T’was the Morning Before Christmas…

Photo-credit: Richard Leong (One of our largest turnouts)

This morning, 18 swimmers showed up for our fortnightly Sentosa Lagoon Swim at Tanjong beach. Our new President of our online tri-group Triathlon Family, Andy ‘Small Circle’ Ng attended as a participant – which we appreciated. Four times of the 420-450 metres (according to our Fearless Leader, Matt) laps later, we did a 4.5K run. After some fun plotting (strategizing with the Survivor mantra ‘Outwit, Outplay, Outlast’) we managed to overtake our youngest Ironman Western Australia finisher in our group. I had fun acting out a mock ‘Iron War’s scene where you go mano a mano with a young buck, and then breast the imaginary tape with experience. At the end, pacing is everything and, if you do not want to hold the lead then drop the pace and follow. I called out everybody’s time as they cross the last lamp-post before the carpark. Some of us were coasting on our post-Ironman or post-marathon peak. Like Steve 'Pre' Prefontaine said: 'In running, what matters is the heart!' 

Photo-credit: Richard Leong. My poor impression of Macca; 11 IMs down, two to go for 2012!

I learnt from my cyclist friend, Bernard that doing power sets on the ride, builds strength quickly. However, this comes at the expense of tendon and ligament development. It takes longer for your elastic and inelastic connective tissues to adapt alongside the highly responsive gross muscles used in pedaling. This must contribute to my mild soreness near around my kneecaps – whose history has been relatively injury-free. We were in agreement that riding with faster riders should encourage strength and speed on the bike. You learn to hold your pace and place when you 'pull' your team or draft with it.

Photo-credit: Richard Leong (End of the run set. Spent but happy!)

Tomorrow, I am headed for a 4.5-hour ride (with 30-minute sets as my Main Set) in the east. Already I have a few interested parties who are tempted to ride on a humid and cool Christmas morning. I will follow up with a brick-run, which sets the premise for an unrepentant evening of Christmas feasting and friendship. Next week, Fox will probably prescribe an appreciative easier week; or not. The daily rainfall has affected one 2-hour run, and two pool-swims so far this week. No drama. There is always the next session. Put heart and mind into the effort, and savour the results and outcomes.

Enjoy your weekend and celebrate in your unique way! 

Roundup of A Good Week

I attended my first F1 race - the Singtel F1 Singapore Night Race - last night. Actually, I was there to watch the hour-long Charice concert that was good. Her muscular vocals were, unarguably, credible in a live situation. After her ‘standing-room-only’ concert we proceeded to watch the ‘dry-runs’ by all the racers. As we did not bring along earplugs, the high-decibel, high-frequency, roar by hyper-horsepower race-carts made it harsh on our hearing.

I am enjoying my reading of a few books; I reviewed Neil Gaiman’s ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ early this week. I bought about five books, mainly biographies at 70 percent discount at the Borders’ Clearance Sale. They were not the latest books, as some dated back a few years. Nevertheless, the ailing store achieved its goal of cleaning up a significant fraction of its backlog of unsold books.

I delivered two short sharing sessions, and I enjoyed the experiences. Working within an hour’s limit can be challenging as it encourages you to dive deep into your resourcefulness. Sometimes, we can enjoy gratefully creative linkages of ideas. They flow gracefully, like water on polished pebbles, creating a liveliness that animates the surrounding. Fresh ideas and perspectives can exorcise the demons of doubt and suspicion.

This morning, six of us headed for our fortnightly lagoon swim. A few will don their wetsuits, in preparation for Ironman Western Australia; others will begin their preparation for IM New Zealand. We swam between four to six laps, with the usual transitional break between laps. In the afternoon, Richard Leong (who helped us design our blog and twitter masthead/covers) and I went over to Singapore-based Elite Custom to chat with its US representative, Jason Schiers and distributors of ENVE Composites (pronounced as ‘envy’ or ‘NV’) – manufacturers of carbon wheels and tubes for custom-crafted bicycles from Parlee and Elite. They recently worked with hard-hitters of XTerra including Tim DeBoom - winner of Norseman 2011. The Utah, Salt Lake City based company of carbon-based bike-forms is ubiquitous with off-road and on-road. This weekend, Lance Armstrong will compete  (his first triathlon in 23 years) in the ENVE city to compete in the Snowbasin XTerra.

All the best to those doing the long course triathlon in Desaru! I give a huge shout out to Melvin How, Reeves Lim, Kevin Siah, and the Triathlon Family.