Fantastic Holiday @ Bali

Just returned from a 4D3N holiday at Bali with Ryan, Dear and MIL.
It was a fantastic holiday especially for Ryan. He was super happy throughout the entire trip (except during the flight back home)

Thinking back of my previous trip to Bali, which was done about 5 years ago, for my wedding shoot, when Dear and I still had the time to go for white water rafting and surfing, this time it was more subdued and relaxed, with a focus to go much slower than what we did years ago.

I guess MIL was the 2nd most happy person for this trip (after Ryan boy). She was so fascinated and happy with all the foodstuff and clothings that she could buy from the local markets at extreme low prices. It was after a while then I started to understand that nice & expensive stuff is not what makes her happy. It is the joy of getting extreme value for money (read: ULTRA CHEAP buys aka SUPER BIG DISCOUNTS) that makes her happy. My mum does the same too. Probably our mothers' generation are too used to scrimping and saving for their whole life, that is why they derive so much joy from amazingly low priced discovery. So I just played along and kept emphasizing to her on how cheap the food is at the restaurants that we ate at, compared to the price that we will pay for the same thing back in SG.
$4.70 for a chicken Ravioli, $10 for a Risotto, $10 for a huge chilli crab with fries, $9 for a medium sized red snapper, $2 for gelato, etc.

Obviously the small boy is the happiest one in the group. From the moment he stepped into the villa, he just kept running around, in and out of each room, laughing all the time. And he continued doing that for all 4 days that we stayed there. He was very cooperative and well behaved (except during meal time) for the entire trip.

Best part of the trip for me was when I left Dear and MIL at the foot massage centre for a 1 hour massage, and I brought Ryan together with me back to Legian beach for a walk. After carrying him on the hip seat for most part of the day (and he didn't complain much), I thought it will be nice for him to be able to walk on the sandy beach after seeing other older kids running around freely where he wasn't allowed to. So after telling him that he had to hold on to my hand after I placed him on the ground, he got extremely excited and elated, and started to pull me along to run on the beach.

It was a genuine moment of bliss.

We ran and ran and ran, and Ryan just pulled me along, looking back at me at times and giving me his most sunshine, boyish and happy smile. Ryan melted daddy's heart just like that.


Although I did not get to do any of the water sports stuff which I'd have loved to do on Bali's famed beaches, the run with Ryan was rewarding enough for me for this entire trip.

Of course Dear will have enjoyed the trip much as well. It is a long awaited break away from work, and an even longer wait to return to the much anticipated Ultimo Italian restaurant that we dined at 5 years ago. The only downside is that we walked a little too much for her. Carrying a heavy tummy ain't easy.

Next holiday: Cebu Philippines in July/Aug 2015.

Freestyle Mastery Discovery Level 1 pool classes completed

Finally completed all the pool sessions for Level 1 today.
It has been a good 2 months of classes and I had definitely learnt a lot about efficient freestyle swimming.
Will just need to do more self practice in the pool and I'll probably be able to clock <40 70.3="" cebu.="" for="" in="" leg="" mins="" p="" swim="" the="">
Signed up for a few workshops on swimming and cycling by two gurus invited to Singapore.
Hopefully I'll be able to benefit much from these upcoming sessions to make my future training sessions more effective.


My old mentality of mashing my way through will probably cost me more time and mileage in the lead up to my goal of completing a full Ironman. Getting quality help along the way is always welcome.

It is always good to be able to train smart, gain more.

~~~

Just weighed myself moments ago and came to realize that I had lost about 2kg over the last few months. Hadn't been taking my weight regularly so it came as a pleasant surprise. I had been stuck at 70kg for a couple of years and low carb diets/trainings didn't really make any substantial weight loss.
Probably the regular swims helped a lot.

~~~

Finally going for a short getaway holiday (that has nothing to do with ironman) with Ryan & Dear in another 9 hours.
It has been a long awaited break for dear, and it should be fun for Ryan as well.
He is getting more and more interactive and fun nowadays; really a joy to be with.
Happy holidays!

ICT is over, back to office for the daily grind

Finally concluded the 2 weeks high key ICT yesterday.
Somehow time passed rather quickly.
Kinda enjoyed this ICT though.
Getting all the free time to chat with people outside of my usual circle and industry is always refreshing.

Back to work today and looking forward to the long awaited holiday break to Bali next week!


This will be my next challenge.
To complete 5 events in 1 day, a total of 8.35km swim
Technically speaking, after learning the TI technique, swimming any distance shouldn't be a difficult task if timing isn't a consideration.
At around 50% effort, I'll expect to finish the 3.8km in about 1.5hours. (assuming that I'll be able to avoid swimming offcourse)

Hadn't been running regularly for quite some time, partly due to the haze, and partly because I wanted to spend more time with Ryan and Dear on weekend mornings.
So I was pleasantly surprised with my regular distance run last night.
Went at a much faster pace than my last run, though I wasn't planning go fast. Not exactly a good thing if I had been training regularly, but it was a nice reminder that my legs could still hold up after such a long break. The extremely frequent swims in recent days probably helped a fair bit in keeping up the heart rate and endurance levels.

Will need to do more controlled runs in the next 2 months to prepare for StanChart

Swimming milestone achieved!!

It had always been a long standing milestone that I had been trying to achieve ever since I had started working on my swim for Triathlons.

I still remember the time when I used to pant heavily even after finishing 1 lap of freestyle in the pool, to being able to complete the 750m swim for my first Tri at Port Dickson in 2011.

After that it was a continued effort of self improvement through self study on a diet of YouTube videos and Triathlon books, which I managed to improve significantly till a plateau of around 2.10min/100m at an all out effort which is not sustainable for long distance swims.

After attending the TI swim classes, I had found significant improvements in streamlining my body position in the water for the swims, which made it a lot easier to swim with less efforts, but it only allowed me to achieve roughly the same speed as what I used to clock with the "power-your-way-through" swim technique.

Through lots of experimentation and YouTube videos on how the TI Masters swim, and trying to replicate their technique, I finally managed to make a breakthrough today on my swim, and finally clocked slightly below 2min/100m for numerous laps without overly exerting myself. Finally a major milestone has been breached!

This just confirms my belief that TI is really helping me to make significant improvements in my swim.

I'll need to continue to improve my technique further, to make the 2min/100m pace become an easy effort for me, then I'll subsequently target to break 1.45min/100m.

Once I get my swim techniques polished enough by end of 2014, I'll start to work on my bike techniques and endurance come 2015. Hopefully I'll be able to clock below 6.30hr for my next 70.3 challenge, so that it will give me a good foundation and confidence to tackle the Full Iron in 2016

Back for ICT high key

Originally thought that I could use the 2 weeks of ICT to get some proper rest, as it was a perfectly legitimate reason to get away from work and not respond to emails or calls, and probably spend a bit of time to do some physical training.


This ICT for me is basically stepping away from managing businesses for channel partners for a while and step into managing 20+ adults.

Well, issues kept me busy and I got more busy instead of getting the the rest I wanted
However, the upside of this job is that the more time I spend in the camp, the more time I spend talking to my men, and the good old stuff of NS comes seeping back in.

What do you do to kill time in camp?
Talk to each other to find out more about what they do for a living.
Many times we get insights into different industries or lives which we will never be able to see from our own daily lives. It is always interesting to see how diverse the outside world can be.
Part of my work involves getting to know my men better to foresee and nip issues in the bud before they manifest into potentially big/bad problems, so it is work + fun mixed into one.

It has been interesting so far.
I had came across a professional security body guard, an optical shop owner, an animation profession. I'll probably take classes from the body guard for self defense next year when some of my current classes end.
Probably will get to learn more about the rest of the platoon over the remaining 1 week.

Making the best out of my time!

Final 70.3 challenge before the ultimate upsize to full Ironman

 

Signed up for this yesterday when registration opened and *BOOMZ* all slots were grabbed up within 3 hours.

Typically I will race a fixed distance for a minimum of 3 times to gain enough experience before deciding to upgrade to the next longer distance.

So this will be my third and last 70.3 test before I deem myself ready to move up to a full Ironman race. 

Doesn't mean that I'll not do 70.3 in the future anymore though. Taiwan still remains as an unfinished challenge without completing the swim. I feel that the timing of Taiwan 70.3 is in the wrong season, so the weather is unstable and the odds of swim cancellation again is on the high side. Will need to check this year's edition to see if it will be worth the trouble to do Taiwan 70.3 again.

My #2 baby will be 6 months old by then.

Not sure if it will be a good idea to bring #2 along for the race, or just leave her in SG and bring Ryan along.

Good to get a defined sporting goal to work towards again.

I'll probably clock another couple of ODs next year before Cebu 70.3

Full Ironman will most probably happen in 2016

Busy September

It has been a hectic month till date, but I'm enjoying it though.

Commenced on my swimming class and just completed my stock trading class last saturday.

The stock trading class has been pretty intense and useful.

I had been buying stocks since 2012 but had no idea of how to properly evaluate a stock to make sure it is good, and no idea of how to take profit, when to enter and exit etc. I had made profits and losses over the last few years without knowing why.
As the common saying goes: "What you don't pay in school fees, you will pay a bigger amount through losses"
Since the biggest paper loss that I had made was more than the course fees itself, I thought that I might as well go learn how to do trading and investments properly instead of continuing to deceive myself that I'll do enough self study on the various free online resources and I'll be one day become a God of Stocks.
Time to grow up and face the reality.

Sure, I had took Biz Minors in NTU, and went through classes on understanding the stock markets, but back then, it was all theoretical stuff without solid hands on and quantitative analysis done, so it was all talk in the air without working on any examples.
It was akin to finishing my 1sr read on "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and then declaring that I'll reach Financial Freedom by 40 years old, without the know how or plans on how to do that.

Burnt a few weekday nights and 2 saturdays for this short and intense course, and I'm pretty satisfied with what I had picked up so far, and signed up for the advanced class without hesitation to extend my knowledge further.
The only downside is that I have to sacrifice time with Ryan & Dear to attend these classes, but it is temporary and I know that the future payoff will be much bigger than the small sacrifice now.


Also commenced on my swimming classes this month.
Actually I started the 1st unofficial class last month, before the OD race, where I picked up some tips on the optimal swimming technique, but was insufficient to make a significant way to my existing technique.
After attending a few classes, I can tell that my technique is gradually improving, and I'm starting to be able to swim faster with less energy expended.
Of course I did my own homework and watched lots of training videos to improve my understanding as well, to accelerate my progress.
Swimming has now become more of a relaxing exercise than a strength training session like what I used to do in the past.
It seems that I am doing more swimming than running these days!


Picking up new knowledge has always been enjoyable for me, and it continues to do so with the swim and stock classes. Free online education materials and videos really make it much easier to learn, absorb and reinforce new knowledge.

I guess these courses can fulfill my goal for this year for learning new stuff, since I'm going to continue with the stock class, and probably with the swim class as well, so I won't have time to go for martial arts and will have to delay this till next year.

Learning new stuff is always good!

Race Report TriFactor OD 7 Sept 2014

Went into this race without heavy preparations nor expectations, since I was just looking to complete the race as a check for my fitness levels and to experiment with some of the newer stuff that I had learnt.

Of course there is always a comparison against my past timings on the same course, but beating that timing wasn’t top priority.

Pre race

Just my usual food the day before race, and my usual McD Fillet O Fish meal when I drove to the venue.

Used a bigger gym bag to carry all my race equipment rather than the smaller water proof bag which I had problems trying to fit everything in. Good decision.

Bike checked-in around 45 min before race, and remembered a tip from Winston on putting the bike shoes on the bike. Didn’t bring along any rubber bands, so I made do with a piece of plastic bag. Made sure that the knot is just strong enough to hold the shoes in place without dragging across the floor when I ran out of T1 bare footed, and loose enough for it to break loose automatically after I start pedaling.

Swim

Took it easy at the start and swam to the side rather than in the midst of the washing machine, as I wanted to test if the TI method will be really useful in the open water.

Swam the 1^st round mostly with the TI method, except for a couple of times when other swimmers came too close for comfort and I had to accelerate ahead to get out of the mess.

2^nd round was more of a 50-50 mix between TI and my old hard pedaling style.

Took me around 42 mins to complete 1.5km swim. About 5 mins more than what I’d have clocked with just the old hard pedaling. However, it was refreshing to get out of the water still feeling fresh in the legs.

T1

Lane markings was much better this time. With the lanes and numbers clearly marked out so there is no chance of missing my bike.

Nothing unusual this time, just that I noticed that I’m the only one who chose to wear my bike shoes on after mounting, rather than wearing the shoes first then running out with the bike.

Bike

Made a mistake in the settings after I had just replaced the battery for the bike computer the previous night. Wheel size was wrongly set, so it wasn’t before long then I realized that the bike computer was showing speeds that was definitely off the scale. So I had to ignore it and just refer to my watch.

Didn’t really thought much on how to pace the bike leg, so I just went at a pace that I was comfortable with. Hands on aero bars most of the time. Managed to clock around 31km/h on average, which given the winding race course, I should be reaching around 33km/h most of the time. Not too bad.

My quads only started to tire towards the end of the bike session, and I knew that it will affect my run..

T2

Dismounted shoeless. Ran in to transition, mounted my bike, ate a salt stick and ran out with just 1 packet of gel.

Run

Pace during the first 2km was still ok, but as cramps gradually set in on my right quad, my pace slowed to 7.48 min/km.

I had expected this to happen, and was going to experiment my school of thought that it might be possible to run off the cramps, so I persisted in slow jog without stopping (less @ water points) to see if this theory will work.

The cramps in my right quads persisted for quite some time before it gradually started to fade away at around the 6km mark when the left quads start to act up as well. Persisted with the slow jog and I gradually got faster and eventually ended the run without any cramps

Conclusion

Racing with my new Garmin Forerunner 910-XT gave me new insights into my swim leg which was not available on my old Polar RCX5.

Since I had split my swims into 100% TI method for the 1^st lap, and 50-50 for the 2^nd lap, it was possible for me to compare the swim data and see which was more efficient.

Barring the poor sighting in this swim (mostly my fault as I was too lazy to sight properly even though I could do it easily), the data was pretty evident that I had did pretty well in Lap 1 compared to lap 2.

The tips that I had picked up during the 1 hour session with TI and my subsequent 30 min of self training actually resulted in a much easier swim at roughly the same timing that I would have clocked with my old style. I can only imagine that I’ll get much faster and better when I’m able to fully absorb and integrate the TI method.

Played relatively safe on the bike this time. Wanted to lower the handle bars a bit before the race but eventually decided against doing so since I didn’t have the time to test it in training. Always stick to the mantra – Don’t try new things in a race!

The rubber band tip on tying the pedals and shoes is useful. I'll implement this properly for my next race.

Since I don’t have any more Tri races for the year, I’ll have all the time to optimize my bike.

Run timing wasn’t exactly stellar this time but it didn’t matter since that wasn’t my objective. However the an important breakthrough on outpowering the level 4 cramps (w/o using salt sticks) that I always experience in long D runs was worth it.

Lactic acid would have built up over the bike leg, and manifested in the 2^nd km of my run. Didn’t want to take the extra salt stick as it may build up my reliance on this placebo, so I persisted with the theory that if I run slow enough, my muscles will be able to flush away the built up lactic acid much more quickly than it will build up over a slow run. Pretty much similar to doing a recovery run on the day following race day. It worked!

Took quite a fair bit of will power and patience to do it though.

It will have been much easier to just adopt the same walk-run method that I had been doing in the SCMS for the last 10+ years, but I’d just walk away from this race without taking away anything.

On the same course, my timing for the last few years. Definitely much improved over the poor race last year, but I reckon that with proper prep, it should be easy for me to breach the 3 hour mark.

2012:     3:15:35

2013:     3:31:46

2014:     3:06:00

Bike distance is wrong... should be 36km instead

I perform better when there is no pressure to do so.
Best for me to do future races in a "I don't really care attitude"...