Family Outing to Pulau Ubin

The offshore island, where many mountain bikers get there to have some trail or "thrill" rides. Chek Jawa is probably the only marine coast available to us that is untouched, with the "rich" marine life, sea grass, corals. 10 minutes of bumboat will get us to the rustic island, where only a handful of Singaporeans reside. Most of the villagers would have shifted back to mainland Singapore already. During the SARS period, the culling of the poultry wiped out the chicken and duck farm, and probably their livelihood. That explained why most of them had to leave the island.


Anyway, it was a first outing to Pulau Ubin for my kids and my wife even! Yeah, explains how exposed she is to outdoor stuff! Started with my younger one not knowing how to change gears on the bike, then went on to my older one who hit a flat tyre 2-3km away from the bike shop. So the irondad had to cycle with the flat tyre back to the shop and got a replacement bike. Ahhh... yes, I am the tech support.


It was high tide and was quite a wasted trip to Chek Jawa. We did do a check on tide times but could only go there during that period only. But it was still a good time cycling the gravel road. An experience for myself even. Different from the usual smooth tarmac I get.

We also chanced upon a female wild boar - gender as told by the NParks wardens. I was pretty worried because my kids were feeding it. And other visitors stood next to it to take pictures with it. Wild boars are known for their aggressive behaviour. And I know they will rush at you if perturbed. Injuries may not be fatal but broken bones are a possibility. After 10minutes, I had to hurry my kids away, not willing to take any chances.

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Just a few hours ago, in the evening, I went NYP to do the track work with MR25 runners. My first time with the group but I had a foretaste of it when I ran with Andrew. Did a 3km warm up, 10 x 200m sprints with 200m recovery and another 2km warm down. Knowing that I needed to shorten my recovery period, I did not do the 35-38s sprints I did last week. Controlled it to 38-40s sprints, with the last in 36s. Recovery was about 1:40 on the average compared to 2:20 average last week. It was a good thing that I experienced it for myself last week as it gave me an idea of what to expect this week. It was quite amazing how the reduction of 2s can increase recovery by 40s. I would say that last week was a 95% effort in the sets and this week probably close to 90%. Nonethelss, it was good. At least the consistency was there and I managed to keep up with the recovery times of the rest of the runners.


During the sets, I was being trailed by a 60 year old man. He was just about 2s behind me throughout the workout. And he is a 1:47 SAFRA 21km runner, 1:40 Taiwan 21km runner and 2nd runner up in the Swissotel Vertical Marathon this year for his age group. I would say that he should be the real iron hearted man... Hats off! 60 years old! Fantastic stuff! What a legacy!