Hello 2020

It has been a whirlwind of back-to-back December holidays, so much so that I had completely lost track of time and what I'm supposed to do.

Went on a mixed biz/pleasure trip to Australia 1 week after completing my ICT, this time together with Shan and for the first time in 7 years, without the kids.

It was a short impromptu holiday for Shan and we went back to Melbourne again, after a long 8 years from our 1st Honeymoon trip. Just did a short weekend stay in Mornington, visiting the places that we didn't really manage to cover 8 years ago, and back to the CBD for her to unwind a bit while I finished up my biz meetings. Overall a good relaxed trip for Shan. The extra loyalty points from the hotel and lots of spare AUD cash on hand meant that it wasn't as expensive as it was supposed to be.

Straight after returning from Australia, was a 3D2N trip to JB together with the family. Stayed 2 nights at the familiar Hotel Jen in Iskandar Puteri Harbour. Let the ladies do their shopping and the kids play at the indoor playground. Good short break for the kids to bond, and spend some time with Dad and mum as well.

Did a Xmas BBQ at Sis's place and spent most of the time playing catch with the kids.
Xmas itself was spent at Takashimaya for our annual photoshoot with the large 4 storey high indoor Xmas tree. Good thing that we managed to get our photo taken, just merely 1 hour before the tree was taken down

Then another 2D2N cruise trip with Shan's parents on Dream Cruise. It has been at least 10 years since Shan and myself last stepped onto a Cruise ship, and that was when I had proposed to her back then. It was Ryan's first time as well, but probably Rainie's 3rd time. The kids had a good time playing at the waterslides and indoor kids club, while I had my first ever rock climbing experience.
Always thought it was much harder than it looks, but it wasn't too difficult for me physically, just a lack of experience in planning the climb, so I probably will give it a try again sometime in the near future.

Brought the kids to the Snow city for the first time, as we missed out the final day of the Line Friends World Tour Snow House at Plaza Sing. Good 2 hours of fun for the kids in the freezing temperature since we didn't visit any cold countries for holidays this year.

New Year countdown was uneventful.
Tucked the kids to bed early, then Shan and myself went back to our room to search for live broadcast of NYE countdown celebrations online. Was pretty funny that we were using multiple devices to check on countdowns from various countries/locations, and came across this picture on facebook, with a poignant hashtag that succinctly described what we were doing
#老了都在家里跨年

Summary of 2019 for major events:

• Ryan started P1
• We moved house - 1st time staying in a Condo
• Made a major purchase, bought a new place - will be ready in Aug 2019
• Mum facing Health issues
• Visited new countries/locations - Nepal, Sri Lanka, Hungary (Budapest), Minneapolis, Bangalore
• 2x Family Holidays: Hong Kong in June, JB in December
• First weekend spent (alone) in Korea - Did an awesome hike at their National Park
• Team swim across Straits of Qiongzhou (Jellyfish)
• Team swim around Perhentian (nice)
• 18th Stanchart Full Marathon in less than 5.30 (official records messed up)

Final words for 2019:Not really a good year. Top 3 reasons: 

• Mum running into health issues
• Ryan's deteriorating behavioural problems
• Issues at work

Hoping 2020 will be a better year. Greatest wishes for 2020:

• My both Dads and Mums stay healthy and strong
• Ryan to improve his behaviour and emotion control
• Better performance at work

18th SCSM Race Report

Hadn't been keeping up with writing Race Reports nowadays.
Missed doing the race report on Perhentian OWS which was done in Oct.

This is my 18th installation of participating in the SCSM race, consecutively.
Started running the FM back in 2002 and never looked back since then.
And over the years, the SCSM has taken a backseat on my race priority list, and I see this mostly as a fun run and a benchmark check on my physical fitness level.

There were a number of occasions when my ICT IPPT fell uncomfortably close to the Marathon.
And this year was the closest as it can get.
IPPT on Wednesday, Marathon on Saturday

Back during my active days, doing 10 min flat for 2.4km run was a breeze and I could do it everyday.
After leaving the service, I could still clock sub-11 min runs, but with increasing effort levels as I aged.

Again with the IPPT and Marathon so close to each other, I had to prioritize scoring well for the IPPT for the monetary incentive.

In the last 1.5 months leading up to the IPPT, I had been building up the habit of hitting the gym treadmill at least once every 2 to 3 days to clock a tempo run, and gradually increasing the pace.
This worked well and I managed to clock 10:17 for my IPPT this year, a good 20+ sec improvement from last year, and with lower level of exertion and post-run recovery was much shorter as well.

For my Marathon prep, the longest run that I had clocked was only around 15km, thus I was expecting to probably hit around 5:30 for the race. The focus on IPPT training meant that I could run faster short bursts but unable to maintain my slow long run pace.

The past 17 editions of the SCSM were flagged off early in the morning, usually around 5am
The flag off was changed to 6pm for an evening race this year
Was this a Good change? I'm not too sure about that. At least it's not a ridiculous flag off at the midnight like Sundown

The flag off for my Pen was at around 6.40pm and I was targeting to maintain at around 9km/h speed for the first 3 hours, and to walk for the rest of the race.
Was pretty consistent and felt pretty strong in the first 2 hours and accurately clocked 18km.
However, I started to feel some weakness in the right hamstring and calf and eventually chose to walk at around 25km.

It was a conscious decision to walk a lot more than I really needed.
A good change of strategy from what I used to do in the past. Instead of slowing my pace to delay cramps and then walk when cramps set in, I chose to walk way much ahead of any cramps setting in, and throw in some sporadic short runs to bump up the pace a little.

I was mentally tired in the later part of the run. Not sure if this was due to lack of physical conditioning, or if I was just sleepy. The day before the race was spent at the wedding lunch and a little bit of shopping, so I definitely felt a lot sleepier as it inched towards midnight.

Issues on the race kit - good choice of top and vaseline at the arms as usual.
Incorrect choice of tights as it caused abrasion on my bum for the final 8km

Somehow I felt a lot more thirsty in this race, and drank a lot more compared to the past, but I didn't had any side effects though. Probably due to the increased walk mileage compared to running with a struggle.

Took no toilet breaks this time as I managed to clear my bowels twice at the hotel before going to the starting point.

Joining the wedding lunch meant that I got to park my car at Marina Sq before the roads were closed, so I didn't get into any carpark or traffic jams issues for this year. A huge departure from the last 4 to 5 years where I started extremely late every time.

And the Finishing was extremely strong this year, as I was still able to sprint to the finishing line and yet not get any cramps - conserved way too much energy, but not a problem since I'm not going for any PBs anyway

POST RACE RECOVERY
Did active massage and stretching after the race before I went back to sleep.
Clocked 6 laps of swim in the following day.
There were some pain in my knees, but I knew that I had corrected my running gait and had good alignment, so I wasn't worried about the pain
Did a 3.4km run on the treadmill 2 days after the race to flush out the lactic acid, and felt sore immediately after the run, though the acid cleared up fairly quickly after that.

This is probably the shortest recovery period that I ever had for SCSM -- max of 2.5 days and back to normal.

Next Up: Desaru 70.3 - I have 20 weeks to start building up my cycling base again

Jellyfish nightmare

It has been 3 years since my last Jellyfish sting in PD, and boy it did have a lasting impact on me.
Apart from the scars on my arms, it left another lingering scar in my mind.
I was scared of getting into the Open Water for a good part of the year, especially in murky waters where visibility is limited and I can't see any further than 3m ahead.
Nonetheless, subsequent races in open waters went pretty safely so I gradually managed to get over the fear.

That was until the recent Open Water race in Hainan, China, where my relay team had to swim across the Qiongzhou Straits from Hainan Island to China mainland.

To be honest, the swim wasn't too difficult, since each of us only had to swim for 1 hour for each leg, and we get to rest for 3 hours in between.

However, my worst fears were confirmed when our 1st swimmer got stung by jellyfish just as he was completing his first leg. We ran into a sea of jelly fish...

The 2nd swimmer then jumped into the water, teeming with jellyfish all over the place. Soon he racked up lots of jellyfish stings, and our guide instructed for all swimmers to swim as close to the boat as possible, while he started to scoop jellyfish out of the way of the swimmer from the bow of the boat. Despite best efforts, we still ran into more jellyfish as there were too many to clear.

I was worried for my team member as he was much younger and inexperienced, and probably a much lower pain threshold than me. By the time for me to take over, I jumped immediately into the sea of jellyfish and took over the mantle from him. It was my turn to suffer.

True enough, I started to get stung almost immediately when I started to swim. Can't remember how many times I got stung. On both arms, chest, legs, basically all over the body. It hurt, but I was mentally prepared so it wasn't as scary as the time I got stung in PD. That was, until I was finishing up my leg, and I got a direct hit in the left goggle and all over my face. It was way worse than getting it on the limbs.

Soon after I finished off my leg, got onto the boat and had my team mate to apply vinegar on my face. It was hurting so much that I couldn't open my eye for quite some time. Was really worried that it may affect my vision or leave a huge scar like the previous one.

Nonetheless, everyone in the team persevered, and we managed to complete the swim over around 9 hours.Of course I had to swim another 2 times.

Went straight to the hospital after I got back to mainland, not even bothering to wash up first, as I didn't want to repeat the same mistake of waiting too long before seeking medical assistance. Did and cleared my blood test, was put on drip with medication. Pain was mostly limited to the stings on my face.

Went to the doctor again after returning to Singapore, but was only given antibiotics and anti-histamines as jellyfish stings are uncommon in Singapore, and the doctor wasn't sure on the specific treatment, except to treat it as a normal animal bite. Subsequently stayed away from seafood for 2 weeks on my own accord.

Some scars still remains visible on my face today, just hope that it will gradually fade away on its own.

My heart was not scarred this time. Saw the 70.3 Desaru race open, and Dear gave the green light, so I signed up without hesitation this time.

However, if I'm so unlucky to hit another jellyfish in the upcoming Perhentian race, then it probably means that I'm not fated to do any more racing in Open waters and I'll just give it up.

Just pray hard for a safe race...

Longer business trips

Seems that this is the year of longer business trips spanning over 2 weeks
First was in April, where I had to visit Japan on one week followed by another week in USA.
Early July was in Kathmandu for 1 week, before going to Cambodia for 2 weeks.
This week in Korea, Japan, Korea and Japan again before coming home. Again, over 2 weeks
Coming in October, half week in Malaysia for my race, before another full week in East Malaysia for work.

Whenever I travel on business trips, I'd always play Ghibli or Disney lullaby music at night, to remind myself of my 2 precious kids back at home, possibly sleeping soundly to the lullaby that I'm listening to.

It's usually the series of Ghibli lullaby that gets me, since I had kept playing back that soundtrack during the 2 hokkaido holidays that I had with the kids.

思念...
How I wish to bring the family on a nice holiday again ...

爸爸去哪儿-北海道之感想篇 (下）

Day 6

A day of sleep till you feel shiok enough and wake up according to your whims.

Brown and Sally were accompanying us throughout the trip, and for those who know me well enough, they are supposed to represent Daddy and Ryan. So we will still take them out for photos from time to time.

The snow fall overnight was pretty heavy, and my car was covered with snow when we were going to leave the hotel.


Daddy wasn't done with the farms yet, and made another dumb decision to drive to the nearby Tomita Melon House to see if it is really closed. And yes, it is closed. No smart and no luck


So I just aimlessly drove around the area to see if there are anymore surprise finds, only to find out that the whole area is deserted. Though the fresh snow meant that driving through the forest will look pretty awesome (that's if we don't have any accidents).


And since the snow was still fresh in the area, we just drove up to an empty open carpark, and just settled there for another round of snowman making together with a video call with mummy to show her and mei mei what we were doing live (improvised the snowman buttons with coins, which was a bad idea as it was difficult to remove after we were done, and I ended up with frostbites on my fingers)
 
It was a long drive back into Sapporo. Returning the car was a challenge though as I had to unload the luggage at the new hotel without car park access (public parking is horrendously expensive in the city) and finding the exact location of the car rental office was another challenge too. Topping up the fuel tank has to be done at the nearest petrol station and receipt must be shown (which I didn't take from the attendant - lesson learnt) to the car rental staff.

And off we go to the Odori Park X'mas market. The atmosphere, set up, illumination, xmas tree and shops were all spot on. It was a true X'mas market with the snow still falling on us while we made our way through the illumination displays across multiple parks and shops at the market.



It was a long tiring day for Ryan boy, and he totally concussed after going back to the hotel

Day 7
It's going to be another long day of taking the trains around the city, which will be fun for the boy. Ryan was still in high spirits on waking up, so after a pancake breakfast with Dino Brown and Sally chick, off we went to the famous Shiroi Koibito factory (or more commonly known as 白色恋人 in our part of the world).



There were plenty of signages along the way from the train station to the factory, so it was pretty easy getting around



The park around the factory was free for visiting and photo-taking.
The design was pretty quaint (half-timbered old German-styled architecture) together with a good handful of small houses/huts, a double-decked stationary London bus, a tree house and a mini-train that runs around the campus, which makes it an excellent place for photo-lust.



And of course, the factory/ museum itself was amazing in it's own rights, detailing the history of chocolate making and a view of the production floor (from above)



There was also workshops available for some hands-on for making your own Chocolate cookie, which I had to get Ryan to take up (I thought it was pretty fun though)



Their cafe was fully packed though, otherwise I would have chosen to take lunch there. Nonetheless, their soft serve ice cream at ground floor was outstanding - and I had lost count of the number of soft serves that I had taken throughout the trip...




And the standalone pop-corn stall just next to the park was pretty decadent too..
I think we probably spent close to 4 hours here (inclusive of time at a complimentary kids indoor playground). After that, we just went off to the Softbank Sapporo Factory, which had been revamped into a shopping mall - some nice deco, but nothing noteworthy of in my opinion. We were only looking for a place for some afternoon tea.

After night fall, we went on to the underground shopping mall, and found an outlet for the famous kinotoya bake cheese tart



and carried on to Susukino before settling down on a ramen shop for dinner, and finally making a 2nd trip to the illumination display again at Odori park, before retiring for the day



Day 8 (last day in Hokkaido)
Shopping day! Well, at least I had to buy some stuff back for mei mei.
Walked to the JR Tower, and the sun was just behind us in the morning, which yielded one of my favourite shot of the trip - the shadows of Daddy and son holding hands in the snow
 

After a long internal struggle by Ryan on whether he should buy the UFO catcher toy, or the vending machine toy, we eventually ended up buying both 2 large toys, with Daddy getting worried on whether he will be able to carry all of these luggage single handedly to the airport



Well, Daddy will always find a way to pack all the luggage isn't it...
Took the train back to CTS airport with some time to spare, as the airport itself has a couple of pretty new attractions as well.

Royce chocolate factory - where we went on another shopping spree to buy chocolate gifts for his teachers




And we eventually chose to go into Hello Kitty land instead of Doraemon land, due to the limited time left for the tour. Pretty good choice as we were the only ones in the theme park and had the whole place to ourselves. Though it was just an elaborate photo-taking session with various Country-themes



After the check in, there wasn't any additional checks on the hand-carry luggage, and I see almost everyone carrying oversized hand-carry onboard. So we continued unabated with the snack buying in the departure hall. Once onboard, Lady Luck smiled on us and left the 3rd seat in our row empty, and Ryan got to lie down to sleep on my lap on the flight back to SG.




Final thoughts
Even though there were trying times during this trip, where Ryan just didn't want to eat despite not consuming much food (he actually lost weight over the trip), and I had scolded him numerous times for that, his body language told me that he was really enjoying himself throughout the entire trip, and true to that, he continued to express that this was the best time of his life on numerous occasions throughout 2018.

I made a promise to Ryan that I'll bring him back to visit Hokkaido again someday, and true to promise, that we will be making a return together with Mummy and Mei mei at the end of 2018.

Hope that our Round 2 will be as fascinating as the first trip!

Work lessons

It was a horrible week at work

But having calmed my shit down over the weekend and having the Wise-Me review what and where went wrong with the Pride-Me, clearly shows that I still have much to learn at work

Long story (and tweaked context for confidentiality)... an indirect superior that I had been working with for a long time, grilled me for something that he thought had been completed some time ago.

When he didn't get the "right answer" that he was expecting from me, he started to ask WHY the shit wasn't done yet.

I went into details telling him that we were given wrong info by another dept, and I had laid the ground work to clear their shit before we can get to the answer he wanted, and he was copied in the emails too.

He lost it and started to question every single thing that I did, and asked me to provide the relevant documentation, which I dutifully did, 6x over, with time stamps organised in chronological order.

Still, not the answer that he wanted, and he pulled me into a 1-1 meeting asking me for the answer he wanted. Meeting didn't go well and I became extremely frustrated at why a one time strong ally had suddenly changed into a stubborn bull that refuses to see the 1001 pieces of evidence that were placed in his face, and just want to bulldoze his way to get his expected answer.

In the 2nd external meeting on the same day, he went ahead to commit to a key customer (with extremely poor credit, that just made a 1 year payment for the last 12 months monthly instalment payment) that a product feature (which is NOT ready yet) is ready for the customer to use today, with 3 months deferred payment terms, in whatever kind of currency that they wish to pay in, to whomever in the company that they wish to pay to.

I was questioned why I didn't go and understand what was this customer's pain, which I explained that it was well documented together with our local sales person, that the customer had a ungrounded fear of our bank devulging his contact details to his competitor.

Good thing is that the superior wanted me to send the meeting minutes out after a 3rd internal call on the same day. I just wrote whatever he committed and distributed to the wider audience (credit, finance, operations) on his words and commitments, at verbatim.

Reactions came in fast n furious as expected.

Clarifications and warnings came, stating the exact same words that I had used. But they received the same stubborn bull reaction too.

So everyone concluded that things were getting confusing and wanted me to organise a meeting call to clarify matters.

"Great. Just the audience that I needed to back me up"

The superior called me in for another 1-1 the next day, and after both of us had calmed down a bit. He spoke of observing my "changed behaviour" that I was getting defensive instead of being open like what I used to be. He still didn't want to hear any explanations on what happened or where went wrong. So I just pointed out to him that he didn't provide the resources that he had promised to commit to make our project a successful one. We went away from this meeting with a follow up from my side to write down what I needed from him.

The 3rd call still has not taken place yet, but I took some time to summarise all the lengthy emails into a 1 page visual process and sent it to all through the calendar invite. Received positive response from close colleagues on the clarity.

From this LONGGGGGG story, there were numerous observations:

1) When in the face of being picked-on, Pride-Me was obsessed with being right instead of being expedient. Bad choice to choose Justice over Political correctness

2) Pride-Me was too emotionally charged and got defensive, and went head on with a charging bull

3) Pride-Me expected the same old reasonable behaviour from the indirect superior that he had worked with for years. He has changed. Remember the book, Who Moved My Cheese

4) Pride-Me didn't realise that my customer in this instance is the indirect superior. Don't expect the customer to understand u, it's your job to understand the customer, what he wants, and give it to him to close the damned order

When a stubborn bull is charging at you, instead of trying to be a brainless warrior and tackle it head on, be like a bullfighter. Guide the bull to where you want him to charge to with the red flag. Let it ram into the wall if there's a need. I don't advocate back stabbing though. Just don't freaking stand in the way and tank the charging damage!

If all fails, just roll over and pretend to die. Live to fight another day.

Pride-Me wants to win every single battle.
Wise-Me chooses the important ones to win

1st proper swim coaching for Ryan

It has been a long wish of mine to teach Ryan how to swim, ever since I became a swim coach.

Ryan never really took to the water, and was even slightly water phobic, thus I had been receiving non-stop questions along the line of "you are a swim coach, your son must be a good swimmer too"

Pool sessions in the past were mostly confined to the pool at Sis's condo, usually when all the kids will be crowding around me to play, and Ryan will shy away at one corner to play with his water gun.

Even the previous 1-1 session at Pasir Ris swimming complex didn't went well, simply due to the fact that Ryan still wasn't mentally resilient enough to put in enough effort and tenacity to learn a difficult life skill, which requires a long period of learning, rather than something that he can pick up in a minute or 2.

After about 4 months of classes with People Impact, I can tell the obvious improvement in Ryan's behaviour on accepting challenges and not easily giving up when asked to.

So, I took some time off this afternoon to pick up Ryan earlier from school to go for a 1-1 swim coaching session at SAFRA Yishun, when the pool isn't crowded.

Concepts on coaching adults to swim can be adapted and used on kids as well.
The fundamental flow is still similar, even with the TI method, though the basics have to be even more elaborate, explicit and abridged, since kids will not be able to understand complex concepts.

Instead of jumping straight into learning strokes, which most swim coaches will do, I focused on getting Ryan more confident and comfortable in water first.

He is a timid and cautious boy when it comes to physical activities, thus will require a fair bit of prompting and experimentation, before he is willing to adopt and learn new subskills.

Today's curriculum:

• Basic prone flutter kick (no cycling kick)
• Bubbling out underwater in upright position
• Bouncing Bear
• Crab Walk

Part of these are probably part of the old CSA curriculum that I had previously taught, but honestly I don't have much recollection of what was in the curriculum. These were by experience and gut feel on what will help Ryan to gain water confidence through play, rather than over focus on achieving a perfect flutter kick or breaststroke kick.

I was pleasantly surprised that Ryan eventually managed to do all of the above and even took the initiative to practice more at the end of the session when I asked him to leave the pool.

Gotta spend more time with the boy and get him to be able to swim a simple breaststroke before end of 2018

CIP 2018 Race Report

This race had the potential to be one of my best race, yet it turned out to be my first DNF due to a technical fault, which once again highlighted the glaring shortcoming in my racing repertoire - cycling.

Having done long distance road running (though not super outstanding) for years had given me enough experience on handling the effects and optimised my racing strategies based on my current physical conditions, I will also know when and how to push it when needed.

Swimming shouldn't even be a question since I'm carrying the TI name, though I should be looking at clocking even faster times

Cycling? Nah. Just use the same old cyclo-cross bike that I had bought years ago, with no upgrades or changes to the parts that I started with. (a well meaning friend helped me to procure this bike, thinking that I may need the versatility of handing different cycling conditions, even though I made it clear that the only reason to cycle is for racing tris. My fault that I can't tell the difference between road bike /tri bike /cyclo Cross)

Cheapo me trying to squeeze mileage out of the miserly fortune that I had spent on this bike, resulting in poor mediocre race results which I gladly used to explain poor race performances.

Again, the prep for CIP 2018 wasn't fantastic as I always do. No brick training, didn't clock the required mileage for each discipline, though I had a minor breakthrough in swimming.

After making some minor changes to my solo swim practices, of getting more used to faster tempo, I finally managed to, for the first time, break the 30 min barrier for 1500m in a pool. The gains were purely technique based rather than any physical conditioning, so I was pretty pleased when I clocked a 35min swim this year, which was pretty close to my pool pace. (a 10min improvement from last year, which I admittedly fared poorly)

The longest single ride that I managed to clock on training was at 78km, though I could feel that I managed to get some gains as well as I could feel I was getting stronger in the aeroposition. Though I had a minor episode in my final practice ride last week of getting stranded at the remote end of changi coastal road with 2 flats. The first was a long standing minute puncture that slowly deflated the rear tyre, which I realised on the ride and tried to fix it. I cleared out 2 small metal pieces from the tyre and used the CO2 cartridge to inflate the tyre, which ended up bursting immediately, as the inner tube was caught in a pinch by the tyre. Had to call dad for rescue at 6am without trying to get them worried about something really nasty that happened to me.

Well, it seems that I didn't really learn from that incident, and repeated the same mistake in the race. 25km into lap 1 and a fellow participant pointed out I was running on flat. Stopped by the road to fix it. Repeated the same steps but this time with the hand pump. The replacement was filling up nicely as I tried to get it to 80psi. And at the moment when I hit 80psi, I heard another burst, and at that moment, I realised that I repeated the same mistake and ended my race prematurely. My 1st DNF for a 703 race. Even when I was fully bloodied in cebu, I didn't give up.

This was technical, so there's no way I could get back into this race. As I came to grips with the reality of DNF, I could only pick myself up and slowly walk back to the transition area, hoping that the race officials will come by and spot me, and ferry me back to TA and put me out of my misery. After a long walk and multiple officials stopping by, one of them finally offered to ferry me and my bike on his motorbike - yes, handcarry my bicycle as I pillion on his motorbike. Whatever it takes man...

Got back to the officials tentage, and took my DNF, lamenting that chance of PB in such a rare fine weather. The officials suggested that I could continue with the run, just without timing chip and no official results (still DNF) and I jumped at the opportunity! Afterall I'm just after the fun of completing, timing didn't really mean much except for an official record. Not that the official timing will be of any use anyway.

Checked in my bike into the TA, did my T2 and started my run. It was a pretty unique experience though, as it was the time when the 1st female Pro just ran into T2, so I was effectively starting my run with the Pros!

Was a little ashamed of the fact that I'm a DNF, and the spectators took my photos as I ran past them, though I tried to keep my pace respectable in the first half of the run. Pretty chill to have the empty run course all to myself for lap 1, as I kept up the 5.30 to 5.45 pace for the first 10km.

Took the 2nd lap much more slowly as stitches and cramps started to set in. After a good 3km of run walk, I managed to get back into a slow jog to run off the pain. It never went off. I just managed to endure it as I picked up pace again as I got nearer to the finish line.

The time on my watch showed 1h59m as I crossed the finish line, but the distance seems to be 19km instead of 21km. Doesn't matter. What I had gathered was the damned mental strength and agility to manage the physical condition and pain to be just below the red line of cramping up again.

The race clock probably showed 4h51m when I crossed the finish line. I just kept low and walked back to the TA to pick up my hotel room card.

I probably raised a few eyebrows with the Elites on why this nondescript guy managed to finish so quickly.  (same expression I saw on those still cycling when I started run lap 1)

Even though this was a DNF, I guess I had more chuckles than being sad about it.

Key takeaways :
Best swim so far. Continue to refine my TI technique to continue improving!
Great management on the run. Grind through the pain and mental weakness, and the body can carry through.
Damned that freaking excuse of a lousy bike. Time to look into upgrading if I wanna continue racing Tris. Not only the physical bike, but also the knowledge, just like how I converted my worst discipline to my strongest suite. Time to get more technical.