City to Surf results

33 seconds slower than last year's PB. Still, pretty satisfied, considering I did 80km bike ride the day before.

Darling ran so well! I'm so proud of her! Must have been putting in some secret training, hehheh.

More write-up and pictures to come soon. Stay tuned... In the meantime, for fully searchable results database, click here.

Look what my SLB friends got for me...

Thank you so much, y'all! This is VERY heartfelt!

Let's run!

While my cycling has yet to settle down (I'm having faith that things will settle down this weekend), my running has been delivering some pleasing results, despite the inconsistent mileage (only one 10km run last week).

This morning's 10km effort saw me clocking a satisfying 42:04. I must admit I was pushing pretty hard to see how fast I could go. Also, my lightweight Saucony Fastwitch 3 and the fine weather helped too.

This puts me in a slight dilemma for this Sunday's City to Surf 12km run. My initial plan was to do the half marathon distance but that got shelved after my recovery time from Perth Marathon and Desaru triathlon took longer than expected.

Then a few of my friends are doing the 12km as their first road race, so I'm really keen to support. The plan after that was to just have a fun run (without taper, as I intend to try another 80km bike ride with my new bike the day before) and clock a reasonable time as I felt I was nowhere near last year's speed.

But after this morning's swift run, should I have a crack at bettering last year's time of 50:25?

Yeah, hardly seemed like a dilemma at all, really. But I like to stress my head out over these things, hehheh.

Oh, Li-Ann is also doing the run for charity. So feel free to visit her site here, and if you have some spare cash to donate, all the more merrier!

What's in a name?

As some of you would have recalled, I had a pretty disastrous first ride with my new bike, Fifi last week.

Well this week wasn't very much different. After Phil from Runners World redid the rear brake cables, I was looking forward to a smooth 80km ride yesterday. But just after the turnaround point, I heard a loud bursting sound and there goes my rear tube.

Thanks to my 40mm profile wheels, I did not have any long valve spare tubes that could fit in them. So, Li-Ann had to drive about 20km out to rescue me... once again.

Sunday morning, after getting myself some new long valve tubes, I was keen for another ride. Weather wasn't ideal... strong winds blowing up to 40kph were in store for me.

The ride went pretty well, despite the winds. But again after 30km, the same bursting sound was heard and I had to spend about 20 minutes getting the rear tube changed. I briefly inspected the tyre, there was no glass or stone caught in it, but there were some small cuts and holes. Gee, the roads must have been pretty bad... this was only my 3rd ride!

Anyway, I'd rather have the tyres replaced than change the whole wheelset! Also, maybe I have exceeded the tyre pressure limit. It was then I decided that the bike needs a new name. Call me superstitious, but Fifi isn't exactly Ironman material.

*****

I'm not sure whether I have mentioned this before but I have decided to take up a permanent position at St Barts. I have handed in my resignation to KPMG two weeks ago.

Working with St Barts has been somehow meaningful, spiritually, especially in the past couple of weeks. We were heavily involved in Homeless Persons Week two weeks ago. And this morning, we celebrated our 46th anniversary of St Bart's Day. It was really uplifting listening to the Spirit of the Streets Choir, a group of people, whom they themselves have encountered many challenges in life, both socially and financially.

I learnt something valuable today. I feel so superficial worrying about the performance of my new bike when these people had it 10 times worse than I do, and still they made it through.

I'm not a Christian but I did attend the church service for this morning's celebration. And I do remember this proverb vividly from my Sunday school days.

Matthew 6:26-27 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

Hence, I shall not worry... and have faith. Faith... that my recent rides are just tests of my wills. Faith... that this bike will help me improve not only in my next Ironman race but also guide me through my progress as triathlete.

Faith... shall be the new name of my bike.

Not quite right

I supposed the title says it all...

It's been a while since darling and I went out for a date, so on Saturday night I brought her out for a dinner at restaurant, which I picked.

Red Cabbage at South Perth... been wanting to try that place out for a while now. It had nice ambience, pretty food. Quite tasty too. The problem was, the portions were just TOO SMALL!

It took us less than 30 minutes to finish our meal. Slightly dissatisfied, we went to King Street Cafe in the City for some olive bread, hot chocolate and their famous MONSTER BANANA CAKE.

I was a much happier person after that...

Sunday morning, after days and days of rain, it started to clear a bit. And I was eager to take my new bike, Fifi, out for a spin. Especially so, when I bought a pre-loved Bell Meteor II Time Trial Helmet off a guy from the Triwa forum. I got it off him for A$80, what a bargain!

My first few moments on the bike, it did feel really fast! I didn't require a lot of effort to get it moving. Even climbing the hills was a joy, as it did feel a lot lighter.

Although, my arms felt a bit uncomfortable after a while, and it might be the shifters were a bit too close to the aerobar. Need to extend them out a bit.

After cycling for just over an hour, suddenly I felt that I could not pedal anymore. Not because I had no more energy, but somehow the rear wheel was rubbing against the break pads. I hope it wasn't like that for the whole ride!

I stopped and it took me about 30 minutes to re-adjust the rear wheel. It was fine after that... but only for a couple of minutes, and the rear brake pad was clenched tight again. It was then when I decided to call it quits.

I was smart enough to leave my mobile phone to be charged at home. Good thing a kind samaritan who was driving past, lent me her phone to call Li-Ann for help. And as if I wasn't tested enough that day, it started raining as I was waiting for Li-Ann. Luckily another kind samaritan invited me to take shelter under her garage. These Australians can be REALLY helpful.

So... I have yet to fully realise the returns from my investment in my newly acquired gear. Hopefully next week will be better.

I'll end this post with a video taken from Singapore top long distance triathlete and two time Sundown Ultramarathon winner, Jeanette Wang's blog. I find this video pretty funny... and somewhat related to my situation.

My new ride

Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet...

...Fifi. Hehheh, yeah... Li-Ann commented why such a manja name.

I have moved on to the dark side (or rather the red side) of SRAM.

Phil from Runners World Northbridge was very nice to give me the holder (which costs A$25) for the cyclecomputer for free.

These aerodynamics are bound to slice through the wind!

For full specs, please click here.

I hope this investment will help me cut at least 10 minutes off my bike split at Langkawi IM 2010.

Desaru triathlon 2009

Coincidentally, Desaru was the place where I did my first ever triathlon in 2002. I was 19 then, I took part in the 19 and under junior sprint triathlon.

I did the swim in my swimming trunks, struggling to put on my cotton T-shirt and tri pants in T1 as I was sticky and wet from the sea water. For the bike, I borrowed a Bianchi belonging to Peter Lau of P2K, who did the long distance the day before. I was in such a haste that I did not even clip on my helmet properly!

And I surprised myself by coming in 1st in my category. It was a lot less competitive then, and there was only one category for juniors. I recalled vividly that just by doing the sprint itself was enough torture for me and I couldn't believe how the others could endure the full distance of the half ironman.

Fast forward 7 years and I'm back again in Desaru... this time for the full distance.

PRE-RACE JOURNEY

I arrived at Changi airport budget terminal from Perth at 3am. I made another last minute decision of buying another ticket to KL to spend more travel time with my family, rather than taking the ferry straight to Desaru.

I arrived in KL just after 8am, my dad picked me up from the airport and I assembled my bike at home while waiting for my mum and brother to come home from school. The journey to Desaru was a long one, but it was nice chatting with my family. Throughout the journey, we also saw many Singaporean cars with fancy bikes going down for the race as well.

Finally arrived at Desaru at about 4.30pm where I showed my bike to a potential buyer, Richard. Unfortunately, the bike was too small for him. So it is still available and currently in Subang Jaya, so email me to work out a deal if any of you are interested!

I met Sofian at the registration. He was very nice to offer me a cupcake baked by his wife, it was delicious, thanks!

6pm was the briefing, where I met up with THG people. Tomato Ray, Jenn, Lydia, Bobby, Yip, Keat Seong, Meng, Lee, Ben and Bernard. Mich and Siok Bee were still on their way then. In fact, I think I didn't speak to Mich and Siok Bee for this entire event as I left early after the race!

Race director, Mr Chan's briefing was definitely something that I've missed for many years. His down-to-earth humour made the briefing an unforgettable one. After the briefing, I joined my family for dinner at Sungai Rengit, about 35 minutes from Desaru. I also had a bit of Tiger beer to help me sleep better... which I did.

RACE MORNING

The late 9am start enabled us to wake up at less ungodly hour. I woke up at 7am, had some kaya buns and a banana, followed by doing some stretches. This is also my first time racing with contact lenses. Luckily I didn't take too long putting them on. Oh and I left my orthotics in Subang Jaya! Had to borrow my dad's in soles fit them in my running shoes.

I cycled to the race venue. My clip shoes were acting up, kept on getting stuck. I nearly fell upon approaching the bike racks and Meng caught me, how embarrassing! I quickly proceeded to rack up my bike and had my body marked.

I chatted a bit with Meng, Bobby, Keat Seong and my family while waiting for the final briefing. This is my brother, 11 years younger than I am. You think he'll submit to the pressure of becoming a triathlete?

I met Mark and his wife at the racks as well as Stupe and his wife. I was also finally able to meet Nik, someone I've only communicated via blogs, who's doing his first half ironman.

Another person I met was Raymond Tan, whom I knew since my state water polo days. Small world eh.

15 minutes to start, Mr Chan called us to gather at the swim start for a final briefing. The infamous Desaru waves were beginning to show, but many said it wasn't as bad as last year.

1.9KM SWIM

It was a mass beach start. I raced with the front liners into the water, not sure whether it was a wise move, as the water wrestling followed soon after. It was a two loop swim course. The waves were quite strong but pretty manageable. I came in somewhere between 12-13 minutes for the first loop.

But as I ran on the beach before going in for the second loop, I felt a bit dizzy and decided to slow down a bit. Top junior triathlete, Barry Lee was just ahead of me but I managed to overtake him soon after.

The inward currents helped a bit towards the finishing. I finished my swim in 26:53, a lot faster than I expected but Mr Chan said it could be under-distanced... oh well...

I took it easy at the 200m run to transition as I was still slightly dizzy from the swim. But the T1 process was pretty much like clock work now. I had no problems doing the fly mount despite not doing any practice.

90KM BIKE

My least trained discipline for the past 2 months. I was quite happy to clocking above 30kph average in the beginning. It was quite a relief to see most people were behind me after the swim, including top female triathlete Emma Bishop. The undulating hills were pretty manageable and I enjoyed curling myself into an aerodynamic ball as I rolled on the down slopes.

I finished the first loop of the three loop course in about 55 minutes. But my lack of training showed eventually. Emma soon caught me at the 40km mark. And top veteran triathlete Don was gaining on me, so was Keat Seong and Yip.

I have a bit of whinging here about the ineffective draft marshals. There was once where there was a big group in front of me and there was no place to overtake. The draft marshal was following and monitoring the group but wasn't doing anything. DRAFTING = CHEATING, guys don't you get it?

Anyway, regardless of whether others were drafting or not, I doubt my position would change very much with my mediocre cycling. Don caught me at the 73km mark and Keat Seong who was working his way through the bike course, overtook me at 80km. He gave me words of encouragement to catch him later in the run.

I finished the three loop course, which approximates 87km in 2:55:11 including transition. My clip shoes got stuck as I came into T2, so I didn’t do a fly dismount. But I was surprised that I came out of T2 before Keat Seong... you put on make up ah? Hehheh.

21KM RUN

But my victory was short lived as immediately after I got off the bike, both my legs were tightening to cramps. Stretching did not help either. Keat Seong soon passed me and asked me to follow, but my legs could not budge.

Then, Yip overtook me with his strong running. I was afraid that those who previously expressed interest over my bike would soon pass me. It doesn’t say much about my bike’s reputation if I finish later than them right?

I decided to keep on moving... brisk walking with wide steps to cover as much distance in as little time with whatever was remaining from my legs. As the cramps loosen, I ran. As it tightened, I started walking again. This carried on for nearly every 500m. Yes, I have entered the foreign terrain of undertaking Jeff Galloway's method.

The two loop course was long and hot. Yes, I admit I was being vain by trying to run when I'm posing for pictures. Thanks, Lydia, Bernard, Jenn, Yee Hua and many others, whom I don't know your names, for the support and beautiful pictures! The following pictures of me running are in NO WAY representative of the entire distance!

My wonderful family too... what was driving me to run more (or rather walk less) was the thought of having them wait longer under the hot sun for me to finish.

The final 2kms came, it was about 10 minutes to 5 and 1/2 hours since the race started. I thought if I could jog all the way, I would be able to make it but the cramps kept on coming.

As I approached the finish line, a familiar figure was just metres in front of me... Keat Seong! He must have had cramps towards the end too. I gathered the remaining elasticity in my legs, and sprinted... piping him just by a step!

I completed the 21km run/walk in 2:10:41, finishing with an overall (my watch) time of 5:32.46, 34 minutes slower than Busselton.

POST RACE

I was only able to catch up with a few as I was returning to Subang Jaya right after the race. My apologies to those whom I was not able to see you guys through the finish line.

The trip back was also a long drive and we got back to Subang Jaya just before 10pm. I feel very lucky to have my family, so supportive and I must admit that this rush trip of mine is pretty tiring, not only for myself but for my family as well.

I’m looking forward to some rest (although I can see myself itching to get back into it this weekend).