Will be switching over to teohuikoon.wordpress.com from now on.
No special reasons. Just trying out the new platform and am still getting use to it.
Life is half spent before we know what it is. George Herbert, 1593 - 1633
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Week 3 to Challenge Cairns
And I am sick again. Fortunately, not too sick but still will need to lighten my training load on my own. Had a tinge of tingling throat irritation on Thursday evening. Friday lost bits of my vocal range. Saturday lost some more. Today, its barely audible.
Was suppose to do an easy 180km ride in the morning as I had to work full day on Saturday - meet the parents in school as well investiture rehearsal. Woke up and I felt fine. However, decided that I should see a doc and to get the bug out of the system quickly. Will likely to go on the trainer, hopefully for at least 3 hours after seeing the doc. Yes, I am feeling fine. No dizziness, no weakness, just the damn throat. Staying out of the road may be advisable too. Breathing intensely through the mouth and nose may just get the throat to be infected even more.
Yes, 3 weeks to Challenge Cairns. My countdown has started much later than usual. Preparedness for this race, I dont think its optimal but it will have to do. I started training for this event since 2 January. It has been a non stop action, except for the 2 weeks of reservist and 4 days of illness after the reservist. That knocked out almost 3 weeks. And with this current throat infection, though unlikely to get me down for too long but will still be considered as downtime, I would have done 18 weeks of training to fine tune my fitness compared to IMWA 2010. Will this be enough to give me another sub 12hour ironman timing? I can only hope so. As I mentioned before, I have to manage my expectations because I am not quite as fit as I would like to. I have changed my running regime and had thrown in intervals and tempo runs followed by long run. I have tried to get back to my swim as much as I could and on Friday, my arms seemed to be getting its life back. So there is a glimmer of hope. As for my bike, I will be able to hold out for 180km but I dont think I have worked too much on the speed this time.
Doing 2 ironman in 6 months, excluding down time like what I have experienced so far and hoping for a miracle, I cant kid myself. No, its not negative thoughts. I will still go all out on 5 June and do what I have been training for. If I manage a PB again, it will be a bonus. If I dont, I dont want to stay disappointed for too long. As Coach said to me, there will be another race another time.
What will be in my mind when I run on that fateful evening on 5 June, will be something I read while running at IMWA2010, "If you cant endure the pain, disappointment will be another 12 months."
For me, it should be 18 months till the next ironman.
Was suppose to do an easy 180km ride in the morning as I had to work full day on Saturday - meet the parents in school as well investiture rehearsal. Woke up and I felt fine. However, decided that I should see a doc and to get the bug out of the system quickly. Will likely to go on the trainer, hopefully for at least 3 hours after seeing the doc. Yes, I am feeling fine. No dizziness, no weakness, just the damn throat. Staying out of the road may be advisable too. Breathing intensely through the mouth and nose may just get the throat to be infected even more.
Yes, 3 weeks to Challenge Cairns. My countdown has started much later than usual. Preparedness for this race, I dont think its optimal but it will have to do. I started training for this event since 2 January. It has been a non stop action, except for the 2 weeks of reservist and 4 days of illness after the reservist. That knocked out almost 3 weeks. And with this current throat infection, though unlikely to get me down for too long but will still be considered as downtime, I would have done 18 weeks of training to fine tune my fitness compared to IMWA 2010. Will this be enough to give me another sub 12hour ironman timing? I can only hope so. As I mentioned before, I have to manage my expectations because I am not quite as fit as I would like to. I have changed my running regime and had thrown in intervals and tempo runs followed by long run. I have tried to get back to my swim as much as I could and on Friday, my arms seemed to be getting its life back. So there is a glimmer of hope. As for my bike, I will be able to hold out for 180km but I dont think I have worked too much on the speed this time.
Doing 2 ironman in 6 months, excluding down time like what I have experienced so far and hoping for a miracle, I cant kid myself. No, its not negative thoughts. I will still go all out on 5 June and do what I have been training for. If I manage a PB again, it will be a bonus. If I dont, I dont want to stay disappointed for too long. As Coach said to me, there will be another race another time.
What will be in my mind when I run on that fateful evening on 5 June, will be something I read while running at IMWA2010, "If you cant endure the pain, disappointment will be another 12 months."
For me, it should be 18 months till the next ironman.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Jinxed Asian Ironman Races
First it was the mad cow disease that got Japan's ironman race cancelled last June - yes, the one I missed despite having trained for it. Just heard that China's ironman race, scheduled in 2 weeks time, just had its swim leg cancelled because of renovation works at the reservoir where the swim was to be held?! I suspect that the June's non MDot sanctioned race was also cancelled because of the Japanese tsunami and nuclear leakage incident - this I havent confirmed but just a thought.
My Coach and a few other friends had signed up for the race. Coach was gunning for a slot at Kona 2011 but seemed like some may be changing their minds about racing in China. I already know that Angeline had pulled out of the race. Maybe Kin Kok may pull out too. He asked me when Cairns was...
Looks like there wont be any more of Asian ironman races by MDot. They may just get so pissed off that they will drop Asia completely. This is absolutely not good for Asians who want to do nearby races. This means that we will only have Australia and New Zealand races left.
Yes, the water was so warm last night that swimming in it didnt make me cooler. In fact, it was uncomfortably warm.
However, the warm water definitely had nothing to do with my slow swimming speed. Had Nick and Teryn scratching my feet and I gave up the position and stayed to the back instead. Last thing I want to do is to hold people back. And I have yet to swim a full 3.8km since reservist. Still trying to get the grip of the stroke and get back the efficiency before by doing set swims. Still wondering when I will get it back.
5 x 1km intervals was the dish today. Pace of 4:35. Completed the sets in 4:23, 4:25, 4:27, 4:23 and 4:20. With about 3:15 rest in between sets. Coach said to have a 400m jog to recover but I only walked/jogged 200m to recover before continuing. I suspect that if I had done this with Andrew and the MR25 runners, it could have been a 5:30 or 6:00 per set - meaning about 1 - 1:30 rest in between. But it would have been very very painful and may not have been able to keep up with the pace. What I had done was more manageable and less painful. Prefer that anytime.
My Coach and a few other friends had signed up for the race. Coach was gunning for a slot at Kona 2011 but seemed like some may be changing their minds about racing in China. I already know that Angeline had pulled out of the race. Maybe Kin Kok may pull out too. He asked me when Cairns was...
Looks like there wont be any more of Asian ironman races by MDot. They may just get so pissed off that they will drop Asia completely. This is absolutely not good for Asians who want to do nearby races. This means that we will only have Australia and New Zealand races left.
***
Who turned on the heater for the pool?Yes, the water was so warm last night that swimming in it didnt make me cooler. In fact, it was uncomfortably warm.
However, the warm water definitely had nothing to do with my slow swimming speed. Had Nick and Teryn scratching my feet and I gave up the position and stayed to the back instead. Last thing I want to do is to hold people back. And I have yet to swim a full 3.8km since reservist. Still trying to get the grip of the stroke and get back the efficiency before by doing set swims. Still wondering when I will get it back.
5 x 1km intervals was the dish today. Pace of 4:35. Completed the sets in 4:23, 4:25, 4:27, 4:23 and 4:20. With about 3:15 rest in between sets. Coach said to have a 400m jog to recover but I only walked/jogged 200m to recover before continuing. I suspect that if I had done this with Andrew and the MR25 runners, it could have been a 5:30 or 6:00 per set - meaning about 1 - 1:30 rest in between. But it would have been very very painful and may not have been able to keep up with the pace. What I had done was more manageable and less painful. Prefer that anytime.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)