有影无？

70% OF NSMEN FAIL THEIR ANNUAL IPPT WHEN IN THEIR 30S

Seriously, 70%????
I don't think I see so many people failing when I take my IPPT.
Guess I should be even more proud that I'm way ahead of the bell curve and take good care of myself as I age?

Anyway this is something that I really want to inculcate in Ryan when he grows up.
Stick to a healthy and fit lifestyle, it will be good for the body and mind.

IPPT Gold again!

It gets more difficult as I get older, but I still managed to score IPPT Gold again to prove that it was not a flash in the pan last year!

Halted all cycling and swimming training to focus on speed runs in the last few weeks.
It ain't easy, facing one of my deep-set fears about the discomfort in speed training.

Even though I managed to do a sub-10 and beat the 10:14 timing by a good margin, I still feel that my fitness is still not fully calibrated for short burst runs like this.
It's the mental strength that saw me through rather than physical fitness.

Kept running these phrases in my head when I did the run:
"Tonight we dine in hell"
"There is no tomorrow"
My ironman pride was at stake, so I had to make sure that I score Gold in one sitting.

Perhaps I should keep speed training as a part of my maintenance training rather than just focusing purely on endurance training when training for 70.3, so that I'll be better prepared when my next IPPT window opens.

This IPPT Gold will be my golden ticket to the next 70.3 challenge!
Which one should it be?....

Score IPPT Gold if I want to do another 70.3 this year

This will be a challenge for myself.
I still have one month to clear my IPPT for this window.

If I manage to score IPPT Gold again, I'll go for another 70.3 within the year
If I can't get my Gold, no 70.3 for me.

A Half-Ironman should be scoring Gold for IPPT!

Cutie Ryan

It just gets better.

It was a moment of cuteness overload and sweetness this morning.

After changing into his school uniform, he just ran in and out of the bedroom, and at one point, hid behind the wall from our view, only showing his hand and saying "No More".

Ryan was learning how to play hide and seek with us.

So sweet......

Training for IPPT

When I was much younger, IPPT was an annual $400 affair without much fuss.
I was young, fit, and much lighter at around 62kg then.
I'm now much older, at 70kg

Though the requirements for IPPT was gradually reduced as one gets older, the dynamics of the body aging and fitness decling faster than the IPPT standards meant that it will get tougher to score gold as one ages.

There was a period when my fitness had dropped below the Gold standards for a good few years

I always had the assumption that I was fit and could finish full marathons, so it is a taken that I should score Gold for my IPPTs.
Well, this did work all the way till 2009, and was eventually broken in 2010.

When I met my first Silver, I was in a state of denial.
"Perhaps it's just a bad day. I can still finish 42km runs"

My 2nd Silver in 2011 was due to me putting on too much weight, and I could not finish the 9th chin up for the Gold standard. Subsequently didn't put in too much effort to clock <10:14 br="" nbsp="">

The 3rd Silver in 2012 was a rude wake up call.
My 2.4km run is now officially non-Gold standard after 3 tries in 3 years.
"A bad day in office" is no longer a valid reason for not scoring Gold anymore.

2013 was a good year.
I started challenging for the half Ironman in late 2012, and had to take the IPPT during my ICT. Did surprisingly well and managed to clock 9:47 for the run, and regained the Gold standard.

Now, the window for clearing my IPPT for 2014 is almost over, and I have to face the challenge of trying for  the $400 in Gold.

Facing my fears
I had always avoided facing my fears for training specifically for the 2.4km IPPT run.
Speedwork training run has always extremely uncomfortable.
Doing the Long Slow Distance (LSD) run is a much easier training in comparison, and incidentally, I always chose to do the LSD for most of my trainings to avoid doing Speedwork.
This, in fact, is me running away from the reality that I needed to do Speedwork to properly train for a Gold 2.4km run.
The way that I trained in the past, is to keep clocking LSD runs, and pray hard that I can accidentally do a Gold 2.4km run during the test.

WRONG METHODOLOGY!!!

Training for specific requirements means a proper training has to be adopted.

Training for 2.4km by using the training plan for a 42km race is not the correct way to prepare.

This is especially pronounced as I got older, and it gets tougher to translate one class of physical fitness into another class.

Drawing on confidence

Things changed for me when I started participating in Triathlons.

It gave me a different challenge and impetus to change my overly simplistic training methods which I had been using for years for marathon trainings, which is just simply "No pain No gain, run more gain more"

This may have been working for me in my younger years, but my physique changes as I age so and I have to adapt.

What gave me really good confidence was from my swim.

Before I started doing Tris, I could barely swim 100m in freestyle without busting my lungs, so swimming was the discipline which I feared the most then.

Taking on my fears, putting in the efforts, has enabled me to improve my swim tremendously, to the point that today I'm equally confident in my swim and run.

If I can do it for my swim, where freestyle sprints are still lung bursting but already accepted as a norm in my trainings, I should be able do it for my sprint runs as well. 

The mantra of "No pain No gain, run more gain more" still holds true, but now I will have to add a "Train smart Train right" to complete the mantra.

I have managed to clock a 10:07 in my own 2.4km test run this week, so putting in more sessions should place me in good stead to score Gold again this year.

Inspirational video

Stacks of tomorrows become stacks of yesterday - that's when u keep saying let's do it tomorrow.
Hmmmm

Am I losing the way that I had originally wanted to take?
Food for thoughts

Fears

Everyone has their own fears/ worries.

For some, it is so bad that it consumes them and it affects their daily lives.

Then there are those know these fears but choose to run away from them. As long as they don't make eye contact with fear, they think that fear will not catch up with them. Out of sight, out of mind.

Another group are those who dare to face up to their fears, and take daily actions to improve themselves and dispel their fears.


For me, I'm always moving in and out of the latter 2 groups.
At times, I procrastinate on important issues for the sake of not daring to think further, as the more I think about my fears, the more it may serve to make me more fearful for the task seems too big and daunting to handle.
Some times, when epiphany strikes, clarity of thought will help me to dispel and work through my fears. Seemingly impossible tasks are suddenly broken down into chewable and workable bits.

Maybe I should meditate more.
Only with a clear mind will epiphany strike more often, which will help me to sort out my fears.

Time to swim/bike/run more without the stress of preparing for races.
This is my meditation.

Now I understand the term "Terrible Two"

Seems like Ryan is throwing tantrums more frequently nowadays for no reason.

He had always been pretty strong willed, in the sense that he doesn't take instructions and will melt down if he is forced to do something that he doesn't fancy.

Ryan's teacher commented that he doesn't mix with other kids at school and doesn't follow instructions.
And his usual contempt for whomever is feeding him his food, coupled with frequent tantrums for almost every single issue, and his refusal to address any of his caretakers apart from papa and mummy, really got me worried Ryan may be getting out of control if nobody is going to discipline him and teach him what is right/wrong.

He had another meltdown on Wednesday night again when I was trying to guide him out of the bathroom after his bath, by holding his hands and gently pulling him in the direction out of the toilet. And he started to cry. After he lost his temper again while I was trying to get him dressed up.

I was pretty upset with how Ryan was behaving recently, and thought that he needed someone to discipline him. So I thought that since he was inconsolable, I will hold him in the same spot and let him to cry his heart out and learn how to calm down in a controlled manner, rather than letting him has his own way all the time just by throwing tantrums.
Eventually Ryan got tired after his 40 minutes long tantrum and started to scale down his cries, then I brought him out to see mummy and claim his bed time milk.


What I did was probably very hard old school style.
I'm not sure if this is effective, or whether Ryan is still too young for hardline discipline methods.
While I had the best intentions for Ryan in doing so, it really pains my heart to have to see him getting ultra upset for that 40 mins.

Did a lot of reading today on terrible twos and inconsolable tantrums, and finally came across an article which gave a good scientific explanation on terrible two and how to best address it.
Hopefully I'll improve my parenting skills and Ryan will quickly learn and ride out of the TT stage.

Ryan is my precious.
I must make sure that he grows up to be a well balanced and healthy person.
That's the best gift that I can give to him