Successfully registered!

I called up Jurong East Sports Council today, and confirmed that I was successfully registered for the 2nd Link Bridge Run. :) Hooray! Today, I also received news that I would be sent overseas on official business next month. Thankfully, my trip doesn't clash with my October Sentosa outing on 8 Oct 2005 and the SgRunners ECP run on 9 Oct 2005, so I'll still be able to join my friends for a fun-filled weekend! :)

Anyway, the stats for my run on Monday.

Lap 1 (First 1/3 of full MFA circuit ~ 2.71 km)
Time taken: 13 min 52 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 190/176
Average Pace: 5 min 07 sec / km

Lap 2 (Remaining 2/3 of full MFA circuit ~ 4.15 km)
Time taken: 23 min 11 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 194/187
Average Pace: 5 min 34 sec / km

Lap 3 (A 2nd full MFA circuit ~ 6.73 km)
Time taken: 40 min 48 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 204/185
Average Pace: 6 min 03 sec / km

Lap 4 (Slow walk phase within MFA ~ 0.53 km)
Time taken: 4 min 35 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 195/171
Average Pace: 8 min 37 sec / km

Lap 5 (Slow jog phase ~ 1.21 km)
Time taken: 8 min 41 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 201/184
Average Pace: 7 min 09 sec / km

Lap 6 (Walking because of pain in right heel/ankle ~ 1.07 km)
Time taken: 9 min 56 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 192/154
Average Pace: 9 min 10 sec / km

Lap 7 (Walking because of pain in right heel/ankle ~ 1.60 km)
Time taken: 15 min 24 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 182/149
Average Pace: 9 min 36 sec / km

Total
Time: 1 hr 56 min 26 sec
Distance: 18.0 km
Average Heart Rate (bpm): 176
Average Pace: 6 min 28 sec / km
Calories Expended: 1544 kcal

At last, I run

Such joy! After work today, I was able to go running in the area around my office. I covered a total of 18 km under 2 hours. It is 9:15 pm now, and I think I shall quickly pack up my things, go home, have dinner and get a good night's rest. I'll post the stats of my run another day. :)

2nd Link Bridge Run

Gosh, I hope I make it in time. Last week, on the day that I flew off to India, I passed my 2nd Link Bridge Run registration form together with the $10 fees and a photocopy of my NRIC to Chee Keong, and asked him to help me submit the items to the organisers. When I returned from India, I was told that I had to fax in a photocopy of my passport as well! I didn't have time to get it done over the weekend, nor today...so I'll just have to try to fax that by tomorrow. :(

The 2nd Link Bridge Run is on this Sunday, and I am hoping to participate in the 21-km Open category. My only concern is that I haven't had time to run in the past two weeks, and that does not bode well.

To Sentosa and NUH

After arriving home from the airport, I had a shower, ate some snacks, blogged and checked my emails and SMSes. Then I went out of the house to meet up with the other Habitat volunteers who had gone to Banda Aceh for the reconstruction effort. The venue was Tanjong Beach, Sentosa. It took me an incredible amount of time to get to Tanjong Beach from the HarbourFront bus interchange, not least because of the massive hordes of tourists who were loading up and disembarking from the shuttle buses and trams at all the different bus and tram stops. I finally reached the beach at around 4 pm. However, by that time, most of the invited crowd had already left for home. At least there were still some familiar faces among those who remained. Adele, Wai Yan and Lark were still playing beach volleyball, while HT and his wife were resting in the shade. I chatted with HT for quite a while, and that was good.

By 6 pm, everyone was ready to leave the beach. I caught a lift from HT to go to National University Hospital (NUH) to visit B. (Earlier in the day, I had received an SMS from Paul, saying that B, a child that we both knew from Club Rainbow, had been hospitalised.)

B was in rather high spirits, despite having an intravenous tube inserted into his left forearm earlier in the afternoon. The IV tube was to remain there for around 8 hours. When B's parents and two younger siblings went out of the ward for their dinner, I stayed with B in the Children's Play Room, and watched the Birmingham City-Liverpool English Premier League match with him. B fervently supports Chelsea while I nominally support Arsenal, but since neither teams were represented in this particular game, I cheered for Liverpool and B cheered for Birmingham City. The match ended with a 2-2 draw, inclusive of a Liverpool own goal. :P

Later on, Paul and Angeline also dropped by to visit B, who was obviously quite pleased with the visitor turnout. :) Paul, Angeline and I chatted with B's parents until 10:30 pm, B's bedtime, and we packed up to leave the hospital. If all goes well, B should be discharged by Monday. Hooray!

I hadn't slept much on the flight back from New Delhi, and I was hoping for an early night's rest tonight. But again, life has other plans, and I'm probably going to bed at 1 am tonight...

Back from India

Namaste! I am back from my trip to New Delhi, India.

This was my first time on the Indian sub-continent, and it was an eye-opening and fascinating experience. What struck me as my first impression was the stark disparity between the rich and the poor. Within a hundred metres of the hotel in which I stayed was "thriving" squatter community. During my 4 days in New Delhi, I also had the opportunity to visit the Red Fort, the largest of old Delhi's monuments, Jama Masjid, India's largest mosque, as well as the New Delhi Village of HOPE, a sanctuary to over 3,500 leprosy patients and their families.

The traffic in New Delhi was manic. I managed to catch a ride on a rickshaw through the streets. It was such an experience, trying to remain seated on the "open-air" rickshaw without being jolted off whenever the rickshaw made a sharp turn or collided into some other vehicle or person (*gasp*).

With regard to the food, I found it too oily and unhealthy for my liking. I also must add that thankfully, I didn't get "Delhi Belly", the horrendous diarrhorea that afflicts many foreign visitors to India. ;)

I am glad to be back home after my trip to India. I did not have the chance to exercise or run while I was there, and I'm looking forward to doing a 20-km tomorrow morning! :)

Run Round Singapore 2005

I have only just seen the website for Run Round Singapore 2005 (1-2 Oct 2005). It's a 168-km route (that's the distance of 4 marathons) around Singapore. It sounds extremely tempting to me, but I know I'm not in any condition to run that far! Goodness, I'm not even ready for one full marathon yet.

But The Lonely Runner's taking part in the full race, and a number of the other SgRunners are participating the relay category (multiple sets of ~3.4 km) of this event. I think I'll offer to help out in terms of logistics, i.e. providing isotonic drinks, carbo-rich snacks, muscle-rubs, etc at strategic points along the route... Now, it's just a matter of deciding when and where to position myself during the run itself... :)

This is probably going to be my post before I depart for New Delhi tomorrow. I won't get a chance to blog until I get back...

Anyway, when I return to Singapore on 24 September (Sat) morning, I'm supposed to go to Siloso Beach for a gathering of Habitat for Humanity Singapore volunteers who had gone to Banda Aceh on reconstruction projects. Talk about a busy schedule! :)

Packing, packing

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be flying to India. So I got up really early today (8 am) to pack my bags. Thankfully, there is only a shadow of my flu left, and I'm feeling much better now. The Lonely Runner just came online, and I chatted with him briefly. He just returned from the Desaru International Triathlon yesterday. Wow, I would also like to take part in a biathlon or triathlon someday. :) But I need to first learn how to swim! :P Right now, the rest of my running kakis are probably in the middle of their Terry Fox Run....All the best for the run, guys and gals! :) And now, back to packing...

Tracking my Heart Rate

I've been told that if I continue to work on my mileage through regular training, my average heart rate during a run should show a desirable downward trend. Well, here's how I'm been faring so far, since I purchased my Polar RS200sd.

Spending Saturday at home...

My alarm clock went off at 5:30 am this morning. I was supposed to wake my dad up for his Malacca trip today, in case his alarm clocked failed to go off. After switching the device off, I crawled back into bed, and got up again at 7:00 am to consume my antibiotics and flu tablet. And then it was back to bed again until 9:15 am, when YR rang me on my mobile, wondering why I hadn't gone to HarbourFront to meet the rest of the DSTA folks for beach volleyball. *sigh* I really wanted to go, but my eyes were still watering.

I am now listening to 一砖一瓦 (Unplugged 版) (English translation: One Brick One Tile, acoustic version), performed by 林倛玉 (Jim Lim). It's Track 10 of Hands United, a CD to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity Singapore to carry out housing reconstruction for the victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami (read about my trip to Banda Aceh in July 2005 here). This CD is available at all major music outlets such as CD Rama, Gramaphone, HMV, That Music, Tower Records and Sembawang Music.

Still feeling sick....

I have had a long day at work, left the office at around 11:40 pm, and I'm still sniffling and sneezing. Guess what, I had a flu vaccination injection about three months ago, and apparently, it's not working -- or otherwise, I must be so deprived of rest that my body's vulnerability has plunged below normal standards... *sigh*

I was hoping to recover in time for Sentosa tomorrow, and the 20-km run on Sunday... :(

My day of MC is expiring...

It is 10:30 pm now. I have now spent almost 13 consecutive hours at home, and by the time I get up tomorrow morning, it would be at least 20 hours. Incredible! :) Usually on a weekday, I'm in the house for about 7 hours (with about 5 hours or less spent on sleeping).

So far, I have been obediently taking my medication on time. There is a course of antibiotics that I must finish. :( I have also spent most of my day in front of the computer, doing background research and compiling information from the internet, in preparation for my work tomorrow. I'm such a workoholic. :(

I'm looking forward to the coming weekend. On Saturday, I intend to go to Sentosa to join my beach kakis for a morning of volleyball and frisbee. On Sunday, I plan to meet up with the folks from the SAFRA Running Club for a 20-km run, starting from MacRitchie Reservoir and touching base at some of the nearby reservoirs. I suppose this would be a similar, if not the same, route to the one we ran on 21 August 2005. The following Monday, I'm scheduled to fly off to New Delhi, India and will return on Saturday. I've never been to India, but I'm positive it's going to be an eye-opening experience! :)

On MC

This morning, I woke up feeling rather ill. I am exhibiting the usual flu symptoms: running nose, sore throat, watery eyes, headache. The doctor gave me one day's MC, so I am now at home, resting (and taking this opportunity to blog!). I probably succumbed to the illness because I didn't get enough sleep to recover from Sunday's half marathon and had worked late for the last three consecutive nights.

In spite of the long working hours, I like my new job immensely, and I'm grateful to be blessed with extremely good and supportive colleagues. I just hope I can pick up more survival skills to cope with the workload, meet the high expectations of my supervisors, and still make time to enjoy life and run with my friends.

Blue-black

At 7 pm, I woke up from my three-hour nap, took a step off my bed, and realised that I had pain in my right ankle. I must have sprained it somehow during my run. There's now a dark blue-black blotch around my ankle, adding to the already pretty sight of three tiny blisters. :)

Right now, I have this sudden craving for home-brewed lotus-root and peanut soup. :( But there is none in the kitchen...

Army Half Marathon 2005

Another early morning. I woke up at 3:45 am, consumed a banana and a cup of fresh milk with cereal, and then at 4:15 am, proceeded to the bus-stop outside my house to wait for Balasing and Carine to come and pick me up. The taxi showed up on time, but there was only Balasing and the cab driver. Balasing told me that because Carine's side stitch problem had not receded, she had decided not to run in today's half marathon.

We both alighted at the Fullerton, and made our way over to the Padang. Other than DreamRunner and Skyvers, we didn't see any of the other SgRunners. The two of us went round to the back of the Esplanade to do a warm-up jog followed by stretching, before moving to the Starting Point on the Esplanade Bridge. There, I bumped into my DSTA kakis, Chee Keong and Wilson, as well as my Mt Faber SAFRA Running Club friends. :)

At 5:45 am, the Guest-of-Honour gave the flag-off, and off we went. Skyvers sprinted by us, and it wasn't long before The Lonely Runner steadily overtook us as well. I tried to pace Balasing, and managed to follow closely behind him or run alongside him in the early stages of the race. However, when we reached East Coast Park (~7 km), I stopped at the water-point for a drink, and lost sight of Balasing who had continued forging ahead. By the time I made my exit from East Coast Park, I had been overtaken by DO, BrokenRunner and some former DSTA colleagues, including Chee Keong, Chee Kong and Mak. I felt that I wasn't really pushing myself hard enough, but I wasn't able to go any faster and kept my pace between 5 to 6 min/km.

Before long, Kallang Stadium came into view. I was beginning to feel rather tired and thirsty, and yearned for a good refreshing Gatorade drink station, but I was only served plain water or extremely diluted version of the isotonic drink. :( In the last few kilometres of the half marathon, I was only able to run at a pace between 6 to 7 min/km. I couldn't even muster the strength to sprint the last 400m. In the end, I finished the race in 2 hours 3 minutes 57 seconds, which was 12 seconds slower than my performance last year. But at least I finished the race, so that's a good reason to celebrate! :)

Post-race, I met up with the other SgRunners, including Fd, Sotong, Meteor, Philip, Ah Chuan (who ran the full 21-km in 1 hour 27 minutes!!!), Commando, Tiwazz, Kops21, IronManDreamer and many more. The Lonely Runner distributed the SgRunners Dri-fit T-shirts, and we took many group photos, including a few with our SgRunners banner. I also said "hi" to my friends in Y-Runners; they had tried running with a donation tin in this half-marathon as a trial before the actual 42-km marathon at the end of the year.

For lunch, I went to Funan Centre Food Junction. I had a bowl of banmian and a bowl of almond jelly for dessert. Yummy :) Then, I took the bus back home.

The SgRunners @ AHM 2005
(Can you spot Sotong? He's 1.97m tall...)

My AHM Bib

My stats for the race today (my foodpod measured a total of 22.2 km, which is an error of 5%):

Lap 1 (Starting point to East Coast Park ~ 7.5 km)
Time taken: 37 min 46 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 209/181
Average Pace: 5 min 02 sec / km

Lap 2 (Entry point for ECP until turning point ~ 3.0 km)
Time taken: 16 min 37 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 213/187
Average Pace: 5 min 28 sec / km

Lap 3 (The 14-km signboard ~ 4.3 km)
Time taken: 23 min 28 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 199/182
Average Pace: 5 min 30 sec / km

Lap 4 (The last 7 km ~ 7.4 km)
Time taken: 46 min 04 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 206/179
Average Pace: 6 min 11 sec / km

Total
Time: 2 hr 03 min 57 sec
Distance: 22.2 km
Average Heart Rate (bpm): 181
Average Pace: 5 min 34 sec / km
Calories Expended: 1689 kcal

Back from Singapore Caskets

I left the Singapore Caskets building at about a quarter to midnight. A friend offered to drive me to Kallang MRT station, from where I could take the west-bound train back home. Unfortunately, after alighting from the car (and after my friend drove off), I realised that I had missed the last train. :(

I hailed a taxi, and had a rather uncomfortable ride back home. It seemed as if we were stopped at every traffic light along the way. Worse still, the cab driver was coughing and sneezing most of the time, and I could almost visualise all the germs festering within the confines of the vehicle.

Anyhow, there goes my plan for an early night's rest. Now, I've to keep my fingers crossed that I won't catch some infectious flu bug from the taxi driver.

Out of the house

I just heard the news that a former colleague's grandfather had passed away. I'm on my way out of the house now to attend the wake.

A beautiful day

Today has been the most beautiful day for me in a long while.

I was due to attend a course at the Regent Hotel at 9 am, which meant that I could wake up at about 7:45 am (as compared to 6:30 am on my usual working day). The extra minutes of sleep had a tremendous beneficial effect on my mood when I got out of bed. :)

As I leisurely consumed my breakfast, I read with pleasure the Straits Times news article about 39-year old money broker, Terry Walsh, who is currently raising funds for the chronically ill children in Club Rainbow by taking part in the Ironman Triathlon World Championship (a full 42-km marathon + 180-km cycling + 3.9-km swim) in Hawaii next month. Kudos to you, Terry! The world needs more people like you! :)

The course that I was attending at Regent Hotel was on "Business Etiquette". It included dining etiquette, which meant that plenty of good food was served throughout the day. It was a feast :)

As my boss did not call or SMS me to return to the office, at 6 pm (the official end of the working day), I gratefully picked up my briefcase and set off for home from the hotel. For the first time in weeks, I could actually see (in the daylight) the new Queensway underpass being used by vehicles. The underpass had been completed a few weeks ago and had since then been open to traffic flow. However, because I had been working late for the past few weeks, I had not realised that the underpass was already in operation!

I was also extremely thankful for the opportunity at last to have a proper dinner with my parents. :)

After my meal, I logged onto the internet, and was informed by Chris Ang via MSN that the DSTA running teams had an sterling performance in the Ascendas Road Relay held earlier in the afternoon. DSTA bagged the first and fourth team positions, as well as the top male and female individual positions. Congratulations! :) What splendid news! :)

Gosh, it is such a beautiful day today! :)

A quick post

I haven't had much time to post this week, but I thought I'd just sneak in a quick one today. Last evening, I went down to KK Women's and Children's Hospital to visit A. To my pleasant surprise, he had just been discharged. :) Even though it meant that my trip down to the hospital had been "in vain", but I was extremely happy that A was now well enough to go home. :)

Lost for words

This evening, I received an SMS from a fellow befriender from Club Rainbow. Another of our kids, A, had just been admitted into KK Hospital. I am again at a loss for words.

Timings

Just realised from the New Balance Real Run Men's Open Results that I am placed 464 out of 3017 male runners who finished the race. Hooray, that's the top 15 percentile. :)

The fastest guy for the 10-km Real Run was MR25 runner Elangovan with a time of 34 min 19 sec! As for the 2nd Mizuno Wave Run today, the fastest guy Supramaniam came in just above 31 min. Incredible timings!

2nd Mizuno Wave Run today!

Today was a good day. Thanks to Ironmandreamer who gave me a lift, I got to Kovan on time in the morning, ran a good 2nd Mizuno Wave Run and met up with both the Sgrunners (and got to make new friends such as sxuanjing, cheow12 and fastlane) as well as my former colleagues, including Chee Yong, Chee Kong, Chee Keong, Ming Jern and Chris Ang. I also bumped into Paul, a fellow befriender from Club Rainbow. The feeling of recognising participants as my buddies during such races is just so awesome! :)

Picture of sgunners at the 2nd Mizuno Wave Run, courtesy of BrokenRunner

My Mizuno Bib

Also, my heartiest congratulations go out to Carine, who bagged the 10th position medal for the Women's Open, her second medal in as many weeks! :) Well done!

After lunch, I took the MRT back with Philip. We chatted about fartlek training, heart rates and Lance Armstrong. He suggested that I consider doing interval training, starting with 4 x 800m runs at 85% maximum HR, with rest periods in between which are as long as necessary for my HR to drop to 60%. It sounds painful, but if I want to improve my performance, I might have to give it a shot.

Anyway, here are my performance stats for today (my heart rate is slightly lower today, compared to during the Real Run):

Lap 1 (From start until turning point ~ 4.9 km)
Time taken: 23 min 46 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 194/183
Average Pace: 4 min 51 sec / km

Lap 2 (From turning point until traffic light ~ 3.3 km)
Time taken: 17 min 35 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 197/186
Average Pace: 5 min 18 sec / km

Lap 3 (Last 1.9 km)
Time taken: 11 min 14 sec
Maximum/Average Heart Rate (bpm): 190/183
Average Pace: 6 min 00 sec / km

Total
Time: 52 min 40 sec
Distance: 10.1 km
Average Heart Rate (bpm): 184
Average Pace: 5 min 13 sec / km
Calories Expended: 749 kcal

Mizuno Run tomorrow

OK, tomorrow's the 2nd Mizuno Wave Run. I'm going to sleep soon. Tomorrow, Ironmandreamer will come and pick Balasing and I up, and drive us to Kovan for the race.

At MF SAFRA

I arrived at Mount Faber SAFRA at 10 am today for the Army Half Marathon Race Pack collection. Besides receiving my race bib (#5004) and race voucher, I also picked up the event T-shirt. This year's tee was woven from a comfortable dri-fit material, but it was much larger than I had expected. I guess the sizes took reference from the Americans or the Europeans. I wonder why the organisers of Singapore races do not tailor such event tees to the physical statures of our own local population when we make up the majority of the participants. :(

In any case, after that, I also paid the membership fees to join the SAFRA Running Club. That was really cool and exciting! :) Afterwards, I spent about an hour and a half in the SAFRA pool, trying to teach myself how to swim. Although success was extremely limited (and thus, it would be a much longer time before I can be ready for a biathlon), I had a good time nonetheless and got myself a slightly sun-kissed tan, which was always welcomed. :)

2nd Link Bridge Run 2005

I just read from the Sgrunners.com forum that the 2nd Link Bridge Run is open for registration until 16 September 2005 (although the website for the run is strangely only half-updated). Interestingly enough, for this year's race, all participants between the ages of 18 and 40 have to take part in the 21-km category. That's funny, last year's race was 10-km, and I had to run across the 2nd Link Bridge twice (to and fro). Does that mean this year I would have to run on it FOUR times? Talk about a really boring scenery! :( I have not registered yet.