as if I earned my finisher's medal as much as I did this one. I've always been rather unimpressed with finisher's medals...okay I've finished a race, big deal, we don't have to make a song and dance about it and frankly it feels like a bit of a joke with the whole 'okay so you didn't win, but here wear this medal as a consolation'. But this time around although I came in pretty much at the tail end of a race, had time to have long conversations with myself whilst cycling and running, I also made it to the end...without dying! And the thing about being one of the last few is that people are so nice! All the time I was running, people were yelling 'good work! keep going! keep it up!' and the sap in me really wanted to burst into tears because everyone was being so nice.
In all, I had good fun. Yes the hills were insane biking on and I don't really want to see a damn hill for another month, but people were nice and I actually enjoyed having 'long' (it's all relative) stretches cycling with nary a soul in sight. I realised I was a pretty damn good cheerleader for myself and I learnt that sometimes winning a race isn't everything (okay, I've never won a race, so I don't really have experience in that field). I learnt to hold back and take it easy...yes people kept overtaking me, but this was a race with myself and all my self-doubts rather than anything else.
I'd definitely come back for this. In fact, I've just signed up for next year's race. That's a whole year to ride up and down slopes in preparation!
Results: 2 hr 6 mins
Swim leg (750m): 21 mins 58 sec (27th of 37)
T1: 2mins 22 sec
Bike leg (20k): 1 hr 2 min (32nd)
T2: 53 sec
Run leg (5k): 39 mins 8 sec (34th)
I got to Bintan on Friday and missed my race pack collection. No idea why I thought I would have plenty of time after I got off the ferry, but well...evidently not. The organisers were nice enough to let me collect it first thing in the morning though. A part of me was disappointed. I really really didn't want to race.
So here's the back story. I signed up for the Bintan Triathlon for the heck of it. I knew nothing about it and I thought - well, I've never been to Bintan, might be interesting to do a sprint triathlon there. A couple of weeks after I signed up I bumped into a friend at church who, in his words, said 'Good luck with that. There are loads of hills in Bintan.' Yeah...that I didn't know. Which pretty much explains why despite everything being booked and all my shit being loaded from Singapore (Big thanks to R for helping me lug all my crap from Singapore!), I was still apprehensive (read: completely freaked out) about the triathlon, namely the bike leg.
I got to the race super early because I had to pick up my race kit. It's not really fun being alone and half asleep before a race in some foreign country. I half heartedly did some warm-up in the sea. Aside - Oh what a lovely change it is to swim in waters where you don't have a plastic bag hanging off your foot or a used condom floating in front of you - Yes, welcome to Singapore waters. It started drizzling 15 minutes from the start of the race and I prayed hard a storm would come at that moment. This was the general thought in my mind the whole start - First I hoped they wouldn't give me the race pack, then I hoped they'd call off the race on account of bad weather, then I hoped I'd be stung by a jelly fish or fall off my bike at the start so I wouldn't have to finish the race.
At the race start they asked if all of us girls were ready for the 750m swim. Wait? What? 750 metres? Yup, I assumed it was a 500m swim and was so darn proud of myself for swimming 600m the week before in the pool, 100m extra than I thought I had to swim. Only now at the race start, literally 2 minutes before I was going to jump into the sea, I realised I hadn't actually swum enough. Ah well, the aim for this race was just not to die. I didn't really care how I did, so I figured I'd just start at the back and take it easy.
Of course when the whistle went off I realised what a stupid idea that was. I was right smack in breast stroke territory. And being the lone front crawler, I took a lot of hits...or rather kicks. I got kicked a couple of times in the head and took one solid foot in the chest that really winded me. Finally I pulled away from the pack of breast-strokers and tucked myself behind some chick. Since I wasn't going to go mad at the swim leg, I figured I'd just follow behind someone. This way I didn't have to keep sighting where I was going (and winding up with a neck ache) and instead I could just follow the bubbles in front of me. In all I finished the swim leg comfortably and not all that worn out.
Now the bike leg, that's a whole other ball game. So in all the mini triathlons I've done in Singapore, there have been no hills. In fact most of Singapore is flat. So having to be on my bike and face a huge slope at the beginning of a leg that I was worst at was really daunting. So when I saw a girl in front hop off her bike and push it up the slope, I figured that gave me leeway to do the same. Yes, that was shameful. I decided not to do that for any other slopes and that was when the nightmare started.
Everyone overtook me on the bike leg. Okay I exaggerate, but I know for a fact at least 10 people must have overtaken me. I've always been a bit of a chicken shit, which meant I used to brake a lot going downhill on my bike...well, that all changed in Bintan. As I went downhill I was trying to get enough speed and momentum on the bike to go up the next hill - no brakes there! I just wished I had more gears to get through because halfway through the ride the gears on my chainwheel (haha, impressed that I know that? I just had to google 'what the hell are the gears on the left handlebar called?') stopped working. Still with sheer grit...or more likely the huge huge need and desire for all the torture to be over...I made it to the end (without pushing my bike up any hills...although I did come close to wanting to a few times).
The run leg, or walk leg for me, was pretty uneventful. I couldn't even get off my bike properly, much less run. I stumbled out from the transition area and then began a slow 5k run-walk. The run leg was pretty nice. I ran by a bunch of villas where people were cheering me on, and then there was a nice long stretch of a nature trail. And then back past another bunch of villas and then the home stretch and I was done!
I never felt as if I earned my finisher's medal as much as I did this one. I've always been rather unimpressed with finisher's medals...okay I've finished a race, big deal, we don't have to make a song and dance about it and frankly it feels like a bit of a joke with the whole 'okay so you didn't win, but here wear this medal as a consolation'. But this time around although I came in pretty much at the tail end of a race, had time to have long conversations with myself whilst cycling and running, I also made it to the end...without dying! And the thing about being one of the last few is that people are so nice! All the time I was running, people were yelling 'good work! keep going! keep it up!' and the sap in me really wanted to burst into tears because everyone was being so nice.
In all, I had good fun. Yes the hills were insane biking on and I don't really want to see a damn hill for another month, but people were nice and I actually enjoyed having 'long' (it's all relative) stretches cycling with nary a soul in sight. I realised I was a pretty damn good cheerleader for myself and I learnt that sometimes winning a race isn't everything (okay, I've never won a race, so I don't really have experience in that field). I learnt to hold back and take it easy...yes people kept overtaking me, but this was a race with myself and all my self-doubts rather than anything else.
I'd definitely come back for this. In fact, I've just signed up for next year's race. That's a whole year to ride up and down slopes in preparation!
Results: 2 hr 6 mins
Swim leg (750m): 21 mins 58 sec (27th of 37)
T1: 2mins 22 sec
Bike leg (20k): 1 hr 2 min (32nd)
T2: 53 sec
Run leg (5k): 39 mins 8 sec (34th)
Race Report #1: Tri-Factor Swim 500m Race Report
After being sick and then well and then sick again, I barely had time to do any training to defend my sad little 2nd place from last year, so needless to say I didn't get 2nd again this year! But before I go on on my rant, here's the race report:
The day started off pretty well. G and I managed to wake up early and got to Sentosa an hour before the race started, which is pretty rare for us. G had a wedding dinner the night before as well, so good on her for making it down with so little sleep! Warming up wasn't a whole bunch of fun because after about 5 minutes of mucking around in the sea, G and I came out covered with sea bug bites and it hurt to swim. Imagine swimming and feeling like you're getting a million little buggers stinging you all over. Not fun.
After taking part in a couple of these mini triathlons and races and seeing some of the same faces again, there comes a point where you realise you've actually made a couple of friends and that's really rather nice. It's like joining a support group of sorts for people who're not super competitive athletes, but just normal people who want to push themselves a bit more and a bit further (and sometimes being a bit lazy with training). You can't really talk to a lot of people about this without someone coming up and telling you you're nuts, but with this little new group of friends, we all kind of 'get' each other. And it's always fun yakking up a storm before race start! G and I also made new friends with two new girls who just got into the whole triathlon thing so they were doing their first sea swim race ever. Welcome to the club Andrea and Rachel!
The swim race itself went pretty well, considering the lack of laps I put in the pool. I did have to stop for a breather about 3 times over - I figured I didn't need to kill myself after just recovering from the nasty flu - and at one point I came out of the water, hit the ropes and knocked my goggles askew (which is the kind of idiotic thing I do). I was glad that G and I, in a last bid attempt to make up for not training at all, had gone down to Sentosa the week before and did a full length of the beach, it definitely helped psychologically at the race.
On an aside, it was supposedly jellyfish season and a bunch of people got stung. Not me, thank goodness. Although I did swim over one and I instinctively kicked harder and faster away from the dang thing.
It was all in a rather uneventful race. This year they decided to end the race with a strange 100m dash to the finish line. Because our wave was one of the last we knew we had to stop off at a distance and run towards the line, but I think a couple of the earlier guys swam straight to the end point and got waved back to where they were supposed to swim to before the short run. The run bit was a bit odd and I say that only because I hate running on the beach. There is this constant paranoia that I will end up tripping over something and face planting.
So I didn't get to defend my 2nd place. I also swam a whole minute slower. That said, even if I swam a whole minute faster I wouldn't have been anywhere close to the 2nd position. There were a whole bunch of speedy swimmers this year and instead of having 5 sad little people in my category, there were 17 this year. Talk about competition!
Still, G and I finished it with what little training we had done, so we felt pretty damn good (and not at all guilty) about treating ourselves to an awesome champagne brunch buffet at the Ritz where I stuffed my face with oysters and mojitos...ahhhhh the life.
Race Results: 13mins 26 sec (5th this year...ah, what a difference a year makes)
What I did before:
The Saturday before(8th May): 20 minutes at Sentosa with G
Thursday: 1 hr Swim Training
I think I did other stuff, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were
The day started off pretty well. G and I managed to wake up early and got to Sentosa an hour before the race started, which is pretty rare for us. G had a wedding dinner the night before as well, so good on her for making it down with so little sleep! Warming up wasn't a whole bunch of fun because after about 5 minutes of mucking around in the sea, G and I came out covered with sea bug bites and it hurt to swim. Imagine swimming and feeling like you're getting a million little buggers stinging you all over. Not fun.
After taking part in a couple of these mini triathlons and races and seeing some of the same faces again, there comes a point where you realise you've actually made a couple of friends and that's really rather nice. It's like joining a support group of sorts for people who're not super competitive athletes, but just normal people who want to push themselves a bit more and a bit further (and sometimes being a bit lazy with training). You can't really talk to a lot of people about this without someone coming up and telling you you're nuts, but with this little new group of friends, we all kind of 'get' each other. And it's always fun yakking up a storm before race start! G and I also made new friends with two new girls who just got into the whole triathlon thing so they were doing their first sea swim race ever. Welcome to the club Andrea and Rachel!
The swim race itself went pretty well, considering the lack of laps I put in the pool. I did have to stop for a breather about 3 times over - I figured I didn't need to kill myself after just recovering from the nasty flu - and at one point I came out of the water, hit the ropes and knocked my goggles askew (which is the kind of idiotic thing I do). I was glad that G and I, in a last bid attempt to make up for not training at all, had gone down to Sentosa the week before and did a full length of the beach, it definitely helped psychologically at the race.
On an aside, it was supposedly jellyfish season and a bunch of people got stung. Not me, thank goodness. Although I did swim over one and I instinctively kicked harder and faster away from the dang thing.
It was all in a rather uneventful race. This year they decided to end the race with a strange 100m dash to the finish line. Because our wave was one of the last we knew we had to stop off at a distance and run towards the line, but I think a couple of the earlier guys swam straight to the end point and got waved back to where they were supposed to swim to before the short run. The run bit was a bit odd and I say that only because I hate running on the beach. There is this constant paranoia that I will end up tripping over something and face planting.
So I didn't get to defend my 2nd place. I also swam a whole minute slower. That said, even if I swam a whole minute faster I wouldn't have been anywhere close to the 2nd position. There were a whole bunch of speedy swimmers this year and instead of having 5 sad little people in my category, there were 17 this year. Talk about competition!
Still, G and I finished it with what little training we had done, so we felt pretty damn good (and not at all guilty) about treating ourselves to an awesome champagne brunch buffet at the Ritz where I stuffed my face with oysters and mojitos...ahhhhh the life.
Race Results: 13mins 26 sec (5th this year...ah, what a difference a year makes)
What I did before:
The Saturday before(8th May): 20 minutes at Sentosa with G
Thursday: 1 hr Swim Training
I think I did other stuff, but I can't for the life of me remember what they were
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