wang writes

With the sound of silence. Silence because I’d forgotten to take Damo’s iPod shuffle with me. But not so silent if you count the endless string of cars that cut through Bin Tong Park area. But, damn, the hills were alive and kickin me in the butt today. Boy, did it feel good.

Here’s what I did:
7x Bin Tong Park 300m hill
5x Bin Tong Park 80m slope
Total: about 10.5km including warm-up and cool-down

You can see it in the map below:

I did an easy warm up jog to the Bin Tong Park hills, about 3.5km, bumping into Alisa, my former training mate from the triathlon national team and 2005 South-east Asia Games bronze medallist. I hadn’t seen her in about a year and half, so it was such a pleasant surprise when I caught up with her along Holland Road, about a km into my warm-up jog. From her running style and “2004 Seorak Triathon” t-shirt I knew immediately it was my old friend. Found out that she is now studying in Canberra and is back for the holidays till January, runs only about once a week now for about 6km and left here mid-last year. It was great to catch up, and really made me think about how much fun national training was back in the day.

2001 Asian Triathlon Championships

From left: Dayan, Yilin, Sunny, Gabriel, Gino, Jingxian, Joseph, Me,
Jon Fong, Dawn, Zhichun, Chong Wei

2001 Batam International Triathlon

From left: Yilin, James, Me, Sunny, Gabriel, Jingxian, Dayan, Dawn,
Gino, Uncle Robs, jiaolian, Chong Wei, Joseph

Alisa’s not in any of those pictures cos she had joined the team a few months after those events. Many of my former teammates are not doing triathlon anymore. The sport has since grown tremendously in Singapore and the once-small, cozy and close-knit tri community has exploded with new faces popping up all the time. It’s good for the sport I guess, but I miss when you’d rock up to races and you knew everybody’s name.