Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Whole Bunch of Walks

I haven't done much since the last post except walk a whole bunch.

I finally got to do the 7K Choo Choo trek with the local Y (and the company of Gracie, Ris and Adrian) and it was muddy. Fun, but muddy. I don't think they planned for 60 over people to rock up for the walk, but yup, that many people did and despite that the walk went pretty smoothly. So I'm glad I finally did this, although I don't think my helper was quite so pleased when I wandered home with muddy shoes! I did offer to clean them on my own, but I think she was worried I'd make a bigger mess of things!

I've also wanted to check out the trail from Bukit Timah Nature Reserve to Mandai for ages and so I harassed R to join me for that walk on my birthday. (You can get away with anything on your birthday!) We forgot to make a turn somewhere in the middle of the route and ended up stuck on the wrong side of two highways. After wandering around in the desperate hope that we could somehow find a way to cross the highways (which didn't involve jumping into a taxi), we decided to call it a day. We continued on that walk (from the turning we should have taken) at Dairy Farm two days later and headed all the way to Mandai zoo.

In hindsight it was good that we had split the walk in two because the total distance covered was about 21K and I know at the end of either 'trek' I was pretty exhausted and over all the walking. The trails were pretty interesting and even though there was a bit where you're actually just walking parallel to the highway, you still kind of felt you were on a trail. Will post pictures soon!

Last week, Gina, Rachel and I finally got down to doing a walk from the North of Singpaore to the South of Singapore. I plotted this out on mapmyrun (and then I realised I could have just gone to googlemaps and got them to map that route out! Doh!) and sent it to Gina and Rach, who obviously trusted me so much they didn't look at the map. They were not too pleased when they realised we had to cut through the centre of town, sweaty and totally unglamorous! Whoops. The North to South walk started at Senoko Industrial Park (it cost all of us a bunch of money in cab fares to get there!) and ended off at Sentosa's Pallawan Beach where there was a little island connected to the beach with a sign on it saying 'The Southernmost Point of Continental Asia', that was good enough for us. Gina and I then met W at Vivo City (yes, I FINALLY stepped into Vivo City) for dinner and drinks. All in we completed 35K and my feet were sore. Strangely all of us ached in different places the next day - strange because when we did 40 over KM the last time we walked, we were fine and dandy the day after!

So in the last two weeks I've walked a marathon and more! Woohoo! Of course this pretty much means I've been neglecting everything to do with training. Not been running much, swimming much and I don't think I've been on my bike since Bintan. Ooopsies.

That being said, Gina and I did meet for a short 6K run yesterday and minus the crazy bag lady who spat on Gina, I enjoyed the run a lot. When I run by myself I tend to get bored and the only thing pushing me on really is my music, but the KMs just dropped away easily when running with Gina and although we weren't going very fast or very far, I count last night's run as a big fat success! I guess it's the good company!

What I've done since ages ago that I remember:

4th June:
Choo Choo Trek 7K

10th June:
1st part of Bkt Timah - Mandai trek (Bkt Timah Nature Reserve - Woodlands Road) 10k
Bukit Timah - Mandai (Almost) by rich.ayres at Garmin Connect - Details

12th June:
2nd part of Bkt Timah - Mandai trek (Dairy Farm - Mandai Zoo) 10.96K
Dairy Farm to Mandai by rich.ayres at Garmin Connect - Details
1.5hr Rockclimbing

14th June:
300m swim

18th June:
North-South of Singapore walk 35k

21st June:
600m swim

22nd June:
6.6K run

Thursday, June 2, 2011

I've Grown Up!

Sorta. I decided not to go for swim training on Tuesday. I had been for personal training on Monday and my shoulders and arms and abs and thighs were just aching. Okay, I could have been just plain lazy as well, but I'm going with sensible. I know I really really wanted to go for the swim, but I figured better to miss a session than to wind up sick...again!

So didn't swim on Tuesday, but I did do a 5k run on Wednesday. Pretty speedy 5k (again, my standard of 'speedy') run too, might I add! Going for swim training tonight because a friend bailed on dinner. Hopefully that'll help me sleep well tonight! I've been having such weird sleep patterns lately. Either I'll wake up at 3am for no rhyme or reason or I'll have very odd dreams and not end up sleeping very well. Fingers crossed for tonight's sleep!

What I did:
Monday - 1hr personal training
Wednesday - 5k run in 32mins 58secs

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

A Bunch of Weird-Ass Race Photos

Race Report in pictures

Pre-race fiddling



Why? Why do I make faces when I get out of the water?



Lumbering back to the transition point. No hurry, no rush...you can tell I'm totally out to break a record for how much I can take it easy at a race.



My stretch of shame where I got off my bike and pushed it up the hill.





This is near the start of the race and the chick on the right overtakes me not long after this photo. As does everyone behind me in that photo.



I run weird. Although I also look like I float on air, which is pretty cool if it were true.



An actual proper picture of me - As I ran in the emcee shouted "smile" and instinctively I smiled. So I actually look like this run was a total breeze. Don't be fooled.



I also stop running funny, almost like I'm doing a jig...



So here's a picture of me opening my mouth post-race. No idea why the photographers thought they should upload a whole bunch of weird photos of me. But then I went and paid money to download them. What does that say about me?