| 2 August 2004. Monday. |
| It's 6 30am now. You must be wondering what I'm doing up relatively early on a lazy Monday morning? Yeah, darn it, I'm wondering myself too. Actually I woke up to go for a morning swim (which starts at 630am at the public pool). After dragging myself out of bed, washing up, and changing, I look out the window and it's RAINING. What's up with the weather these days? Well anyway yesterday I had a really really good session in the morn - a total of 90k bike and 5k run. I felt so strong, which is weird, cos I was sick too. Been sick since last sunday, my throat is still sore. But you know what they say - if it's above the neck, you can still train. Hooray to that. Anyway today's the start of the 2nd week of school so i suspect work is going to start piling up, darn it. Oh oh oh and I'm typing this diary entry on my new iBook! I'm soo happy to have gotten it, it's fantastic. And there was that iPod deal also, so i bought the 40GB iPod for $350 less! How cool is that?! Yep so I've been pretty much playing around with the iBook and transferring songs to my iPod (present count: 1011 songs, 8089 to go!) Well yeah, nothing very interesting to say here, so uh,.. well, hope it stops raining!!! |
| 4 August 2004. Wednesday. |
| After a REALLY crap Monday, i've been having a great week so far. Yesterday I rode at 515am as usual with the guys, and then i ran a fast 4k off the bike and felt so strong. In the evening we did a main set of 4x1300m in the pool (alt pull and swim, and actually we only did 800m for the last one) and i felt pretty good and surprised myself by surviving the set. Today in school we watched Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind for my Asian Film course. Let me tell you, I absolutely hate anime. What's up with the kawaii krap and all?! And I really don't like Japanese animation... so... urgh. (but that's just how i feel, there have been rave reviews for Nausicaa) Anyway after class I went for a recovery swim at the NTU pool, then went back to school to study for a bit. Just got back from 16k at Macritchie, felt so strong today. It's amazing what rest can do for you! I'm just so happy how training is turning out cos I've got two races coming up in the next 3 weeks so hopefully i can get some good results. By the way, i absolutely love my mac. Everyone should get one... NOW! Alright, check back later, bye! |
| 6 August 2004. Friday. |
| My gosh, the week has been going so well, it's gotta be one of my best training weeks i've ever experienced! Yesterday I managed to keep up with my teammates for our 2x30x50 swim main set, and this morning i went for a recovery swim and i felt totally awesome. AND now here i am, just got back from my track workout... feeling great! This was the longest track workout I've ever done - 7x1k on 6:30 (including rest). Managed to do all (except 1) under 4 minutes, and I felt so strong for all of them. Including warm up and cool down, ran a quality 12k today. After two sh*t weeks of training it's just awesome to feel so strong again. And in really good timing really, cos next week is the Sarawak International Triathlon. Anyway, Olympics fever is coming to town, and the women's triathlon will be on the 25th of august and the men's triathlon the day after. I'm definitely gonna be glued to my TV set rooting for uh.... (THAT'S A SECRET!). Right. I'm trying to think of interesting things to say here other than the usual boring triathlon training stuff... oh, as of now i have 1413 songs in my iPod. Man I think it's like an overload, i'll never get through all the songs!!! Any good songs to recommend? Email me! |
| 13 August 2004. Friday. |
| Friday the 13th! It's been a good day though, capping off a great week. I felt a bit tired at the start of this week but then I ended up feeling strong during the training sessions anyhow. Yesterday I did a PB for 1500m so that was really the icing on the cake. Well tomorrow I leave for Sarawak and hopefully I can win that race there. The Olympics opens today and I'm definitely gonna be glued to my tv set for the next few weeks. Well today I had a photo shoot with Ben so look out for us in a couple of weeks' time in a local magazine. The shoot was good fun, I had a blast. Hm, got nothing much to add today, am really sleepy now, so i think i better hit the sack. Gotta leave my place at 6am tomorrow so I could use all the rest I can get. Will check in again with the race result... have a good wekeend! |
| 17 August 2004. Tuesday. |
| Hi, how have you guys been? It's been a good weekend.. spent it racing in Sarawak. Let me tell you about one of the toughest races I've ever done... the race started at 8am on Sunday morn and we swam in the relatively calm sea at Damai Beach. I had a pretty ok swim, considering it was REALLY short i swam about 19 minutes. Transition was REALLY long though and we had to run from the beach all the way to the hotel carpark some 600-800m away. I chose to do it barefoot cos i figured I wouldn't be thinking about the pain anyway (there were gravel and stones on the ground along the way). T1 went by pretty fast surprisingly and before I knew it i hopped on my bike and headed out on the one-lap, 40km bike. I had some work to do cos I was about 1min 30secs down on the M'sian girl Stephanie, but I knew i could catch her cos I always did in all the races so far. The first 5-8k of the course consists of long hills but there were pretty much rolling hills, so by the time you got down one you had enought momentum to bring you up the next one halfway. The bike was pretty much smooth sailing actually and I felt really strong. Japanese triathlete Iwata Takatoshi came by and we took turns in front, althought it was a non-drafting race just having someone ahead of you even by 10m helps! Keeping with the rules I did not draft and I managed to keep up with Iwata, which was really cool cos he is a constant winner of his age group. Anyway the bike went by really fast and I caught Stephanie even before halfway (should've been earlier if she didn't draft some guys all the way there) and before I knew it, it was onto the treacherous 10k run. By then it was about 9.30am and it was getting REALLY hot. Biking up the hills were a breeze but running up took a hundred times more energy, plus the momentum thing doesn't really apply here. So every single soul out on the course was struggling, and one of the m'sian women even ended up in the hospital and DNFed. I was just glad to hold on to my lead and finish the run pretty strong. The bike and run course was pretty obviously long, and i think we ran about 11k instead of 10. Anyway, I finished 10 minutes ahead of the nearest competitor and walked home with 2000 ringgit in prize money (about S$900). So, of course it was a good weekend. I headed home on Monday and as soon as I got back to Singapore (about 12:45pm) i drove straight to school for lecture (2:30-6pm) then headed straight to the pool for training (6:30pm). Today was another hectic day because this week I've got some assignments due, so I probably shouldn't be wasting time typing this diary entry.... yeah anyway that's how everything went. Next up, Singapore Triathlon! See you there! |
| 21 August 2004. Saturday. |
| Today I crashed while out riding, going down head first and then doing a somersault with the bike. We were having our usual 515am ride and for some freaky-deaky reason just when I stood up and pedalled I went straight into a pothole and soon I found myself looking down the front wheel. Unfortunately I took denison and yongquan down too cos they were behind me.. very sorry guys. Well bad news, I cracked uncle rob's zipp wheels, dented my rear hanger, took half the skin off the fourth finger on my left hand, and grazed my right elbow and knee. Oh, and my helmet cracked too. THANK GOD FOR HELMETS. everyone, always use your helmet when riding. well tomorrow we will be practicing on the race course for the Singapore Triathlon so hopefully I can move... swimming in the sea is gonna be, urm, interesting... hear me scream... i need sleep, goodnight. Please guys, ride safely. |
| 30 August 2004. Monday |
| I raced in the Singapore ITU Triathlon yesterday and had a very disappointing result. The day started really badly with a freak accident on the way to the race site. I was cycling there when I fell and had to take a cab home and change my wheels and re-adjust my twisted headset. Cycled to the race site and was in tears all the way till the starting horn.. i had wounds on my hip and my elbow but I just didn't think about it much and headed out into the sea for the 1.5k swim. The wounds stung like hell but I guess when you're racing you don't think about it much. On the bike I rode most of the way by myself and so going out on the run I was pretty much flat out. I ended up with a really disappointing time and a disappointing 5th place. I guess shit happens and I know all this probably has happened for a reason.. which i will find out soon enough. Anyway other than the bad and unlucky race it's been a pretty cool week hanging out with the krazy kiwis Rhodsey and Clarky, and meeting Miles Stewart (who unfortunately fractured his leg while warming up and DNFed and will be out for 6 weeks). Congratulations to all of you did the race -- you are all winners! Thank you for your support if you were there screaming your lungs out.. and I will try much harder next time! Alright got class, see ya! |