I have moved to mokyingren.com :)

Todays event was another success in the Trifactor series 2009. I was there as a participant too of the event. Haha.

Well, the day started off wierdly with a drunk neighbour lying right at my door step, thinking that it was his house. So we had to wake him up and get him back to his house (wierdly, last night also got a guy sleeping at our stair case landing, and this time we had to call the police as he had blood everywhere too haha)

Anyway, reached there but found out that there will be a delay as there was some problems with the road closure as the TP closed the roads abit late. Thus, we started 30min later. Quite a bad start to the event, but I think the participants took it in their stride. Because of this, the weather was a bit hot on the run.

Ok some good pointers:

1. There were distance markers every km. this was great. initially due to the TP disallowing hanging stuff along the road, there was supposed to be a stretch of in each loop where there will be no markers. I urged the organisers to try their best and paste anywhere because I know as runners, we like to see markers along the way as they sort of tell us that at least we are moving. haha. so hope you guys enjoyed that part

2. The route was dead accurate. The organisers kindly used their vehicles and the walking measurement to measure the route. With gerald’s GPS on the run also measured 21.29km So Must be pretty good la. haha

3. Water points were fantastic with lots of water.

4. The turning points were clear and no confusion from what I saw

5. The run paths were wide enough for the many waves to run in as I saw no congestion and I had no problems weaving my way through also. Actually didnt really need to weave, i could run easily in a straight line.

6. The circuit course has its pros and cons. But for me, it was great as a training run. I had the encouragement everytime i pass buy the turning points when mr birdpark emcee will cheer for me. haha. that was fun. But of course, some paritipants commented that it was getting boring going into the last lap. I guess it is also challenging to close a wider stretch of road due to traffic reasons, unless, it is some super big event like army half marathon. Perhaps after a few more years, Trifactor will gain larger propularity and we can close more roads. haha.

7. Post race, there were more than enough BOOST energy drink for everyone which was great.

8. Made some new friends like William today at the event. It had a nice and friendly atmosphere to it. Congratulations to those who won the very nice timex watch man. haha. damn jealous. haha.

Well, overall the run was well organised. Just that we started 30min later. I am sure next year we will improve on that and such hiccups wun occur anymore. Good choice to skip OSIM triathlon for this. This is definitely more worth it man.

Hope all of you guys who were there enjoyed the event. Do drop me an email or text message if you have some good suggestions for the 2010 edition of Trifactor.

See you guys at the Tri-athlon.

Reached there at 7am when my race supposed to start at 7.30am. However, it was delayed half hour and so will start at 8am. I hate waiting for nothing. So i did a recce run of 5km to check out the route while waiting.

After I got back, I realised i need to do some swim warm up! SO i hastily set up my transition.

Had a nice swim warm up in the small pool.

THe swim was ok. Swam with Song Loo from NTU. Not sure the timing – about 10.30? Around there la i think. not that bad la. just stroking and relaxing. At about 400m mark, i realised i forgot to put my number tag at the transition!!. I relaxed and plan out my route to my bad to retrieve it.

Out of the pool, i wore my shoes and calmy made a detour to take my number tag from my bag at the side.

THe run was freaking hilly and I am glad i managed to win the NIE biathlon!

The NUS aquathlon team this year is really superb. Top 5 all NUS people. damn good. the team spirit is really tops!!!

It was a nice morning. I reached the area at 6.30am, had a breeze collecting race pack and body marking. But I felt like shitting! But the toilet at the race was so packed. I decided to warm up to lagoon food center and do my business there. It was gooooooddd! Had a good  12min warm up to and fro.

After that, i went to put my stuff at the transition. Saw quite a few army buddies there! But not much time to talk as I needed a long swim warm up. It was already 7.20 (my race start at 7.45) I quickly swam abit trying to looosen up by muslces. Have not been swimming much this year, about only 3km a week since january! I saw a long queue to go in to the starting area, so i thought just warm up more la. waste time queuing. THen i decided to go and queue at 7.40. I had a nice chat with Joshua. haha

Suddenly, we heard “you are now in the hands of the starter” I was like WTS! I cut queue and got my attendance marked and chiong into the sea in the middle of the pack. I was caught in the mess with all the punching and pulling. Quite fun though haha. I admit that I pulled one guy on the shoulder as I was desperate to get in front (thats what people do in international races) it was crazy but he pull my shoulder back. damn aggressive too man! hahaha. quite exciting. but oh well.

I stayed relax on the swim, swimming with willie loo! haha. didnt know it was him. he got botak head. when we came out i then knew it was him. Transition was shitty too slow. I had some difficulty wearing my shoes. haha. too long never practice.

On to the run. damn shiok! i have never felt so good on the run after a swim. It was a good run in good weather and I totally enjoyed it!

This was a good and bad race man!!! Basically I DNF cus the marshal damn lousy man... 

Bascially, the race started off fast pace. 2 kenyans went ahead, we left them alone cus they too fast. they had 1min lead on me and Samuel (Malaysian Runner SEA Games 10km bronze medallist 2007, 32min05sec) in 3rd and 4th placing with the other another minute behind us at the 8km mark.

After this mark apparently you were supposed to turn right, but the marshall there did not guide us and we went straight ahead. We thought the marshall and cone there was supposed to prevent us from going there. After 2km of running more, i Told samuel forget it la. sure wrong one lets warm down and we did. Had a nice chat to see how his training is like. Quite interesting. 

So we passed the 8km mark again and we asked the marshall there why he nvr direct us?? He say he was talking to 2 ladies asking for direction and he didnt see us run past. WTH man.

Haha... sad case man. :)

Thanks for reading

Port Dickson Triathlon was another good day at the office. Again, I was not feeling very well on wednesday and I ate some flu tablets and some strepsils for my itchy throat. I could feel that I can recovery in time. Reached there on thursday, did some easy swim in sea, felt terrible. Then some easy running felt like shit. Friday woke up but did not have a very good sleep. Did some easy cycling with some surges and some swimming. Cycling felt like shit but swimming felt pretty good. haha. Llyod is a good coach man!!

Race day - Race was in the afternoon so had a easy morning walking around doing nothing much and doing some mental prepration. 

Swim - It was very funny cus very low tide and the beach run down was super long. Got good Got bad lor. Cus its super tiring to run on sand and it really drained some energy in the run down and run up after the swim. Swim was calm but I feel that I can really work on my swimming

Bike - Great! After catching up with the pack which consisted of like 5 hongkies, 1 macau, and 1ang moh, I worked quite a lot. I was comfortable going up front and pulling the pack and fast pace. Good indication of improvement. It probably felt bad cus in OSIM there was australian team and I think aussies train cycling like mad so it feltmore tiring last week. This week was good despite doing alot of work.

Run - I knew I was 1min 30sec down from the first pack of 2 person - andrew wright of HKG and LAU from Macau. I caught Lau within 2km and worked to catch andrew wright. andrew is high performance athelte 2nd to daniel lee who is gg Olympics. I managed to get within 30sec at the 8km mark and i tried to catch up with him but failed. race ended with me 5 sec behind me. It was exciting and good experience.

Overall - Nice race and I did well once again at PD. Improvement is distinct on the bike leg. Time to work on the swim. 

Today was a pretty good day at the office at the OSIM Singapore tri. In short, it was challenging with the super long swim + choppy waves and hot weather. Managed to be runners up in the U23 Men Elite Category. Dinah, fellow national athelete also won the U23 Women Elite Category. Woohoo!!! Let me go part by part.

SWIM

I am always worried about my swim cus i scared i dun get a pack. But today went pretty well was in the middle of the 2nd pack with 2 australians, 1 NZ, 1 China, 1 HKG. Sea was choppy and quite a bit longer than usual. But it was fine. Transition was terrible. My rubberband dropped off and I failed to get on the bike swiftly. Must put rubberband at a more secure position. Anyway, I missed half the pack and was left with 1 australian and 1 china guy with me. 

Bike

THe Aussie was really fierce on the first lap, leading at a fast pace. I felt i couldnt get my legs moving after the swim man but the 3rd lap on wards, i felt better and could lead the pack better. Could feel the bike improvement but got to work harder on it. Realised that it is super important, time to stop neglecting it. The bike ended with 2 HKG, 1Aust together with me. 

Run

I immediately dropped everyone but trailed behind the aussie. I thought he would die in the heat but I also could not cope with the heat too well. The space between us sort of maintained at 30sec throughout the whole run. THe run was really hot and felt that I could not really get my legs moving. 

All in all, it was a great workout and I hope to recover well for next week's port dickson race. See you there!