Away from work...

I have been on study leave since Wednesday. My exam is on next Tuesday. It would be my last paper... hopefully the last one's the charm... and I would be able to get a merit!

... but I have to pass it first... I'm still adopting the same study habits... (that's the only way I know how to study!)... This unit doesn't require too much reading, so I find myself finishing the chapters quite quickly... and have time to watch afternoon weekday movies on the TV!

Anyway... after 4 painful weeks of waiting... I finally collected my new spectacles, which costs me AUD660. The salesgirl told me that it would only take 2-3 weeks... so after the 2nd week, I have been calling them up... but always receiving the same response... Lenses from Japan lah... Frame supplier taking long time lah...

I was about to contact them again today and give them my angry thoughts that I have been keeping in all this while... BUT the phone call that I received this morning... like from heaven... that my glasses were ready... hahhah.

Now you know why it costs AUD 660? Notice the 'O' logo behind, hehheh.

How do I look?

I have also signed up for the Perth Half Marathon this Sunday. I was hesitant after I felt some tightness around my left knee again on Wednesday morning run. But after the good one this morning... decided to go for it!

Not expecting too much though... not exactly in the best of form with my knee pains and all. But aiming to beat the halfway mark of 1:38.53 during the Perth Marathon in July.

Oh... and here's to wishing all Malaysians a 50th anniversary to our country's independence! There was supposed to be some food fair at UWA yesterday... but it was a disappointment... only a few food trays... by the time I got there, they were all gone!

SMILE! You're on camera!

With the 29,700 participants who turned up at the City to Surf last weekend... I'm surprised I could find any of my pictures being taken. These are the only ones of myself I can find. For more photos of the event, click here.

HAVOC

That's one word to describe this year's City to Surf event... and with a record turnout of slightly under 30,000 participants... AND a record furious weather (my opinion anyway...), it is hardly surprising.

I woke up slightly before 6am. Initially set the alarm for 6.15am but somehow had trouble keeping asleep. I woke up almost every 30 minutes from 12am onwards. Wonder why... I've ran so many races before... maybe because this was my jinxed event.... and the excitement of meeting my friends and colleagues in a sporting event too.

Li-Ann picked me up at about 7am to drop me off at the city. The half marathon runners were about to start.

Note to myself next year... although we are expected to assemble at 7.30am, the start time is only 8.15am. So I had plenty of time to waste. And the cold, wet weather wasn't exactly very comfortable!

I did my warm up runs at the foyer of my office building, Central Park for about 10 minutes. Wanted to run away the pain in my knee. I received a text message from my colleague, Joseph and we agreed to meet there. I somehow didn't manage to catch him. The same goes with Shirley and sisters, Jer Kie and Jer Sie.

There was a clothing bus service, to bring our bags to the finishing... as the run is only one way... the end is at a different place from the start. FYI - City to Surf means we run from Perth city to City Beach, 12 kms away.

There was a long queue for the portable toilets near the start area. As I handed in my bag to the clothing bus, I no longer had my pass to use the toilets in my office building. And after one Powerbar Performance bar and 600ml of Powerade... I BADLY needed to go...

Finally found a McDonald's... there was also a queue but not as long...

After easing myself, I lined up getting ready for the start. The winds were building up... great, just what I need...

Countdown... 3, 2, 1... away we go! The first few hundred metres were just shuffling due to the runner traffic. First km was clocked in 4:40... I told myself not to panic as it was normal to be slow at the start. At the 2nd km, we came to a hill... clocked 4:30... I was getting slightly worried... When only can I pick up the pace to meet my 53-54 minute target for the whole 12kms.

The rain showered intermittenly... this was the first time I ran with a cap... to prevent too much rain water from blocking my view. And I kinda like it! So expect to see me in a cap in running races from now on!

Km markers were placed only on some kms (maybe they were blown away by the wind)... my only gauge was the placing of water stations, which were about 2kms apart. I played some ding-dong games with some runners around my pace. I'm biased towards selecting Asians to be my pacers... hahhah. I managed to shake most of them off but there was this Asian guy in a black running singlet that always seemed to find his way ahead of me.

I saw some with Singapore Flying College written on the back the t-shirts (SIA training base is in Perth). As usual... the rivalry between Malaysians and Singaporeans is no different here. I ran unusually quicker to try to overtake them... and I did!

Coming up to 8km mark, my time showed 35:35... as there were only 4kms left... I might be able to clock under 17 1/2 minutes for the remaining 4kms and just slip under 53 minutes.

I picked up my pace... black singlet guy couldn't keep up! The next km was clocked in 4:06!

Then... there was a hill... 10th km was clocked in 4:31... still not too worried... IF I can hammer home on the last 2km... I should meet my target...

But unfortunately, the next 2kms were NOT ONLY uphill BUT ALSO we faced strong headwinds too. I clocked them in 9:14... giving my overall unofficial time of 53:27 (average 4:27 per km).

The City Beach oval was muddy from the rain... haiya, must wash shoes already...

I went to collect my bag from the clothing cages and it was CHAOS! Imagine over 20,000 bags lined everywhere with no system whatsoever... and a few thousand participants searching around for their belongings. They should have at least arranged the bags according to categories. But I was lucky enough to find mine without too much difficulty... which was good as I was FREEZING and needed my warm clothes.

I soon found out that the first person overall did 37 minutes. He was the same winner as last year. He came from the Eastern states. He clocked 2 minutes slower compared to last year... must be due to the weather conditions. So if elite athletes like him can be slower by 2 minutes... I supposed I should minus 2 minutes from my time too!

Finding friends at the oval was near impossible... Joseph returned my call saying that he had already reached home. After several attempts I managed to meet up with Shirley and the Pui sisters at about 10.45am. Didn't have any luck finding Jasmine or Nicholas. But I did meet Taku, Susan and Jordan from UWA Human Movement.

Jer Kie and Jer Sie smuggled me in to have brunch with their corporate team at Oceanus, just a look over the beach. Shirley had legal rights as she registered under their team. My City Beach burger was really good! This beats UWA's sausage sizzle anytime! Thanks peeps!

We actually missed the last shuttle bus back to the city... but a privately hired coach was nice enough to give us a ride. We also saved the gold coin donation (AUD1 or AUD2) for the shuttle bus too. The coach dropped me near to where I stayed... so I didn't need Li-Ann to pick me up from the city.

Free good food... free good transport... I must say that City to Surf is jinxed no more! Who cares if it is a bit chaotic... a little bit of chaos makes our life more colourful!

Looking forward to next year... hopefully the weather would be better though...

I was using this run as a gauge as to whether I could do the Perth half marathon next week. I'm up for it!

FIT for the CHALLENGE?

That's the slogan for this year's City to Surf run.

This race is Perth's biggest running event ever... with over 26,000 participants taking part last year... it has eluded me for the past 3 years... as if it was jinxed.

Every year I tend to get injured before the race. Last year was the most painful, I was in good form up until the same week of the race, when I tripped myself and sprained my ankle.

This year, there are no major injuries but there's a nagging pain in my left knee. I had a good run on Wednesday but that left my knee feeling sore after. So I decided to rest and haven't ran since.

An original target of 53 minutes for the 12km (average 4:25 per km)... seemed near impossible... with off-form training 2 weeks ago and this sore knee. Maybe I'll just settle for 54 minutes (average 4:30 per km).

Weather forecast for tomorrow is "... showers, heavy at times in the morning with the risk of a thunderstorm. Strong and squally winds..."

Hmm... looks like I should just do my best tomorrow and be happy with whatever time I get... I can't fight Mother Nature. And I should just enjoy the day of fun... as a few friends are taking part as well... Shirley, Tasha, Jasmine, Michael, Nicholas (Brendan's brother), Jer Kie and Jer Sie.

KPMG normally sends a team every year, but due to lack of funding, we are not sending a team this year. I still want to enjoy post race sausage sizzle... I'm running under Team UWA.


Just collected my race kit. We were given this timing chip that had to be tied to our shoes. I had never used this one before. It looks a bit like a robotic spider. The ones we usually use for tri races are strapped to the ankle.


I hope I placed it on correctly. There were no instructions as to which is the front or back.


Fit for the challenge? Nagging knee pains... horrendous weather... BRING IT ON!

P/S - I also received the results from my KPMG CA mock exam last week. I actually scored top mark! But I supposed most people haven't started studying yet. And the pass rate was quite high... markers were quite lenient.

laucharbor.blogspot.com

"... it's not whether you CAN or not... it's whether you DARE or not..."

I just watched this on DVD...

Just Follow Law... Jack Neo's latest satirical poke at the Singapore society... starring Gurmit Singh and Fann Wong. This one depicts around the civil service and its bearacracy.

But there's a twist...

Good watch, VERY funny... I have never seen Fann Wong in this sort of role before. Although some scenes were somehow not included in the DVD. I saw them on the trailer and on the bloopers that came together with the DVD. Also, didn't quite like the ending... sort of hanging... sort of dark... Yeah, I like complete, happy endings...

Did many sessions of spinning today... the gym has just installed new bikes and got rid of the old ones... yeah, I don't like changes. I'm used to the old bikes. The new settings are all different... I have to set different target distancess now... and oh, they have time limits pre-installed... so I can't spin for more than 20 minutes! (I used to do around 25kms in 45 minutes)... So I have to reset them each time after 20 minutes...

Steady... steady...

Just some miscellaneous updates...

Had our KPMG mock exam yesterday... to prepare us for our CA exam on 4 September. The turnout was pretty bad... there are more than 20 of us taking the exam but only 8 showed up. And it's mandatory too... well, I guess if they could get partner approval not to attend... The mock was okay... difficult to tell... would find out our results next week.

I also received my EP assignment results... 74%... and I BEAT JIUN! Jiun is the boy who got merit for the last 3 CA modules and top of the state in one of them. But I only beat him by 2 marks... which translate to only 0.5 marks overall...

Training has been progressing steadily... did my 8.5kms yesterday in 37:36 (average 4:26 per km). Was also able to do 16 x 100m swim this morning on 1:30 cycles, clocking between 1:25 to 1:27. The acid test would be my 17km run this evening...

Oh, and ONE of my black toe nails fell off. I felt it during swimming... like something was dangling at the edge of my toe. Didn't hurt at all. Now a soft nail is in its place.

*Edit* I just did my 17km... man, was I slow! 1:25.21 (average 5.01 per km)... I felt some tightness around my left knee area... both above near the quads... and below near the shins... I slowed it down to a jog pace and kept it there until the last 2kms. I hope this is only one-off and not that the City to Surf jinx has come to haunt me AGAIN!

DOH!

You guessed it... I went to watch The Simpsons Movie yesterday with Li-Ann and her brother.

I actually found the movie pretty good... it was really funny...

Unforgettable phrases: "Spiderpig"... "Boob lady"...

Hahhah...

Although after speaking with some die-hard Simpsons fan who were a bit disappointed with the movie... yeah, I guess there were some things that were missing. Like how in our Simpsons tv episodes, the plot builts from one totally unrelated scene to another. In the movie, it went straight into the plot.

But nevertheless... the movie was entertaining. Although it IS just a cartoon... with no 3D special effects... so some might say, that might as well watch on DVD or download (not legally of course) off the internet...

I met up with Chow Hoong, my friend from high school, for coffee. He's here with Accenture Malaysia for two months working on a Shell project. I invited Fadli and Murali along too. We met at King Street cafe. It was nice catching up with old friends... talking about our lives back home... laughing away.

My training has been a lot better this week. Still not at its best... but progressing steadily.

Wednesday 8.5km run... 37.45 (average 4:27 per km)
Saturday 17km run... 1:18.34 (average 4:37 per km)

Even the swimming has gotten better... I was able to do 5 x 200m on 3 minutes on Tuesday and 10 x 100m on 1:30 on Thursday without too much difficulty.

And spinning too! I clocked above 25kms for BOTH my 45 minute sessions in the gym this morning. And the weights didn't hurt half as much as last week...

Yeah, everything is falling into place...

Oh... and to top it off... kudos to my lil' sis for doing a sub 2 hour half marathon this morning. That's a 13 minute PB! She's one secret weapon man... never see her train also... :P

Off days...

I broke my glasses on Thursday morning. They're beyond repair. Wearing my old pair now... they're making me feel tired easily. My new pair is going to cost me AUD660.

Friday morning's 8.5km run was 2 minutes slower than my usual... 39:05 (4.37 per km average)...

Li-Ann and I had dinner at Greco's nearby... I can't recall the names of the food we ordered... but they weren't too great... wrong food choice I guess... because the food at the place are usually quite good. Mine came with a shot of Grappa... which tasted a bit like Brandy... a bit too strong for my liking. Something like that should come with ice.



Saturday evening's 17km run was 4 1/2 minutes slower than my usual... 1:19.44 (4.42 per km average)...

Even my swim has slowed down too... I used to be able to swim 200m freestyle pulling under 3 minutes easily... now I struggle to do under 3:10...

Had a drinking session yesterday at Shirley's and Jessie's... it was fun... things got pretty messy...

This morning's gym session was a bit of a write-off after last night's drinks... I was already too late for my usual BodyPump class. So I planned to do two sessions of 45 minute spinning and some weights in between. The bikes were all occupied when I got there... so I did the weights first.

I got sore so easily... could hardly hang on... and the spinning... I did 24.4kms in 45:10... I usually do around 25kms... I felt so tired halfway through that I called off my plan to do another spinning session...

I hope this is only temporary...

Maybe it is the hangover from the drinks...

Maybe it is my old pair of glasses that make me feel tired easily...

Maybe it is the slight cough that I am still having...

Maybe it is the disruption in training after the Melbourne trip and the trip back home...

Maybe... maybe... I'm a bit burnt out after achieving completing a marathon in phenomenal time... and now having trouble motivating myself to push on...

I guess I should just stop worrying and enjoy this slightly slower pace at my training... and hope I'll bounce back soon...