| January 30, 2008. Wednesday |
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On the flipside, moral of the story for little brothers: do not play with your sister's phone, especially when likely to do silly things with it after being cooped up in BMT for the past three weeks. Not very good when elder sister posts potentially embarassing photos of you on her website. Note to self: It's 8am. Time to head back to bed after another 5am run... this time a hills sesh, 12 times of a 1min-ish incline, sandwiched between two 3km easy runs.
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| January 29, 2008. Tuesday |
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For the record, I do not have a pink obsession! Even though I scrawl on a pink blog, speed in a pink beemer, sleep in a room with two baby pink walls and two pink walls, own a pink pinarello paris, have a pink/black nike watch and a wardrobe of pink nike threads... (I'm trying hard there to recall what other pink things I have)... My explanation: I happen to like -- and own -- a lot of man-ly items, such as a 1990 BMW E30 and an expensive road bike. So, to add a tinge of femeninity (spelling??) to these items I decided that a splash of pink would do the job. Of course, my room is not manly and neither is this blog... but you know,... or you don't know .... hahahha. And, as for the Nike threads, I've absolutely no control over that. My generous sponsors pamper me with all kinds of goodies -- like 15 tops, four bottoms, five pairs of shoes, one bag and three water bottles yesterday -- and I've no control over that, save for THANK YOU VERY MUCH NIKE! You know? Speaking of all that stash... my wardrobe isn't the biggest around so I had to throw out a ton of other clothing just to fit the new stuff in. Guess my little cousins will be happy with those barely-worn hand-me-downs... and the good thing also is I have a new casual wardrobe every month or so! Can't thank Nike enough!
Oh, and for the record, my favourite colour is white, not pink.
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| January 28, 2008. Monday |
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I can't wait for the day when people in Singapore won't stare at the -- shock shock horror horror -- of a runner going about his or her own business, running along the pavements and streets. How, with mouth aghast, they react to the sight of a lady running at 5am like they've seen a ghost. How idiotic teenage boys and young men make stupid remarks as you head in their direction, and mimic your running action. Seriously, is my running at 5am on a quiet Monday morning any problem to this country's bunch of generally inactive, food devouring, tv watching, couch slouching, orchard road shopping population?? I hope not. Cut me some slack, guys. Don't stare, don't make silly remarks, mind your own business, and don't force me off the pavement just cos you can't take one step to the side. Anyway! Despite all that ranting, yes, I did have an excellent 2h 7min run this mornin. Managed to sleep by 10pm last night and woke at 4.45am this mornin, feelin a little tired still but all that fatigue slid away about 20 minutes into the run. A warm shower, couple of glasses of carrot juice + 100plus mix, and some core work and stretching later, I'm back in bed ready to take a short nap before heading to work.
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| January 26, 2008. Saturday |
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The thing I hate about staying in Pasir Ris -- other than it's located at a god-forsaken corner of the island and is hugely inconvenient to get anywhere, other than it's littered with inconsiderate people who don't bother to move aside when they see a runner heading in their direction, other than it's virtually impossible to get a seat on the MRT in the mornin rush hour cos people at Tampines take the train down one stop and take it back (but that's solved now cos I have my car), other than White Sands is so friggin crowded, other than none of my friends really stay near me -- is the cruel head wind while cycling home from a Saturday long ride. As if a crazy fast 150km with my CycleWorx buddies today weren't enough. As if the intermittent surges among the 31-strong peloton weren't enough. As if Lornie, Farrer, Faber, Pepys, Gap, NUS, Tuas, Raffles Marina, NTU, Lim Chu Kang, Neo Tiew, Kranji, Woodlands, Admiralty, Yishun, Sembawang and Thomson didn't leave my legs badly shot enough. As if today's bloomin' sun wasn't enough. As soon as I went past the shop, said bye to the bunch and turned onto Braddell Road -- wham! Ok, not so bad yet, I exxagerate. But the wind did get worse as the 20km journey home went on. Down Tampines Road and Old Tampines Road I was praying to the wind gods to be kind. I think I heard them answer back -- 'Nooooooooo' they blew, right in my face. Maybe I was getting a bit crazy, what with the fast ride, heat, distance and all... but hey... show me some love next time guys, a little tailwind perhaps?..... I don't know if I hate this about Pasir Ris or I like it, but because it's so bloody far away from civilisation, my long rides are always longer than what the other riders do, simply because of what the 40km to-and-fro journey does to my mileage. I guess I quite like it. Making an extra small Thomson ride loop (about 40km) sounds way longer than getting from my house to the bike shop and back. But then again I'm saying all this because 150km is still extremely doable. I might start hating the extra mileage on a 200km ride.... So anyway, apologies for the sparse updates. Been a crazy couple of weeks, but I'm not complaining. Everything's been going great and I couldn't have asked for better. Here's what I've been up to where training's concerned: Monday (Jan 14) - 2h 10min long run Tomorrow's probably a rest day. :-) Am feeling like I'm getting fitter. Managed to stay in front a bit more on today's ride, felt much stronger on the hills too. Yaye!
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| January 13, 2008. Sunday |
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So the second week of 2008 has been better than the
first. Training was pretty good, I felt refreshed, eager and strong.
Following Monday's 17km tempo run: Ah yes, yesteday's ride. Something must've bitten my Cycleworx buddies, or they must've really had to go to the loo, or maybe they knew it would be the apocalypse soon, because they were cycling as though they were chasing time. Mad, mad, mad. It was actually hard but not too hard for me to keep up if I stayed mid-pack and enjoyed the draft amidst 30-plus riders in the peloton, but then I made the mistake of falling back to chat at Raffles Marina, and before I knew it, everyone was gone and I was dropped. So, moral of the story is, when heart rate goes up and legs are shot, shut up and don't try to sing!!! Anyway it was all good, I cycled home feeling much better than last week's 125km ride, which was at a much slower pace. Training aside, on Wednesday I bought my family a nice dinner at Corduroy & Finch. Well, not so nice was that the bill for six came up to $288, but what the heck, the grub was great! And it was a little send-off my for little bro who went in for NS on Thursday. We all ate loads and had a fabulous time. I had a french onion soup for starters and then a smoked salmon salad. I'm craving that smoked salmon salad right now!!
I'm hoping week three of 2008 will beat this week. :-)
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| January 7, 2008. Monday |
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I finally got my lazy ass down to starting my 2008 diary. The first week of 2008 has gone pretty well for me. Well, except for maybe Jan 1, when I was suffering from a major hangover from partying till 5am. I have to admit, if it weren't for my friends, I would've been in bed by 11pm like NYE 2006. It was a girls' night out this year. Us old RGS pals met at Maryam's for what started out as a quiet evening. While waiting for everyone to arrive a few of us watched the Music and Lyrics DVD, ate nostalgic junk food (roller coaster and super ring), mixed a few drinks and had good conversation. As more people arrived -- well there were less than 10 of us -- the party, or rather, gathering, got more fun. Especially when Farah, quietly drunk on the couch after downing JD and vodka straight up the whole evening, got revived when Take That's Everything Changes album started playing. It was hilarious... and pretty amazing what Relight My Fire can do to a drunkard who was once a crazy Take That fan. After counting down, a few of us decided to join Qiuyan and friends at EM Lounge at Robertson Walk (very unhappening ol' me had never heard of that place). But by the time we got there they decided the party wasn't happening there so we went to Zouk instead. And there we stayed till 5am... After a long night on the dancefloor we fed our rumbling tummies with some awesome sliced fish bee hoon and har cheong kai nearby. By the time I got to sleep it was 6.30am. As you can expect, Jan 1 was a wasted day, so nothing much to say about it. Oh, except that running 54km at the MacRitchie trails on Sunday coupled with a few hours of mad dancing on Monday equated to achy breaky legs on Tuesday. I think I barely walked 100m on Jan 1... I was in bed most of the day. Got back to work on Wednesday, Jan 2. Also managed an hour of easy spinning in the office gym. The news has been pretty slow of late so work hasn't been too hectic. Had a couple of late nights in the office here and there this week but no biggie. I think if you actually start (or try) to love your job, it makes everything less painful. In a way, that is what I hope to do this year... love my job. Worked and worked-out the rest of the week, save for yesterday. This morning, I went for a 5.30am run. I couldn't make up my mind if I should do an hour run followed by some quick short reps after, or a long run. I decided to do the masochistic triathlete thing and do a long run (about 17km) with tempo work thrown in. Felt shite at the start but really good after the first 20 minutes,... when coincidentally I ran past a middle-aged man, who started running behind me saying, "exercise, exercise". I was freaked out so I sped up. A lot. And so began my first rep of about six 2-3min efforts. Thank you, crazy man. Ah, 2008. Throw me whatever you will, I'm all set.
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