A "Fool" Print

Port Dickson Triathlon 2011

2011-07-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

It was my ever-first attempt to do a full tri. In the past, i had been doing relay for the cycling leg. If not for friend's encouragement, i couldn't have taken up the courage to challenge my greatest fear - so called sea swim. I always have phobia in sea swim and imagining that i might be drowning in the vast sea. Added to that, i did not do much long distance swim until 2 weeks before when I swam 30 laps in the pool 3 times a week. Certainly, the swim I did one week before at Sentosa bumped me with more confidence to handle the sea.

To start off the race, we had a wonderful weather with no sun and a cool wind welcoming us. The sea was clam and having an extremely low tide. In fact, Uncle Chan commented this year PD Tri was unique. We had a Run-Swim-Run-Bike-Run event instead of the normal Tri. I remembered the advices given by Senior Melvin, Chua, Henry and the rest, which i should keep to the right so as not to overrun by other good swimmers. I ran about 50m before dived into the water, using my breast stroke to swim. After swam for about 30m, i still couldn't get into the rhythm and my breathing was not smooth. For a few moments, thought of swimming back to the shore and giving up flashed into my mind. I later remembered my friends' advices to relax, swim slow and take it easy. The thought of giving up was just too unbearable in my mind. If i gave up now, it could be even harder for me to try on for the next time. I swam slow continuously. noticed the swimmers around me and carefully moved on so not to be overran by others. I am making progress although it was slow. Gradually, i felt the confidence in me coming back. The panic and the fear was submerged by my mind focusing in my stroke and breathing technique. Also, since the swim was held in the lagoon, i felt relatively safe from the watching eyes of the spectators. Finally, I took 44:48mins to reach the shore but still feeling strong.

The bike leg was no problem to me. This was the first time i used the Ceepo for race. Initially, i was unmotivated since i was the few last that came out from the swim leg. Nevertheless, after overtaking one after another, my drive and competitiveness took better of me. Makoto from Next Stage had did a wonderful job of tuning my bike. I felt the shifting was much smoother than before and the speed was faster than my usual ride. I loved my Ceepo Venom. It was a fantastic experience riding on it. The bike was stiff and responsive, and effortless in climbing the hill. In the end, my ride took 1:16hr to complete.

For the running portion, i took it slow in the beginning to avoid any cramp. Surprisingly, my legs didn't give me problem usually that came from the Powerman or Dualathon. I did a 6mins pace and made a few stop or walk here and there. The route led us to a the main road, where we turn towards the beach. I loved the feeling of my feet landed on the sand, which felt more like a massage. Subsequently, we crossed over a wooden bridge, and made a U-Turn and back to the road again. It was near to 10am, and the weather was getting hot. Still, I am able to keep on to the pace and reached the finishing line by 0:53mins. Weird, was that i felt the distance i covered for the run was less than 10km. With my pace, I would expect to exceed an hour. Later, i found out the distance coverage was short of 1km or 1.5km.

For the overall results, i took 2:58 to finish the whole race. I was happy with the results and did better than i expected.

Sundown Ultra-Marathon 100km

2011-06-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

It was my first ever 100km Ultra-marathon to complete in one single day. Compared to the past, I did not do much training to prepare for this race apart from running with Eddie, May and Akira together for weekdays training. Our average distance covered was about 15km. Not enough mileage to prepare for this event but we decided to take it easy and aimed for completion.

To equip myself for this race, I wore Kayano 17 Asics shoes and used Nathan Trail Mix 4 fuel belt packed with Counterpain, toilet paper, 2 PowerGels and 1 Cereal and Energy bar each, with some extra money. In addition to these, we had our friends, Genevieve, Rosalind and Chin Yen came to support us at 18km, 35km 45km, 55km, 75km, 80km and 90km. I won't say I would enjoy the run if not for the company and support from friends. The reasons were that I have not recovered from my cough and been suffering stomach pain throughout the whole afternoon of the race day.

The race was flagged off at 6pm.This year, the Sundown Ultra-marathon started from Marina Barrage, where runners were brought through East Coast Park, Changi Village, Pasir Ris Park to Bedok Reservoir and back via the same route with each aid stations separated by 10km. As a sign of our unity, Akira, May, Eddie and I wore the same 2XU Running Tee to run together.

For the first 10km, we maintained our training pace of 7mins/km. Henry and his wife joined in to run with us at the East Coast Park (ard 8km) for the next 16km. They were training for their next week's Gold Coast Marathon. At our first own personal support point,. I took a few slices of Bak Kwa which I had prepared earlier for us.

For the next 10km, Eddie was not feeling well, suspecting food poisoning. Luckily for him, there were toilets along the costal road where he could temporary relieve himself. However, he dared to take much food after that.

As for me, I experienced an irregular heartbeat and discomfort in my stomach from 20 to 40km. We stopped by at the Changi Point Hawker Center but that did not help me much. By 35km, I was breathless where I saw our support group. I could neither talk much nor drink. Added to my worst scenario, the sleep bug caught up with me. I was running zigzag and hardly could keep straight. In order to stay myself focus, I ran along the pavement line. This sustained me a lot as it eased off my mind from the fatigue. I just simply had to maintain a constant pace and following the line with nothing else to think about.

At 40km pit stop, I got a chance to find a public toilet to alleviate my stomach discomfort. Feeling better, we continued our way to meet our support group, whom stationed at the bus stop(45km) where we had a few Cokes, Pocari and watermelon. Around 1.30am, We reached the 50km U-turn point. Not long after, Mohan was with us too. May commented it was rather demoralizing while Mohan and the group consistently overtook us after each pit stop even though we had outrun them. Eddie suggested we should cut short our rest time to 5mins instead of 10 to 15mins. We grabbed a few hot dogs, gummy bears, bananas and oranges before embarked on our next half to the journey.

When we reached 55km, Rosalind kindly brought my special needs bag so that I could change my socks and to my new pair of Nimbus 12 running shoes. After so many unexpected events, it seems like the lady luck was still not on our sides. After Eddie and me, May felt like vomiting. Upon her request, we plodded from Tampines Ave 10, via the Pasir Ris Park to Loyang Ave. Our support group was not stationed at 55km point as original planned. Gen called to inform me that they were at NSRCC. By 68km, we made another unscheduled stop at the Changi Point Coffee shop while we ordered some drinks. I took some ice coffee which helped me to stay awake a little. Subsequently, Gen and Rosalind drove the car to meet us. May was feeling better after the long walk. Nevertheless, it was Akira's turn of his condition deteriorating. He was quiet during the past 15km walk.

Along the Changi Costal Road, Akira requested to walk since his foot was suffering from blisters. May was quite active and energetic by then. I truly admired her recovery process and figured women had a better ability to recover faster than men. Me and Akira was totally exhausted!! Gen and Rosa was kindly to wait for us at the Costal road. Reckoned that there would be plenty of toilets along the East Coast Park and feeling discomfort on my stomach (again!!), I left my fuel belt with Gen and Rosa. By then, I couldn't able to run due to the strain on my right knees.

At 80km, I able to recover surprisingly after drinking the red bull given by Rosa. My right knee was not aching and I felt the strength to run. It was 8am and we had 2 hours to reach 90km before the cut-off time. Gen also kindly reminded us. Given the tight deadline, our strategy had changed from a leisure walk to a run-walk pace. It was 9.50am when we passed 90km pit stop. By this time, the morning sun had came out and we could feel the strong heat and humidity. Akira's situation did not improve much. We split in the last 10km, with Eddie and me running in front, while May and Akira were behind.

Again, Eddie had proved himself to be a strong endurance runner. The 90km did not seem to drain him. He was running quite fast ahead of me. I saw him around 97.5km where he was sitting on a chair, waiting for us. I tossed my bottle of mineral water for him to drink and we walked the last stretch towards the Marine Barriage. The noon sun was so hot that the heat within me and outsides was beyond my tolerance. Furthermore, the location was totally exposed with no shelter. Runners in front of me were all dragging their legs for the last 2km which seemed like an eternality to me. After crossing the bridge, Eddie took the lead to run up the slope crossing the finishing line with me followed behind. In total, we took 17:15hrs to complete the whole ultra-marathon. Unbelievable that I could run for such a long hours!!

Throughout the last 10km, Eddie and me were worrying that May and Akira couldn't complete before 18hrs. I was struggling between whether to wait or ran without them. My rationale reasoned me to go ahead for at least the effort of our support group was not wasted. Thank God, I was so elated when I saw May and Akira crossing the finishing line at 11.45am.

We had all made it!! Hurray for Hoh-Aye Team!!!

ODAC Adventure Trail Challenge 2011

2011-06-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Adventure Trail Challenge(ATC) is an annual adventure race brought by the NTU Outdoor Adventure Club. ATC is a time-based, sub-urban adventure race caters for both the amateur and professional alike. This year, there were four categories opened for participation : 1) Inter-Varsity(4 per team); 2) Amateur (2 per team); 3) Men's Open (2 per team); 4) Mixed Open (2 per team). The route would cover a total of 26km, excluding the bike and kayaking. As usual, for any adventure race, the route was not allowed to disclose only upon in the race.Came to think about it, it was my first adventure race apart from my participation at X-physique held at 2 weeks ago which I considered more like an amazing race to me.
This year, I partnered with Grace for the first time. We were told to report at 7.45am. For unknown reason, our category flag-off time was delayed and started at 9.15am. Dora and Ronald were leading the group with us running at third position.

At the first checkpoint, we were tasked to tied our legs and walk to each station to follow the origami folding instruction. My hand was so sweaty that the paper crumbled into pieces at the first instruction point. We made a request to the volunteer to bring us a new piece of paper. Due to our dismay, the request was rejected and we had to walk back to the check-in station to perform the task all over again. Me and Grace were extremely bad in Origami. But thanks to Michael and Ivy's assistance, we had completed the instructions which took us some time. Next, we needed to crossed over a high drain. Again, with Michael and Ivy's help, we were pulled up by them where we subsequently dashed into a trail after the drain.

The next challenge was kayaking. It was a tiresome experience as we needed to carry the canoe for 300m before reaching the sea. Then after, Grace and me seem to be fighting among ourselves since our pedals kept hitting each other. To worsen our situation, our canoe was stuck at the Kelong and made a few detours before pedalling back to the shore.

Afterwards, we ran a fair bit of distance via the stretch ofSeletar Link to reach our third checkpoint. At this checkpoint, we were asked to throw 3 balls into a basket which would reduce the timing by 2mins for each successful attempt. None of us able to do it.

The next stretch of the route was a bit hilly. The weather was really hot as the time coming close to noon. Grace was bit of exhausted and we jogged and walked before reaching the fourth checkpoint - 12km mountain biking. This time, the task was to remember the 3 signatory which we came across along the route. The bike trail route was relatively flat and suitable for beginners.

After the biking, we had to ran through the bushes again, bypass muddy trail and slippery down-slope. Never mind since our fifth checkpoint was river crossing a small canal with a life jacket.

From the fifth checkpoint onwards, we ran past another trail route along the MRT track. Chin Yen was pacing and chitchatting with us along the way. From our conversation, I was appreciated by the effort the students had put in!! They had tried out the route not once but twice!! The first was for recce purpose and the next was for trial to gather feedback. Good work!!

The sixth checkpoint was located under the highway bridge. The challenge was Sudoku which I perfectly had not a single idea what was it!! Grace was also not good in this. We struggled for 20mins to crack the puzzle. There was once where we nearly solved it if not for the one last missing piece to fill in. Siew Lee told us not to waste time and took the penalty of 30mins extra. We agreed.

The last stretch took us off along a pretty boring Sembawang Road, then made a left turn into the woods where we walked in a river for about 1km. The water level was slightly above our knee position. There was no need for us to wear life jacket for this exercise.

After the river walk, we had to bypass a small stretch of Kampong area, via park and HDB Flats to arrive the last checkpoint - Abseiling. The abseiling was done at the third floor outside a multi-carpark. It was easier than I imagined. Me and Grace took less than 1min to abseil down. Finally, we headed to our end point, holding our hands and crossed the finishing line!! It took us nearly 4:30hrs to complete the race.

I was impressed by the effort and the logistics that the NTU students had put in. The route was well planned, with lot of water elements and good support spread evenly. It was a fun and challenging race. Moreover, the goodies bag was definitely worth the price packed with Flip flops, North Face Towel and few other vouchers.

I definitely will come back to join in the race if opportunity arises again. Well Done, NTU students!!

NTU X-Physique 2011

2011-06-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

It was my first urban adventure race or so called "amazing race". The race reporting station located at Dhoby Ghaut Green where me and my partner (Rosaslind) needed to report at 7.45am. When I reached the venue, I saw Steve, Jojo, Gen, June, Mark and Rosa all sitting down, waiting for their turn to wave off. Supposedly, my wave should begin at 8am if not due to the heavy downpour which lasted for 1 and half hour.

Once the rain subsided, we were all ushered to a bus where it brought us to the mysterious point. This year, the start point was at Paya Lebar MRT station. We finally waved off at 11am. The first station was to solve a puzzle. Thanks for my smart partner, we managed to figure it out not too long and ran towards the second check point. The second station was mainly testing your physical strength than your IQ. We had to cross over a few obstacles which including throwing and rolling tyre to the designated point.

While we ran towards the third station, the sky poured heavily again. Me and Rosa were totally wet. The third task for us was to discern the next check point by giving a map. We struggled for a while until realized that the map was a mirror image! Then after, we allowed to proceed to our cycling leg.

It was fun cycling in the heavy downpour where you not often to find anybody at the East Coast Park. I could barely made out the view in front of me and constantly had to wipe the water from my face. The fourth task was given a poem to make out where our next destination was. I could guess it was near car park C but confused by the word "lighthouse". We rode further away from car park C and had to U-Turn back. Then after, the map given led us to Parkway Parade to complete a sequence of tasks. The objective was to fill out the missing words in order for you to reach your next checkpoint aka Katong Park.

At the park, we must balance and stand on the slack line for 1 min. I was not good in this balancing act. In the end, it was Rosa to do it. Subsequently, we walked a bit further to Mountbatten Road where we played a few games. None of the game we played achieved the desired results. : (

The next station was to kayak for a short distance (~500m) at Kallang River. We were given then some numbers in which we were stuck for a very long time. Reason was that we too used to the I-Phone and forgot how to use the traditional keypads to SMS.

With some "bargaining" with and tips from the volunteers, we figured out the words eventually. At the open field near Fraser Street, we had to do "leopard crawl" etc to overcome the obstacles. The next clue given was a map which I made out to be at Marina Bay Sand. The task given over there was to guess the "thing" your partner had moulded. Then, we were given a pictures of "Canon" and a "Fort" to find out our next check point. Fort Canning!! It was easy. ha

By then, it was 5pm which past the cut-off time. Rosa and me decided to take our own sweet time and walked. Taking the opportunity of the beautiful, sunset river scene, we took a few pictures at MBS.

At the Fort Canning, we were supposed to follow the marking on the stairs to perform an arithmetic calculation. Mathematics was no problem for me. We managed to calculate the figure in our first tried. We were given a map to lead us to our final check point. Finally!!!

At the last station, the volunteers told us that we could not proceed as we just passed the 6PM cut-off time. Wait a minute, wasn't the cut-off time was 5pm. After much inquiry, we realized the cut off time was extended but no one told us!! What a disappointment. Anyway, the last station was to do a tree climbing. Nevermind, i had much fun at Krabi doing rock climbing already. LOL

It was 6.30pm when we backed to Dhoby Ghaut Green again. The rest was waiting for us. We had our dinner at Park Mall before riding back. When i reached home, it was 9pm. What a day..

IBM Technology Conference and Expo 2011

2011-05-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

Attended the "IBM Technology Conference and Expo 2011" held at Suntec Convention Center this afternoon. This year, the theme of the conference is called "Discover a new era of IT - Smarter Computing", which mostly centralized on virtualization technology. Not much i could say about the conference except a lot of marketing talk. The only thing impress me is the food instead of the content. haha

Asics Kayano 17 Review

2011-05-09T12:05:00.000-07:00

After wearing Asics Nimbus for the past 2 years, i decided to switch back to stability running. Reason was that i suspected my knee pain might be due to the over pronation of my feet. Among the 2 better stability shoes that Asics offered, i guess i had not much choice but to choose Kayano 17 (maximum structured support) since i did not have a good experience with the other (GT series).

The colour i selected is a blue 2E model. Nothing really flashy about it but the combination of the blue and white made this pairs look like a tough running machine. First impression of the shoes is the weight which is comparable to my GT2150 and the better fit feeling as compared to my Nimbus. Other noticeable feature is the guidance line at the bottom sole. The path is slightly curved through the bottom of the tread path which unlike any other shoes i had. Asics claimed that this helps to provide a smooth gait while running.

The first time I slide the shoes in, i could feel plenty of support at the mid and fore foot. In addition, I liked the sturdy and solid heel construction which gave me pretty of cushioning at the heel.

While running with the shoes, i could immediately feel the stiffness all the way and the strong support at the mid foot. This gave me a very stable landing throughout the 10km run without sacrificing the flexibility. The grip and traction was also great for the pavement and road. However, the only complain I had for this shoes was its poor ventilation. At about 10km distance, I felt my feet was starting to heat up. Nevertheless, i want to give a benefit of doubt as perhaps the poor ventilation might be attributed to the hot weather over the past few days.

My thoughts on Singapore GE2011

2011-05-08T10:31:00.000-07:00

It has been an exciting moment for Singaporeans for the past 2 weeks on the General Election 2011. Although my constituency was walked over, I still eagerly following the news.

This year, the election had undergone changes that differ from the previous elections - (1) the rising star of young politicians (Nicole Seah etc) ;(2) Usage of new media to connect the public ;(3) all constituencies are facing competition from opposition except mine. Putting the political view aside, I do appreciate the government's relax in the media control where the opposition's and controlling party's voice can appeal to the greater audience. More importantly, I'm glad that the younger generation has taken more interest in the political discussion and coming out to join the election. The issues that focusing in this election were: (1) rising healthcare cost; (2) rising housing prices and (3) surging foreign workers/talents which i unfortunately are falling into a victim in these issues. In addition, i am amused by the fact that the sensation created by Nicole Seah and Tin Pei Ling in this election. Not that i have anything against TPL, but i found the answers given by her was too surface and not attacking the heart of the problems concerned as compared to Nicole Seah. True enough, Singapore's strategy is focusing on economy growth which i deem is important. But, what is the point of continue focusing on economy growth and job creation where the general public is feeling a strain to support their basic necessities such as paying for their healthcare and wages not able to meet the rising cost? As always, the outcome of the election was no surprised which the PAP still controlling the majority of the seats. However, during the announcement of the results, one had to be astounded by the power of the new media where the results were sprayed across within the "netcitizens" before it was officially announced in the TV.

I do feel sad to see the leaving of our MP Chiam See Tong and Foreign Minister George Yeo. Chiam has always been fought hard to be the voice of common Singaporeans and i feel pity that he had to leave due to his ill health and age. As for our Minister George Yeo, he's been a humble person and contributed a lot in our country's foreign affairs, especially in the areas of improving our relationship with the neighbours. In the first time of Singapore's history, an opposition party has finally won a GRC. As Minister George Yea had said " A new chapter has opened... " or perhaps this signified a wind of change. Still, i have no high expectation of much improvement would be done over in the next five years but hoping at least there will be greater accountability and transparency of the government to the public.

As of now before i end my thoughts, there is a campaign happening in Facebook on the petition of removing TPL as MP. It would be interesting to see what will be happening next.

Stage 5 (Santa Cruz Del Comercio to Loja, 37km)

2010-07-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

The final stage begins with descent into Santa Cruz then the route follows the river bank via poplar groves to Valenzuela but soon the climbing begins. A hard climb to Torre Gallina is followed by a very long descent which takes you into a spectacular valley. The valley track takes you to Salar. From here undulating tracks through olive groves lead to a short tunnel under the autovia and the final 2km surfaced road to Hotel Manzanil finish.

Nothing had to say in this stage, every single runner was trying his best to finish strong. Joshua was allowed to join back the race at this stage. To me, the last stage was like my normal marathon training where most of the route covered tarmac roads and relatively flat. I was pacing with Alison along the way with us overtook each other. It was a great and enjoyable run, when we kept each other going.

Eventually, all the Singaporean runners had completed this stage. Ivy came in last but ending with the most spectacularly with all of us running together holding our Singapore flag.

We had the prize giving ceremony at our last dinner where we exchanging contacts, emails and our experience. This year, the Singapore team had swept across 3 prizes – the most dehydrated runner before the race (Me), the most hydrated runner before the race (Gen) and the most spectacular runner ending last (Ivy).

After the dinner, we had a party on the dance floor at the basement. It was great fun!! Everyone could relax, and truly enjoyed the joy and laughter. It was an amazing experience for me in this race, where I’m fortunately to meet wonderful supporters and runners whom cheering/helping each other up along the run even though we barely known each other for long. The memories could stay with me for the rest of my life and who knows, I might be coming back to the race this year. Ha.. (3 pts to UDMC, Oh yeah!!)

P.S: Chantel’s luggage had finally arrived to the hotel on the last day for race.

Stage 4 (Jayena to Santa Cruz Del Comercio, 61km)

2010-07-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Stage Four was the ”long day “, with more plenty of hard climbs and long ascents. Tracks lead to Cacin, poplar groves and then another big climb to Pocapaja. From there it was just 4km to the finish but climbing all the way. At 61 km, stage four is likely to be the crux of the event for many.

The temperature rose to 43 degrees and no shade was found along the route again. The stage 4 had proven to be toughest stage among the all. But thanks to the organizer’s well planned, most of the runners had adjusted themselves to the terrain and weather’s condition from the first few stages. Typically, the route would cover open fields, single track trail along the gorge, tarmac roads, beautiful lakes, woods and small towns. Apart from running through the woods along the lakes and brief moment of zealous of buying cans of Pepsi for Gen and Chantel in the town, I remained pretty silence most of the time, taking note of my blisters and doing my slow ascent, climbing up the hill one after the other.

Finally, I reached the campsite at 6pm with all the volunteers shouting and cheering up for us. The camp site was up on top of the hill overlooking the sunset and mountainous region. There was a small restaurant beside the camp which the pasta cost 7 euros again. It was an enjoyable rest for me. But regrettably, I heard there was a runner whom lost 4hrs after organizer recover him.

Stage 3 (Jatar to Jayena, 42km)

2010-07-14T08:19:00.000-07:00

Stage Three begins at the campsite and takes the scenic, tarmac road out to Lake Bermejales and then a steep dirt road climb to a forest airstrip and then its mountain tracks all the way through some incredibly beautiful scenery and following it towards Jayena. About 4km before the village you enter another section of single track which takes you to the Bacal campsite finish.

Paul (the race director) promised that the route was mostly all down slope and indeed he kept his promise. This time, we had a staggered start time for the slow and fast runners. Ha. I took the early start time at 8.30am. In preparation of the next day’s 61km and careful not to hurt my knees on the down slope, I decided to take it slow and steady. At the campsite, the organizer invited the nearby villagers to cook for us pallela (Spanish rice) which cost 7 euros. It was delicious!! In addition, they brought beers and goat cheese to sell. Everyone was in a party mood, and this was the first time I could feel the Spanish’s passions and hospitality. The party ended at 10.30pm and most of the foreign runners had took beers and wine before the sleep. Luckily, my freeze dried meal had finally arrived due to postage delay. However, not so lucky for Chantel, there was still no news of her luggage and her supply was running low.

Stage 2 (Alhanma de Granada to Jatar, 42km)

2010-07-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

Stage Two begins by descending into Alhama’s spectacular gorge. There were 4 checkpoints again. From here you travel through the full length of the gorge before heading into the Sierra Almijara. This tough mountain stage includes a new, very beautiful, single track section. From here you begin to descend via the forest tracks before some tough final climbs into Jatar.

Most of the Singaporeans started off strong in the beginning partly due to the beautiful scenery and the less tough trail. Me, Gen, Cat and Ivy met together at the 2^nd checkpoint and ran together. However, the event took a drastic turn where we reached the mountain stage where Joshua began to feel unwell. Ivy volunteered to stay behind and the rest of us decided to proceed ahead since we did not want to pressure Joshua on our run.

Once we were out of the mountain stage, we met some marshals and volunteers to ask us about Joshua’s condition. It seems that he was really unwell, and Jerry had driven a land rover parked outside the mountain to pick him up. At the last descend from the mountain, I turned back my head and saw Dr. Bell running across the mountains with her medical box to join Joshua and Ivy. She was really fast!!

By 4pm, we had reached our second camp site and saw Joshua resting at the medical tent. He was ordered to stay out of the race for the next 2 days.

Stage 1 (Loja to Alhanma de Granada, 37km)

2010-07-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

The race started at 10am. There was a paint marking on the road or trail to indicate the direction of where the runners should run. In addition, there were 2 road marshals riding on their bikes to check on runners’ condition and route. This year, we also had a research team from Conventry University to study runners’ performance in Ultras and under extreme heat. The research mainly focused on taking our urine sample, weight and readings before the start of the race and conducting interviews after the each stage of the race.

Stage one began with a long ascended of 12km up to the mountain at 1420m with very steep slope. There were 3 checkpoints spread at an average distance of 10km on the entire 37km. Many runners chose to walk to conserve their energy and to settle themselves on the weather condition. At around 15km, I missed a marking and took a wrong turn. It was kind of scary when you realized there was no trace of life along the route, and you were running out of water under the heat. Luckily, I managed to back track on time and resume the run back on the course. The rest of 15km route, were trail running along the vast open field with lack of shades. There was a doctor at each checkpoint to observe the runner’s condition if they could still continue the race.

At the last 2km, I met up with Lam and Joshua walking to the finishing. Joshua was not feeling well and vomiting, with Lam accompanying him. In the end, we all reached the first stage of camp site at the stadium in a small town.

Al Andalus Ultra Trail - PreRace(10-11 July)

2010-07-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

The Al Andalus Ultra Trail is one of the most challenging routes in the world of the ultra trail running which held in Spain, Granada. The race spread across 5 days, in which the runners have to run across mountains, woods, trails and roads under the temperature of 38-43 degrees with semi-support from the organizer. There were a total of 65 participants for this year with 9 Singaporeans participating.

Most of us met at the Granada airport where the organizer was kind enough to pick us up and drove us to Loja, a small town in Spain. Chantel had an unfortunate experience where her luggage was lost in the transition of planes. At the hotel, the organizer held a welcoming dinner for all the participants where we got to know each other from other runners around the world. We were honored to have the Widy Grego (10 times winner of Marathon des Sables) to run with us this year. Although Widy couldn’t speak English, but he was very friendly and communicated with us in every possible way by hand gestures and looking up a translator to talk to us.

The registration started at the next morning, 10am where we collected their number bibs, submitting our medical form, and signing indemnity forms. There was one small counter setup to sell limited gears. At 5.30pm, there was a briefing on the course. By 8pm, we had our dinner by the organizer where we watched over the World Cup Final at the same time. It was fun watching over the participants from Holland and Spain supporting their country, and at the end of the match, both countries’ participants end well with a good gesture and a hug.

Dali Trip - Day 2

2010-04-23T11:38:00.000-07:00

We reached Dali in the morning at 6.45am. The slept in the Sleeper bus was tolerable except a few itches at my back perhaps due to the bed lice. Jane was not so fortunate. She couldn’t sleep in the bus.

The driver whom to pick us up was waiting for us for an hour freezing in cold at the bus station. My first impression of Dali city was immaculately clean, with wide opening roads and quiet traffic. The Sam’s Hotel (http://samshoteldali.com/)was decorated in a mix of traditional style Bai Courtyard with comfortable, and generous room space. :)

After putting our things, we headed to our first destination -> Changshan where our dear lady landlord arranged a transport to bring us there. We took a cable car up to the mountain (~2400m). Perhaps it was due to the high altitude, it was tougher than usual for us to walk up the stairs. At noon, the weather turned bad and was raining heavily. We were totally unprepared. Luckily, I had my umbrella with me but my beautiful, hairy legs were exposed to the cold. The rain last for 2 to 3 hrs.

The descending from the mountain was a whole new experience to me. The cable car was we took exposed, with no shelter at the top. Once reached the foot of the mountain, We walked back to the edge of the old town to have our lunch (4pm). May was complaining our meal time was totally messed up. Hehehee

Then after, we took a local bus to Erhai Lake. Gen was really tough in her bargain skill. She managed to reduce the ferry price from $150 RMB to $80 RMB. The sky started to drizzle again. There was not much to see at the other side of the island. We were back to the mainland at 6.30pm. By now, the bus service had stopped.

A man approached us telling his friend could drive us out to the old town. I suspected the guy was telling lie and the lady driver was not his friend. Nevertheless, we agreed to him by forking out $50RMB, to give us a ride to the foreign street, Dali Old Town.

Walking in the old town was an enjoyable experience. The old town was buzzing with pubs, shops, cafes and local eat house. We stopped over a cozy café to have a coffee and desserts. Based on the staff’s direction, we managed to locate mountaineering gear shop which manned by 2 young pretty looking ladies. May and Chin Yen both bought a gore-tex China brand trekking shoes, while Jane and Gen each shopped for small items. The price was reasonable and not much discount was given.

At 10pm, we had our dinner at Panda Restaurant before taking a cab back to our hotel. It was midnight till then. Yawn…

Yunan Trip - Day 1

2010-04-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

Finally!! After weeks of preparation, phone calls and emails, we had made it to the final day. For a moment, I couldn’t even think that the trip to Yunan would pull through.

I woke up earlier at 4am and did some last minute packing before heading to the airport at 5.30am. Chin Yeh called out and informed me our plane was malfunction and we were shifted to SQ instead. He hurried me as our plane took off at 7.10am instead of 7.40am. Great!! That was the last I could need, Surprise! Now, I worried if the rest of the guys could make it to the airport on time. We were all being hold back at the check in counter for an hour before managed to board the plane.

Reached Bangkok 10 a.m. The flight to Kunming was not too smooth. After 2 unsuccessful took off by the pilot with the last nearly felt like a crash, we were transferred to a new Thai airplane. In the end, the whole flight was delayed by one hour. Oh gosh!!

Once touched down at the Kunming Airport, we quickly took a ride to the West Bus Station to buy our sleeper bus tickets(1150pm) to Dali. Subsequently, we proceeded to cloudland hostel to book our accommodation for our return trip before going out to do some shopping. The sky started to poured heavily at 8pm. We were all freezing in cold. The locals told us the city had not been raining for 6mths. We had brought them rain. OMG! I hoped it was not going to rain in the mountain. *Praying hard*

Powerman Malaysia 2009

2009-11-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

This year, the powerman race was held at Lumut again and it is the only official Asian qualifier race to the Duathlon World Championships Power Zofingen held in Switzerland. There were 3 race categories in which for individual, the distance covered was 11km Run -> 64 km Bike -> 10km Run with one had to complete within the cut-off time of 5hrs.

Pre-Race

We were all gathered at Lavendar on Friday at 11pm to load our luggage and bikes into the 4 buses and then drove on to our destination. The whole journey took us 8hrs. Once reached our hotel, we had a quick breakfast and rest. Thanks to Alvin, the event director had made a special arrangement to give a briefing at our hotel stay. Subsequently, we proceeded to the race expo and did some last minutes shopping and a glance on the stadium as many were the first-timer. On the next day, we all checked out at 6am and loaded our bags to the buses. This year, we were given a number tag to tag along our buses to avoid any confusion to find where our belongings to. Once ready, we all rode on our bikes for 8km to the starting point.

11km Run

The weather was great at the stadium but the first 11km had not been a good start for me. For the first few kilometers, I could feel the strain at both of my calves, struggling. On the second lap, I felt slightly better and ran faster to compensate for the lost time. Completed: 55mins.

64km Cycle

There were 3 bridges to clear for the cycling route. Basically, the first 2 bridges were a gentle slope before overcoming a steep one at the last which was about 2km before the U-turn point. Again, I could feel my muscle pain, esp. at the right leg, and hardly could rode on, keeping 28km/hr for the first lap. During the ride, I could see many riders stopped aside on the road, pushing their bikes as their tires were punctured. By the second lap, the sun was out and the weather was terribly hot(38 degrees). Added to my woes, my legs’ muscles were losing power and barely could maintain the speed at 23km/hr. Then suddenly, the bike’s chain came off and I had to stop aside to fix it. This was where I felt my first cramp. Ok. Steady..just rode slowly and things would be fine -> I kept mumbling in my head. Completed: 2:30hrs (15mins behind what I anticipated).

10km Run

The last 10km run was the worst I had for the entire race. Immediately, out of the transition area, I had a terrible cramped, with muscles pulling strongly and tightly at both my tights extending to the knees. I could hardly walk, not to think about of running along. I limped and trotted for about 20mins before I recovered and jogged slowly. Cleared the first lap for 1hr with 30mins to go before the cut-off time. However, I knew it I was in a losing game as I could not finish in time. Completed: 1 hr 40mins

Total time: 5:12 and missed the cut-off time by 12mins. Ha.

It was a mixed feeling for me. Not because of not meeting the timing but it was the first time I ever being disqualified. On one hand, I knew I could able to meet the cut-off time but on the other hand, I was anguished at my poor performance and my trouble legs for giving me problems at most of long distance race. Oh well, until next time and hopping things could get better. Now, It was time to bath at the stadium toilet and hitting back home. In the end, I could still say I truly enjoy the whole trip and the race experience. Definitely, next year, I will be back!!

Genting TrailBlazer, 2009

2009-11-01T08:31:00.000-08:00

Genting TrailBlazer is a combination of adventure race and trail running that aims to promote the awareness of rainforest conservation and team spirit.

This year, there were around 500 teams or over thousand of participants participating in the race – an event record-breaking record. In the briefing session, apart of the heavy shower that rained for the past one week, most participants were unprepared for the upcoming things that might meet us during the race -> leeches!!

The route basically covered 14km from the beginning of downhill and transverse up at the end of the route – 700m apart from the bottom to the top. Although the distance itself was 14km, by no means we could judge the completion time by our normal running speed at the road. The whole journey covered different terrains: rugged jungle paths, asphalt stretches, river crossing and muddy trails where participants often had to balancing themselves and avoid slipping down. Moreover, at most of the uphill route, we were often met with traffic jam and moving ourselves slowly clamping tight on the ropes to avoid falling. The last challenges came where we all had to overcome numerous man-made obstacles: jumping down from a steep wooden slope, swamping through muddy water filling pits, climbing over the wall, and doing a leopard crawl to the finishing line.

In the end, we (me and Joen Lee) took more than 4hrs to complete the entire course using an hour to clear the man-made obstacles.

Incidentally, the race day was also Sok Hwa’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Sok Hwa!! :)

Midnight Wave to Esplanade

2009-05-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

Feeling moody and lack of training recently. Did a quick run to Esplanade from my home. The street was quiet, running through darkness lane, rippling across the noisy clubs and reaching the blue-lit center square at Esplanade.. Oh.. so quiet and lonely. .

Mind still probing over the Safra Club where doesn't have a sense of belonging with individual private groups are formed .. sigh..
Perhaps, i should quit from the club and find someplace where truly can enjoy a good run

Laborador Hill Run

2009-05-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

It's been a year since last trained at Laborador Hill. The up slope seems to be tougher than the usual and posed a good challenge to me. Totally breathless and panting for breathe.

Did 7 loops within an hour. Decided not to stress my knees any further and walked to recover in the last lap..

After the run, Alvin invited me whether to join the Desaru Ironman relay, Bike and run. So tempting!!

Safra Swim

2009-05-11T11:37:00.000-07:00

Tonite, the Safra pool was more crowded than last week. Met Peter and Melvin at the pool and our topic was surrounding the upcoming Langkawi race and Port Dickson.

Went to the pool after they gone and did several laps, trying hard to evade the traffic. Finally, gave up and back home to search for accomodation to share with Lee for Phuket Marathon.

MF Hill

2009-05-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

Did a quick 4 loops round the MF hill. Shiok!!
Rushed to Raffles place to join FatBird's team and meet up with Bee Hua for dinner.

Safra Swim

2009-05-06T09:53:00.000-07:00

Went to Safra for swim after work. Totally, lost track of how many laps i have done. Still slow, got to train up for more speed. One thing did notice for tonite, there were unusually more gals turned up in the pool. Nice.. :)

Disturbing 12 KM Safra Run

2009-05-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

Tonite, there was a sizable turnout for the run. The route covered from the clubhouse to the Esplandane and back. Saw Anthony and the gang at Esplandane organizing the I-Run and cheering for us. :)

Nevertheless, felt rather disturbed by the morning event. Perhaps, is a matter of personal perception that affecting both of our conversation. Couldn't much enjoying the run of today. :(

Raw Duathlon 2009

2009-04-26T09:25:00.000-07:00

It was a hot and humid Sunday's morning to start off with the inaugural Raw Duathlon. The event was held at Changi Coastal Road with nearly 1000 participants joining the race. Apart from that, many familiar faces found at the scene, e.g. Melvin Senior, Melvin Junior, Chin KK, Sumiko, Henry Tan and Collen. :)

The flag-off time for 10-40-10 category started at 7.30am. Runners participating in 10km route would have to make 2 loops around the Aviation Park Road. The run course was relatively flat and i ran with a moderate pace which took me 55mins to reach the transition area.

Leisurely, I took my own sweet time to change for a new cycling jersey, wearing my oakley sunglasses and hydrating myself sufficiently (the weather was terribly hot) before pushing my bike out. For the bike course, we had to make 4 loops around the Costal Road. I had encountered little problem with the ride and enjoying the rushing wind whizzing through my body. However, on the fourth loop, i was nearly fall asleep and skipped. Luckily, managed to recover just in time. A lady rider beside me giving me a smile. I gave a shrug in return. Well, it was totally straight and flat road, couldn't blame me for dozing off.. It took me 1.5 hrs to complete the ride, average cruising speed 26km/hr.

Back to the tranistion area again, I changed to Sundown Marathon singlet. By this time, the sun was scorching hot. Not long before I made my run, i felt a sudden pain at both of my tights. Suspecting that i hurt my nerves, the thought of giving up occurred in my head. I walked for the first 2.5km for recovery. Feeling better, i did a walk and jog tactics for the remaining journey. Total time taken for completion, 4hrs.

Ok.. time to rush to Grand Plaza Hotel to attend Chairman's birthday party.

Damage done:
$40 dollars for taking a cab to and fro.
$20 for leg massge at Freddie's place.

Prize:
Nothing.. no medal, no finishing tee. . Just a pure sense of satisfaction to complete..

Secondary Schoolmates' BBQ Gathering

2009-04-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

In late afternoon, there was a heavy downpour. In fact, these few days were raining during the afternoon. Luckily for us, the rain stopped. We had a good reminiscence at XingCai's house, good food accompanying with great red wine. :)

Dusty Run [Epsiode II]

2009-04-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

This was the second year for the dusty run to be held. Since the run was first initialized by StarDust, i believed that was why they called it "Dusty Run".

There were about 58 participants for the run. The run started at 9.30pm after a long hassle of briefing, photo session etc. The route was confusing after the 10km. There was no road marshal or leaders to lead the way, plus few water points to refill our bottles.

Since not many people participating in the 30km route, the rest of the journey left me, Melvin, Freddy and 2 other runners pacing each other. Simon lost his way. At 11.30 pm , i took a cab and back home since i not prepared run for long distance and aggravated my leg injury

MBA Alumni Gathering

2009-04-09T04:25:00.000-07:00

This was the first time ever for Singapore's business schools came together and organized a party. The party was held at Mimolette bar/restaurant ( http://www.mimolette.com.sg/) , a location hardly accessible and not to think that it could be locating at the usual crowded central district.

The taxi driver had drove me through a dark narrow trail and circulating around the fairway horse tracks. At the entrance, i saw Stephane and her friend while most of the others had arrived. The floor area was not too big and most of the people were standing, drinking and chatting. Well, apart from there, i hardly imagined anyone could follow the rhythm of the music. We(Abt 15) stayed there for an hour before switching over to Tinhill Bistro Winebar(Bukit Timah Road).

The manager made an exception for us to delay the closing time. We had a chatty, humorous and memorable conversations exchanged before parting each other farewell at midnight

Bike Rally 2009

2009-03-15T09:57:00.001-07:00

This year, the Bike Rally 2009 had 2 starting point; (1) East Coast Park (128km); (2) NUT (85km). There were 600 participants and over 200 volunteers spreading across the island serving as Road Marshal for the event. In total, there were 6 checkpoints located round the islands with each allowing 3 minutes of break time.

The registration began at 5.30am. Each of the participants was given a blue singlet, with red singlet given for the volunteers and green singlet for the organizers. The event flagged off at 7am. For the first 48km, it was a relatively easy ride with most of the route being flat. The average cruising speed was 30km/hr. KC, Brian and me were among the
lead group to reach the NTU.

I thought the rest of the journey would be relatively easy taken from the experience from the first two checkpoints. However, it was a book in disguise. After coming out from NTU, the journey was challenging with multiple endless up slopes to conquer.
Examples:
1) From NTU to Kranji reservoir (58km), we had to pass by some ulu roads with many up slopes.
2) From Kranji reservoir to Yishun Stadium (73km), we had the infamous Mandai slopes to overcome
3) From Yishun Stadium to Serangoon (88km), we had to pass through Jalan Kayu and over come some deserted road with some gentle slopes to take.

On my riding towards every checkpoint, I am thankful to the young volunteers (quite cute and pretty too ?) showing us direction for every turn we need to take. The sun was mercifully hot and I couldn’t have imagined all these volunteers had sacrifice their time waiting in the hot sun, pointing out direction and cheering us.
By the time, we reached Serangoon Stadium, some of the riders had begun to show tiredness. I found out from the organizer that this year, most of the riders were riding much faster than they expected. We were allowed to rest at a longer period waiting for the lead vehicle to lead us out.

Towards Changi Beach (102km), our last checkpoint, the weather was drizzling. At this moment, my legs wouldn’t have the necessary strength to pedal anymore and managed to squeeze in a consistent speed at 20km/hr.On my last lap toward the ending point (Big Splash: 128km), the weather had turned from bad to worst, pouring heavily. I was totally soaked with rain, smelly and tired. Thankfully, I was left with 7km to complete. Total Completion Time: 7hrs.

I was amazing pleased with this event (much better than i anticipated compared to the past). The whole journey was well organized, with sufficient replenishment (Bananas, Bun, energy drinks and bars, H2O) available at each checkpoint, visible signs and sufficient road marshals spreading along the entire journey. Not to mention, a finishing Teen (to my surprise) and a whole lot of full goodies bag for collection at a price of $15 for all!! Plus, all the cute, young female volunteers that adding up the fun (Stop and chit-chat with them). Hahaha.. I definitely will come back next year.

Class Gathering

2008-11-21T21:50:00.000-08:00

It was back to our class gathering. I was extremely late after interviewing over 20 job applicants at one go. It was madness!!

OK. Tonight, most of our topics tonight centralizing to the recent events, since some of them are from the financial sector (Banker, Accountant) and senior management. Things looked pretty gloomy. Apart from the bank failures, Eng Huat and Phua accounted that thousand of the factories in China and Europe were shutting down during their trips to global source for supply. Eng Huat cautioned that you had to be quick in China pick up the leftovers from the company once the bankrupt news were out. The Chinese were unscrupulous in doing the business. At one moment, things looked fine, and they disappeared on the next day. Europeans were more civilize in a way that they informed you first. Coincidentally, these correlated to the stories told by my friends and family - where they had immediately arranged movers to "snatch" the leftovers of a bankrupt company. Everywhere, now and there, people were worrying their "rice-bowl".

Lastly, the baton was finally passed to me to arrange to the next gathering at Jan/Feb 2009.

FatBird Team Training

2008-11-20T07:35:00.000-08:00

Last week, i had shifted my training to tuesday instead of thur. As usual in the past 3 mths, i was responsible for the 7 km route and this time togeher with Charmane and Niwas. The turnout for today was more than the usual. Saw a lot of familiar faces along the run.

In the last 2 km, i paced along with some of the slow runners to the finishing. Still felt tightness on my right knees and short of breadthness.. Hmmm.. still considering to do some lung function tests

65km Sat Night Ride via Old Choa Chu Kang

2008-10-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

There were lesser of us for tonight's ride. We decided to go for longer distance and exploring a new route. We started off from our usual route of West Coast Road. Subsequently, we turned towards Bt Batok Road, and rided through Old Choa Chu Kang Road.

It was eerie to ride in the middle of night via this road. There was only forest at both both sides of the road with no sight of life. I remembered the only few buildings i rided by was Tengah Air Base, Home Team Academy and some army camps. I was glad we had rided out of old Choa Chu Kang road since there was many up slopes at this road.

Then after, we turned towards Lim Chu Kang Road. The stretch brought back some of my fond memories where i was training with those hard-core runners for the Sundown Marathon, e.g. Kayano, PS, Jancy, Yong, stardust, David, Wendy etc.. It was a memorable night for me as it was my ever first time to run after midnight!!

Nevertheless, the road was dull, uninteresting and totally straight. I was nearly fall asleep several times and my bike was toddling side by side . There were occassional i nearly knocked onto the pavement!! On the other hand, I observed there were quite a number of foreign workers walking along the pavement. When we came to Neo Tiew Road, the mystery was finally solved. At the side of the road, there was a hostel located to house the fore
Next, we turned towards Lim Chu Kang Road. Riding through the Lim Chua Kang( Of course, with the Smell of the Chicken Farm..) brought back ign workers. I could see many of the foreign workers were sitting on the grassland, playing guitar and singing along. The scenery resembled a festival season with the whole place was brightly lit, and music and songs filling this remote area.

Thereafter, we decided to make a U-turn back via Jalan Bahar road, passing by Civil Defence Academy. Before long, our ride was slowed down by the poor visibility due to smoke covering the entire Westwood road. We were puzzled where the source was coming from.

Finally, we stopped at the nearby Petrol Kiosk to refill our bottles and made our way back home via West Coast Road.

Distance : 65km. Average Speed: 31km/hr. Mileage for past 3 mths: 1228km

28KM LSD at MR

2008-10-19T04:18:00.000-07:00

I realized that i had slipped quite a lot from my training after the ISBG X-Country Run. As usual, we started off from the Marichite Reservoir's toilet at 7am.

For the first 15km, i kept closely behind CK. Hmm.. I could feel my breathe was improving (not as bad as friday's run) At the U-turn point for the 25km route, i decided to push myself a little further and run towards Mandai. Everything went well except on my return trip back. The weather was getting hotter and hotter till then. To make matter worse, i would feel a sense of dehydration (drank 2 bottles of istonic drink, still not enough) and the exhaustion from yesterday's cycling slowly eat up my strength. It was a tough run. Slowly, I dragged my tiring body alone back to the end point and saw Chairman there. Sigh. got to find more training grounds to stem up my stamina.

Marichite to Mandai
Find more Runs in Central Catchment Area, Singapore

Sun Festival (Shape of Color) & East Coast Ride

2008-10-18T20:06:00.000-07:00

Susposed to meet up with Ka Liang early morning at 5am for a ride around Mandai area and probably joined the joyrider for another long ride to East Coast. However, both of us couldn't be able to get enough sleep and had to cancel the ride. haha.

Went back to the office in the morning to do some work before meet up with Xiaoming and Linda to watch an Abstract Art Exhibition - Shape of Colors at The Art House. Ha.. finally, I had to give up in understanding the oil paintings. I had to admit i had no genes in appreciating fine arts like these. Xiaoming took certain interests in the pieces especially as we were wondering how the artist had created the brush strokes.

Dinner appointment at Jumbo Seafood restaurnat at East Coast was cancelled. Jianxing had contracted skin allegry and was admitted into the hospital. The fulfillment of our 10 years contract(made by all bunch of secondary school classmates) had to be postponed till his recovery.

Instead,I did a fast ride(40km) to East Coast Park. There was quite a heavy traffic along the way. I was irritated by some of the inconsiderate taxi drivers whom drove against my lane to avoid the traffic jam. Around the same time, Adeline had finished her bladding at the park. Met up with her at Carpark D1, and passed her the coke which she ordered (since she didn't bring any money) before resuming my ride. Interestingly,there was a small discovery of miniature battleground field setup next to T3 Cycle for kids to play around with their "remote control" battle tanks.

MR 25KM

2008-10-05T01:12:00.000-07:00

I had finally did a long run after the Safra Marina Bay Run. Lynn and Alvin didn't join us today as they were participating TNF100 yesterday. Apple joined in for the run today, bringing a new friend in. The weather was cooling and favourable for the this morning run. Toh, Macus and his brother (Lawrence?), Chew, Billy, Tan had turned out early at 6.30am to do an extra 5km before we started off.

The running route was as usual (20km) before except it extended to another 5km at Seletar Reservoir. Mak, Apple and David Ong had gone for an extra mileage of 2km. Macus and I were pacing each other on our way back. In the end, everyone did well today and completed around 2:20 ~2:40.

In the afternoon, i dropped by to Rodalink at Trade21 hub to get a Shimano cycling jersey. What a bargain!! Price reduced from $89 to $62.

Aromatherapy Massage

2008-10-04T03:39:00.000-07:00

This was my first time ever try for aeromatherapy massage, and a full-body massage which last for one and half hour. The massager was good, using good technique and strength. In the end, my whole muscles were relaxed except for aches at my right calf of my legs. Hmm... wonder if there could affect tomorrow run.

Chest Burn

2008-09-28T08:52:00.000-07:00

I supposed to drop down to Marichite this morning for my usual Sunday run. Nevertheless, i was suffering a Chest Pain overnight, couldn't get to sleep and have to give up my run. :(

F1 Formula and West Coast Ride

2008-09-27T08:33:00.000-07:00

A busy day for me. In the afternoon, skipped over to the F1 Formula venue to recce the area. I took a few photos there and happened to run across Melvin on my way to Suntec.

In late afternoon, i did a quick ride along the West Coast way. During my way back, I came across three trucks being crashed one after the other with the traffic police regulating the traffic over there. In addition, I spotted a new bike shop at Pasir Panjang and found the clipless pedals i been searching for - Speed Play

Bay Run & The Philharmonic Winds

2008-08-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

As if my prayer had been answered, the non-stop rain of yesterday subsided at dawn. What left behind was a cooling temperature and muddy field at Padang where the participants had to toddle across to the bag deposit area and starting point. This year, there was a promising of a new route which would bring us across the Marina Barrage. The organizing of the Half-Marathon went extremely smooth with good water and logistics support along the route. It was the best among the ones that i had been participated. I was delighted the route covered some off- road trail track after exiting from the East Coast Park. Despite most runners' complaints, i welcomed the cushioning effect from the trail ground. In the end, I had finished the race at around 1:52hrs within my expected target.

Today also marked the ending of Beijing Olympics 2008. I was thrilled to watch the final for the women group rhythmic gymnastics. Their performance was stunning and amazing, especially the choreography.

Coincidentally, the performance of Philharmonic Winds clashed with the Olympics Closing Ceremony. The performance was good with great support from the audience but i couldn't bring myself to enjoy it. My mind was totally preoccupied. During the interlude, i was walking outside the Esplanade under the drizzle, and questioning the purpose of my existence. The temperature was cold after the pouring in the afternoon, but my heart felt much colder.

A Wind Poem

2008-08-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, i happened to come across an advertisement from Air Force (see left) which inspired me to compose this poem:

I am the wind rising high above the mountains.
Wheezing across the land with no restraint and boundary.
Never rest and constantly moving.
To reach the far side of earth where no man touches.

You may not to see me but I will be always there.
Echoing in your ears and breezing you with comfort.
When you need me, I will whistle to accompany you.
When I not needed, I will stay at the sky looking over you.

Sometimes I'm wilful,
Raising the tides and swaying the trees
Sometimes I'm tame,
Staying still and silent without a trace of sound.

No matter what form I take.
I will always be true to you and myself.

Nite Cycling - A Trilogy of Mishaps

2008-08-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

This was perhaps the night when everything seems to go wrong. To briefly talk about, I and Ka Liang had lost our way on our cycle to Toa Payoh. Then, Ka Liang's friends had difficulties in finding us and we arrived deeply late at the rendezvous. Before even started, one of the bike had some problems of its front derailleur. Eddie and Calvin were only able to fix it incompletely. Added to the woes, there were news of another biker having their typre burst and was stuck at the nearby Esso Kiosk. Thus, the group decided to cycle over there to meet him first.

As a consequence, we were late at our set-0ff time. This time, the route would cover from Toa Payoh, Upper Bt Timah, Pasir Panjang to Fort Road and returned back to the starting point. There were few inexperence bikers in the group, which nearly caused an accident at Upper Bt Timah. Subsequently, while cycling to our way East Coast Road, the leader had made a wrong turn, plus a dispute was nearly occured from one of the bikers with a taxi driver for no reason or whatever so. Finally, the group decided to take a break at the Merlion status before proceeding any futher.

I decided that I might have enough for one night and cycled with Ka Liang, his father and friends to Lau Pa Sat first for supper before going back home. At the hawker center, a lady sitting at our back was furious with the service from one of the stalls, shouting and throwing plates around. Luckily, after a few hassles, her boyfriend managed to drag her away and i was able to have my peaceful "dinner" at last. Yes, I was having my dinner at 12.30am!! :(

Singapore's Olympic Dream and Final Destination

2008-08-15T00:22:00.000-07:00

After 48 years, Singapore has finally realized its dream of wining an Olympic medal today. There was a mix of anxiety and excitement before and after the match. Many of the Singaporeans were eagerly watching and listening to the event's broadcast. Everyone in my office was feeling excited and proud of the country's achievement. Backtracking, we had came close to achieve this dream in the last two Olympics. Disappointments were met, but Singapore has never given its dream. It took faith, talents and resource in realizing this goal of us and we have made it of today!!.

That reminded me of a book I read recently titled "The Last Lecture". The book focus much about realizing your childhood dream. Back to myself, I had met with setbacks to earn a degree from University. Three times of getting rejection from admitting into local University, then faced with financial crisis while studying in overseas. It looked upon me at that time the dream was nearly impossible, as considering the series of situations faced during that time. However, with a good support from my parents and family, i had made it. Without their support, I wouldn't have succeed as I could be as then. Subsequently, by a stroke of inspiration from someone I hold dearly, I gave another attempt to earn my Master with NTU giving little hope of success. After two long years of waiting, i filled up my application and clicked on the "Submit" button. The rest was the application process i had to go through. Surprisingly, it went smoothly apart from giving up my full-time job to take on the task. With a few sentences exchanged with my family, I'm all set to go and earned my Master with good results.

Perhaps it was my stubbornness and willingness to take risks that I would achieve this little dream of mine. Looking forward, i still in search of other goal to reach. As now, given myself of another three more years, I hope to summit K2 before any of my health conditions deteriorate due to the passage of time. Time after time, i wondering if K2 would be my final destination or would i able to come back after that? Questions will remain unanswered unless I ever try to do it..

Pearl Izumi (2nd Run)

2008-08-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Michael had offered to give a ride to the Kallang river and we met at 6am. There was limited parking space at the veneue and we had to circle around to "shop" for one parking lot. Many of the runners were having the same problem. I could see runners running up to the starting point, presuming they had parked their cars far away. PS and Alber were late. I called out to PS that the run for women had flagged off. Instead, she wanted to join in with the men's run. However, probably, seeing so many macho men and embarrassed that she was the odd one out. She made a U-turn and began her run before reaching the starting line. ha.. Nevertheless, she made her way back again... From afar, i could see Chairman and few other Safra runners were making fun of her. heehee.. hopeless...

There was a delay for the men to flag off. The run started at around 7:20am, about 15mins late. I was running together with Freddy, Jimmy, Melvin and etc. As if there is a curse on every PI run, my stomach felt queerly and i could hardly breathe during the run. Perhaps, it was the long suffering of my cough that affected my breath. After intake of water at the first water point, my stomach started to make funny noise. Gosh!! Which meant i had to slow down my pace.

This time, the route took us from the Kallang river to the Open door stadium and made a loop back to Golden Mile complex for two rounds. I couldn't count how many loops i had done, because every of the scenery looked the same to me. The weather was cooling today with little drizzling for the first hour. Alvin Ong was managing the second water point, and cheering up for me. Good buddy. :)

The difficulty in breathing had caught up with me. At the last hour, my pace was slower with some of the runners overtook me. Nevermind, i ran my own race and my target was to do a 1:40. Finally, in the last lap towards the finishing line, i managed to overtake 2 more runners and reached the end point within my targetted time.

While resting, Chairman announced the actual distance was 18.2km instead of 20km as planned. Sad.. Which meant i missed my timing.

In the afternoon, I was sharing a cab with Simon to celebrate Jamie's birthday at the PUB recreational club. Then after, i got to rush over to Mount Alvernia Hospital to visit Alvin after his back bone surgery. Next, we settled down at Jone's cafe at Dempsy road for a high tea before eating up the durians at my place. Finally, I met up with Michelle for a good dinner at Muratama and a an enjoyable dessert at Laurent's cafe. A full day event. Cheers!

Safra Swim and Creative Culinaire

2008-08-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

After two days of hard training : Cycling (70km) and Running (20km), i decided to drop by to Safra this evening for a swim and enjoyed a good old aqua therapy. I met my colleagues, Shirley and Eugene at the swimming pool. We swam together and i had totally lost count of how many laps i had done. In addition, I took this opportunity to work out my breast stroke and trying out few different techniques. Shirely's friend joined us at a later time, who happened to work in SGH as a psychotherapist. Her front crawl looked smooth and relaxing and i wondered if i possible could be the same as her.. .

After the swim, I met Thiat Huat(Chairman), Lai Chee, Trevor and other Safra members at the club. I had a few chit-chat with them, and mostly my topic was centering on the bike since i noticed that was a road bike parked besides them. The frame was full-carbon and custom made!! Cool!!

Shirley's friend suggested we had our dinner and dessert at Creative Culinaire.. We had a fun and enjoyable dinner where I making jokes surrounding the topics on food and disco. We also ordered a number of Cheesecakes, Baily Irish Chocolate, Pratua, Green Tea Gateau and Judy Chef's Signature cake. I especially fond of the Baily Irish Chocolate cake which was uniquely rich in dark chocolate with a blend of wine taste. Delicious and Yummy!!

Sunny Marichite

2008-08-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

It has been months since i rejoined back with the runners at Marichite. This morning, Teo wanted us to do a 20km run in preparation for the AHM. There were more runners joining in and I lost count of which group they were belonging to. Nevermind, we knew each other somehow from one another. :)

The run covered the usual route from Old Upper Thomson Road to Seletar Reservoir. Came to think about it. This was my first LSD Run after the Sundown Marathon. My calves were still sore from yesterday morning cycling ride. Not to say that I haven't recovered from my cough yet!

Once we reached the Seletar Reservoir, Teo suggested to go another further route, running up the hill. All of us objected and wanted to make a U-Turn back. ha.. Chew and Billy were fast and furious today. They were running side by side with the young ones.Moreover, they were at their 5os. Amazing!!!

Macus and Johnson(Macus's brother) were tired. They had lacked of training recently. Johnson had signed up for the Full Marathon this year. We were suprised to hear the news as he proclaimed not wanting to do a full marathon before. 3 Cheers for him!!

The tiredness and soreness of my legs had got hold of me at the return trip. In addition, i have been focusing on cycling and lacked of running. How to achieve my timing below 1:50!! :( The weather was extremely hot and my throat was hunger for water. At the petrol kiosk, Oh bought me a 100plus to share. After" swallowing" up the Isotonic drink, our body felt to be flared up. Hmm. Perhaps it was a psychological effect. For the last 4km, I had managed to finish up the run at my usual pace. Oh stopped behind to wait for the two brothers. At our usual resting point, we were all making fun of the Macus and Johnson. It was enjoyable to run with this group as often our run would break up in jokes and suans..

I joined the rest of the old MR runners at Shu Fu hawker center. Steven(?) and Oh were showing their photos taken at Ipoh. The talk turned to spooky when they were relating their horrid experience and stay in the haunt house (House 1) at Fraser hill. It was creepy with the mentioning of: (1) bed being pulled up and down, (2) clawing sound from the wall and (3) a black hand being spotted beside the partner sleeping. Eerie!!!

I sure doesn't want to stay there if i ever join the Ipoh Marathon.

PS: The banana Custard Bun was good at Shu Fu Hawker Center. ^_^

Convocation 2008

2008-07-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

The long wait of grand festa had finally arrived on this day; my MBA convocaton. This year, my convocation was held at Nanyang Auditorium in NTU campus started at 6pm. I had especially took a leave to reserve for this memorable day.

However, it felt like also a day when everything seems to go wrong. To start with, my sister was late to meet with us, thus we had to go on our separate ways. Like Alice in Wonderland, my sis was lost in the middle of nowhere in my school campus. Secondly, i was relatively late and was worried of not picking up the extra ticket. After a few hassles, I managed to got hold of the ticket.

The basement of the auditorium was filled with students in robe. The MBA graduates were convocated together with the Bachelor of Accountancy graduates. Only the color of the robes could differentiate each of us: Orange or violet for Master and Yellow for Bachelor degree holders. I had to slithered through the crowd to reach the information counter to request for an addition ticket. To my disappointment, they redirected me to another counter where the counter assistant had asked to go back to the information counter again. After a few hassles, I managed to get hold of the ticket and scurried hurriedly to the registration counter to register my name for the convocation. In the midst of waiting, I took the opportunity to have photographs with my classmates and friends. It would be our last gathering to some of them as Marceal, Tania, Weiyi etc had flew specially from their home country to attend the ceremony.

When i ran back to meet my parents, my sister had also arrived. I arranged them to sit at the second floor of the auditorium. While marching in to my seat, I took the opportunity for me to take more photos again. I was sitting at the 4th row (D18) located at the right hand corner facing the stage. In front of me were strangers i known not of. They were students whom studied the EMBA. Luckily, Carol was sitting besides me and both of us chatting happily, making jokes, clapping and cheering for our classmates as each of them stepped up to received their certification from our President of the University.

It was a long and enduring process which lasted for two hours. There was a moment of entertainment when one of the Bachelor graduates from Accountancy delivered a stunning performance of a song. Until the last of one whom received, the whole auditorium were cheering and clapping loudly. Perhaps to celebrate the end of our suffering.

After the end of the ceremony, my family and I were roaming around to source for any souvenir to mark this special day. I ordered a plateau to engrave my degree certificate. Then after, I called my Brother-in-Law to pick us up. It was a long wait. Eventually, he came and we had a quick family dinner at the nearby local coffee shop. My niece was elated to see me and revealed of her dream to study in London.. Hmm.... how about my University, Birmingham? She rejected and still insisting of her goal. Oh well... Good for her!! STUDY HARD hor.

Port Dickson Triathlon

2008-07-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

It was my first time participated in a triathlon race, not to say it was a relay event with Gal as the swimmer, me as cyclist (40km) and Karen as the runner. It was much stressful to participate as an individual event since I was in the second lane. Any poor performance of mine would affect the runner or the whole team’s performance. Certainly, I could not like the idea of us being the few last groups to arrive at the finishing line.

After yesterday’s night briefing and carbo loading session, the race picked up at 8.30 am promptly. The relay team would start around 9am after each wave had begun. We, the relay cyclists, were all crowded at the transition point waiting impatiently. The event coordinator had repeatedly pleaded us to move back as we might block the other racers. Gal arrived at the transition area half an hour later as predicted by him accurately. Immediately, once received the red band, I ran towards my bike and cycled on.

The weather was marvelous today with the blessing from the hot, cloudless sky. The cycling route was same as last year except the running route which using the same route as cyclists Once out from the starting area, I’m made a wide, right turn, carefully not to skip and fallen down. (I still have problems in making a turn with my tri-bike). There were polices standing by the side of the road blocking the traffic for us. After 1 km ride, I made a left turn and headed towards the highway, which stretched for 4km. Henry was in no time catching up with me. I was trying to overtake him but the narrow lane forced me to slow several times at the back of him. Subsequently, after bypassed him, it was a joy ride to me. I stick to my strategy and using my second gear of my front wheel, keeping the speed at 30km/hr.

After the highway, I made a right turn again with the rolling hills and green fields by the sides welcoming me. I had some problems of adjusting my gears, especially at the uphill. Henry managed to overtake me by then. Nevertheless, the numerous days of training and riding my bikes had finally paid off. After playing with my front and rear gear, I got used to the new terrain and pedaling at a satisfying speed at uphill (20~25km/hr). On the downhill, it was a roller coaster ride. My speed would hit up to 45km/hr and above. Constantly, I applying engine brake to make sure I stayed at a comfortable distance from the front rider. Although drafting was allowed, I certainly no wish to attempt, especially with a tri-bike.

At 20km mark, I caught sight of Henry. Mike hailed me from behind and overtook me about 5km from the U-turn point. I was cycling relatively consistent, marveling the cool-looking, expensive road bikes beside me. After a while, I saw PS riding a constant speed heading towards the U-turn point. Judging from her speed, my guess was that she was riding at 28km/hr.

At every steep slope, I started to recall Lee’s recommended strategy of pedaling hard, especially to stand up and pedaled. I applied the technique, but encountered problems of balancing. Every time I tried to stand up, in no time, my butts were back to the saddle position. In addition, I was thirsty with the sun kissing fiercely on my sweaty body after riding for more than 20km. However, I couldn’t care to quell my thirst as I was too focused to maintain my cruising speed. Once I turned to the highway again, I could saw those fast-pace triathletes was running in opposite direction against us side by side.

In the last 4km, I changed to heavy gear and pedaling hard to the finishing line. Alvin and Karen were waving and shouting at me. My legs felt like slightly cramp when dismounting from my bike, and managed to “crawl” towards Karen to pass her the band. Total time taken was 1:20mins. Happy with the result. It was an enjoyable and memorable experience to able to ride at such a beautiful landscape. Moreover, not to mention of making new friends as well. :)

I - Run @ Singapore River Promenade

2008-07-15T09:14:00.000-07:00

This evening, we (Me and Pei Choon) were running slightly late. Michelle was already waiting for us at the Singapore River. Lucky for us, Jancy, Anthony, Benny and Eugene (Leaders) were conducting warm-up exercise when we reached the meeting point. It was an expensive trip, which cost me $10.30 for the taxi fare. : (

After registered our names and category to be participated in (7 km), I joined the group and started the run with the rest. There were about 30 of us with each participated to run at different distance. At various turning points for the different groups, the running leader of the group would stop over to guide us for direction. The 7km running route was rather convoluted with many turning here and there. It was confusing for me to anticipate each turn should take. I was running together with a Malay guy (wearing Safra running shirt) and a lady foreigner whom slightly behind me. The guy was rather helpful. At every turn to take, he would call upon me to direct me of the turn. In addition, Anthony, DO, Jancy and the rest of running leaders/ assistants would cheer for us to go on.

After the run, a woman at the registration counter asked me for the timing to complete the run. I couldn’t understand the rational behind it since I thought it would be a leisure run to encourage people to keep up this sport. Apparently, they would like to gauge the runner of any improvement to their health. Still, I wouldn’t agree to their method since a person’s health couldn’t be measured by how fast he/she could run. Well, I might just give her my timing based on my usual pace. Subsequently, I went with Michelle towards Raffles City to have our dinner over there and picked up a book titled “The Last Lecture” which supposed to be inspirational.

Cycling with Toa Payoh Group

2008-07-12T09:48:00.000-07:00

Rush. Rush. Rush. This was the description for the series of events happened to me for today.

After finishing my afternoon agendas, I sent my bike for inspection in the evening before the rode with Toa Payoh began. My new triathlon bike has been making squeaking sound ever since I gotten hold of it. Initially, I thought it was normal but my suspicious arose as I experienced difficulties in pedaling it. The shop owner of the bike shop (at Zion Road) confirmed my suspicion. The crank set and rear derailer had not been aligned properly. However, talk about rip-off!! I was charged $25 for the service rendered. Gosh!! Without other alternatives and running short of time, I agreed to the fee. : (

Subsequently, Yean, Ka Liang and his father had cycled to Zion Road to meet with me. Together, we rode via Orchard Road, Newton Circle and reached Toa Payoh to meet with the rest of the group. It was a huge group for today’s ride. There were about 14 of us. The group made up a mixture of roadies and mountain bikes. Tonight, our route would cover Mandai Road, Choa Chua Kang to Bt Timah. Talk about déjà vu. I would still remember the rode with Alvin, Eddie, PS and the rest where I was exhausted and could not catch up with the rest. Tonight was a chance to prove myself again. Ha.

The ride was extremely smooth along the journey. Perhaps it was due to the alignment done at the bike shop. I could pedal the bike with no problem and manage to conquer one slope after another with little trade off in speed. On average, I was riding at 30km/hr. Geez!! Hee hee

The group’s stamina does not match equally with each other. At several junctions, we would stop to wait for the rest to catch up. Nevertheless, this also provided the chance for us to chit-chat and know each other better. At Bt Batok petrol kiosk, we decided to rode to Adam Road Hawker Center to have our supper before we spilt off from there. Unfortunately, after 700m before reaching the point, my tire was punctured. Luckily, there was mechanic support in the group. Ka Liang and Calvin came to my rescue to change a new tube. At 12am, the group greeted each other good-bye and reminded ourselves to meet together at next Saturday. In the end, although there were some confusions and disobeyed of cyclist’s rules at certain T-junctions, but the ride was fun and enjoyable overall.

STK Cross Country Run

2008-07-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

I was participating as part of the Invitational Team(for my company) for this event. There were 5 of us including Melvin, Andrew... and the rest i couldn't remember their names. It was a short 5km run, which demanded speed and a test of one's Max VO2. I hadn't recovered from my cough yet and the run proved to be strenuous for me.

Andrew was fast and furious!! He had came in first under the invitational team category with Melvin followed behind. During the run, my lung was burning, and grasping desperately for more air. Still, I managed to complete at rank 11, or as third member of the group.

Finally, at the prize ceremony, our team came in second within the Invitational Team Category, and won $150 voucher from Royal Sporting House. Not bad for a day's effort. :)

Class Reunion Dinner

2008-07-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

It had been a while since i met my Full-Time MBA classmates. Thomas was finally back in SG before he flied off again to HK. On the other hand, Mayuko would soon go back to her own country(flying next tue).

It was a delightful gathering where all of us talking about our dreams and hopes. And lastly, We were all wondering where would we be after the next ten years.....

Pearl Izumi Run (1)

2008-06-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

Today was the 1st series of the Pearl Izumi Run held at Bedok Town Park. My stomach was not feeling well for the whole day. Perhaps it was due to the barbecue food taken yesterday night. I was waiting inside the toilet and searching around for toilet paper all the while before the race began.

Too bad, the toilet had ran out of toilet paper and my search for the paper was futile. Pulling out from the race did occur in my mind. Still, it was a short race (12km) and I reckoned i would bear with the pain.

The horn had sounded. I was running slowly and mentally telling myself not to rush my pace as to further inject any discomfort to my stomach. It was a slow pace and i would see many of runners had overtaken me. At the exit point out from the park, Chairman ridiculed me for running far behind of the others. I pointed to my stomach and indicated the discomfort I was experiencing with.

Throughout the race, I was running closely with Benny, Richard Ho and Lee. Yong was about 500m in front of me. At 10km, I reckoned it was safe for me to speed up my pace. Immediately, i overtake a few other runners and attempt to catch up with Yong.

At the last 500m, i dashed towards the finishing line and keeping close to Yong. Perhaps Yong had felt my presence and also started to race towards the end point. The Safra runners waiting at the finishing line were cheering for both of us. At the background, i could hear the DJ announcing our close encounter as if reporting a horse racing. ha

In the end, i managed to overtake Yong, crossed over the line(1:04hr) and running towards the bag deposit area to pick up my bag searching for toilet frantically. : (

Tiong Bahru Park

2008-06-25T10:33:00.000-07:00

Went by home at 9pm. Had a quick dinner, and rest for a while before starting my run... Gosh!! By the time I was out of my house, it was a quarter before 11pm. I would have missed the Everest Beyond the Limit Season 2. I did a quick three loops around Tiong Bahru Park instead, which used to be my usual training ground.

The Everest Beyond the Limit Season 2 was showing some of the climbers trekking towards the North Col Camp.. It looked treacherous and difficult which made me start to wonder if my physical condition could allow me to succeed in reaching the campsite... Hmmm.

Late Hour Run

2008-06-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Late as I am to join the Safra run tonight. Did a quick loop around the whole stretch of Mt Faber and saw Chin in the bathroom. Chin was training together with his mates for the coming kinabalu climbaton. Hmm. perhaps one day i might join him to train for my trekking trip.

Thenafter, I had an enjoyable dinner with the rest of the Safra runners. At midnight, suddenly felt a urge to write a poem to send my best wishes to SGrunners forum. :)

Running fast or waddling on.
A group of us shares the running passion.
Coming from SG, roaming around the island
Picking up a starting point and we all gather up
Sharing the laughter, sweat and perspiration
No matter how bright the Sun or Late is the hour
SGrunners will always be here and stay on
To motivate, inspire and keep the running spirit going on!!

Thur Run

2008-06-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

It has been two weeks since i last run after the Sundown Marathon.. Been bz lately and managed to pass Linda's Asic shoes to her for the Safra run

Was late for Safra training and did a quick dash run along Mt Faber (~5km) in 25mins... Saw Ong when coming back.. panting and breathless.

SAAB City Duathlon

2008-06-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

I was suffering from a terrible headache for the whole night. I couldn't able to sleep and after thinking through for safety reasons (me and for the others). i decided to give up the race. This was the first race ever i had given up.

Back to my sleep, woke up and saw PS's SMS saying some major screwed up in the race. I wondering....

Sundown Marathon

2008-05-31T12:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight is the long awaiting Sundown Marathon event. For the whole day, it had been raining continuously, drizzling and dark clouds forming in the sky. Luckily, it managed to stop before the race. Those participants whom participating in the 84km flagged off at 8.30pm while my event started at 12.00 am.

When reaching the venue, the starting point was crowded with people. I could see many runners posing pictures to be taken beside the Sundown Marathon signboard. Henry called me to pass his powergels to him. I searched vainly for any sign of him around the massive crowd but in vain. Then I came across Stanely and some of the Toa Payoh Safra runners gathered in front of the VIP tent. After a while, I was halted by William (Collen’s hubby) near the bag deposit area. William was aiming to do a sub-4 for the full-marathon which was same for me. We started off together and paced each other for the first ~2 km. Since the running route was quite narrow and congested, we were running off from the track to avoid the jam.

Before long, I speeded up my pace and William was far behind me. Most of the route covered at this race was using the park connector sitting on a hard cement. In order to prevent any cramps on my calves at later journey, my strategy was to run on the grassland besides the path to take advantage of the soft ground and lessen the impact to my legs. The Costa road route was a lonely run for me. I overtook many runners and kept looking at my watch. For the first 10km, I had clocked 50mins. It was promising for me..

Once I ran into the east coast park, I could see many supporters clapping their hands cheering us. Some of the children were also running together with us for a short distance. It was a great feeling!! At 18km, I would sense my legs were giving away. I kept telling myself to “go on” and looking around for any runners to pace me. I was eagerly looking forward for the 21km U-Turn point but it seems like an endless road to me. I skipped the last few water-points to save the extra timing. Finally, I crossed over the 21km mark point and clocked at 1:48hrs!! Great!! I broken my 21km record. Yeah!!

The next 21km posed a challenge to overcome. Mentally, I told myself it was another 21km and imagined myself just began my run. After making the U-turn, I crossed over the bridge and ran towards the Siglap park connector. I saw a marker showing 22km. Hmm.. the distance and the marker did not seem correct for me. Nevermind.. By then, my pace was getting slower and other runners behind me had overtook me. I continued the same pace and conscious of my calves not giving me away this time. At the park connector connecting to Bedok reservoir, the lamps were off and we were running in the dark. It was the first time of me running in the dark cutting through the HDB estate. The volunteers were holding the lightening stick and directed us to the correct route. Till now, I was impressed by the organizer as there were many water points and volunteers to guide us.

Subsequently, William had caught up with me at the overhead bridge towards Bedok Reservoir. I beckoned him to continue… Unfortunately, at 28km, I felt sudden cramp at my right calves and fallen to the ground. Luckily, my “dropping point” was 20m away from the First-Aid booth setup by the SGrunners. They ran to my assistance, did some stretching for me(I wouldn’t move my legs) and helped me up. I took another powergel, rest a while before resume my run. By then, I knew I could not able to do a Sub-4.. My only hope now was to clock a 4:30hrs at least. I thanked them for their assistance and continued my run ignoring the pain.

The rest of the run was a great disappointment to me. It was a run-and-walk strategy. Every time I felt the cramp was coming, I would pause and walk for a while before resuming. I asked for some deep heat at Bedok reservoir but it was in hot demand apparently. The young female helper at the water point was trying hard to squeeze out every single and little of the gel for me to apply. I made some jokes with her.

At 30km, I clocked 3:20hrs. No good… The Tampines Park connector was a mental torture. It was just like another never ending route. After crossing one road to the other, I could still see the signboard showing TPC. Eventually, I exited to Pasir Ris Drive via a car park. It was a terrible slow pace for me by now. Virtually, every runners seem to overtake me. I could hardly feel any cushion from my ASICS 2130. I did attempt to run along the road but was waved by the road marshals to run at the pedestrian path instead.

At the last 5km along the Loyang Park Connector, I suffered another cramp at my right calf and “dropped” to the ground spectacularly. I lied on the ground helplessly and few runners ran pass me. Luckily, one of the many runners did stop to help me. After making a recovery walk, I jogged slowly. I could hear some of the runners complaining the route was a total mental torture. The soreness and pain from the foot would slowly transact to the knees, hips and tights. Well, I agreed with that plus the relatively flat terrain for the entire route had forced oneself to use the same muscle groups again and again.

The last 5km was perhaps my slowest 5km ever. I was frantically looking at my watch. It had passed 4:30hrs.Oh no.. I missed it and my whole body strength had given away. My mind was now focusing more for completion than the timing. Eventually, I had saw the finishing gantry registered 4:59. I definitely not wanted to 5:00 for this marathon. Immediately, I picked up every of my legs power and dashed towards it before it ticked to 5:00.

After the run, I stayed to wait for other MF runners returned back. I did a quick shower first before the toilet was crowded with other returning runners. Lai Chee was awarded as 1^st runner out for the 84km women category. Wow!! Got to salute to her..

Around ~6am, the sky started to pour heavily. I was wondering how the rest of the 84km runners were doing, e.g. PS, Anthony, David, Heng etc. Hopefully, they could find some shelters to hide from the heavy rain. After 8.30am, I managed to see more 84km runners returned. To kill the boredom, I was joking with the photographer sitting next to me. Subsequently, Alvin, Karen and Carol joined me to wait for the rest. I took photos for each MF runners coming back, e.g. Anthony, David, Alber, Ho, PS, Chin, Eddie, etc. PS did a 14:00hrs for her 84hrs. I would expect her to do 13:00hrs instead. Nevertheless, it was a great relief to know she had not suffered from any hip or leg problems during her run. We had a lunch at nearby hawker center before Alvin drove me to Clementi MRT.

In the end, I had broken two records of my own - my best 21km and worst 42km. haha..

Dusty Run

2008-04-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

It was a mass gathering(about 40 ppl) at NTU sport recreation center. Stardust had organized a midnight run covering a distance of 55km at 10pm to prepare us for the Sundown Ultra-Marathon. There were lot of familiar faces at the starting point, with some haven’t been met for a long time. Jancy was slightly late and her left knee’s area was wrapped with athletic tape done by her physical therapy doctor. It looked awfully serious and there were widespread concerns of her condition. David, Freddy, Kayano, Anthony and Alber were all their wearing long compression tights. We started giving them a nickname of “Long Tight” Gang and I suggested they should stick around together for the rest of the run.

After a series of chitchat and waiting for the some belated runners, the run started somewhere around 10.20pm. It had been a while since I last came back to NTU after my completion of my MBA studies. The familiar slopes and buildings arose my memories where I was here busily preparing for projects and presentations during my study days. Since most of us were unfamiliar with the routes, we were running closely together splitting into three groups. Ahead of us were the fast runners (Ricci, Chin, Collen, Freddy, Ultra-man etc). Within ten minutes, we had lost sight of them, while the rest of us slowly scurrying forward at a relatively 6mins pace. :)

After challenging the daunting slopes and completion of a loop within the campus, we headed off from the Jln Bahar to Lim Chu Kang Cemetery. It was a long dim stretch of road that seem like never ending. It was already past 1:30hr before we made a U-turn and back to NTU campus. Opposite of the road, I saw another group of slow runners. We were cheering each other across the road and the responses were spontaneous. :)

When we ran back to Jln Bahar junction, I saw another group of runners waiting for us. None of us knew the route well, so we all gathered there waiting for the last group of runners to come and lead us forward. At this point, most of the runners had consumed their drinks and left little to sustain. We were all desperately in need to refill our bottles.

When the rest of the runners had reached, we headed back to the NTU campus and running our way out to another stretch of main road. David had kept shouting “toilet 1km away” for every 1km we had covered to motivate us to continue. Jokes could be heard as the toilets seem to turn out to be “mobile” by its own. Finally, after running out of NTU campus, the 24hrs coffee shop was sighted. There was a sense of relief, especially to Kayano who dashed towards for a toilet break. ha

We had a ~15mins break at the coffee shop where all runners busily refilling their drinks and queuing up for the toilets. PS was stretching her ITB silently. She was running relatively slow with Alber tonight, while I and Yong were sticking together in the earlier run.

After the break, we continue to head towards Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim. At this point, some of the runners had fallen back or departed from us. We had a stopover at Jurong Hill to take some photos up there. It was a beautiful scenery with brightly lit bulbs lightening up the nearby port when looking from the hill top.

Next, we were running along Jalan Buroh towards Pandan Reservoir. I was behind Eugene and Jancy. Eugene was recapping his experience of knee injury when he had to stop the run for two months. After hearing the stories, Jancy was worried if she should stop her run. I could see she was struggling for her run all night long due to her knee pain.

When we reached Pandan Reservoir, more runners had departed from the group, (Jancy, Eugene, Moham etc). It was relatively warm running round the reservoir. I not sure why but perhaps would be due to the afternoon heat trapped inside. We made another stopover at Petrol Kiosk to refill our water supply and photo session before heading towards South Buona Vista Road via West Coast Road. It was reported we had covered 38km at this point!!

During the stretch of South Buona, Yong was complaining his knees while me and Wendy were running together. At the Buona Vista Petrol Kiosk, I was totally famished!! Took a Snicker Bar and some HL milk. PS and Alber were nowhere in sight. I figured they would have left the group by now. Anthony reckoned PS would not give up her run. I left the group at Buona Vista MRT and ran back home alone.

By the time, I reached home, it was 5am. Time for me to doze off…………Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Tuesday Run

2008-04-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

There was a change of plan in the running route. Chairman proposed to do a 4 loops at Laborador park instead of running around Mount Faber for two loops. However, some of the runners (Trevor, Jamie, Ong etc) preferred to stick to the old plan, and did their own run.

I was slightly late and caught up with Michael, Shirley and some of the runners. Then after, I ran passed them and following behind Melvin all the way back to the clubhouse. Subsequently, others (Chin, KK) whom didn’t join us for the run were all gathered at Safra to attend Jimmy’s father wake. It was sad news to us, and I sincerely hoped he and his family would soon recover from this unfortunate happenings. I still remembered in one of the Sunday long run (seven of us) where he consistently bought drinks for me since I didn’t bring any bottle of water with me. He was worrying that I might get dehydrated in that hot sunny day. Really appreciated..

Sunday Training

2008-04-06T09:20:00.001-07:00

I was extremely late for this morning Safra’s training, which started from the clubhouse, running towards Kent Ridge Road before making U-turn and back to Mount Faber through South Bouna Vista Road (30km). Instead of following the usual route, I ran in their opposite direction hoping that I would come across them on my way up.

The weather was scorching and humid after days of sudden rain. I had to put on my shades to block the glaring light and my skin was fried under the hot sunny sun. Sadly, my knees still hadn’t recovered from the ITB and stitches from the knees still disturbing my pace. I jogged at a relatively low speed aiming to accumulate mileage.

When I reached Kent Ridge Road, I saw no sight of any Safra runners. My mouth was too dry, and hurried searching for water to curb my dying thirst. After making a U-turn, I met the runners at the cross junction between Kent Ridge Road and South Buona Vista. As usual, Lai Chee was the first in the group, followed by Collen, Derek and etc. Most of the runners had went passed me. I saw Yong at Pasir Panjang Road but he stopped over at one of the petrol station.

At the traffic towards Alexandra Road, Heng had caught up with me with PS at behind struggling with her pace. For the last many runs, she had been at the very few last runners. Perhaps, her training regime had wear her down to keep up with our rigorous Sunday long run. Both me and Heng were running at a comfortable pace and chatting along the way. At Harbour Front, my pains came again, feeling like a screw dropped out from my right knees. Oh Gosh!!

After the run, we had a brunch at the nearby hawker center. Subsequently, I dropped by at Chinatown to have a good treatment of Chinese acupuncture. Freddie was joking that it was an easy business for him to treat me. My condition was so bad that he couldn’t need to exert any force. Oh well!!

KL Marathon (Part 2)

2008-03-30T09:19:00.000-07:00

It was 4.30am. Some of the sgrunners had woken up earlier to participate for the Full-Marathon event. Since it was still early for me (race starts at 6.00am), I took my own sweet time to have a long, hot bath, and fully-equipped myself with deep-heat, performance drink, and enjoyed a delicious whole meal bread from the courtesy of David. It was 5.15am, feeling entirely satisfied with myself on the preparation, I took a lift down to meet with another sgrunner (Oops!! forget his name). At the time when I stepped out from the lift, I hit upon another sgrunner whom susposed to join the Full-Marathon race. He was suffering from diarrhea and had to withdraw from the race.

Stardust’s friend was waiting outside the entrance to the hotel. We had a moment of confusion on how to reach the race venue. Thankfully, the runners on the road going towards the starting point provided us the lead. The venue was brightly lit with yellow and blue light bulbs. Most of the runners at the scene were chit-chatting, laughing and doing warm-up exercise. For this year, there was a slightly change in the route where we have to made a loop to run across the Dataran Merdeka again. Drums from nearby could be heard, cheering and lightened up the atmosphere. The DJ was counting every moment and seconds. As the start time were drawing near, we were all marshaled to the starting area. The horn blew and we all crossed over the starting line like a bunch of hungry bees.

The first 7 km was a terrible experience for me. My leg muscle was feeling awfully tight, esp the lower calves, and the new ASIC GT2130 did not help much in lifting my heavy foot. Every landing on the ground sounded like a “bomb dropped from the sky”. It was depressing to see runners overtook me one by one. My pace was reducing to 7mins/km. Nevertheless, I felt a sense of relief to change my registration to Half-Marathon event at the last minute. It could be a lot worst if I was racing for Full-Marathon.

I knew that I had to work out a countermeasure against this negative physiology of mine. Yes! I needed a pacer. Similar to a radar scanning for an enemy, my eyes were rolling from left to right aiming to spot a suitable target. Out of the masses, there was a female runner wearing a red running top. Ha!! What a prominent target she was. She was running at a relatively good fast pace and it was difficult for me to overtake her. However, by following her, I managed to overtake one runner after another.

After 12km checkpoint, the pain attributed from my ITB syndrome had seemed to disappear as if by miracle. I would feel my feet were being lighter liked jumping up and down from the ground with every step made. Perhaps, in reality, my knees were too numbed with pain to feel anything by now. In front of me, I would sense the tiredness of the “lady in red”. She slowed down her speed and our gap with each other was getting narrower. Eventually, I had crossed over her. Yahoo!!

At this moment, it was unnecessary for me to look for another target. My legs were recovering. Now, my mind was totally focusing to reach the finishing line within the sub-2hr barrier. To make up of the lost time, I hurried my pace and dashed quickly towards the end point. Tick by tick, I counted the number of seconds had went passed in my heart. Every street and building looked similar to me, as if I have run passed them just after the starting point. At every turning point, I could imagine to see the finishing gantry.

1hr and 57 mins had passed. There was minimum marking on the route. In my mind, I calculated I still had 1km or slightly more to cover. As if a thunder stroked on my head, I overheard someone shouted “3km”. Oh no!! I had miscalculated the distance!! But, I couldn’t give up. I knew that if I slowed down my pace, I would have lost.. At my last attempt, I made a sprint towards the destination. When I saw the sight of the gantry, there was a red carpet welcoming me at the last 100m. Hanging on top of the gantry, there was a digital clock registered 2:01:48 (Chip time= 2:00:54, Rank=108). I have failed to make it for the sub-2. Nevertheless, I felt content since I had did my best.

After a few minutes of rest, I saw Melvin and Stardust working on their warm down exercise. Melvin had done a 3:32 hrs. He was complaining of his lack of sleep due to his roommate's snoring at yesterday night. Stardust did his PB at 3:19hrs. Subsequently, other sgrunners (David, Jancy, Ultraman, Kayano, Vincent) were all back. Stardust queried the whereabouts of his friend. I was puzzled too as I didn’t spot sight of him. Right beside of us, there was the Toa Payoh Safra which comprised of 30 over of them. I managed to find Xiu Lee, Sok Hua, Shirley, Amelia and Wendy at a later while. Rosemary came to us after a while following by Peter. We had a few group photos before I joined back with the sgrunners whom waiting in front of the finishing line for SV. From the conversation exchanged, I knew that SV was suffering from diarrhea. Since most of us were taking the same food, we were suspecting that it would the pancake at the street that created the food poisoning as this was the only thing that the rest didn’t take.

Back to the hotel, the sgrunner whom withdrew in the beginning of the race, was feeling better now after given an injection by the doctor. Stardust’s friend was suffering from diarrhea too!! He gave up the race after running for 10km and had to wait for the sweeper bus to pick him up. As for SV, it was a nightmare to him. He did his worst timing of 6hrs by bearing with the pain to finish. I had to applaud for his determination. He was looking terribly sick. We had a Bak Kut Teh and some other Chinese dishes for lunch before heading back to Singapore.

In the end, it was a fun and enjoyable trip to me. The greatest prize to me in this trip was not to break my personal record but to acquaint with a bunch of friends sharing the same passion. Err..Still, the experience would be much better if not for me sitting behind SV and sniffing the vomiting smell coming from his plastic bag for 4hrs. :(

KL Marathon (Part 1)

2008-03-29T10:43:00.000-07:00

Coincidently, today was the same day when Linda set off for her Everest attempt. I would wish to send her off personally. Unfortunately, my departure time to KL crushed with hers. The only possible thing I could do is sent a sms wishing her all the best of her endeavor.. Hmm.. I’m still hoping to do a climb in mid of this year. Perhaps, doing the Everest Base camp is another good alternative than a climb. HAHA..

Inside the coach, I had seen some of the familiar faces from sgrunners, e.g. David, Jancy and etc. Well, since I hadn’t booked any hotel yet, it seems a pretty good idea to join them as they would need one more person to share the room. The rest of the journey to KL was pretty much a solitude for me, listening to my MP3 walkman phone and thinking whether I should change my registration to Half-Marathon instead (My knees were seriously suffering from ITB syndrome again). I recalled those stories of MR runners and Henry (Mt Safra), Alvin, whom all suffered from knees injuries and had to go for operation. I wouldn’t want to take the risk of this marathon race would affect my aftermath plans (Sundown Marathon, Duathlon, Climbing, Powerman Series etc.)

We all settled down to Ancasa Hotel when reached KL. Somehow, memories of me participated in last year’s KL marathon flow back in my mind where I was staying alone in a noisy street in a small, four-walled room at Chinatown. I had passed by this hotel at last year but retreated from staying here due to expensive hotel’s rate. Finally, I came back here again.. ha.

After settling our things, we went to Wisma OCM Jalan Hang Jebat to collect our number tag. At the collection center, I met more of the familiar faces, those from Toa Payoh and Mt Faber Safra and few other runners from MR. The registration proved to be a great hassle for me. Firstly, the old Malay auntie couldn’t find my registration form and wanted me to check from the computer terminal. Secondly, my record was not found there at all. And worst of all, they won’t allow me to re-register for the event. Wow lau, can’t believe it!! Lai Chee had also suffered the same fate but in a much better state than mine. I did use my super selling skill to persuade them for me to do a re-registration. Apparently, this method did not work to a guy and an old Malay auntie. Thus, I had to ask the group to leave first while I cleared out the things with the management. After waiting for an hour, I managed to use my charm to induce a young Malay girl of allowing me to search through their forms. Yeah!! Finally, I had found it. Apparently, they had mixed up my application form with other categories.

At the center, I resigned to fate and decided to join the Half-Marathon. For the past 3 years, I had registered for Full-Marathon but never did I run for once before. Sigh.. The collection of the running package went smoothly then after. At the same time, I also collected Yong’s number tag on behalf of him. This year, the sponsor for the event was from Adidas. The running top was in red color with yellow strips running at the middle. The quality was also much better for those whom joined the full marathon. Sadly, as for mine, a white cotton, cheap looking Pasa Mala T-shirt for those participated in half-marathon. Talked about racism (=racer)!!

After leaving the center, I couldn’t able to contact Yong. Huh?? An hour earlier, we did speak on the phone and in the next moment, there was a message at the other end telling me that the number was invalid. Strange.. I couldn’t wait anymore, and walked to his hotel. Dark clouds were covering the city of KL by now. Before long, a heavy rain was pouring from the sky, lightening strike and thunders roared. Within minutes, the road was flooded with water. With great difficulties and an umbrella bought from 7-Evelen, I managed to reach the Swiss Garden Hotel. In vain, Yong was not in his room and I left his number tag with the reception and a message behind for him to collect his belonging.

After back to my hotel, the sgrunners were ready for dinner after an hour of rest. Yong had also managed to contact me by using a local line. There were some problems with his SIM card. After looking through the hotel’s buffer menu, we all decided to try out some vegetarian food. At the dinner, David never stopped making fun of Jancy. It was a fun and cheerful chit-chat where we all questioning Stardust(vegetarian) about vegetarian food. Finally, the group reached a conclusion that being a vegetarian helped runner to attain PB based on Stardust’s past records. Ha..

Safra’s Marachite Run

2008-03-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today’s plan for the Safra club was to run 2 or 3 loops around Marachite park. Although the turnout was better than the last, but many of the hardcore runners, e.g. Anthony, David etc were not presented. KK and Siew Lee had trouble finding a parking space and the group was waiting for them. I kept looking at the watch as I had to meet Mark (from MR) and passed the New Balance Shoes (MR1062SB) to him. Based on my experience, the MR-26 group (Not to confuse with MR) would finish their run within an hour or so.

At the start of the slope, Ricci, Trevor, Freddy, Jimmy and those fast runners were running in front of me. My ITB was still hurting me, and I had to take my pace slowly. Perhaps, I had run for Marachite too often. The trail had become a playground for me, and proved to be an easy run for me. I couldn’t feel any short of breathe or sweats in doing the trail except of the disturbance coming from my knees.

In the run, most of us were sticking together with occasional stopping by to wait for the rest. After we had ran passed the golf link, I left from the group and sprinted towards the Marachite toilet point. I was in short of time since Mark could finish his run soon. Again, it was amazing how the trail run had improved my running. Before I realized, I had reached the end-point and caught hold of the MR-26 group. They were gathering at our usual resting place. I took a break, passed the shoes and chatted with them. Again, our topics were surrounding running shoes. Somehow, I guessed I had become infamous in the group of providing opinions on running shoes. Ha.

After a good chat, I wanted to proceed to my run. Deva was astonished that I was doing a 20km distance since the next week was my Full-Marathon race. Usually, this would be the time for runners to do tapering. Moreover, I was wearing a knee guard.

The second loop was a lonely run. Till now, the Safra group was far ahead of me. I ran at my own leisure pace and managed to overtake a few Safra runners. I saw David in the trail running at an opposite direction of me. He was wearing his usual black cap, Nike tights and running shirt. After a cold bath, I hurried off to my Church Service.

Easter Bunny Run

2008-03-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

I had missed this morning Easter service. To make up for my absence, I arranged to meet up with Mun Hoe in the late afternoon to attend his church (City Harvest) service. Hmm. That left a couple of hours for me to do some short run…

I have not been doing many long runs lately, mainly due to reason of the pain at my calves and knees. I have been quite mindful of the condition of my legs (esp. at the lower calves) and reduced my pace every time the stitch resurfaced. After a typical rainy weather for the past few days, the island had finally received a hot, sunny afternoon. For this afternoon short run (Tiong Bahru -> Botanic Garden -> Holland Rd -> Queenstown -> Tiong Bahru), I intended to keep a slow pace at 6min/km. When I started off with my run, the agony at my lower calves came back again. It was difficult for me to keep a constant pace as the pain kept disturbing my advancement whenever my foot touched the ground. Similar to my ITB which came as sudden as it likes, dark clouds begun to form in the sky and thunders roared. While I was running along the Holland Road, rain started to pour. Well, I couldn’t able to stop for fear of being late to meet with Mun Hoe. In the end, I managed to do a well decent speed to complete 14km at 1hr 35mins.

The City Harvest was totally unlike the Church of mine. The building at its Jurong West was elegantly built, which occurred nine storeys (four in the basement and five on top of it). When I stepped into the hall that could cater for about 2000 members, the seats were fully occupied. After a few ushering here and there, we (Mun Hoe, Gin and me) managed to get hold of the seats directly in front of the stage. I was impressed by the drama put up by City Harvest Drama group. The music, acting, singing, sound system and the costumes were nowhere inferior to any drama put up by the professionals. I could see that the members of the church have devoted a lot of hard work to make this show a success. It was entertaining and meaningful as the drama told us the origin of Easter Day.

After the service, I met up with Cedric to have a dinner at Jurong Point and bought a bottle of Glucosamine in the hope that it could ease my pain. Although the supplement is more targeting to neutralize joint problem, but now I could try for anything to help me to recover from my ITB since my KL Marathon is coming up. Besides, I read reports that many runners have found that it is effective to assist them to recover from ITB.

At late evening, my Sis and Brother-in-law fetched me from Jurong Point together with their children for cycling at Chinese Garden Park. It is always enjoying to see my two little nephew and niece playing around, with their laugher and shouting surrounding us. :) We have a supper at McDonald before I reached home at 11.30pm. It was a nice, fulfilling day for me to enjoy this Easter holiday…

A Stitch Run

2008-03-16T11:16:00.000-07:00

There were only four of us (Deva, Tan, Mak and me) turned out for today’s run. Apart from the usual runners whom ran at Macritchie Park, there were polices and soldiers flocking into the venue. It was reported that someone had caught sight of Mas Selamat at the surrounding area. Nevertheless, activities at the park were still as usual as if the news of the escaped convict had no impact to our daily life.

We started our run at 7.05am and ran together as a group. In the first 7km, I was running slightly behind of Deva with Tan and Mak falling behind 300m away. My calves were feeling tighter and the pain at my knees was developing. I would sense my old injury is coming back to me. For the past few weeks, I still could feel stitches at my knees while sleeping. Deva had a stitch at his stomach and his pace was slowing down while we were coming near to our U-turn point. This provided me a moment of relieve from my pain as both of us slowed down our pace.

After making the U-turn towards Upper Thomson Road, my pace with Deva had came even closer with each overtaking each other. While we were running through the Old Upper Thomson Road, we heard someone screamed from the woods. Would it be Mas Selamat? Nevertheless, nothing could deter us from continuing with our run.

After making a rest at the Pierce Reservoir’s toilet point, Tan had picked up his pace. I attempted to follow him but the pain at my calves and knees proved a great challenge for me to overcome. Once we out to the main road, I couldn’t spot sight of Tan. He was far away from me dashing towards the end-point. By now, Deva and Mak were way behind us. With the pain developing, I had a moment of tendency to walk for the rest of the journey. Still, I continued and completed the loop around 1hr 30mins.

I met KC at the park while resting and chatting with the others. Before I left with Tan for a free ride to Velocity, I spotted a helicopter hovering above us. It looks like this time round the tip is real.

In the afternoon, I met up with Tania for lunch at Earle Sweden. She has dropped by to Singapore after attending a conference at Thailand before heading back to Jakarta in the evening. Veronica was there too. She had just returned from Seattle. There were about six of us in total (Elaine, Tania, Veronica, her husband, 2 other current MBA students). Rosalind was late as she still suffered from the jet lag. She just flew back from Seattle after attending the Microsoft’s conference at Microsoft University. She looked haggard, probably due to lack of sleep. :p Before Tania boarded Veronica’s car to the airport, she wished me well for my career. How sweet is she. :-) I gave a pat on her head as a return of my encouragement to her.

Subsequently, I had an agonizing and harrowing experience of leg massage by Jan at Chinatown. PS has become infamous in the shop as Frankie was telling me of her running experience. After finishing the massage, I could hardly walk by my own. Hopefully, my legs would recover before the KL marathon.

Up-and-Down, Here We Go Again!!

2008-03-02T09:14:00.000-08:00

Today is the 15 km progressive run event held by MR25. There was a huge crowd gathering at the starting point near the Macrichite toilet with lots of familiar faces being spotted, e.g. Ronnie, Anthony, Janice, David, Eric etc. In addition, the Tampines Safra club had organized their run at Macritchie reservoir too. I have never seen such a huge crowd since after the MR Ultra-Marathon.

Macus and his brother were wearing their brand new GT 2130 Asics shoes. Everyone was making fun of the brothers’ new pairs of running shoes. Choo was especially interested and ordered a pair from me since he has been searching for the same model for months. Not sure if it was an act of God or by coincidence, our running route for today would pass through a series of trails and slopes. So much for the new sparkling white Asics shoes, which might soon be covering with mud and dirt.

We waited for the 15 km progressive run to begin before our turn to start. Incidentally, the 15km progressive run route was nearly the same as us. The route ran through the woods before hitting to the main road, up to 2 treacherous, daunting slopes before hitting to the scenery golf course, bypassed the air-con road and back by Upper Thomson road.

Our topics of chatting during the run were mostly circulating around running shoes. When I reached the golf course, I saw Anthony firstly to run back to the finishing, followed by Ronnie, Janice, David, Eric and Janice’s husband. One by one, I gave way and cheered for them. Subsequently, Teo led the way and brought us to the water point for the 15km progressive run. (He is also an old member of MR25) Since there was no participant left, we tended to drink up the rest of cold and refreshing water. Cooling!!

Against Toh’s wishes, we protested of his proposal to go up to the air-con road. However, the two ang-mohs (I saw them before but didn’t get their names) whom joined us had already run up the slopes. Nevertheless, that couldn’t spare us from another 2 more “killer” slopes in which we had to pass through.

After reaching Upper Thomson, it was a completely flat road. I thanked God secretly that my suffering had ended. I could still feel a bit of pain near my knees while running up the slopes, probably due to the 3hrs of cycling around at East Coast yesterday cheering up some of the Safra members in the Biathlon race.

At the finishing line, I met Anthony, Jancy, Ronnie and the rest whom had completed their run. Anthony suggested going for another round (10km). I was totally exhausted by the numerous slopes that have conquered. In fact, I didn’t think that Anthony was aware that I just came back from my run. Still, the idea allured me. After knowing their running route, I told them that I would catch up with them later.

I rested and chatted for nearly 20mins. While walking back to the starting point, Billy waved his hand to catch hold of my attention. Hmm.. how did I miss him? He didn’t join us for today’s run but did a short distance instead. I managed to borrow $1.20 from him to buy a can of “green tea” before I ran at the opposite direction of Anthony’s via the woods.

My plan was to wait for Anthony and the rest at the exit of the woods so as to be together for the rest of the journey. However, as usual, my plan fouled. They had not turned up. After waiting fruitlessly for ten minutes, I decided to make a U-turn and go back from the same direction where I have come from.

Jancy was earlier than me at the finishing. Great minds think alike. From Janice, I understood that they had made a U-turn just like me. Alamak, no wonder I couldn’t able to meet them. At this moment, Uncle Chua, Soh Hua, Eng Hwa and Goole had also done with their run. Janice’s husband revealed that Anthony had lost his car key and the rest (I presumed Ronnie and David) were with him searching for the key.

After taking my bath, I volunteered to backtrack their running path to see if I could locate the key. Janice offered to help but I couldn’t think it was necessary. Furthermore, dark clouds were forming in the sky. Perhaps it was a punishment that I didn’t attend the Church service. Once I reached the start of the trail, the weather began to pour heavily. The rain abated and poured again every time I made my way again back to the trail. The experience was exasperating. I headed back to the Macrichite toilet but still no sight of Anthony and the rest of the gang. Finally, after waiting for another half an hour, I decided to go back and prayed that Anthony would find his car key.

5x Mt Faber Loops

2008-02-28T03:32:00.001-08:00

I reached the Safra Club at 6.30pm. The sky was cloudy and looked about to rain anytime. Without waiting for the rest, I started my run earlier and jogged towards Mt Faber.

At my first loop, my pace was slow, taking it as a warm up exercise for me. There was still no sight of the any Safra members yet after the completion of my first loop. I picked up my pace faster for the second loop. I always like the Mt Faber loop, as the venue is quiet with little traffic passing by. This allows me to ponder over things while I am running.

At my third loop, my pace was getting even faster. At the upslope of the hill, I spotted Sok Hua, and bypassed her. Subsequently, I saw Angelina, Peter, Wong, Emenila etc and bypassed them one by one. Heng was in front of me. I tried to catch up with him but to no avail. At this moment, I could feel breathless. The sound of my breath was so loud that I swear that it would hear from 5m away. Luckily, the down slope of the hill always provided me a good opportunity for recovery. After a short while of cruising down the slope, my breath was back to normal and I started to pick my pace again at the start of my fourth loop. I overtook few other runners and spotted Heng in front of me. I attempted to maintain a distance from him and careful not to overstretch my breathing again. When he finally caught up with Chairman, I gave it all my might to complete the last 100m run and overtook both of them.

Yean had arrived shortly after my run. I waited for the rest of the runners to complete their training before we headed back to the Safra club where I saw PS and Albert working on their stretching. I didn’t see them in the training today. However, my attention was soon drawn to the smell of the food coming out from the buffet beside the billiard room organized by MPA. After Julie had conducted her warm-down exercise, I swarmed towards the buffet and grapping the leftovers.(Of course, with permission) There was not many left over except Mee Hoon, French fries and Spring rolls.

After the bath, most of us drove down to Henderson market to have our dinner there. During the chitchat session, Alan was transferring his knowledge of running to us. He emphasized the correct technique of running should be using the tight muscle at all times drawing Julie, Teck How, Kurmara as examples. Hmm.. I couldn’t agree with him completely as I always thought that different terrain should be using different part of muscles instead.

Panic Run

2008-02-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

I arrived just in time to see the group when they started their run at Macritchie. After queried with Toh on today’s running route, I immediately packed up my things in the locker and chased after them. Strange enough, at the first 10 km, I couldn’t detect any sight of them. Thinking I might be ahead of them, I waited at the Lower Pierce’s toilet for ten minutes. Still, there was no sight of them and I continued.

At the midway of Old Upper Thomson Road, I finally met up with the rest of the group. Teo and Macus beckoned me to make a U-Turn and joined together with them. I agreed.

As we were running (me, Teo, Macus and his elder brother), Teo updated me that the group had geared up and improved a lot in their timing. Macus joked that we couldn’t be lazed around anymore with Toh spying on us like a “watchdog”. In fact, Toh was in front of us and made a few stops to check if we were following him closely.

The pace was unusually fast, roughly around 4mins/km. Even for me, I hardly could catch up my breath. Teo was joking we had to run faster and not letting Tan to overtake us. (Tan was running 20km while we were doing 16km) Else, we would be totally losing our “face”. Eventually, we arrived back to Macritchie 1 min before Tan. (Lucky for us) Tan was really fast, I could not remember anyone I known of whom could do 11/2hrs for 20km distance. And, he will be joining the coming Biathlon held on March. Good Luck to him. :-)

KL Pacesetter Run- 30 km (Part 2)

2008-01-20T10:02:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 4.30am. Since no one was sharing the room with me, I could take my own sweet time to tidy up myself. Subsequently, I boarded a small van with David, Janice and few others from Sgrunners to bring us to Lake Garden.

There were roughly about 1000 of participants. I was just in time for a photo session together with Mt Faber Safra members. After a few chats, the race flagged off at 6 am promptly. I ran together with Michael and Yuen. It was a causal run for me. I took some photos as I was running along. Then after, I caught with PS and we ran together for the next 15km.

Whenever any of the Safra members crossed over me, I could clap and cheer them up. The route was full of slopes. You simply just needed to conquer one slope with another. It seems like no ending to it. Surprisingly, I found no difficulties with the upslope. The water points were placed at every 5km. The energy drink provided tasted more like “fruit punch” to me.

After the turning point, my distance with PS widened. I caught up with Chairman and we ran together for the rest of the journey. I saw Stanely helping his Safra members(can’t remember her name). It seems like she had suffered from a muscle cramp. At the last 4 km, Chairman had slowed down. Looking at my watch, I still possibly to make it at sub-3hrs. I picked up my pace and dashed towards the ending point overtaking Albert at the last 500m.

Finally, I made it!! The timing was 3.06hrs. Not bad in view that I had not trained for the race. After doing some stretching and rested for an hour, we had our usual memorial photo sessions. The whole Safra (including Tampines and Toa Payoh) took a group photos.

We walked up to our coach overcoming another slope and stairs. It was more tiring than running up and cruising down the slopes. :(

After packing my things, I checked out the hotel room and went together with Michael, Peter, Xiu Lee, Wayne, Eric and some other members whom I not sure their names. We all settled down at a table outside the shop houses to have “Ba Ku Tek”. In addition, Peter bought a suckling duck from a mobile hawker stall. The food was delicious. Then after, I got some local delights before departing to Singapore together with the Sgrunners.

KL Pacesetter Run- 30 km (Part 1)

2008-01-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

I was sharing a cab with Peter, Ricci and Michael to meet up with the rest of the Safra members at Golden Mile Complex. We boarded our Super VIP Coach and heading towards KL.

There was a news reported yesterday that there was a shortage of water supply at KL due to a water pipe had burst. Apparently, our hotel was affected. We waited at the hotel’s lobby for over an hour while the staff was arranging to resume the water supply. Finally, we decided to leave our things at the caring of the staffs and headed for lunch at nearby food court. I was puzzled as in where the food stalls gotten their water. After making queries with them, I discovered they had used the fire hose to collect the water.

Once back to the hotel, we were allocated with our room keys. At 4pm, I went with Yuen, Michael and his wife, Ong and Jamie to shop around at the nearby shopping centers. I had gotten myself another ring.

At 6pm, all of us gathered at the hotel lobby and headed for dinner. They were 50 of us including those from Sgrunners. The meal was fulfilling, and I especially liked the Hokkien Mee. It was really cheap, which costed RM186 in total. However, the main highlight was the desserts. After we spitted, we had an ice dessert filled wit lot of fruits on it. I ordered a Yam favor and it looked more like an ice-cream. Then after, we had a coffee before PS and Albert joined us.

I reached back hotel at 10pm, made a few preparations here and there for tomorrow’s run before falling to my every own king size bed. Zzzzzzz :p

Tania's Farewell Lunch

2008-01-01T07:53:00.000-08:00

My head was still pounding due to yesterday’s late night sleep. Oops!! I had remembered the timing wrongly for Tania’s farewell lunch. I arrived at Mache, Vivocity an hour late.

There were not many of us (Carol and her child, Alan Elaine, Mayoko and William). Rosalind arrived later than I did. We chitchatted with each other. The topic was still very much surrounding our job hunting experience and aspirations.

After the lunch, we shopped around for a while before parting from each other. Although I should be happy seeing Tania finding a good job and able to be back in Indonesia to reunite with her families. Nevertheless, I still wouldn’t help it to feel a bit of sadness after seeing each of my friends leaving Singapore one by one.

Good Luck to her and may she succeed in every of her endeavor. God Bless!!

MR Ultra-Marathon

2007-12-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

This was the first time I have ever tried on a trail run, not to mention to run for a distance of 50.25km. The thought of running at least five loops around the Macritchie reservoir would discourage me from attempting the event. At the night before the race, I had only 2 hrs of sleep.

Against my agenda to wake up at 4.30am, I had overslept and nearly missed out the start time at 7am. At the starting point, I saw the familiar faces of MF runners and Xuanjing who often likes to take photos for any race events. This year, there were around 200 participants and the weather was kind to us for a marathon race unlike previous year. My plan for today run was to try to cover as fast as possible for the first 30km before my legs could fail me again.

During the first round, I greeted some of the MR runners, and caught up with PS and Michael. I had taken the wrong route to Tereniang trail and overtook them twice. At the exit point from the forest, I saw XuanJing and made some funny posture to be photographed. The first loop took 1.15 hrs which was much later than my usual pace. Never did I expect the terrain of the trail has such a significant impact to the timing.

Before finishing the second loop, my stomach started to grumble perhaps due to the acidic drinks (100plus). It was weird to run with noises coming out from your stomach. The second round took nearly the same time as the first. However, I could not feel the cushioning of Asics GT2110 during the second loop and changed to my New Balance shoes at the transit point.

The third round had turned into a floury experience. At 25km, I suffered a terrible cramp at my right calf and dropped onto the ground suddenly. I couldn’t raise up my right leg and lying there helplessly. Luckily, there were 2 runners offered their immediate assistance. The young chap helped me to pull my calf muscle while the lady applied her Yoko Yoko on my calf. Feeling relative recovered, I jogged slowly and walked whenever I felt the cramp was coming back. The Yoko Yoko worked in an amazing way. It was more effective than the deep heat I applied usually. However, I could feel the burning sensation on my right calf, and the color of the skin surfaced with red. It took me 1.30hrs to complete the third round and I saw PS was behind me at the transit point. I was puzzled by her performance since this wouldn’t be her usual timing.

My strategy was to listen to music for the last 2 laps. For the fourth round, I still felt the cramp kept coming back. I walked on the up slope and ran during the down slope to shorten the time coverage. It was a recovery run for me and it took me around 1.45 hrs to complete. The heel and outsole of my New Balance shoes, which served me loyally over all these years, had came off totally. I needed to change back to my Asics GT2110 again.

In my last lap, I had relied on my thigh muscles to move my legs instead. I was running with Ronnie for a relatively short distance and undecided if I should make one last dive to complete the entire experience. However, the lurk of my past experience at four years back where I nearly couldn’t walk after suffering from a cramp still haunting me. At the first water point, I inquired for any deep heat offered at the last water station of the loop, hoping that at least I could make it there and savage the situation if the problem occurs. But it was not available. Subsequently, I saw PS behind me at Raffles Range and decided to have a one last try. After a short distance of run, the cramp stroked again!! I kneel down on the ground for a moment attempting to recover from the sudden pain. My face must be showing with great pain as the volunteer from the race advised me not to run anymore. Nevertheless, I still continued and delivered more power to my thigh muscles. PS and me were not far from each other and we came across Trevor. Trevor informed me that Michael, Chin and Freddie was not far away. I left behind PS and Trevor and managed to catch up with them. We were walking and chatting along the way. When Freddie spotted PS was catching us soon, he warned us to begin our run. We were picking up our pace quickly. I couldn’t help it. The event was rather funny as if PS was some horrible monster trying to eat us up. :P Along the roadside of the route, I attempted to pace PS. I sensed that she couldn’t like the idea. I still continued and kept praying the cramp would not come before reaching the end-point.

Eventually, I finished the five loops at a total timing of 8hrs.When I reached the finishing line, my whole energy seems to have vanished into thin air immediately. I was feeling giddy in my head perhaps due to lacking of sleep. Vincent from MR was complaining about me for dirtying the finishing t-shirt. Well, this was liked him. Sometimes, he would be nice and while times he would be very grumpy. PS continued to go for her sixth loops. I was resting at the finishing point, waiting for my certificate and chatting with Freddie, Chin, Michael, Trevor, Ronnie etc. They encouraged me to go for one more tried. I did consider but remember doctor’s advices not to run for long distance for the time being. There would be another race next year. Before I left, I took a picture together with Trevor, Alber, Michael, Chin.

On my ride back with Michael, the weather began to rain heavily. I was worrying for Lai Chee and PS (Presumed she would attempt for the seventh round somehow due to her regret at Mt Faber Ultra-marathon) would be caught up in the rain. Again, it was seasonal rain and did not look like it could extend to Marichite. Later, I was totally thrilled to learn that PS had completed her seventh loops and broke her record. It was amazing and I admired her perseverance, as I wouldn’t be able to run for nearly twelve hours surrounding with the same scenery repeatedly. :)

In the end, it was a good closure for this year. Although I haven’t made any plan to stay or leave for next year yet, I wish I would have a new fresh start and opted for a better change to the things happening around me.

Mt Faber Loop

2007-12-28T23:58:00.000-08:00

This was the first time I ever listening to music while running. Seriously, I am lacking of hill trainings. However, I could not yet able to turn up for the Safra run. Whenever I come back to this place, old memories flow back.

Never do I believe running is an individual thing. Even the greatest runners in the world have to work hand-in-hand with their coach to achieve amazing results. However, at this moment I chosen to run alone. As I was running along the Mt Faber loop, I was totally lost in the midst of my thought. I could not remember how many rounds have I ran but definitely be more than six. At the Mount Faber, there was the music, the hill and me only. Although I hate to admit it, but I know that as I run more often alone. The running experience is longer than simply an exercise for me anymore. It has transformed to be a place of my sanctuary. I am lost but never have I known I am so lost in thought that I have lost my house keys…….

Christmas Ride

2007-12-25T05:00:00.000-08:00

What would you want to do on a windy and cloudy afternoon?

For me, I cycled o East Coast MacDonald, which took me about 1hr 38mins to complete the round trip journey. Made a stopover at Vivo city and surprised to find the mono-rail had commissioned.

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/ride/singapore/singapore/91715606"&amp;gt;East Coast MacDonald 35km&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-ride/singapore/singapore"&amp;gt;Find more Bike Rides in Singapore, Singapore&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

Christmas Eve

2007-12-24T23:23:00.001-08:00

This is perhaps the quietest Christmas Eve I ever been through. Hmmm.. What did I do in the past, apart from Christmas party, Discos, Countdown, Get-together Session and Singing Christmas Carol? Ha.

At 11pm, I took a walk along Orchard Road to feel the Christmas atmosphere before it fades away. As usual, the street was crowded with people. It had somehow turned into battlefield with youngsters spraying snow foam at each other. I had also become a victim in one of those duels. Nevertheless, the whole scenes had made the festival mood livelier. Also, there were some shops hadn’t closed. Among them was Taka Jewelry, else there were workers still working at the building opposite Centerpoint. By the time I reached Raffles City, it was 12pm. I heard the Church bell rang. Christians were gathering in the Church singing the Christmas Carol and in memorial of the arrival of Jesus Christ. The scenery seems so peaceful.

For me, I was feeling content being a bystander watching the crowds with one hand holding my “Kit-Kat” ice-cream cone….

Macritchie Trail Run

2007-12-23T00:21:00.000-08:00

I could not remember when was the last time I ever go for trail run at Macritchie. I was overslept this morning and arrived much later than my usual timing.

Despite the shower from yesterday, the beginning of the trail was relatively dry. After running for 5km, I was surprised to discover a toilet at the junction between Pierce trail and Sime track. That was totally something new to me!! (That shows how long I have not been to Macritchie Trail Run). J Since Sime Track was closed, I took the Pierce track and made a detour to Tree-Top, which located within 2 mins run on a steep slope. Although I knew the bridge is safe, but I naturally reduced and lightened my speed and footsteps when running on it. At the Petaling Trail, it made up of staircases and somehow transformed the whole running experience to staircase training. After bypassing the golf course, the trail was getting muddier and slippery. I nearly skip a few times. I hope before and on the day of Ultra-marathon, there would be no rain or else I have to seriously consider getting a pair of trail running shoes. About 500m away from the Macritchie toilet, I bypassed Jane and Yihui from the Singapore Women Everest team. When I was considering whether to make another loop, I saw Soh Huan and Eng Hwa. Soh Huan was asking me if I am joining the Safra Run. Ha.. :(

While waiting for the bus, I felt a pain at my left thigh. Perhaps I strained it during running or so. Back home, I used the Flexi-Hand Massager, which KC had rejected, to massage my left thigh. It sure felt good..

Battle of the Rust

2007-12-22T04:08:00.000-08:00

The plan: To cycle from my house to East Coast again. The result: An on-and off shower and 2 stopovers at Tanjong Pagar Old train station and Raffles place. Finally, I decided not to inflict any more damages than caused by the rain and clean up my bike instead. Therefore, I made a return trip back from Esplandane.

The cleaning up had taken much more efforts than I expected, partly due to my negligence to maintain the bike for all these years. First, I used a damp cloth to clean the body part of the bicycle. That was easy and quick. Next, I had to disassemble the rear wheel to clean the chain portion. The chain was full of grease and rust after years of exposure to sun and rain.( I left my bike on the balcony) I resorted in using a sandpaper, filing or craving tools that I could find to clean out the obstinate rust. It was a tough battle and needed a lot of patience. Like a good lady stitching a broken trouser, I sanded and rubbed the rust away each and everyone of the roller chain. It took me at least an hour to finish the task. L Subsequently, it was my pedals turn. It didn’t look good either, and stained with rust. I took my craving tools to scrub the rust away from both inside and outside of the pedals. I promised after today, I won’t ill-treat my bicycle again. Ha After finishing the 2 most troublesome parts, I began to clean up the front and rear bracket. It was full of dirt, grease and contained sand. After removing the dirt and grease, I utilized a brush to get rid of the sand hidden in the deep corner side of the brackets. Finally, the last part was the gear portion and it took me a while to finishing it off.

By the time I done with the “Spring” cleaning, it was 10.30 pm. I went to the newly opened 24hr Malay food shop and ordered a “Maggie Goreng”. Not really fantastic but would be enough to fill up my small stomach.

Spirit of Marathon

2007-12-21T03:16:00.001-08:00

The movie tells it all. :)

A Cat-and-Dog Pengerang Cycling Trip

2007-12-20T06:51:00.000-08:00

A pouring wet experience!! This was the adventure I gotten on this ever Hara Raya Haji holiday. Nevertheless, it was fun and full of laughs. I wouldn’t miss for a second chance. :D

We all gathered at Changi Jetty around 7.30 am. There were 20 totals of us. The weather seems to be kind since it had been raining continuously for the past few days. It looked like we could enjoy a dry morning and afternoon after all. I had decided to rent a bike with the rest instead of using my own. (I am too lazy to clean my bike if it caught hold in the rain.)

Setting Off
The cost of renting a bike was $10 for a whole day trip. It was those mountain bikes with fat tires, wide seat and heavy body weight.(*Disappointed*) Surprisingly, when I sat on the seat, it was relatively stable, and not using too much strength to peddle the wheels. After a hassle of adjustment made on the equipments here and there, we were ready to set off.

At the jetty station, I saw a few cyclists crossing the sea to the same destination as us. Their bicycles were mostly those MTB equipped with semi-slick tires. At the sales counter, the staff member told us that we needed 13 people to fill up the bumboat full before it could depart. Since we had 20 people and not wanting to waste time waiting, we decided to pay for the extra 3 empty seats not taken by anyone. After the staff member recorded our names, we loaded our bikes one by one onto the bumboat. And guess what!! The staff member turned out to be the bumboat driver too!!

After 45mins ride, we had reached Pengerang, but our blessing had vanished to the thin air. The weather started to pour immediately when we touched on the Pengerang jetty station with the wind growing stronger. We booked the bumboat driver to meet us back around 3.45pm by paying off our deposits first. The station closes at 4pm. (see left)

The Ride
After an half an hour wait, we decided to cycle in the rain while those without raincoats would catch a cab and meet us in town instead. The road was relatively flat with few up and down slopes. The whole route was straight with only one right turn heading towards the town. During the ride, the raindrops had been splashing on my eyes. (My cap had lent to Hwee Li). I wouldn’t open my eyes and been blinking them on and off. I did try to wear my shades and naively to think it might block the water coming to my eyes. It was not effective and I better off without the shades. The raincoat that I bought at Bali did help to keep my shirt minimum dry. After a stopover for photo session, we arrived at 11/2 hr later for a distance of around 17km.(see below)
The Town
The Sungei Rengit was a relatively small town. We met the other 5 whom took a cab down there. The cost of arrival was RM18. Apparently, they had started their feast. (see left) We split into two tables and our table ordered a “Lobster Set Meal C” which cost RM280. I fond of the vegetables and the soup particularly. The butter lobster and chili crabs also smelled good too!! Contrast to what I pictured, the lobsters were those small ones and the chili crabs were in mid-size. My friend told me that the crabs were caught from nearby shores. Overall, the whole dishes tasted super!! My stomach was too full and lazy to ride back. Ha.. The rain hadn’t been stopped yet.

The Ride Back
It was a non-stop ride back to the jetty, which took me around 1hr On our boat ride back, the rest couldn’t stop taking photo shots on this memorial day. We disembarked to Singapore at 4.30pm. I was completely exhausted and slept in the MRT train…..

Christmas Poem

2007-12-19T10:45:00.000-08:00

A Christmas poem i sent to Beth.. (my so-called Wife from US) :p ..

A Christmas Card,
Represents my missing of you,
Loneliness am I in SG,
My heart belongs to the winter land of Seattle,
Every single drops of rain,
Reminds me the moments we been together,
Yet so far but feels so near,
Here I now,
In the middle of this drizzling night,
Wishing you a Merry Merry Christmas,
And an ever best coming New Year.

A Macritchie 20km Run

2007-12-16T10:03:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I last ran at MR. I decided to do a slow and steady run alone from Macritchie to Seletar reservoir in the morning. During the run at 13km mark, I saw Yuen and informed that Soh Huan, Eng Hwa, Goole and Uncle Chua was doing a 20km run too. I managed to catch up with them at the Seletar reservoir toiler. We had a quick chat and I continued running on my own. On the way near to Macritchie, I saw some of the MR runners and they gave me a good thumb up. In the end, estimated to complete the distance within 2:10 hr. Ok for a slow and steady morning run. :)

In the afternoon, met my cheerful cousin and we chit chatted and joked with each other for 2hrs. Ha.. At night, I met up with Partrick and we had a dinner together exchanged our views about BG relationships. Tomorrow, most likely I had to give my response to reject another job offer. And lastly, I have received an email for allowing to take my PMP certification test.

Macritchie -> Seletar
Find more Runs in Singapore, Singapore

Christmas Party

2007-12-15T04:01:00.000-08:00

At 4pm, the Christmas party started. It was raining heavily outside still. To begin with, we had our usual singing and gaming session. There were many unfamiliar faces, mostly because I hadn’t been to Church for a long time and the party was organized by another cell group. Still, after a period of games and laughter, I am able to mix with the group. The catering was late due to the heavy shower outside. It arrived at 6pm but without the desserts. After an indecisive moment whether to have the desserts delivered, FengQing requested the delivery woman to send it to us around 9pm.

Before our Christmas feast, we had our usual gift exchange. It was a simple arrangement for this time round. Each of us picked up a number and passed the present to the person who holding the next number. At the same time, we needed to express our wishing to the receiver when giving the present. In my plot, I sang a wishing song to my fellow sister. :p Judging by the crowd response, I must say I done rally well. Hahaha,

Subsequently, we had a taste on the food. The catered food was rather good and I liked the curry chicken especially. Despite of taken my lunch at 2.30pm, I finishing 3 plates of rice. The last event was a short inspirational movie clip. Finally, I helped up with the packing and cleaning before going back home. It was 10pm at that time…

An Uneventful Day

2007-12-12T10:05:00.000-08:00

Not much has practically done today. I went to the Safra gym to do some body training in the late afternoon. After the gym, I took a slow run from MF Safra to Kent Ridge Park bypass the curving South Buonea Vista Road. It was a slow jog which took me 1.45hr to complete, 15 mins behind my usual pace. Last, I decided to drop off at the Border reading some books to nurture my mind…

A Drizzling Run..

2007-12-10T07:09:00.000-08:00

A poem that i thot of while running on this drizzling night..

The night is red,
The sky is drizzling,
No sight of life,
Few sight of cars,
A white figure,
Slowly taking its shape,
His running steps,
Rippling through the silent sphere,
Puddles of water,
Pulling his soaking shoes,
Struggling is he,
Raising his strained legs,
And alone he sprints,
Dashing to the darkness end.

A Rainy Day

2007-12-05T06:44:00.000-08:00

Today it rains for the whole day. I can’t remember when have I started to fond of rainy days. Because of the cool weather (Singapore is a tropical country)? At this moment, I would look out through the window and watching at people scurrying around to look for a shelter for escapade. This is the time when everyone stops his or her footsteps and stay closely together to avoid the raindrops. The barrier or defensive wall built between people seems to vanish in the midst of the rain. In my mind, I would wondering if those pedestrians on the street are rushing back to their cozy little house sitting closely with their families watching TV programs. Laughters and joys fill the room. There is a feeling of warmth and closeness in the atmosphere despite the cool temperature.

Every time, it rains.. Memories keep flowing back through my mind..

A Stroll at Chinatown

2007-12-04T08:34:00.000-08:00

Tonight, I went down to Chinatown looking up for any good dinner around as I tired of the food near my house. As I walking down the street, I saw a number of unfamiliar shops selling China Cuisines setting up at there. Chinatown has not failed its name as one of the best food paradise in Singapore. The photos of the Cuisines hanging out of the shop are alluring. One of the shops that caught hold of my attention is “Feng Bo Zhuang Jiu Jia” (www.ahfbz.com).

The decoration of the shop resembles those in the martial art movie of ancient China. Sadly, there was no customers inside. Still, the unique names of the dishes were interesting. Every dish takes the name of a martial art. Two shops away, there is a desert stall packed with customers which was a total contrast from “Feng Bo Zhuang Jiu Jia”.

As I walking in a circle, I discovered another vegetarian restaurant newly opened at the cross junction of Havelock Road and South Bridge Road. The vegetarian foods remind me of those I had in Chengdu.

Next, I headed towards the newly open temple. The temple was dazzling and beautifully lit up. I entered and there was a huge Buddha status sitting in front of the hall surrounded by countless mini-size Buddha status. I took 3 joss-sticks and prayed for my family’s safety. The temple attendant told me that I needed only burned 1 joss-stick. It is the thought and sincerity that really matters. How true…

In the end, I had a glass of “Tek Tarih” at the Maxwell Market and took a bus back home.

Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon 2007

2007-12-02T08:07:00.001-08:00

This is my third Marathon race.. but my 4th time participated in Singapore SCM.

Feeling not well, I took some medicine before the night of the race. As usual, I couldn’t able to fall asleep the night before any of the race event. The effect of medicine had caused dizziness in my head. I could feel contraction in my hands and left leg muscles at 3am and my heart was pounding.

Nevertheless, I still wanted to give a try for this last SCM race held in Singapore. The bag deposit section was having a long queue. I was ten minutes late for the flag-off time and the distance between the starting point and the deposit area was one street away..

Having no sleep, my mind was detached from my physical awareness. I tried to keep a consistent pace along the way. After 10km, I would feel the impact from the lack of sleep and the pain coming from my right kneels. At 14km checkpoint, I was totally famished and took a banana to refill my energy.. At 16km, I had to took a muscle spray on my right kneels. No good!! The spray was not effective. At 18km, I took a muscle rubbed hoping it might soothe the pain. Well.. It did help a little.. but the most effective still coming back to the deep heat applied at 22km. I jogged slowly and be careful of the pressure exerted at my right foot landing then after.

The sun had risen at 8am and the weather was getting hotter. The East Coast route had always been the most demoralizing route in the entire race. One-step after another, I kept telling myself “not to stop” at least till 30km. After 30km, I couldn’t let myself to halt. In my mind, I said “I must get out from East Coast!!”. Kept repeating the same statement to inspire myself to continue.. I did not want to stop. At every water point, i snatched a cup of drink and ran with hand holding on it and drinking at the same time. At 32km, I strapped my Patella Brace at my right kneels to reduce the pain.

Yes!! I have done it!! Running non-stop for 34km!! With a last drawn of strength, I had 1.10hr left to complete the race within 4.30hr. Unfortunately, my body condition had failed me. At 35km, my two thigh muscles cramped. I told myself that no matter at what costs, I still could make it. At 37km, my head felt dizzy and my eyes could not be opened. Finally, my mind began to give up and the world seems spinning around me. From a pace of 5mins to cover 1 km, it had reduced to 10~12mins. I walked a little bit but most of the time kept jogging at a really slow pace.

After 30min, I was about to reach the finishing line finally. The time was registering for 5.00hr. I knew I had failed my attempt to do sub 5hr.. Nonetheless, I won’t give up. I had to run faster before the clock ticked to 5.01hr.. 100m before the finishing line, I gathered my last every strength and dashed towards it bearing all the pains at my right kneels and two thigh muscles.. The time - 5:00:49..

Although I had slight improvement over the previous year attempt, I was still very glad with the result. 2 reasons: (1) I was continuously running for the entire race; (2) Despite my body condition, I had managed to finish the race without going the hospital. Haha..

The next one?? Ultra-Marathon.

Christmas Decoration

2007-12-01T06:41:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, a small helping hand to the Church Christmas decoration has been liked a wind that blown away my dismay for the past few days.

There were about twenty of us. We gathered all the items at the Church hall from the 5th Floor. HweLi, our “Chief Commander”, communicated her ideas and gave instruction on how the decoration should be done. Some of us responsible to saw the wood, some sew the clothes to make a curtain, others started to make little ribbons etc to hang on the wall, while the rest and me were supposed to decorate the Christmas trees - a total of three at different floor level. The task to decorate the Christmas tree was harder than I expected. Discounted the fact of the weight, me and another buddy had to keep shifting the tree of one place to the other. Each of us had different opinions on where the tree should be put. After 4 shifts, we decided to place the tree near to the stage. FengQing taught me on how to make ribbon so to hang it on the tree. It was quite fun and the finishing product was dazzling.. Next, we needed to decorate another Christmas tree at the ground floor.

At 4pm, the rest of girls came to cook for us using the Church’s kitchen. At 6pm, the food was nearly done. I sneaked into the kitchen and stole a “bite” of the food. Delicious!!! The taste of Fuzhou food has never failed my taste tongue. At 6.30pm, food was ready but I wouldn’t stay on for the dinner. However, I did finish a bowl of soup.. Yummy!!!!

Tomorrow is the Standard Chartered Marathon. Now in middle of night, the weather looks cloudy and likely to be rained. I hope not and pray good weather for the Safra runners and “good friend” whom joining in the race. My kneels still in kind of bad shape and wondering if I shall take part as well?????

At the CroSSrOAD

2007-11-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

Today, I official out of my student classification and fall back to the category of unemployment. I must admit there are difficulties for me finding me what I want. Interviewers being telling me I so good in my previous line that I shouldn’t have attempted a new career.. In fact, many of them were encouraging me back to my old job.. Truth, I listen but it is between the fine line of reality and what I want to achieve in Life.

Life, the simple four letter words but with profound meanings. Wait!! Isn’t this blog about friends & Food, all the good stuffs without any serious note!! Well, got to forgive me since this is my blog. :P

Ha.. I admit, there’s no simple solution and it’s simply don’t!! And we all just have to hold on to our values and beliefs to make every possible step – Faith.

Faith has failed me times to times but are we going to let go? No, the answer is not. Without faith, life would be meaningless with nothing to believe or live on. Looking back, I have three turning points in my life , including the coming now, and be fighting all my fate ever since.

I won’t bored you all my details and sorrows whatever. We just have to look ahead.. no matter what. I ever chanced upon a Hallmark Channel’s “Life is drama” blitz with Tan Keng Hua talking about Midlife Crisis. It is inspiring and seeing how she has achieved “change” to push her to live better. Is not liked climbing “Everest”, but what would be more commendable than fighting on and overcoming all the obstacles in life? I would say it is much tougher when compared climbing a mountain. The mountain will be there forever, but goals tend to shift as time flew and lost forever. Just liked doing a climb, you need good stamina and health. As for reality, the truth sense of enable “change” is your FINANCIAL means resembling those of your stamina. The trek would be treacherous and weather would be bad. A shelter is where your LOVED ONES, FRIENDS and FAMILY are there providing you. And well, if summit could not be reached, don’t lose heart as there always be another summit to reach for. And who knows, by chance it will come by again and you may reach a greater height. Everest does rise every year hor..

In addition, it needs the will and mental strength to reach a Summit. What this has transformed is your FAITH. The faith is the mental strength that inspiring you to move on..

In the every last, it is also a matter of luck of having good weather etc. That would be translated into THANKFULNESS. Without thankfulness, we tend to attribute our failure to someone or some events. But, thankfulness helps us to see a better light of everything even things do turn sour. The positive energy of thankfulness will transform into good Karma and tends to change our luck into better sense.

In conclusion, before anyone would make a “change”, always assessed these four elements – Financial, Faith, thankfulness with friends, family and loved ones surrounding you. Without any of these, reaching a summit would be nearly impossible. Or it would be fake summit which in fact there is a greater peak rests ahead.

I congratulate all whom have able to achieve their goal and treasure what you have (like enjoying the scenery) before making back to the base camp. :) God Bless..

Gifts From U.S.

2007-11-17T07:09:00.000-08:00

What a same day of PS's bday that I have received 2 gifts from U.S. at the same time – Rachel and my dear wife, Beth. Even though we have not known each other for too long, but it is too kind, and delighted to receive gifts from them so far out…At least, kind of making you think that somewhere in the middle of nowhere, you still feel a sense of existence.When I opened Rachel's Bday card, I am amused by her writings on it.. Ha, Her card sure knows how to comfort people and never fails to make you feel a generation older. Hmmm.. Better not celebrating my bday too much, else getting older more soon (See left)

As for my beloved wife from U.S., she has sent me a Mush Mallow Candy.. Yup. Those types which you given out during Halloween night.. Well, all rite, I can’t complain much since it is Halloween over at U.S. The candy tastes really sweet, and guess I have to develop some bad tooth after finishing off.. She’s so full of surprises…Inside the Bday card she has sent me, I dropped a piece of paper on the floor… My jaws dropped when I saw the picture on it.. Gosh!! It was giving me nightmare and not for the frail heart to see it.. See the pic and you will immediately KNOW what I meant…And Wait. .Is she in her wedding grown or what!!!

Last but not least, this year has been much difficult for me, emotionally and physically.. Still, I treasure much from all the friends whom sending me wishes.. HuiLi, WeiMei, Dave, BeeHua, Eddie, Tania, Henky… and lots of many of my MBA classmates & Buddies of my secondary school friends. Special thanks to them whom made the occassion so much memorable..

Pre-Bday Celebration

2007-10-26T19:22:00.000-07:00

It has been quite a while since I last celebrate my birthday. To be honest, I am elated of able to rejoice this joyous occasion with good friends around me – Alvin, PS and KC.

After an hour of waiting for PS and KC, we drove down to Robertson Quay as suggested by PS. Coincidently, this is the same venue I have mentioned in my previous posting. The choice of restaurant for selection is not difficult. There are a number of decent Japanese restaurants around there. Finally, PS wanted to get a try on “Menya Shinchan Japanese Noodle Restaurant”. It is a small restaurant that hides at one corner of an alley, which is a short walk opposite the funny looking bridge. There were two or three waitress serving the customers and the Chef was once the President of Ramen Society. Is that such a society??? The restaurant looks like those traditional type Japanese food stall we often see in those Jap Drama with a bar located right opposite to the kitchen. The place was crowded and we had to wait for our seats under the hot afternoon sun. ( http://www.oishii.sg/banner/shinchan/site.html )

Address: Menya Shinchan Japanese Noodle Restaurant
30 Robertson Quay
#01-05 Riverside View
Singapore 238251)

As we were waiting, I had noticed there were quite a number of native Japanese customers. Somehow, the ability of the food to fulfill their taste bug should indicate a good standard and quality of the restaurant. The waitress told us that they actually served three kinds of noodles for different dishes, the slim, medium and thick size. PS ordered Tonkotsu Miso – one of their renowned dish. Well, no need for me to describe.... The picture tells it all. Is humungous!!!

Alvin and KC ordered those Ramen with Soup. I ordered a Tsukemen. The soup of theirs tasted good but the best choice still fall back to PS’s Tonkotsu Miso. It was not that salty as compared to the rest of what Alvin and KC were having. I would recommend friends coming here for some home-cooked Japanese Ramen. The taste is quite traditional...

After finishing the noodles, we opened up the box contained three slices of cakes from Centre Ps Pte Ltd, 78 Guan Chuan Street, #01-43, S(160078). It is a new shop locates at Tiong Bahru area. The cakes ordered were Mont Blanc, Cru Royale and Gateau Opera. The packaging was good. I plucked a candle in one these small little cake and had the rest reluctantly singing a birthday song for me..... Felt like childhood memories coming back again!! :P

For the cake, it is 7 dollars a piece – hotel price. Must really thank Alvin and the rest for buying me the cakes and gift, plus his IceWine imported from Cananda.

My birthday present??See below:

To Do List

2007-10-24T23:56:00.000-07:00

1. PMP Certification
2. JLPT 4
3. National Certification in Mountaineering

Some little Discoveries at The QuaySide

2007-10-24T10:44:00.000-07:00

It is one of those days that you do not have the spirit and feelings of achieving anything. Probably, it could have been the lack of exercise that been killing me all this while. (Many of you know I suffering from knee pains for weeks and cut down my running mileage).

Feeling bored, I decided to cycle my way along the Singapore River during the evening. The night of Esplanade was beautifully lit up. Groups of runners could be seen along the runway.
Hmm. In my mind, I wonder are they belonging to Blazing Outdoor Adventure Group.
( http://www.boac-online.com/ )

I continue all way aimlessly for another hr before deciding to head back. When I reached “The Quayside”, I realized the place is different from the weekends. It is blazing with life and noticed a few cafes that usually not opening. I decided to explore my way in. And guess what?? Immediately caught my eyes. is the “Laurent Café and Chocolate Bar”..(http://www.hungrygowhere.com/laurent_s_cafe_chocolate_bar_former_the_chocolate_factory) It is formerly called “The Chocolate Factory”. The café has the concept of separate chocolate room and bar offering a range of chocolates and desserts. Feeling a urge, I went in and took a look in their menu.. Well, scanning around, the business is looking good and the dark chocolate is so sinful. *Drooling*. Ha.. that along comes with a pricey tag.

Then I proceeded further and discovered a new Jap café decorated with second handed Japanese books. Feeling curious and allure by their decoration, I went in and poked my busy noise around. Apparently, the waiter told me that the shop is selling the concept of home-made Japanese food. I not especially attracted by the food and the books. Sure feel good!! Sitting at one of those lazy afternoon, facing the river and reading my Japanese comics. (Must tell my Jap friends of this great place) :P

http://www.bongout-cafe.com/index.asp

Some of the advertisements at the door caught my eyes when I was about to go. It seems a few magazines have recommended the café. But one of those that caught hold of my attention is the “Time Out Singapore”.( http://www.timeout.com/sg/en/ ) It is an online magazine featuring some of the coolest place or events happening around Singapore.

After a few more exploration, I spotted a few good pretty pubs and cycling back to home..

Wish List

2007-10-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

1. Meizu Mini Player