Goodbye 2007, Hello 2008

It seems like yesterday was just the 1st of Jan 2007, now it's coming to an end. 2007 has been a blast for me.

2007 was a year which had me furthering myself in terms of brains and brawns. haha. I started my degree course in 2007 and also this was my 2nd year into endurance events like marathon and triathlon.

Pursing a degree while holding down a full-time job and finding time to train for marathon and triathlon was tough. Your social life takes a hit and it seems like I was busy for the whole year.

Weekdays was spent burying myself in work and going for classes at night. If I have the energy in the morning, I will go for an early morning run. Saturdays usually consists of early morning swim and run and followed by catching up on my full-time job work and my study workload.

Sunday is when I usually do my long distance running/biking. I will run more than 25km or bike at least 100km and will spent the rest of the Sunday afternoon napping.

These are the highlights of 2007:

Getting a tri-bike (biking those miles away on the bike makes me feel like I am 10 again. :)

Achieved a personal best for my marathon runtime about 8 mins faster.

Good results and news for career wise and my degree.

Now for 2008

Pass the freaking Biathlon swim trial for 1.5km in under 40 mins.
Run a sub-4 marathon.
Complete the Singapore Ironman 70.3
Complete the Western Australia Ironman
Graduate from my degree program with outstanding results. :)

So anyone wanna be my support crew for Ironman Western Australia 2008?

Dawn Riders

I have been joining this Dawn Riders for group rides. Their usual weekend ride is about 60km but coming from Woodlands add another 40km to me.

This group has pretty strong riders like Kyne, Reave, Weiheng, Damian, Zahid, WK. Averaging cruising speed was 38km/hr-40km/hr Scary!!! I have a hard time keeping up with them if I was not drafting. Nearly got dropped.

Average speed for a 100km ride on my cateye was 31km/hr which usually makes out to a speed of at least 38km/hr when cruising.

Good fun ride. But riding in a group make me realised that tri-bikes are not really for group riding and they're not good for hill climbs. It's good for courses that are flat and rolling hills. But if you were to attack a hill with a tri-bike, I may need more training.

Triathlon Training Videos

Some videos for triathlon training.

I admit that I have the following faults for my freestyle.

Over stretching, low elbow and dropped elbow.



Efficient Swimming



And riding on a triathlon bike.



ActiveDotcom on youtube has lotsa Dave Scott Ironman training videos
Check it out

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?p=r&user=ACTIVEdotCOM&page=2

Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2007 Pics

SCSM 2007 (a new personal best)

hours before race

Alarm clocks rings and off I jump outta my bed. I was feeling good as I did catch some sleep unlike previous races. Made myself 3 slices of peanut butter bread, a banana, and a cup of coffee for my marathon day breakfast. I did some light stretches at home to loosen the muscles. Round up my breakfast with a bottle of 100plus.

Start Line to 10km - Time taken 54:15 10km= 54:15

I got myself into the sub-4 pen. I was really hoping to break the sub-4 barrier as I have been thinking about it since last year. The weather was cool and windy and it felt like 23C. The horn went off and I was caught behind runners doing 6.5min/km pace. Took me about 2km to get out of them. I felt strong in the first 10km although my left knee felt a little sore.

Overtook some animiles runners but .......

10km to 20km mark - Time taken 50:50 20km = 1:45:05

I saw the trifam 3:45 pacers and run behind them for a good 10km. I felt that they were going a little too fast and their pace was a fast 5:10min/km and maybe they were running based on the gun-time. Felt strong and since my intention is to break sub-4, might as well follow their pace. Followed them till ECP before I lose them.

I saw a group of Japanese runners at the 14km stretch. They were doing a good 4:50min/km pace and I noticed someone leading the pack, it was a man running BAREFOOT! Yes you heard it, BAREFOOT! He overtook me with a 4:50min/km pace BAREFOOT! Those soles must on his feet must be like rubber. OUCH the thought of running barefoot give me the chills. It must have hurt.

I was running a little fast now as you can see my pace was a fast 5min/km. It took me about 1:50 to reach the half marathon mark.

20km to 30km mark - time taken 56:45 30km = 2:41:51

In the 20km to 30km, I was finding it hard to find someone to pace. Most of them were too fast and overtaking me. Proofs that I was losing steam and I will hit the wall soon. I had some power gel at the 30km mark to give myself some motivation and refuel the depleted glycogen.

I was still doing good at the 30km mark, but as always, the marathon only begins after 34km.

30km to 40km - time taken 1:11 40km = 3:53:37

I hit the wall at Mountbatten Road at the 34km mark. I knew I will hit the wall soon as I was running too fast for the first 30km. Each aid station seem like too far apart from each other. By now, the sun was out in full force and was blazing down on me. I splash more water on me at each aid station to cool off the heat.

I cramped after 36km, HIT the wall. Now, I knew that for the next 6km, it will be hell. I struggled to run and walked 50% of the time. Reenactment of last year scenario.

I really struggled at this part and in my heart, I was still hoping to break the sub-4 barrier. Along Kallang Road, it proved too much for me and I stopped to stretch my calf. It was really a torture with the heat blazing down on me and my body keep on saying no. There was a part when my body was telling my mind, hey stop hey stop! I wanna sleep. But I pushed on.

40km to finish = time taken 19:51

From the 40km mark, I was jumping for and not running. You know why? The cramped was out in full force and any movement of my knee will caused my muscles to pull. Fact of, I was limping. As you can see the 2km took me close to 20mins. a slow 10min/km pace.

At the last aid station, I joked to the volunteers, my hair messy? Going to finish and need a nice photo to wrap the day off.

Finally, the cramp was too much for me to bear and just before the esplande bridge, about 500m from the finishing line, I cramped and lie flat on the ground, hands covering my face. Grimacing in pain. Both legs were im-mobilise, cant move them at all.

A guy and lady rushed over to me. Gave me some words of encouragement. They were shouting, are you OK, are you OK?

After about 2 minutes of lying on the floor, and some light stretchingI got up with the guy's help and continued running. Thanks, mate!!! You made my day. After 42km of running, your body will do crazy things. Like cramping both of your legs up at the same time.

At the final stretch, I was high-fiving all the supporters along the finish line. I got the crowd crazy by dancing to the song played out over the speakers!! That has got to be the highlight of the race. haha.

Round up
Finish my second marathon in 4:13:25 chip time, an 8 minute improvement from last year. A new personal best but the sub-4 timing is still eluding me.

Guess it will be next year before I can break the magical 4 hour barrier and join the elite sub-4 club. :)

Pre-Race Day

Finally, after 4 months of long weekend runs, it is 1 day to the Standard Chartered Marathon 2007. Looking back I have clocked 520km in training runs in 3 months.

Much lesser than last year, but I am feeling good. I feel so good that I can conquer the 42.195km in 3:45 hours.

Colleagues and friends have been asking me, why do I want to do such endurance activities. Like marathon and ironman. My answer has always been, it seems like such a difficult task to complete and I want to challenge myself. I have never sought to compete against anyone except myself. I better myself in everything I do. And also, doing activities like this helps one to learn how to cope with stress in life.

So here's the breakdown for tommorrow's race.

10km: 53 min
20km: 1:46 hours
30km: 2:39 hours
40km: 3:33
42km: 3:45

Should be "do-able" I am very SURE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never ending swim..........

This is the Ironman Western Australia swim leg picture I got from trifam. Beautiful isn't it? Clear blue water and a straight 1.8km out into the sea along the jetty and u-turn back. Total swim distance is 3.8km

The jetty looks like it can reach Indonesia. One of the must do things for 2008!!!

second longest run of the year.

This morning, I went for a 34km run around the Upper Seletar Reservior and Mandai Road. This run was originally scheduled for Saturday morning but the heavy thunderstorm washed it away.

The goal for this solo training session is not to hit the wall at all. The route today was very quiet with very few runners. Thus it was just me myself and the road.. My first lap to the Mandai Zoo at 17km took me 1:35 a good 5:30 pace but the return lap took a while longer at 1:43 a 6.0min/km pace.

Good thing was I did not hit the wall for this 34km run. The 2 powergel and 100plus helped me to replenish my depleted glycogen.

Off to meet my classmates for school work. Now, time to taper and the remaining LSD runs for me will be 19 and 13km. I hope that I can do a 3:45 marathon on 2nd Dec.

http://www.mapmytri.com/run/singapore/woodlands/962762991

One more long run before the taper

Let's recap my training for the SCSM 2007. The whole idea for this SCSM was to run a 3:45 marathon in a 5:19min/km pace.

I have only done 1 30km LSD run, 3 25km run and numerous 20km runs. All with pace ranging from 4:54 to 5:30min/km

I will do one final LSD this sat with a race pace of 5:19min/km pace for 30-35km this week to test my race fitness. After that, I will taper to 19km and 13km the following week.

I hope I meet my goal of finishing a sub-4 marathon this year.

New Balance Real Run

Hot hot New Balance Real Run. I was taking it slow for this race as first, I wasn't really in the mood to push myself to push myself. I slept at 2am the night before waking up at 4.30am for this run. Furthermore, I slept only 4 hours the on fri night before and my body was really not geared for a race. And for the whole week, I was too busy with work and school and didnt sleep much. Add to it, on Sat morning, I just ran 30km to the Zoo.

Decided to take this race at a slow 6.5min/km pace and paced Peifen for the first half of the run. For the first 8km of the run, I was doing a 7.5min/km pace.

I was running pretty slow enjoying the scenery. The planes taking off, the sun shining through the canopy of the Changi Coast Road, the early morning bikers, the sight of a few thousand runners who got nothing better to do just like me. :D

At the halfway mark. gestured to Peifen that she's on pace to finish a 1:40 min run for the 15km. But she was very quiet and didnt talked much. Guess she was very serious in her running. :D dont wanan karjiao her also. So I picked up my pace and left her behind. :D

As I crossed the 9km mark, I decided to quicken my pace. Got to a 5.8min/km pace for the beach and as I ran along the soft sand at Changi Beach for 1km, I thought to myself. Machiam Rocky on his training runs. haha. Rest of the runners were running on the grass whereas only stupid me tackling the soft sand.

As I exit the beach, along the 2km stretch of the runway, I decided to picked up my pace as the sun was blazing down at me. Thank god for my Rudy Project.

Crossed the finish line in 1:40:06 in a 6:34min/km pace. Nothing impressive. Great run, great 100plus, great place to catch the sunrise. First time I saw a blazing orange sunrise in Singapore.

Another hidden gem in Singapore.

Finally, it's here!!!

After a month's wait for the aerobars to come in, 2 hours and 30 mins of bike fitting, the bike is finally here. Just paid for her and cost me quite a fortune. Really a neat setup, there's even a speedometer and odometer to tell me how fast I am and how far have I bike!

The bike is a Cervelo P2-SL (pronounced as Sir Ve Lo).

Here're some pictures. I have taken her out for a ride yet and most probably this weekend when the time permits. Now that the bike is here, time to work on the engine.

Now let's take a tour around the bike.

Here's a look at the cockpit of my bike. This is where I will be shifting my gears and taking a look at the speed I am going. Note that the bars are straight as these are triathlon/time trial bikes and not your road bikes.


And these are the pro saddles that my butt will sit on. Doesnt look that impressive right? But the price is kinda. hehe. More expensive than my desk chair.


Thats all for now! Now to work on my V6 engine.

When will and skill combine to make great

At the 4 min mark of this video, it shows the last hour before the 17th hour cut-off timing for the Ironman Worldchampionship in Kona, Hawaii. Very inspirational. This part shows the trimpuh of the participants.

May I quote the commentator:

Sports is at its best, when it’s transcended. When a player’s joy tell you it was more than a game, like a movie only real .That the dream connected the heart to the soul, and the participant’s were make better for it, for all their private and spoken reasons. When will and skill combine to make great, that final hour here, it happens almost every second.

Now, for this Ironman Worldchampionship at Kona Hawaii, you can search for youtube on Ironman Hawai 2006 and there's 10 parts to it. Enjoy. :)

October Training

Oh my god! I only managed to clock in only 2 runs for the whole October. And the marathon is less than 6 weeks away. My target timing is still below 3:45. Need to do more training!!!!!!

For this whole week, I have been pretty busy with work and school. So today, decided to wake up at 4am for a 29.5km run to the Zoo. Only 4 hours of sleep, my body felt tired during the first 10km. But the first lap to the Zoo of 14.5 km took me 1:21.

It was a cool morning with not much runners along the Mandai Road route. Didnt not see the animiles cheetahs this time around so guess they've headed to ECP. The whole route of 29.5km took me 2:46, a slow 5:37 min/km.

My target pace is 5min/km which should set me in good pace to finish the marathon in under 3:45.

I drop by BikeBoutique during lunch on Friday to check out how my new bike is doing. Saw the Ironman Worldchampionship winner Chrissie Wellington in person. She looks just as human as you and me although she can do a 3.8km swim in 52 mins. And run a sub-3 marathon after 180km on the bike.

Here're some pics of my incomplete bike. I am still waiting for the stem and aerobars to be in. Damn, it's a long wait. Oh yeah, I told them to change the ugly blue wheels to red. It's a good wait as the frames were on offer and cost $420 cheaper. So a wait for 3 weeks and it saved me $420. I can use this money to buy better wheels.

Can someone get me a pair of Hed or Zipp Carbon wheelsets for Xmas? :D



And here's the Cervelo P3 Carbon. Love the sexy wheels. Chrisse Wellington rode this bike and won the Ironman Worldchampionship at Kona. Think the frame will cost $8k alone. Chio bike.

And some chio Planet-X Bike.

September Training

I clocked in quite a number of LSD for September. The distance range from 20km to 26km. Let's see.

21km Home to Upper Seletar Reservoir 01:50:00 pace at 5.17km/min
26km Home to Lower Pierce reservoir 02:21:00 pace at 5.24km/min
21km 21km Home to Upper Seletar Reservoir01:41:46 pace at 4:54km/min

Today's morning Long Slow run was particularly good even though I was having a sore throat. The air was fresh and cool and the mist covering the Upper Seletar Reservoir was a sigh to behold. I should take my HP next time with me and capture the sunrise over Upper Seletar Reservoir. This is my favourite spot in Singapore other than Old Upper Thomson Road.

Lower Seletar Reservoir pales in comparision due to the various litters left by those fishing overnight and lovebirds.

My pace is increasing getting to be consistently to sub 5 km/min and this should set me in good pace for a sub 3 hr 50 min marathon later this year.

I signed up for the 15km Real Run too but there's a part of 1km running on beach sand. Not really my type of run as I hate the feeling of sand getting into my shoes. But for this 15km Real Run, I am targeting a finish time of 1 hr: 15 mins with a pace of 5 min/km.

Real Run 15km will be hot especially the part on the Runway and the Changi Coastal Road.

Oh and clock in some swimming too. Practicing my strokes with interval training now. Not really going for distance. Wanna get my frontcrawl strokes correct first. :)

World's Greatest Dad

Documentary about Dick and Ricky Hoyt. This is an amazing story about how a Dad wanted his son to live as normally as anyone else, including graduating from university, competing in marathons and ironman.



And some touching music videos. :)





The world's greatest dad. This Dad swam 3.8km pulling his son on an inflated boat, cycled 180km with him on the bike and wheeled him 42.195km all at the age of 65. And completed an Ironman!!!!!

They are a father and son team named Team Hoyt.

Rick's birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child’s development. But the couple brought their son home determined to raise him as "normally" as possible.

Amazing. A Dad's love for his son and wanting him to live a normal life and compete and face each day's challenge.

Slacking in my training

Busy week for me, deadline from school for assignments, trip to bintan and lastly work.

I have not been sleeping much for this whole week. Average of only 3-4 hrs each day. And to add on to it, we drunk quite a bit in Bintan.

I tried to log in some swimming in Bintan but they dont have a lap pool. So was doing much of my work when I was free in Bintan.

Had a blast with the old classmates. Amazing to see all of them doing so well. Time really flies. Anyway, back to my Ironman training, I slept at 3.30am on Sunday morning and forced myself up at 7.30am for my sunday morning swim. After which followed by a 90 min badminton session. During the badminton, Binly and Hans commented on my eyebags. But what the heck, it's just lack of sleep. After getting my beauty sleep, this will go away.

So for this whole week, only 1.6km swim in 40 mins. September will be a good month for me to pick up on my training, and I am going for my bike fitting session with the bike boutique.

And some Ironman promo video. :)

Shopping for a tri-bike

I have been looking around for a tri-bike for my Ironman next year.

I have went to thebikeboutique.com and they were a friendly bunch of folks. All of them have done tri events and looks like a good place to know more tri folks.

Here's the bike he recommended.

Cervelo Dual Bike Dura Ace 10 Speed

Seems like a good tri-bike from the reviews on the bike. I need to go down for a fitting session with him in September.

2007 Army Half Marathon

August marks the first year anniversary that I have gone smoke-free. So what better way than to celebrate by running an AHM with a personal best.

I did not ran the AHM last year as my fitness was still there yet for endurance events like this. This year AHM end-point was at the new floating platform in NDP. To be held in conjunction with our national day. The turnout was 60,000 runners with 3/4 coming from the army based on my estimates.

Pre-AHM training

In order to prepare myself for the AHM, I have only ran once or twice a week unlike last year marathon when I was running 3-4 times a week. This is because of my work and school schedule eating into my training hours and social time. But nonetheless, I have managed to clock a few long slow distance (LSD) runs prior to AHM. Not forgetting my laps in the pool to prepare for next yr triathlon events.

I found a new route this time, it's down the Old Upper Thomson Road. Each run will take about 20-24km depending on the u-turn point. For 3 sat morning before the AHM, I have woke up at 4.30am in the morning religiously to put some mileage in my training. The route is good, air is fresh, lots of runners like me, and some hills for me to do me tempo. As usual, it's just me and my ninja training.

Pre-race day

Woke up on sat morning and went to Safra Yishun at 8am to do some swimming. My swimming is getting better as I could feel that my speed and endurance in swimming is there. I can managed a 700m swim in 13 mins. Just 2 months before this, I was still struggling with swimming. Did 2 sets of 700m and went home as I want to conserve my energy for tomorrow AHM. During lunch, I received an urgent call from a colleague. Rushed back to office to sort it out.

I had a dinner with my family at some steamboat restaurant for carbo loading. I reached home at around 10.30pm and only hit the sack at 11pm. But, I couldn't really sleep well due to the heavy dinner I had.

Race-day

I woke up at 2.30am and couldn't get back to bed. I had only about 3 hours of sleep. Got onto my laptop and did some work. Endless load of work from school and my job. Really looking forward to my break in Sept.

Anyway, for breakfast, I had 3 slices of bread with peanut butter, coffee and banana. Feeling good. Drove to Marina Square and off I went to the start point. For this year, I positioned myself nearer to the start line as I want to avoid the crowds that were doing 7m/km to 8min/km. My target was to finish in under 1:45 and so for every 1km it will be 5 mins. 5min/km pace.

The gun went off and my pace was good. I overtook lots of folks doing a slower pace. I was doing about 4:50min/km for the first 5km of the race. I had some stitches for the first 6km of the race. I could feel it and maybe it was because of not much training logged in for this race. My pace was good but my body isn't. I was trying badly to shake off the stitches.

At the 5km mark, as I was going up the Sheares Bridge, it was a little tough and my stitches got worst. But I pushed on, knowing that it's just some race jitters. This year, they sealed off 4 lanes on the ECP for us runners. Well-done AHM! This is definitely a runner's event. The air was cool but I was perspiring a lot. Must be the humidity.

I continued with my 4:50min/km pace and along the ECP, right up to 12km, I was still within target. Had a mix of powergel at the 12km mark and decided to open up my pace a little. But mind willing, my body was not. So I slowed to a 5min/km pace right up to the 16km mark.

At Fort Road, images of what happened to me last year flashed through my mind. It was at this exact stretch that I nearly gave up as my cramps were seizing me.

At the 16km mark, I was still within reach of my target but it was getting a little too humid for me and I was a good customer at all the water-points.

I slowed to a 5.5min/km pace for the last 2 km and I crossed the finishing line in 1:48:23 (my time). I was still feeling good after the race.

A personal best for me as the 21km I did in the army were all above 2 hrs in timing.

My next target for the marathon will be to run a sub-4 marathon. Looking at my AHM timing, it should be within reach but I need to find more time for my runs.

Endurance events are tough. As I was drinking my 100-plus, I thought to myself Gee, an Ironman will be much tougher.

But ............... I want to chase my dreams.

Overall, this was a good event just that the endpoint should have not been infront of the gallery. It should be somewhere along the road infront of Esplanade.

My official results are as follows:
Rank Bib Name CheckPt NetFinish GunFinish
379 N1974 LIM KAH KIAT 1:00:00 01:48:18.18 01:48:48.48

My rank is 379 out of 3324 runners. Out of the top 10% but still a Personal Best for me.

Pace : 5:09min/km

Now time to buy 4D, 4848.