Exclusivity!

Alright. Its cheap thrill. But I am now a member of one of Singapore's oldest running club, MR25. To become a member of the club, one have to run 5km time trial through the trail of Macritchie under 25min. I did it in 23:09 just now. That is a 4:37 pace thereabouts.


Its funny how I had the jitters before the time trial. I was telling Enrico and Andrew, that this was even more stressful than the ironman race. The ironman races have a cut off of 17 hours and frankly, that is quite a long time. But to do a 5km in 25min, that would require serious heart thumping pace. And I was getting into very unfamiliar territory. This was some serious pain.


I suspected that I would be able to clear the 25min but it would take a lot out of me to get there. 1st 2.5km I took 11:35 and the 2nd was 11:34. So that was a pretty consistent pace for the whole run. Not much of a negative split to talk about. I thought I slowed down a great deal on the 2nd lap but I had new found strength for the last 300m, when I saw the forest open up to the reservoir again. A great motivator indeed!


I knew I had some reserves because I wasnt sure of how much I had to run. So I squeezed out the remnants for a harder 100m run to the end point. Managed to overtake a bloke by 3s coz he was on my radar at the end. Andrew who was pacing me for the return leg, pointing at the bloke telling me to overtake him. And so I did.


So thats another target achieved. For what? Well, just for the fun of it and just a gauge of how far I have come with all the training sessions Coach put me through as well as what Andrew had been getting me to do with his track sessions.


Really, something plucked off Martin Yan's "Yan Can Cook", if I can do it, I bet my life, so can anybody else.

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.

***

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!

Engine Overhaul

No, not referring to Rolls Royce overhaul of their engines for the A380. And neither am I referring to Qantas service - though I seriously think they should take a good hard look at their customer service coz my recent experience with them had not been acceptable AT ALL. Besides not responding to my feedback, making my whole family wake up at 5am to catch a 9am flight, the ground crew dented and cracked my ZIPP disc on the way back. And you guessed it, they have yet to come back to me after I filed my report. Buggers. This is despite a proper wheel bag tagged as "fragile". Yup, as far as possible, it will be Qantas no more.


My friend faced a situation at his condominium apartment, this time with his estate management people. It is times like these, that I find that by being layman without the proper influential network that issues are really hard to resolve. There is just no direct link for me to get in touch with Qantas with regards to this and it just infuriates me. Although, I have heard there had been issues with Singapore Airlines as well. Its simply amazing that we pay so much for air travel and we get poor service standards like trashing our luggages. Just where is the common sense of airline companies? And all they are interested are the hundreds of millions that they make in a year FROM US passengers.

***

The Bugatti Veyron has a power to weight ratio of 1000bhp to about 2000kg. That is a substantial 500horses to pull a 1 tonne machine by a 8 litre monster of an engine. In stark comparison, the Ariel Atom is a very small  light weight car of less than 500kg but its power is 300bhp for the supercharged version. As you can see, the Ariel Atom is a mighty mighty fast car, and this explains why the need for cars to go as light as much as they can. The Lamborghini Superleggera and Reventon are carbon fibered vehicles so that the acceleration can be increased marginally over the normal road versions.


And so often we have heard about the weight weennies of cyclists attempting to push down the weight of their steeds as much as possible. CF frames, CF pedals, Titanium bolts, etc, just to save a couple of grammes here and there.


This is not surprising because as with the cars, the amount of power generated by the cyclists is dependent on this weight drag. The lighter the combined weight, the greater the power and also perhaps, the more energy saved on the run for triathletes thereafter.


As for me, instead of trying to push down the weight of my bike in terms of grams, I will want to reduce my weight than to spend the money on weight saving nuts and bolts. My race weight for WA 2009 was about 82kg, WA 2010 was a tad under 78kg. I hope to bring this down to 75kg by the time I hit Cairns 2011.


However, I do know that there will be compromise in the amount of power generated if there is too much of a substantial weight loss. Matt Fitgerald wrote about this as well in the Triathlete magazine. So, it will be a fine line to draw between weight loss vs power output. I do not know what my best ratio is going to be like. All I know is that I can lose more so that I can gain more. What an oxymoron. My Coach did say that 75kg would be a good weight to get to with 10% body fats. I will see if I can get to that level this time.

***

Did a short run this morning to see if my legs would be able to fire. Not too bad and pleasantly surprised. My friend from MR25 - group of runners at MacRitchie - paced me. I ran the 5km time trial cross country route in under 27min. The qualifying was 25min. But I started the run still having a conversation with him for half the distance and he said that I should be able to meet the timing for the trial.


Not that I am working towards to join the MR25 running club - if I do qualify, all the better - but I am seeking to improve my run. Some of the group's faster runners do sets of the 5km TT with 1min rest in between, and each set in 18:30. That is incredulous and I am not attempting that feat. I am just seeking to run my ironman marathon with 6/km pace.


I hope to be able to fit in track work with the MR25 runners next year. And hopefully this will whip my running legs to good shape for AVIVA 70.3 and Cairns.

***

Something interesting that I caught outside the cafe in Busselton:


Swimming is the worst part of a triathlon...


If you stop peddling on a bike, you coast,


If you stop running, you walk.


BUT IF YOU STOP SWIMMING, YOU DROWN!