OSIM 2010

Short sightedness is a real disadvantage when swimming. Today I sighted the wrong yellow buoy. And was thinking why the buoy collapsed - was horizontal instead of vertical. The next thing I knew, I was 50-70m away from the lane rope. Quickly got my act together and started to swim towards the correct yellow buoy. In any case, this was the second loop already. I stayed away from the left lane rope right at the start and stuck to the front. And as usual, the fast swimmers were already gone and the slow swimmers behind. I was left in the middle. Yet again. With nobody's feet to sit on, I was enjoying the swim, the constant freestyle strokes and the gentle waves of the sea.The stagger start had been very effective in preventing the mess at the beginning, unlike the Singapore Biathlon.


Strangely, I got out the swim not feeling dizzy and managed a light jog into the transition area. Decided to do away with the bike gloves today coz it was 40km only? Hopped onto the bike and the HR was racing above 160. Tried to keep the HR down and slowed down my cadence and reduce to lighter gear but it kept going above 155. Then the stomach cramps came in. I spoke to my Coach about this before. Apparently, there is a need for the stomach to get use to the horizontal position in the sea when get onto the bike. This had happened during AVIVA and it happened again. So I sat up and sacrificed a slower speed so that the organs can settle down? I find it strange. But it was a correspondence between Coach and Chris Maccormack "Macca", former Kona champion. After 2 loops, HR went down to a more decent level. But everytime I picked up my pace, the HR shot up above 150. I was barely holding at that level for the last 20km.


The run pushed my HR above 155 throughout. It didnt feel that fast but I think I took about 55min to do the 10km. Average HR for the whole run was a whopping 159! The funny thing was that I was not passing people from my wave and neither were they passing me. There were other runners ahead of me - I know Cyborg Poon was at least? So that would mean I was in the middle of the wave. Again...


I think I took about 2:45? Not sure, have to wait for the official results. But I do know that my wave started at 0915 and I came in about 1200. So, probably thereabouts.


Coach told me that doing such races would be good for me because my usual ironman sessions do not push my HR so high. And that was true. It was with this reason that I was desperately trying to slow down during the bike and run before I run out of energy.


Post race included huge amounts of carb and sugar. I was feeling light headed and Coke did me real good! I know, I am suppose to abstain, but I figured after a hard day out, I should get some rich sugar into the bloodstream. Otherwise I might just fail for the whole week. I think I am getting out of the fatigue from last week's long sessions. I am feeling much better now after the race. Legs are coming out from hiding. And that will be good news for the week's menu.