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It’s Race Extravaganza of the year tomorrow and I am a complete bunch of nerves. The spate of activities has kept me out of consistent training and the weather has been anything but ideal for race conditions.
It’s my first Olympic Distance race and I feel a little bit grown up as though I’m one of ‘em big boys in the playing field, but I’m really just a total amateur and I’m enjoying it. Guess I’ll just aim to complete it tomorrow and screw all the timing nonsense.
Time for bed. Deedot out.
On the very few occasions I have stayed at a five- and six-star hotel, the one thing I’ve come to love about them are their absolutely luxurious beds, puffed-up sheets and plush, fluffy pillows.
It also makes me envious each time my globetrotting pal writes reviews about the pillows she gets to sink her head in when she travels, which is just about every other week. It must take a miracle or a whole lot of willpower to be able to drag yourself out of bed every morning!
Over the weekend, we got to spend our Sunday afternoon at one of the six-star hotels in Singapore (not difficult to guess which one from the hexagonal windows in the backdrop) and my sister, yes the almost-30-mother-of-one sister, decided that she would live out her childhood dream – which is to run at maximum speed and pounce-crash onto the bed facedown, in the most unglamourous way.
She then commanded us to do likewise and what followed was a bout of insanity as we rolled about in peels of laughter on that BIG WHITE BED. It was actually really fun! Unfortunately, the niece was somehow convinced that the BIG WHITE BED was in fact a BIG WHITE MONSTER and she refused to take her nap on it but I wouldn’t blame her either. After all, if Mommy, Yee Yee and Moo Moo pounced on something, it had to be that bad.
It certainly looks like I spoke too soon.
In spite of all the vitamin C and paracetamol I took, the flurry of events over the weekend coupled with a lack of sleep and pushing too hard at yesterday’s swim class while still recovering from the mild bout of flu, is now culminating into something more serious. If there’s anything to go by, being in bed by 10.30pm says something about its severity.
I’m staying home today so that I don’t spread this nasty bug to anyone and I don’t further expose myself to any of the nasties lingering in the office air-conditioning system. When you’re only a day away from a spa holiday in Bangkok and a week to the Race of the Year, you have to do everything in your power to get well.
Lesson du jour: Vitamin C does not make you invincible.
Life’s little treasures – the sweetheart and her beautiful golden balloon.
Up, Up & Away
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away my beautiful, my beautiful balloon
The world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away my beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Image courtesy of AromaCookery.com
The series of lunches and dinners leading up to my departure has seen a steady increase in my weight. Almost every perceivable single lunch and dinner slot has been filled by well-meaning friends and relatives who want to ensure that I’ve had all the food that I’ll miss when I am in Melbourne before I leave.
There aren’t that many places on the list, but there is certainly a wide scope to be covered when it comes to the menu listing. I wouldn’t miss char kwey teow for sure and I can live without my satay; laksa and prawn mee can be easily found thanks to Prima’s ready-made stock (also widely available in Australia) and having an excellent Malaysian cook for a boyfriend’s mother certainly ensures that I will not be starved of Asian meals.
What I will miss and will never be able to replicate is the world-famous 18-fold Din Tai Fung xiaolongbao – both the savoury and sweet ones – and the wonderfully elastic la mian from Crystal Jade. There’s also the special samsui ginger chicken from The Soup Restaurant that never fails to please.
After all that, the next worrying thing is having to put on all the weight and expanding to Caucasian proportions, only to find that the 8 boxes of XS and XXS clothes that I’ve shipped over should no longer fit.
But worrying is pointless, they say. Meanwhile, I shall take comfort in the fact that all the training that culminates in my Race of the Year will burn up all ‘em calories. All those evil, evil calories from my Valrhona chocolate cake. Yum.
One more reason to train even harder now!
Finally.
Life is pretty ironic. There’s always something to buy when you need to be on an austerity drive, and when there’s a windfall you just can’t find anything to splurge on. Unfortunately, I fall into the former category of needing to save but needing to spend as well.
After months of careful deliberation, I finally decided to take the plunge and buy myself the Asics Kayano XIII. I’d owned a pair before (the Kayano X) when I first started running seriously, but the arduous training I put it through (it got me through about three 10km races, a half marathon and all the training that went on in between) stretched it to its max till I decided to grant it an early retirement. By then, the cushioning was good as pancakes!
Then the Asics sale came. I snapped up three pairs – one of them the GT-1100 (very old model), a Gel Nimbus and a pair of cross-trainers, but none of them could match up to what the Kayano offered.
The GT-1100 is perhaps the most comfortable of the lot. It is lightweight and it fits the way a good running shoe should. But there is unfortunately very little cushioning and they haven’t proven to excel in long distances – they weren’t made to anyway.
On the other hand, the Gel Nimbus is everything that the GT-1100 is not. It has excellent cushioning and is great for long-distance running, but it is also extremely heavy. The fit isn’t as snug as the GT-1100. In fact, I’ve worn it less than 10 times since I bought it and I feel rather unapologetic about it. It’s a great shoe, but it just doesn’t suit me.
In short, I’ve decided that amongst all things, you should never scrimp on a good pair of running shoes. I’d rather be a pauper for a month than suffer the brutal aftermath of shin splints and back pains for the rest of my life.
And I guess I don’t have anymore excuses not to train for the Melbourne Marathon after all.
I have been thinking about what it is that makes me tick. It isn’t so much the adrenaline rush from a long and painful run, nor the flitting bursts of excitement from a day of shopping. It is also not about being academically excellent, neither is it about seeing a steady flow of cash credited to my bank account every month. It isn’t about the number of Valentino bags I’ve amassed nor the number of times I’ve upgraded my bike. It isn’t even about having family and friends around you because there is as much heartache as there is joy.
I can’t deny that I’ve been blessed with all of these and perhaps much more, but when the rubber meets the road – in moments of desolation and despair – what is it that really keeps me going?
The only conclusion that I could reach was God. That one single, unwavering and all-embracing relationship that has stood the test of time. Where there is despair, He speaks of hope; where there is sin and well-deserved judgment, He extends undeserving mercy; where wars wage and tempests toss, He gives peace; and where there is estrangement, He reconciles.
So it is this relationship with God that keeps me going. It is the assurance that there is no disappointment too great when my life is guided by Him. It is about being joyful in the face of adversity, and it is this joy that makes me tick all day long.
This week’s line-up of meetings after work spells trouble for my training schedule. Apart from this Wednesday’s swim class, the rest of the nights are packed to the brim with dinners with friends and family.
Meanwhile, yesterday’s training provided a little assurance that I am slowly reaching my goal. If there’s anything to go by, I managed approximately 750-800m of the open sea swim in 16:22 and still emerged feeling strong. It certainly helped that the current was gentle and I whacked my way through the other swimmers – figured it’s time to show some aggressiveness here. RARR.
My bike leg showed the most improvement. While the training group circled the ECP, I took off to do the coastal route alone and averaged a speed of 28.2 km/h. I was hovering around 29-32 km/h for most of the way, so 28.2 was caused by motor and human traffic alike at various spots of the route. It is perhaps one of my best average speeds so far, and so while it is snail’s pace in comparison with the vast majority, I am very pleased with this marked progress nevertheless.
By the time I got off the bike, I slacked on the run and covered only 2km because I got lazy, it was 5pm and I was rushing back for dinner. All plans for this morning’s long run went straight out the window too because I was too tired and there was church.
Just 3 more weeks to race day and 4 more to departure. It’s interesting to see how things are ramping up in every single aspect of my life!
The Phiten X30 necklace is my latest acquisition after the pink RoadID that I purchased last week, but lest you think I’m one of those impulsive shopaholics, let me qualify that this was to replace the one I misplaced nearly half a year ago.
The necklace is supposed to improve your blood circulation and thereby miraculously curing all aches and pains. I say “supposed” because while the aches have subsided (look ma, no pain!) and I have had very good sleep the last few nights, I’m still skeptical and I’m not sure if what I’m experiencing is a result of a placebo effect.
Then there was a time when my mother was a pill-popping fanatic, and when she started out, the Usana product guide was her bible. She’d waste invest copious amounts of money on antioxidants, Omega 3 oils, iron and calcium supplements and all that jazz and, true to a mother’s love, was convinced that it was good for the WHOLE family. So when she was in her “prime”, I had 8 pills awaiting my arrival every morning.
One fine day, I decided that I was swallowing more pills than I was my actual breakfast, and I was determined to change that around. I whined and whinged and wiggled my way out over the next few months until the pills became drinks (that were, to their credit, far more palatable than any of those pungent pills that left a horrible aftertaste looming like a dark cloud in your throat when you burped) and the drinks became no more. My parents have officially given up and now only insist on one drink and two pills every morning, which still faithfully appear at the breakfast table without fail.
But to my horror, in my recent bid to not fall ill, I’ve accidentally morphed into that pill-popping fanatic. One of the things that I’ve started taking recently is perhaps the most rudimentary in the galaxy of tablets and pills and food supplements – our all-time favourite Vitamin C. Now this, ladies and gentlemen, works miracles.
I might jinx things up by saying this: my training regime often leaves me limp and ill after a series of gruelling training sessions. My father says that I have a weak constitution (hence the supplements) and to a certain extent he is right. Judging from the training plan, I’d have fallen terribly ill (like sick-until-I-cannot-move-and-need-2-days-MC) at least twice by now. But surprise, surprise, I have not fallen ill thus far and I can only attribute this miracle to my magic Vitamin C pills.
I’ve also started taking oral doses of sun protection, Heliocare, to supplement my topical sunscreen. It’s too complicated to explain how it works here (do a Google search on “Heliocare”), but to sum it up, UV-induced wrinkling, skin cancers and sun-spots leave much to be desired and I’m taking no chances in that department.
There, I’ve said it: I’m a pill-popping fanatic. So sue me.
I could think of a 101 reasons why tonight’s swim session has gone beyond the catastrophic rating:
- According to the training plan, tonight’s training would be set aside for strength work, but I decided on a whim to swim instead. This also translates to being bodily and mentally unprepared.
- Where reluctance and determination meets, a compromise is born. I wasn’t keen on driving all the way down to the SPE Pool where I normally swim, but I was determined to defeat the classic flesh-is-willing-but-body-is-weak syndrome today. So I settled for a public pool in the heartlands that was just a stone’s throw away from my neighbourhood. Which brings me on to my next point…
- The pool was over-crowded. There were arms and legs flailing in just about every square metre of the pool. I forgot that the more accessible the pool is, the higher the chances are of it being overpopulated. Not to mention this was after-office hours.
- I left the house without my pull buoy and ear plugs. I managed to borrow a kickboard from the lifeguard-on-duty, albeit one that had foam bits crumbling every now and then, but I now have heavily waterlogged ears where a resounding “zzzzzeaong!” reverberates at the slightest impact my head encounters.
- I paid a heavy price for last week’s discounted swim in the measly 25m pool at my sister’s condominium. My arms and legs were flailing around. If you saw me from bird’s eye view, I’d have looked utterly ridiculous, except that it might’ve been impossible to spot me in the pool of flailing arms and legs (refer to point 3). I did eventually get into the swing of things after countless drills but it left me in a heap of frustration for the longest time. Serves me right.
- This one – don’t even get me started. I was issued a parking ticket for not displaying my parking coupons. Thing is, I actually made a mental note to put the coupons after I park my car. But in my preoccupation with all the swimming paraphernalia around me, I left the car in a haste and completely forgot about the coupons. Looks like the parking pontianaks are a hardworking bunch.
Lesson du jour: As far as training is concerned, never, ever, ever venture into unchartered waters. Literally.
