What has been going on recently

Been traveling pretty extensively over the last few months, and plenty of them back-to-back.
The cities that I had covered in July & Aug so far:
Taipei, Seoul, Delhi, Phuket, Melbourne for work (and Penang for swim coaching)
Next week will be Tokyo again

Glad that things are now slowly getting back to normal, with my trips getting interspersed with longer stays at home rather than constantly on the road.

Well, things have been going on pretty well.
Notable events:

• Rainie started school on 1st August - she cried and rolled on the floor on the first day of school when she realized that it's no longer just sending big brother to school, but herself had to go in too. Progressed pretty well over the last couple of weeks, even though she still cries every morning at the school entrance just "for show", and would stop immediately after passing the gate
• Ryan being able to contribute more in his art and craft homework, and showing more interest in crafts and writing as well. I should spend more time teaching him how to write, and create more fun craft projects to do with him. Next up - 3D solar system model for Ryan
• First time doing swim coaching in Penang - new place new students. In using the open air pool, under the blazing hot Penang Sun, I was sunburnt in no time. However, it seems that the 3 basics classes were pretty well received, and we should expect to have a full sized Level 1 class to run in October.
• Paid in full on the VC investment with Bro. This had been bothering me for a good half of the year as it impacts my short term cash flow on full investment. However everything has been done and dusted so it's time to see my bank account start to get healthier again.
• On Swim coaching again - saw the newly released videos by the esteemed World Class Japanese Master Coach, which detailed the exact same materials that I had created on my own, and had been using in my classes in Malaysia since earlier this year. Finally vindicated my belief that the materials that I had created based on extremely strong fundamental understanding are 100% spot on. I'd have to say that having a Engineer mindset + Sales Professional Experience + A Grade in Physics really helps to grasp the swimming concepts very quickly and conceptualize them into logical work flow, processes and most importantly, in an easy to understand format. I should probably start writing a book on swimming...
• Just completed my work performance review with boss earlier today, and was glad to receive the highest compliments for the work that I had done in the year. Top performer in our group! And to hear from boss that "I know that you have plenty of career opportunities outside given your capabilities and brightness. I want you to know that I want to keep you in my team". That is good enough motivation for me to stay and get more experience. Still in Grow mode here.

Oh well, should really start to craft my training classes for both swimming and channel management training soon, otherwise i might just lose the structure of thought that I have came up with

1 full month on the road

Last month had been extremely exhausting with the back to back travels, which is still coupled with my regular Sunday swim classes whenever I was back in SG over the weekend

28/4 to 7/5 in Australia for 703 + Family holiday
9/5 to 13/5 in China for work
16/5 to 21/5 in Japan for work
22/5 to 28/5 in Taiwan for holiday
4/6 to 5/6 in Malaysia for swim coaching

Even though the holidays were very much enjoyable, placing them back to back with work trips and coaching duties without any rest, is really tiring. Especially when the kids are getting more n more difficult to control.

The Taiwan trip, in particular, was the most draining trip.
Even though I had planned for hugely streamlined travel itinerary (by my standards), it was still too taxing for the entire family.
Future family trips should go at a much slower pace so that everyone will get to enjoy the holiday better.

Looking back at the last 12 months of travel, it turns out that Ryan has become a frequent flyer kid.
5 trips in the span of 12 months. Pretty awesome for a 3.5 year old boy.

Aug 2015 - Cebu, Philippines
Oct 2015 - Sydney, Australia
Dec 2015 - Tokyo, Japan
April 2016 - Perth, Australia
May 2016 - Taiwan

True answers from Ryan when Dear asked these questions:

Dear: What is your favourite activity?
Ryan: Take aeroplane

Dear: What is Mummy's favourite activity?
Ryan: Take aeroplane with Ryan

Dear: What is Daddy's favourite activity?
Ryan: Take aeroplane with Ryan

I'm just glad that "playing with phone" and "working" did not pop up :)

Sweet Sweet Ryan

Happened on Sunday night.

Ryan wanted me to accompany him for his pre-sleep activities.
Asked me to read him his favourite book, and deliberately took his time and made me slow down the reading speed by asking a lot of questions so that we could spend more time together

After finishing the book, he requested for multiple piggy back rides, and didn't want to get off

When it was finally time for bed, he wanted me to promise to sleep next to him.

Can tell that he really miss spending quality time with me, that I had been spending too much time away from home, be it for business travels or swim coaching.

My sweet boy is growing up :)

2016 Busselton 703 Race report

Definitely my most enjoyable 703 race so far.
Perfect weather, perfect conditions, imperfect preparations but still yielding relatively good results.

Managed to beat all of my original targets
Swim: 42:00
T1: 5:30
Bike: 3:27:58
T2: 3:18
Run: 2:23:15
TOTAL: 6h 42m

1KM Open Water Swim on Saturday (1 day before race day)
Joining the 1km Open Water Swim on the race ground was EXTREMELY important in acclimatizing to the cold water and wetsuit. I didn't get much of the cold water shock during the first warm up on Saturday, however the constricting nature of the wetsuit actually made me dizzy even though I swam less than 100m in the warm up. Decided to go conservative on the 1km swim and swam with a super slow tempo, just focusing on keeping my breathing steady and slow. The other problem was the buoyancy of the wetsuit putting my legs in an unfamiliar overly high position, resulting in me kicking the air instead of water half of the time. Had to adjust my body position and strokes to let my legs sink a lot more than usual to maintain a more efficient kick. Got more used to the conditions during the 2nd half of the swim and managed to bring my tempo back to a higher tempo to better utilize the buoyancy advantage offered by wearing the wetsuit.

Lessons Learnt:

Swim:

1. Pre-race familiarization swim - super important, especially for wetsuit swims
2. Warm up for swim 20 mins before race starts - super important. Get used to the cold water first to avoid shocks. And allow/pour more water into the wetsuit. Makes wearing more comfortable and less constricting.
3. Acclimatizing to the cold weather days before the race - wearing shorts and short sleeved tees, exposing myself to the cold as much as possible (without overexposure to wind)
4. The usual sting from the initial contact with cold water is actually bearable. Just keep immersed for more than 10secs and I'll get used to the cold.
5. Lube up my legs and back of neck before putting on the wetsuit. Makes taking off much much easier

T1:

1. Never really thought about why I used to care so much about doing a fast transition, until the moment of realization when Wee How pointed out that we have all the timing for Swim, Bike, Run, and how fast/slow we transition doesn't really matter since we are not going for podium. Well, I guess it used to be a ego-booster that my T1 and T2 was fast, to sorta make up for the slow SBR timing. But come to think about it, it was actually quite silly. So I really took my time with T1 and T2 this time.
2. With enough lube on the legs, it was much easier to take off the wetsuit than my first 2 encounters with the wetsuit.
3. Chose to wear my bike shoes properly first, and took my time to walk the bike out of TA, prioritising comfort, rather than doing all the flashy stuff that I used to do in the past - flying mount, shoes on bike

 Bike:

1. Strategy was to hold my speed between 25-27km/h throughout the 90km and I should be safe to complete the 90km in 3h30min
2. My concern on the cold wind adversely affecting me was valid - originally planned to wear the windbreaker for the first half of the bike, but ended up just wearing the arm sleeves instead - still a bit worried about taking too long in the T1, as well as windbreaker creating too much drag for the ride. Ended up the arm sleeves were good enough since I was sufficiently warmed up from the swim and the weather was starting to warm up too.
3. Followed the strategy perfectly - much due to the acknowledgement that I didn't prepare well for the bike, so it will be better to be more conservative and save my legs for the run, rather than going all out on the bike in glory and suffer later - not that I can keep up with the field anyway...
4. Much as I had told myself and Dear - Yes, my bike is horribly underwhelming and heavy, and is a major reason why my cycling sucks. This time even to the point that I didn't repair the broken gear shifter cables before going for the race - my front deraileurs didn't work. Not that it's a big problem for this race though since the course was totally flat, so it didn't affect much.

T2:

1. Good strategy to leave the Honey Stinger waffle in T2, as I was starting to get hungry on the bike.
2. Took my time to chomp down the waffle and salt stick, and wash everything down with Endura and water, before slowing running out of the TA

Run:

1. Best.Run.of.my.Life 
2. First time completing a 21km run with no sweat! The weather was dry, so basically all the sweat evaporated during the run, instead of dripping down to my shoes in all of my races in the past. 
3. It was a full 100% run - no walking (less water breaks) - something that I had never been able to achieve in all of my Triathlon races in the past.
4. Even though the run was dry, I'm keenly aware that I'm still losing water during the run, especially when the salt deposits on my trisuit started to build up. Maintaining discipline on rehydrating at every single water aid station was important.
5. Toilet break - I had actually endured this for half of the bike, and lasted all the way till around 16km mark before taking that single toilet break - much of it due to the toilets always being occupied when I ran past them. The other reason was to maintain that slight pain and urgency in the system so that I don't slow down to walk. The pain was starting to get a bit more unbearable at 16km, so it was good timing to visit the loo then. And instead of taking off the trisuit from top down to pee (and get a cramp in the shoulder), I chose to pull the trisuit up and just pass the urine out from below - works better and faster.
6. First 4km of the run was painful as expected, as I tried to run off the cramps which was caused by lactic acid build up during the bike. Maintaining the run cadence at around 175 helped to keep my discipline and true to my strategy, it worked well and I managed to speed up to a 6:30 pace and kept at it throughout the rest of the race without getting into cramps again.

One Major Rookie mistake:

• I joined the wrong wave start - so my wave actually swam off 48 minutes before I started. Should have double triple quadruple checked my wave details instead of assuming.
• What actually happened - I remember registering myself as 34 years old as the website stated that our age should be taken as of the day of the race (since I have not passed my birthday, I shouldn't be in the 35-39 old man group!)
• So I was waiting to start in the 30-34 group instead of 35-39 group.
• My friends were all in the 45-49 group so they just swam off in the wave before the 30-34 group
• Moment of realization came when I saw the entire group of 30-34 going into the swim start pen with pink swim caps (whereas I was wearing a yellow one).
• So I just went into the pen, and checked with the race officials that my wave had left long time ago, and I could leave anytime I was ready.
• Then I just unceremoniously walked the walk of shame and jumped into the water with the entire group of 30-34 watching on curiously at this dumbo.
• Point to self - Never ever assume again!!
• However, this experience has confirmed one thing - that the timing starts after checking-in on the swim start timing mat. It doesn't start with your wave. So I ended up with an official timing that was 6 minutes faster than my actual timing, as I checked in together with the 30-34 wave, which started 6 minutes after my walk of shame. - Myth busted!

 

Well, looking at the registration details shown on the official race results - it's really confusing isn't it? Age 34 but Division 35-39....

Target setting for 703 Busselton 2016

The Jellyfish wounds have healed probably 80%, still smarting every now and then whenever I make a large arm movement which will tear the wound open again.

Borrowed a wetsuit from my friend, and tried fitting into it on Sunday after my class ended. Boy, it was an eye-opening experience. Insanely difficult to even put my leg through the pants, and trying to pull it all the way up was just energy sapping. The age-old plastic bag trick really helps though.
Trying to swim in the wet suit felt strange as well, as it changes my balance quite a fair bit, and the part of the suit being pretty constricting as well worries me a little. Bad experience from the last wetsuit swim race that I did not finish. Hopefully this time I'll fare better

The longest bike training that I had clocked this season is probably 50km - roughly half the distance of what is needed in the 703 bike leg

Been desperately trying to clock up a bit of mileage for my run over the last 2 weeks, but I'm keenly aware that my body has not been properly tuned up from my runs.

Well, I will just have to survive this race, and make it back before the cut off time.
Being the last wave to start doesn't really help...

Course cut off time is 7.5 hours.

Let's take a look at my own race time estimates:

• SWIM: Within 45 mins
• T1: 8 mins - taking off the wetsuit will take a bit of time
• BIKE: 3h 30min - and this is being optimistic
• T2: 5 mins - shouldn't have issues here, except that I may take the usual toilet break
• RUN: 3h - just survive. Even if I walk the entire course it shouldn't take me longer than what happened at Cebu or Taiwan to finish the 21km.

Targeted race time: 7h 28min
Dangerously close to the cut off time, but there is nothing much that I can do now except to accept the fact that I had screwed up the race prep with the bad injury and I'll just have to go out and enjoy the race instead of worrying about how slow I'll go.

My just survive race strategy:

• SWIM: Keep it slow and steady. Prepared the sea sickness pills and lots of body glide to minimize chaffing. Don't get short of breath or sea sick, as it will be impossible to recover with the super constricting wetsuit. Let my technique shine and forget about keeping pace with the sprinters
• BIKE: Maintain steady state effort and stay in aero position as far as possible. Keep spinning at the appropriate RPM with steady state effort. Do not attempt to surge/ keep pace/ overtake others. Maintain mid to low effort and save the legs for the run.
• RUN: No brick training done means my legs will be bricked after T2. Just maintain short stride lengths with high cadence at recovery pace to allow the legs to recover and flush out the lactic acid build up, so that I can quickly return to the normal steady state run form.

Most importantly - Do not make the same mistake at the aid stations during the Bike leg. Safety first.

Worst ever prep for 703

Probably going to suffer big time for this 703.
11 days to the race and I'm not even prepared for it.

Had not been able to train properly since the jellyfish sting from PD Swimathon 3 weeks ago.
The wounds just couldn't heal or close up properly, and gotten infected.
Finished a course of antibiotics to stave off the infection but it ain't closing up yet.

Just hope that I can survive this 703...

Happy Family Day

Took the day off together with Dear to bring the kids out to catch the rare solar eclipse.
It was a good decision.

Reached Bishan Park Macdonald's around 7.30am, when the eclipse was just starting.
Picked up a free solar filter from the Singapore Sidewalk Astronomy society that was supporting the event there. Ryan had a field day catching the view of the eclipse through the solar filter spectacles, through the filtered telescopic lens provided by the society, as well as our DIY home-made solar pinhole camera.

It was a pretty novel experience.
It wasn't a total blackout like what used to be shown on Chinese period drama as 天狗蚀日, but feels more like an unusually thick layer of cloud covering the sun momentarily.
Not observable by the naked eye.

Ryan could tell us that it is a "Crescent Sun".
Glad that he could have this educational experience at such a young age.
Afterall, this is the first time that his dad is catching a solar eclipse at the age of 34 years old!

Brought the kids to the grass field to play frisbee and boomerang that we had brought along. Ryan had lots of fun chasing down the frisbee and boomerang after their flight. Next step is to teach him how to throw them properly into flight.

Rainie had a great time walking around the grass field as well. Just let her walk and tumble on the grass, ignoring how dirty her clothes would get.

After bringing the kids back home and washing up, we brought them out to City hall again for another education trip - National Gallery of Singapore.

Didn't know that we had such an awesome art gallery, that is FOC to all Singaporeans.
The entire place felt more like we were in Australia rather than in SG. The kids had much fun playing in the kids arts exhibit. Best part is that, going on a weekday afternoon, there is practically no other visitors. We didn't have to Q at all, and had the entire place to ourselves.

Oh, it was a public transport trip as well, so it was LRT, MRT, bus all the way.
Applied for Ryan's child EZ link card as well, so he can now tap his own card to access the public transportation.

All in all, it was a really worthwhile and enjoyable day with the kids.
Can really see the joy in their eyes.

Should do this more often.

Fruitful trip to Klang last weekend

Did a solo trip to Klang last weekend to conduct one Level 1 class and 2 Basics workshop, which both went pretty well.

Set off on Sat morning at 4am, and reached the swimming pool around 8.30am - Could have been earlier if I had not set the GPS to the breakfast location instead of the swimming pool.

Ran the first Level 1 class session between 12PM-3PM. First time running the full class without any kind of support or supervision. Having done a short 1-1 coaching session in SG helped a fair bit on streamlining the issues that I'm expecting to see and tools that I will need to use. Pretty good results after the first session.

1st Basics workshop between 5PM-9PM, which 3 out of 6 students chose to sign up for the Level 1 class even though we did not have any specific dates laid out for Level 1 yet, which was pretty encouraging

2nd Basics workshop on Sunday 8AM-12PM was kinda interesting, as I was thrown the curveball of having 3 Muslim ladies in my class, so I had to be extra cautious about any kind of physical contact out of respect for them. It was interesting though, as I had to adjust my class to be even more succinct and effective with minimal contact, on the go. It actually worked pretty well in fact, that I had to innovate more to overcome the challenges and limitations. The 3 muslim ladies were pretty happy about the results of their basics workshop and signed up for the Level 1 class as well.

The subsequent 2 sessions for Level 1 classes went very smoothly, and from the reactions of the students, I probably had far exceeded their expectations from attending my class.

Having been through the same curriculum as an end-user, understanding the pain points of the end users, and addressing them proactively when I was the coach, really helped to improve my lesson plans and the way I teach.

I had only the general lesson plan in place, had no specific steps or sequence on what to teach, which actually worked pretty well as I adjusted my tempo according to the real time needs rather than following a fixed formula, which may not work at times.

Coming from a Sales background definitely helped in my communications skills and style. Coupled with the passion for the sport/coaching, it probably helped to create a warm aura of true coaching which the students endeared to, rather than a cold calculating salesman trying to close an order.

Did a debriefing at the end of the classes for my 2 new assistant coaches, and it seems that they warmed up very quickly to me as well after seeing how differently I conduct my classes. Bought them dinner after the classes and got to know them better as well. Hearing their feedback on the classes and business over an informal setting is the best way to gather honest input.

Left Klang at 9.30PM and reached home at around 3PM after numerous stops to catch the full moon + planet alignment along the R&R stops.


It has only been 9 months since I started swim coaching (or even lesser as we had to complete our long hours of training first before doing any kind of coaching), but I had learnt plenty of stuff along the way. While the business revolves around swim coaching, the skills that I had picked up along the way extends beyond that. I've got more chance to practice my communications, presentation and "selling" skills, which will be useful no matter where I go.

2015 Review

Jan - Rainie was born!
Feb - Free from HDB loan!
Mar -
Apr - First business trip to Beijing & Shenzhen. First Trip to Czech Republic, Prague. Joined TI as part time coach
May - First business trip to Delhi
Jun - First TI coaching assignment in Malaysia
Jul -
Aug - Crashed and completed Cebu 703. Family Retreat at Sunway lagoon
Sep -
Oct - Conducted highly successful APJ partner conference. Awesome Family holiday in Sydney
Nov - First visit to Orlando and Miami. Completed Swim Expo Asia 8.35km swim. First Business trip to Taiwan
Dec - First trip to Tokyo with Ryan and Shan. Completed my 14th StanChart Marathon.


The not so nice stuff about 2015:

• Bike crash at Cebu 703
• First time spending my birthday away from the whole family - felt really bad and lonely
• Spending too much time away from home, resulting in Ryan telling me to go "home" (to the swimming pool) during bed time

Key events for in 2016:

• Co-investment in the swim school in Malaysia 
• Taking over SG Swim school local operations as a part timer
• Spending more time in Japan and China to grow the channel business more rapidly
• Busselton 703
• Phuket 703

Reviewing my 2015 checklist:

• Pick up new skills (Any of interest) - Pretty good mileage with this, turning the swimming skills into business opportunity!
• Family vacation travels - Australia trip with the family was awesome. The Sunway lagoon retreat could have been better if I wasn't injured, but it was nonetheless a good getaway for the whole family.
• Complete 2 x 70.3 - Completed only 1. Given the busy schedule that I was running for my day job and TI part time coaching and training, there wasn't any possibility to squeeze an additional race anyway. To compensate, will do two in 2016 to get ready for a full IM in 2017
• IPPT Gold again (Done!!)
• Career Progression - New role (Done!!)
• Write up long term Sales consultancy business plan - Had some interesting ideas about this when I was giving some counseling to Dennis. Instead of running the Sales consultancy business alone, it may be more worthwhile and substantial to be able to pull in our network of successful Sales people to exponentially widen the sales credentials of the entire team (which can be on project-basis), instead of just building up my own sales skills over 10+ years. This will be a long term project though. KIV while I build up the sports business.
• Improve stock portfolio - this is where I actually fluffed up. Even though I can better understand and read the markets. It is after going through the lessons and subsequently applying the skills myself, then it was evident that my interest isn't really in trading. Stocks was just an investment vehicle for me to find an avenue to possibly grow my money. Looking at 2016, the opportunity to invest in the sports business, and another opportunity to invest in Bro's VC business, I may start to divest my cash positions from stocks and just use purely CPF SRS and possibly CPFIS for stock investment. 

StanChart 42km Race Report
Totally forgot about writing this, as the results was awful
Think I took around 5.27 to complete

I guess the preparations for this year was worse than last year. Only managed to clock roughly a 10km run just within the month before the run.
Was deliberately going slow for the first half of the run since I did not train, so probably going slow and keeping my legs for the second half will work better for me, but I could only last till around 23km before I started walking for the rest of the race.
Wasn't planning on going sub-5, so I really took it easy again and just targeted to complete the run without injuries.
Live to fight another day.