Mayhem at Singapore Biathlon 2012

As many of you know, I have been 'out of action' for a couple of months now. Getting from fit to fat was such an easy slide and before I knew it, my pants were getting an inch or two tighter. I did not over eat (denial) but I guess I was burning less calories as I used to.

My fitness schedule was a wreck. I have to send the kids to school and by the time I reach home it'll be 7:30 and I have to cook for lunch or get breakfast for Darma. As I reflect on this issue, I realized I was making up excuses and that it is actually possible for me to still run in the morning if only I had better managed my time.

Anyway. What I wanted to share with you is my biathlon race yesterday. To call it challenging is really an understatement. I wouldn't want to make it into a drama but I actually wanted to give up the swim.

I had regular open water swim every week with a group of friends at East Coast beach. We would do a 2km swim and then a short run of 8-10km afterwards. Sometimes just 5km but it's still a run. To be honest, that is my only training for the week. I did that for about 5-6 weeks prior to this biathlon. But nothing is about speed. I am only scraping by with minimum training.

I reached the race site just in time. No warm ups not even to test water, barely seconds in the swim pen, the first wave was flagged off. I don't have much time to think. I was at the back of pack which was almost a mistake. These were the breast strokers and they are mean with their kicks.

I was almost drowning with the splashing of arms and the kickings and the jostlings and all the mayhem you can expect in a race. Then I made another grave mistake. I stopped swimming. In the middle where everyone was swimming. Big mistake. I was pushed and kicked and jostled again and at that moment I really wanted to just give up. I don't see the point of continuing. 100 meters and I had become a crybaby!

Anyway I continued swimming and tried to get to an empty 'lane' but it's still crowded and I was pushed out of the lane. I was swimming outside the buoy. Me and a handful of others were actually swimming outside the lane. I was thinking maybe I will be disqualified.

Funny thing happened though, while swimming I actually had someone's ass on my face. I literally kiss someone's ass. That's a first. Hahahaha.

The next few hundred meters went alright. Eventually the number of bobbing pink caps thinned out and guess what, moments later a wave of red caps were aggressively swimming with me. These guys were mean I tell you. They grabbed my legs and pulled me down! So half of the swim I was swimming with the men.

It really went on very long. The sea was choppy and it felt like a long swim. I really doubted if I could finish and I asked God to please help me through. I did tell myself that I am just going to swing my arms until I get back to shore and that is what I did.

I checked my watch. 1:06. I laughed out loud. What took me so long? When I was at the transition area, I knew I was the last one out. No other shoes in sight. Even though I wanted to get out as fast as I could, it felt like I was doing it in slow mo.

As soon as I started running I felt a sharp pain in the middle of my rib cage. I walked. Then I saw a medic tent. I went in and seek help. He asked questions like whether I feel like vomitting? I said yes. Sharp pain or squeezing pain? Not sure but I said sharp pain. He asked me to sit down and called a female medic. She pressed her fingers where it hurts and then said that it's the muscles that was attached to the rib cage (or something like that) that cramped. At this point I wasn't really listening. I was thinking, like seriously? Who ever heard of this sort of cramp? They applied some gel and asked if I wanted to continue to run I said yes.

And I walked and run the entire distance. I said Hellos and high 5 friends with whom I trained with on weekends. Ian came up to me from behind and we exchanged words of encouragement briefly but that was the first and last I saw of him. I knew he had to rush back KL on the same day. That man is like a bee, always buzzing busy. But he epitomizes a person that if you plan your time wisely, a lot can be done in a day. Nice meeting you, Ian!

Right after the 5km u turn, I made some effort to open up my stride and I saw from the back a girl whom I saw before. I was making mental notes on the last woman runner. I was the last one but I was checking how far I was with the last woman. Maybe another 1.5 km or so apart, I noted.

I approached her as she was walking and said we are the last two women. There were a lot of guys from the later waves who were running with us but we were the last two women. She was in bad shape. She couldn't talk, smiled or acknowledged anything. And she walked and run as if she was drunk. She looked like she was going to collapse. I thought it felt bad to be last but I'm glad that I am not hurting and last at the same time.

I did the only thing I knew. I accompanied her till the end. We walked and ran but mostly walked. But just about 100m she finally said something. She said I can run and we both run to the finish. She was still walking in a daze manner and I held her arm and direct get to sit down to remove the timing chip from her ankle. Then I left her to get my medal and the tshirt (yay!).

I was relieved that I finally finished at a time of 2:35 (unofficial). Timing sucks but what a race! I would say running the 100 was pure pain but this race was pure madness. I would not want to do this again unless I can improve my swim. Swimming with the men was really a bad experience.

And so, that was it. The start of my adventure this year.

There's nothing sweeter than a hard earned medal.

Hi there!

Salaam and good afternoon from the sunny island of Singapore. I hope to revive this blog soon. So many things to chat about. Hang in there.


I miss you guys!

Checklist for doing the ultra (marathon)

There has been some buzz for the 2012 edition of Sundown Ultra 100km which I assume will open its registration in December, much like last year's. I'm guessing that there'll be more participants this year if they continue to keep their cut off time to 18 hours, much like last year too. For me, it would make business sense.

You should think about doing longer distance if you are :

1. Feeling bored with the 42km crowd
2. Getting support from your spouse/family/friends/employer (to make sure these people are still around when you cross the finish line later)
3. Extremely stubborn/determined
4. Having no injury at all
5. The rare few who has high tolerance of pain or loves pain
6. One who collects medal and finisher tees for no apparent reason
7. Nothing better to do for the next 5-6
months

There. I know you fit the bill. So when the registration opens in December, be sure to be the first few in line.

Growing pains

It's been a few weeks since I updated this blog. I know I had not been a good blogger. The thing is, I don't have my own personal desktop at home and Darma took hold of my iPad from Day 1 that I bought it. I hate blogging from my iphone and my children are on their computers when they are home. Everyone got their own laptops or desktops, except me. We have become solitary with our games, videos and online social media that it's really hard to get everyone together. My kids are growing up pretty quick as teenagers and they have their own interests and habits. I reminisce those times when they were little children and begging me to take them everywhere I go. How times fly.


But the thing about having grown up children is that they could be your best friend. You can talk to them about grown up stuff and you'll be surprised to know that they know some stuff more than you do. We can learn a lot from one another.


One of the most important things I tell my children, or rather what I nag my children constantly is to do their prayers without fail. I'm like the second adzan, when the first one which was on time failed to move them, and then I come to the picture to remind them to drop everything else and do their prayers. I know this sounds tiring but I will not stop reminding them. My children are not rebellious and they get up to do their duty when I asked them to, either because they want me to stop nagging or they actually wanted to. Maybe sometimes a little bit of both. We were all once a teenager, remember.


I really feel blessed that sometimes I get to see the end of things. Life now has never been clearer. That would often jolt me out of my ordinary life and put everything into perspective. It's really hard to explain things to other people who don't see things the way you do. It humbled me completely, not that I was not previously but I see things differently now. Sometimes it does comes out preachy but that's all right. Everyone will see it at different times in their life when it's time, though it's really hard to see the significance of things that is happening around us if you don't have faith in the first place.


I read that God sent His angels to give hardships to his servants, because He misses us and wants us to talk to Him, to pour our hearts to Him all our troubles. So take time to say your zikir on a daily basis. 


'Remember Him in time of ease and He will remember you in time of need'.


Have a good Friday, take care of your health and do so 'kerana Allah Ta'ala'. 

As I stood from my balcony, I noticed how low the clouds seem to be, like as if we were able to touch them. What do the clouds carry in them?

The Northface 100 2011

This is my third draft. The first one too short, the second one too long and too objective, like as if I was reporting the race for someone else.

So I am going to summarise it.

I really enjoyed running this race. It was challenging, it was difficult, I was fatigued. Tired. Sleepy. Hungry. But I didn't feel shitty like I did last year. I brought food, in the form of sugars. And I wore proper trail shoes and not a pair of running shoes like I did last year. Things not to do when running TNF, checked. I have to be prepared this time, expecting to run this trail on my own. I made an ambitious target to complete this run in eight hours. I like to set myself some target but unfortunately the heat brought me to my knees. It  got so hot, I am reduced to walking as I was feeling light-headed and taking longer breaks at the water stations. There were a couple of confusion on the trails as well as there were no directional signages on some parts and a lot of us got confused. So time wasted as well.

I really like running through the Durian Trail. I made a mental note to run this trail during my training runs. Mandai was not so intimidating now. I have no problems running all the downhills and walking the uphills. I was alone this time but occasionally accompanied by Endon and Aida, my new running mates. I don't really mind running alone. But it was super hot. At the water station, they gave out towels which I soaked in iced water and told myself to hang on to this until at least I leave Mandai. I use the cold towel to cover my head and my back and cool my face so that helped to shelter the heat. Sort of.

Coming back to MacRitchie was a relief. I was doing the same thing I did earlier. Run downhills, walk uphills, and fortunately going back saw a lot of downhills. But I was slow. Painfully slow. I could sense fatigued creeping in and my whole body was aching. My legs were just heavy, refused to go any faster. I was getting impatient. Where is the end? My hands felt tight and when I looked at my hands, I was surprised that it was all puffy and bloated. Later, Syah told me it was caused by having too much sodium in my body. Well, kiasu punya pasal, sampai ter-overdose electrolytes.

I did not stop running until I reached the finish line but I barely made it through the 9-hour cut-off time. 8 hours and 55 minutes, that was the time I took to complete this tough 50KM. This is no ordinary ultramarathon and one that tested your physical and mental endurance.

I should have learned by now not to make promises or use words like 'giving up', 'retire', 'insaf' when I have just finished a race and when the painful memory is still fresh in my mind. I am already craving to go back. I am craving to try this route one more time. But I'll come back when I am fully rested, I have to give my body and legs time to recover.

So that's it.

I hope I did not bore you with my lacklustre story but I really had nothing much going except that I wished I had clocked a much better timing. And my bib is still intact, with hardly any scratch. But I am thankful that I have managed to complete this without any injuries. I can run tomorrow if I want to.

However, immediately after the run, my whole body felt like one big cast iron. It was heavy and my muscles were aching pretty bad. Even though I had a massage after the run, it didn't help one bit. My plan to do a recovery run the next day during NB Real Run did not materialise as I couldn't get out of bed and when I did, I can't walk. Run? Don't count on it! It took me three days to finally be able to walk properly. I had to take a cab to the office for two straight days (I usually walk to work) as I cannot bear the thought of going up and down the stairs.

There. My biggest race this year done. The one that I actually registered and sort of trained for. Hehe.

Till the next race...

We meet again. So happy to see you guys!

Waiting for our food to arrive at BaliThai, Novena Square.

Gone too soon

I am still shocked and saddened by the passing of my good friend. We did not get to say our goodbyes. You have gone to a place that we both often talked about and I hope my prayers reached you crisp and clear.

I will miss you, my friend. You are now closer to God.

Learnings from Northface 100

Its amazing how we have forgotten the pain that we went through. Barely a year ago I made a maiden journey to run the Northface 100 in Singapore for a 50km trail run. At that time, 50km seemed like a reasonable distance especially after you had done countless marathon and a few months earlier completed an 84km ultra marathon.

But it was not an easy journey. It was memorable though but needless to say, I suffered tremendously. The toughest race I've done by far. Even my 100km stunt did not come close.

I'm taking the learnings from last year and hopefully this time, I will have a better race. Now that Nik will not be running with me.

1. Full breakfast on race morning
2. Maintain energy throughout by refueling
3. Walk uphill and run the downhills
4. Hydrate often
5. Small steps, fast cadence
6. Focus on finishing even when I'm in doubt

All the best to all of us. See you on race day!

iSad

Thought I'd share this with everyone. Goodbye, Steve.

We lost…

Today I am compelled to write because the man who has inspired me, who made me become who I am today, the man who ignite my creativity, the man who made my talent into a career, has passed away. Steve Jobs passed away last night, amongst his family members after battling years of cancer. He was 56. I am saddened by his passing. We may have other geniuses but we have lost Steve Jobs. 


"Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it." Barack Obama, US President


And thanks to you, my Darma is a happy boy. He live, breathe and sleep with the iPad. His life revolves around the iPad. Having said that, we need another one for me.


Not to disrespect Steve Jobs, but I guess he can say that iDied.

Apple makes simplicity uber cool!

And thank you dear God, for sending him to us so we can see a glimpse of your genius. You truly are our Creator.

I don't get to run SG

Well, if you know me by now I run for the free t-shirts. So you can imagine my disappointment when the registration for the We Run SG NIKE 2011 race was closed barely 48 hours after it was opened. And we are talking about 15,000 slots here. Singaporeans…c'mon!! Have you guys got nothing better to do on a Sunday morning?


On the other hand, I won a slot for the We Run KL 2011 for taking part in one of NIKE's online running event. But I'm being cynical here, I think it's not going to happen.