Singapore Triathlon: The Outcome

Well I did it! Did I achieve my target time I hear you ask.  We shall see....

I had taken a long period of taper from the time that I finished my big block of training as set out in the Triathlete magazine August Edition.  Those who follow my blog will see in fact that I spent a few days in Bali.  I did not train at all that weekend, but I did 3 lots of 2 hours straight of lugging a big old training surf board through the beach break.  I can tell you by the end of day 3 I could barely get my arms out of the water when I was paddling.  This was great training and it was a lot of fun. 

The other trip that I had anticipated for the month of September did not arise, so I did not lose the extra week of training that I was planning at the beginning of the training blog.  But I must confess that I was pretty beaten up by the 5 week block of training that I did follow and I did take the full 5 weeks to loosen up and get over the worst of the fatigue that the training block had caused.  My legs were very tired and I was starting to get some pain in my right elbow from the swimming, particularly, I think, from the adjustment to my stroke that put strain on a whole new set of muscles in my shoulder and around my elbow.

To counter some of this I went for quite a number of massages, with a big focus on my deltoid muscles.  I also had a massage that was focused on loosening my legs up.  So you could say that I was pretty banged up in the time leading up to the race.  That said, I was training really well.  The weekend out from the race I went for an easy ride and blitzed 40km at an average speed of 30km/hr, all the while just trying to hold myself back.

On the Sunday I did a run session of 6 x 1 km all at an easy 4:30 km pace.  To make sure that I built up some level of heat tolerance, I started this session at around 1:30 pm to capture the heat of the day.  This may seem crazy, and it is.  However, my race was scheduled to start at 9:50 am, which means I will be running at mid day.  It is hot at mid day in Singapore.  Again, during this session I was just holding myself back in order to ensure that I did not wear myself out, while still getting in a decent session.

Swimming in the week leading up to the event was also pretty easy.  I did my regular session with Louise Tang on Monday morning and on Tuesday I did a session in which I swam 1100 m in 22 min 36 sec.  So all three disciplines I was able to go through at race pace with very little effort.

Tuesday night it went a little pear shaped. While running on my favourite track around the Botanical Gardens, I started to get a little pain in my left hamstring.  I endeavoured to run through it, but it got progressively worse and after about 5 km, I had to pull the pin.

I resolved to get myself ready for the race on Saturday at any cost.  First thing on Wednesday morning, I got myself an appointment with one of the team at intouch physio.  Luckily I was able to get an appointment for that evening.  The Physio there is a young English guy called Paul Richards.  He was able to do some work to release the hamstring and also my left hip, but he did worry that the problem was originating, not from the hamstring, but from a torn meniscus in my left knee.  Not exactly what I wanted to hear. 

He advised me not to do any more exercise, or even stretching between the appointment and Saturday and just see how it went.  I felt OK about this, but I was a bit worried that the I would struggle with the change in biomechanics of my leg because my hip had been loosened up. Thursday night I went for a short walk/jog session, to build up my confidence.  I also made an appointment with an acupuncturist on Friday.  They put a few needles in my hamstring and ankle and then massaged my ITB and thigh.  After all this treatment, I was able to get myself to the starting line, with a relatively high level of confidence that I would get to the finish line.

Saturday morning, I headed out to the race venue on the East Coast, nice and early.  Mainly because Sophie was competing early in the morning.  My race was not to start until 9:50 a.m. so I had plenty of time to get prepared and watch Sophie going around in her event.

All things must come to an end and so it was with my preparation for this event.  After an easy warm up swim, a short wait at the starting area, it was time to rock'n'roll!

With the confidence that I had developed from my swim training over the past few months I got myself to the front of the pack for the start of the swim leg.  My plan was to get out well early and hook myself in behind a stronger swimmer and swim easily in their wake for as long as possible.  The plan worked well for the first 20 m or so when I was in the lead group.  Alas, the swim course was only 750 m long, so that each swimmer had to swim two laps of the course.  I got boxed in behind a group of slower swimmers from one of the earlier waves and by the time I got myself untangled, the lead pack had escaped me.  However, after about 100 m I was able to hook onto the thigh of another swimmer and there I cruised for the next 600 m. 

I felt good at the turnaround at the 750 m mark and all the way until about 1100 m.  Then I started to fell sluggish but picked up for the last 200 m.  I finished in about 32 minutes, which is by far and away my best open water swim and a great confidence booster.

T1 was good, but there is a long way between the swim and the bike at East Coast Park.  The transition area was not very well set up I am afraid to say.  The rack my bike was on was prone to fall over, which it did as I pulled my bike out during T1.  I had discussed this with the officials before the start of the race when I found my bike and a number of others sprawled out in the transition area, but their efforts to correct it were feeble.  I was lucky that I was out of the swim in a good position and first to pull my bike out of the rack. I am afraid those that came after me fond a tangle of bike and rack.

Onto the road and I made pretty good time.  The bike course consisted of 6 laps of 6.67 km and from my training and racing over the last year and a half I knew every of teh circuit meter intimately.   I wanted to set a pace of between 32 and 33 km/hour and keep it there for the whole race.  It required discipline not to go out faster for the first lap.  I felt really strong and my legs wanted to go somewhat faster.  However, I was very conscious of the fact that there was a long way to go and I wanted as much as possible in the tank for the run leg.  It turned out that there was very little difficulty keeping the pace and I averaged 33 km/hr. My only problem is that I ran out of fluids with one lap to go.  When my bike fell over before the start of the race, my water bottle must have leaked, and I came in off the bike leg a little dehydrated. At the end of T2 I was at 1 hour and 50 min, right on schedule for a 2 hour 40 min standard distance triathlon.

All I had to do was run the 10km in 50 minutes.  I had trained at this pace and better, consistently over the past 8 to 10 weeks and there was no reason I could think of that I couldn't do it on the day.  I was very confident that I had done the training I needed to pull it off and I was sure that the discipline I showed by not going out too hard too early on the bike was enough from me to get home at the required pace.  I was wrong.  A 58 min run leg led to my overall time blowing out to 2 hr 49 min 15 sec.  A personal best to be sure, but not my personal goal.  I am happy to say that there was nothing left.  When I finished, I was absolutely finished, so given my preparation, whether it was good or bad, I performed as well as I was able.

My thoughts about the training I did for this triathlon.  I guess the training block that I undertook was pretty good.  It truly tested me throughout the 5 weeks that I did it.  The last week was very tough and I did not do the final week of training justice simply because I was so tired.  I am pretty proud of my week 4 of that block when I did 6.8 km of swimming, 242 km on the bike and 18.8 km of running.  That is up there as being one of my biggest weeks of training ever.  On the down side, it may have been too big a leap from where I was at before taking it on.  It took me a full 4 weeks to recover in the period leading up to the race and that included reduced training and a fair bit of massage.

Perhaps this recovery period was too long?  Maybe I didn't do enough during the recovery period to carry the full benefit from my training into the race.  I will need to think about this as I plan my next effort.  For all of that, the thing that I will focus on is that I trained pretty hard, and I improved and that is a very good outcome.

The fall out.

So now I get to take a short break from running and cycling while I wait for my knee to recover from whatever it is that seems to be ailing it.  Possibly a minor tear of the meniscus.  I have also been having some physiotherapy on my right shoulder as it has tightened up p[robably as a result of the modified technique that I applied to my freestyle during the last 2 months of training.  Even though it gives me a lot more power, it does work muscles that haven't been doing much for a long time and this could well have caused an imbalance in rotator cuff muscles leading to restriction of the shoulder joint.  I have had some initial treatment on the shoulder and it is feeling pretty good.  The knee I will try out again in early November and see if time alone has enabled the body to repair any injury.

Thanks to all for reading this blog.  I hope there are many more to follow.

Bali Dreaming

Bali, what can I say.  I have hesitated so long to visit your vibrant island and now I can not wait to return.

This was a special birthday treat for my wife Claire and I.  We celebrate our birthdays within a week of each other so this year it was arranged that we celebrate together on Bali.

Why did it take so long for us to get there?  Well, I guess in the first place, money was an issue.  We didn't have enough!  Then there was the Red Gum song, "I've Been to Bali Too", which is a very catchy tune but makes one feel very uncomfortable about the general behaviour of Australians when visiting this very devout Hindu country.  Finally, there was the bombing in 2002.  In that year we had our tickets booked to travel to Bali, but pulled because of the bombing that took place about one month before we were due to travel.  We changed our arrangements and holidayed in Fiji instead. 

So now at last, we were on our way!  The girls left a couple of days before me and stayed in the Village of Ubud. 

The hotel that they stayed at was beautiful. A tropical oasis with very large rooms, wonderful outside bathroom areas where one could commune with nature and gorgeous, landscaped gardens.

I only got to stay overnight in Ubud, because I arrived on Friday night and early Saturday morning we packed up and headed down to the beach at Legian where we had booked ourselves in for 3, half days of surf lessons with Rip Curl School of Surf. What was best about this is that all of use put our hands up for the course, my wife Claire and Gabriella and Sophie.

I have always wanted to surf and have tried it a few times, but I always thought that it was pretty hard.  I had been churned up in the past and to be honest, I was a bit scared at the thought of being gnarled up again. 

My fears were ill founded.  The course run at the Rip Curl School of Surf was excellent.  The instruction was very well structured and clearly presented by our teacher, Made.  Within an hour or so all 4 of us were up on our boards and riding waves to the beach, albeit without much style and very little grace.  But still we were surfing during our first lesson. 

Day 2 found us taking our boards through the zone where the waves were breaking and we got to spend some nice quiet time out beyond the break.  We were shown some easy techniques for rolling under our boards and allowing the waves to crash over us, while not getting washed back to shore.  Day 3, it all came together.   Taking the boards out beyond the break and getting a bit of a push onto the wave I got to ride my board in green water.  It was fun.  So after only 3 days, I was able to surf.  Though the style and grace are yet to come. 

In the "Green Room"

Our evenings were equally well spent.  On Saturday we got picked up from the surf school office by our driver, whose name is also Made, and taken to dinner at the Bali Legong Restaurant on the beach at Sanur to the south of Kuta.  The views were stunning and the seafood feast we had was excellent.

On the second day, Sunday, we made our way north  to watch the sunset at a 16th Century temple, Tanah Lot, on the Ocean to the north of Denpasar.  The Temple, the name of which translated into English is "Temple of Land in the Middle of the Sea"  is a spectacular site, especially at sunset.  Certainly this is what we were led to expect, but as it is across the beautiful island the traffic from Legian was hell, we made it to the site with but a few minutes to spare before the sun dipped beyond the horizon.

We had time for a quick scour of the markets where Claire picked up a traditional craft work in the form of an elephant shaped teapot in a most beautiful jade green coloured porcelain. Then we headed for the ocean cliff tops to view the setting sun as it descended behind the western horizon.




 

After sunset, we drove back home and had dinner in our hotel restaurant.  The menu consisted of modern Australian Cuisine.  We loved it!  It has been so long since I had eaten some well prepared Australian style cooking and I have missed it, though I hadn't realised just how much.

Dinner on the last night was very low key.  We picked up some supplies from the local supermarket and had  light meal in the hotel room.  By this stage, after 3 days of sun and surf we were all completely worn out, so low key was what we all needed and frankly, all we could manage.

Tuesday we flew home.  We were cared for most wonderfully by our driver, Made while we were in Bali and he became more than a driver for us. More like a tour guide and a lot like a friend.  The surfing was great. The girls loved their visit to Ubud and I think that all in all were are pretty keen to make our way back to Bali as soon as we possibly can.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 7

Soon it will be a countdown, but for now the heavy training continues. 

The 7th week of my preparation coincided with week 4 of the 5 week training program I have been following published by Lance Watson in the August edition of Triathlete.

Monday, as always was a blessed rest day.  Given that it was Hari Raya holiday in Singapore it was also a great day to hang out with the family.  We very pleased to accept an invitation to one of my co-worker's home for Hari Raya lunch with we shared with members of her family and some other of my work colleagues.  Claire said it was the best food that we had eaten since we came to Singapore and was a tribute to Emma and her mother who spent many hours preparing this very important meal.  We were very grateful to be part of the day.

Tuesday was back to work and back in the pool for a morning session.  After 400 m of warm up I got into the session proper which consisted of 30 X 50 m.  I did these on 1 min 15 sec.  To be honest, the program called for a 10 to 15 sec break, but I somewhat surprised myself by being able to keep every single rep under 55 to 57 sec, sot the rests blew out a bit.  After a 400 m warm down I skittled back onto the bike and on to work. 

In the afternoon I was back on the bike and peddling out to East Coast Service Road where I had a crack at the Lactic threshold Bike session.  The plan for this is to ride 20 to 30 minutes at an easy spin and then pick up into 5 sets of 4 km at lactic threshold, which is a speed of 34 km/hr.  (It turns I mis-converted miles to kms.  1.5 miles is 2.4 km, not 4 km.  No wonder this session felt so very very bad!). This was to be followed by 5 X 800 m of speed work (<36 km/hr) Any way, conditions were not quite conducive, Rain in the afternoon made for wet roads and I had no brakes.  Wet weather, around the world, induces drivers to do mad things, so my session was somewhat constrained by conditions and my legs.   I did the lactic threshold set, but struggled to get into the zone beyond rep 2, and the speed sessions were just too dangerous.  However, I did ride over 60 km which is a good hit out nonetheless.

Wednesday I rode to work and in the afternoon headed for the track at Queenstown Sports Complex.  I love running intervals on the track.  This was to be a testing session.  An easy 3.2 km warm up, 3 X 1600 m at 4 min/km pace ( 6 min 24 sec) was my goal, with 400 m jog recovery.  This was followed by 6 X 400 m. My goal for these was 3 min 30 sec km pace (84 sec).

I was, on average, a minute off the time for the 1600 m, but was able to get the last rep of the 400 m runs on target.  This is by far the fastest pace I have run for a good while and it felt really nice to roll along at that pace.

Thursday, I squibbed a bit.  But I had to get to the City in the evening to get some supplies for Claire's birthday.  I did ride for about one hour over the course of the day, 30 mi in the morning and 30 min in the evening. However the proscribed 20 min run was reduced to a short jog up Orchard Road, through the evening shopping crowd from Takashimaya to The Ion Building where I picked up wrapping paper and ribbon for Claire's Birthday present.

Friday, I was in the pool.  I was a bit pressed for time so I cut out the warm up and focused on the main set of 6 x 150 m aiming for 2 min 45 sec and a 45 sec recovery.  I absolutely missed the objective of this session altogether.  I went out too hard on the first rep, but worse my form was terrible.  Lots of short fast strokes, no extension and as a consequence I used up huge amounts of energy and got nowhere.  I started getting the hang of the pacing about rep 5, but by this stage the set was in tatters.  I was able to redeem the session somewhat with the 10 x 50 m which I kept at 50 around sec/rep.  For me this was a good pace. I was able to achieve this by really focusing on form, and not worrying about speed.  I will take this lesson forward or hit myself should I revert to this bad habit in future pool sessions!

Saturday.  I could not believe what I read when I looked through this session on paper.  20 min easy riding, followed by 3 X 16 km a race pace with about 10 minutes recovery between reps.  Then, off the bike and 5 X 1600 m on the track at race pace.  I expected this to hurt and I was not at all disappointed.

I worked pretty hard on the bike and was very happy that I rode my fastest passage up the East Coast Service Road since I have been in Singapore.  I was however a little under race pace for most of the set and got to the track at Evans Road feeling pretty shattered.  So I was pretty surprised, and very happy when 4 of my 5 X 1600 m reps were well under my training goal of 5 min/km pace.  On the 5th rep, I got to the 1 km mark at 4 min 59 sec and knew my session was over.  I lay down on the track for a good while to recover, eventually meander home to recuperate.

I finished up the day with a bit of dancing at one of Claire's friend's 40th birthday party.  I am happy to say I did not get home after 1:00 am on Sunday morning.  Lucky Sunday is an easy day in the program!

Sunday.  This was programmed for an easy, 2 hour recovery ride in the afternoon after a long swim in the morning.  The morning swim consisted of 1000 m of easy freestyle, followed by 1150 m of pace swimming with 1 lap faster followed by 2 laps easy.  In the afternoon I set out for a 50 km ride that I planned to cover in 2 hours.  It is a strange thing, that sometimes when you take the pressure off, even though you are feeling quite worn out, you can produce quite unexpected results.  For this 2 hour recovery ride, I covered 60 km and at a pace not very different from the session I rode the day before.  This was a very satisfying outcome and left me with very positive feeling of having completed a great training week.

Distances for the week:

Swim:  6.8 km

Bike: 242 km

Run:  18.8 km

  

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 6

Monday was a rest day.  Thank goodness.  My legs are weary from the past 2 seeks of training.  I took it easy around the office and in the evening headed out for a 1 hour Tango lesson.  Dancing is helping me no end in developing resilience in my ankles and lower calves.

Tuesday I set out for the Queenstown sports complex where I did a very short session of 3 x 200 m on 4 min 30sec and 6 x 100 m on 2 min 15 sec.  I finished my commute to work on the bike, still feeling very heavy in the legs. 

Tuesday evening I set out to Turf City where I played soccer with the folk from work.  Unfortunately while doing an easy warm down ride round the back of the old race course, I got a puncture.  As I didn't have a spare tube in my pack I was forced to taxi home.  Total distance ridden for the day, 20 km.

From there the training went profoundly down hill in distance and intensity.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were very much work focused with a huge push to finalise planning for 2013 and complete budgets for the end of 2012.  So I dreamed a little of training but did not get it onto the park.

The weekend was the Hari Raya long weekend, so another 3 days to bum around.

Saturday night I went out for an easy run, circumnavigating the Botanic Gardens.  49 min 25 sec for 8.9 km felt quickish, but I worked it out that this was the pace at which I ran the last leg of the Bintan triathlon!  And I felt rubbish during that run.

Sunday morning I took off for an easy ride.  I covered 51 km in a little over 2 hours.

What I realised this week, particularly with my run on Sunday night, is that I need to reset my internal perceptions of pace. I am getting a great opportunity with the current program to mix the pacing up in all three disciplines of the triathlon.  Fortunately the base I developed over the past 18 months is good enough and was well managed enough that my body is able to take on the greater stresses involved in increasing the training intensity.

So now I am absolutely looking forward to week four and five of the five week program that I have embarked upon.

Distances for this week

Swim: 1.2 km
Bike: 91 km
Run: 8.9 km

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 5

So much happened this week it is hard to imagine that only 7 days has gone by since the last entry.  Firstly and most importantly, Singapore celebrated it's 47th Birthday this week on Thursday.  Happy Singapore National Day. There were celebrations around Marina Bay on Thursday night, but I decided to stay home and drink red wine.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

This week was week 2 of the 5 week program set out in August Edition of Triathlete and put together by Lance Watson. 

Monday, thankfully, was a rest day.  I took it totally easy and did a Tango lesson in the evening.  This is a really good session for building strength, stability and flexibility in the ankles.

Tuesday the week started proper:  Started the day with a swim session that included a 500 m warm up, followed by a set of 15 x 100 m on 2 minutes 20 sec.  At this rest I was able to keep almost all of the reps under 2 minutes, the pace for which I am realistically aiming.  200 m warm down completed the set.  I hopped on the bike and finished the commute to work.

Wednesday: easy ride to work.  On the way home I stopped off for a track session at Queenstown running track.  As this was the eve of Singapore National Day, I had the track pretty much to myself.  I started the session with 3.2 km warm up and then got into the session.  12 x 400 m at 4 min 10 sec/km pace with 50 m walk, 150 m jog recovery.  This was followed by a series of 8 x 200 m at 3 minutes 20 sec/km pace.  This was a great session, as my whole body gave out after the 5th rep and I staggered through reps 6 to 8.  Feeling utterly exhausted I set off on my bike to town to pick up my younger daughter Sophie who was attending a maths tutorial. 

Thursday:  Singapore National Day.  This is a national holiday in Singapore.  I did not train, although the program called for an hour bike and a 20 minute easy run.  I elected to play an hour of squash and an hour of tennis during the afternoon.  In that way I got some movement in and worked in a little family time, essential for my overall well being!

Friday, Back in the pool at my favourite "Buona Vista Swimming Complex".  400 m warm up followed by a set of 16 x 50 m all under 57 seconds, starting on 1min 15 sec with an average of 54 sec.

This was followed by 12 x 50 m with 25 m sprint and 25 m easy and 30 sec rest.  I skipped the warm down and jumped on the bike to get to the office.

Saturday:  Up early and out on the bike.  30 minutes ride out to East Coast and then 5 x 8 km at ~31 km/h with 5 minutes rest in between.  I finished up at the Department of Physical Education Sports Field where I transitioned into 2 x 3200 m (2 x 2 miles).  I rode home very slowly, I found the second 2 Mile rep very taxing, however the average speed was on target for 50 min 10 km, which again is on my personal pace target.

Sunday was an easier day with a 1900 m swim set in the morning and a 16 km LSD run in the evening.

I slept fitfully Sunday night, but very happy that over the past 2 weeks I have kept essentially to the training plan set out by Lance Watson, I have really picked up the pace and distance trained and I am not injured though I feel that I have trained close to the level I currently have the condition to manage.  The bonus is, I can look forward to the prospect of an easier week ahead.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 4

"I love it when a plan comes together"

So this week I set out to ramp up the intensity of training so that I moved from endurance to speed and strength training, and the Universe has conspired to help me out.

While walking back from lunch I had at the Hawker Centre at Holland Village, I stumbled across the August 2012 edition of "Triathlete" and there on pages 102 to 106 is a five week program to build up to a 2 hour 30 min Olympic Distance Triathlon!  Well worth a read I thought to myself.  Maybe I could get a couple of ideas, I mused arrogantly.

My biggest concern about putting a program together for myself is getting the right mix of intensity and volume, what I realised in reading through the program put together by Laurence Wilson is that there was before me a rationally structured program.  Even if it looks a little light on swimming volume for my current status. So I thought that I should give the first week of the program a try out and see how I felt at the end of that first week.  If I felt too underdone and not tired enough, then the program would not meet my needs.  If however, I couldn't finish the sessions then I would have to back it off a bit.  What I have found is that at the end of the first week of the program I am walking around tired but with nicely tingling muscles that I know I have worked close to capacity.

Tuesday morning I started out with a swim, riding to the pool and swimming 400 m of warm up, then 3 x 400 m  on 9 minutes followed by 600 m of warm down.  On Tuesday evening I rode to play soccer with work colleagues and then rode home, using the opportunity to do some Pick Ups to about 37 km/hour. 

Wednesday was a big track session with 2.8 km warm up, 6 X 800 m at 5min/km pace and 6 X 400 at 4 min/km pace: 2 min recovery between reps.  I warmed down with a short ride home.

Thursday had an easy ride scheduled.  I rode roughly 20 km back and forth to work.  Legs were pretty tired from the session the night before.

Friday found me back in the pool swimming 6 X 100 m reps in around 1min 50 with 40 sec recovery following a 500 m warm up.  This was followed by 12 X 50 m in 50 sec with 40 second recovery. I found this session very enlightening as I picked up speed as I progressed.  This indicated what I suspected was so; that I was deeple in the habit of swimming slow and I was very one-paced.  Mixing it up with these "quicker" sessions will definitely make an impact on my speed over the longer distance.

Saturday was really fun.  Went out on the bike to ride 8 km intervals at a pace consistent with a 1 hour 12 40 km ride.  I rode most of this session out along the East Coast Service Road, and as I wrote in a previous entry, there is no road in Singapore that conspires against the man-on-a-bike more than the East-bound section of the East Coast Service Road.  There was a lot of digging deep to keep at pace.  The end of the ride found me back at the running track near the Northern end of the Singapore Botanic Gardens.  There I quickly transitioned into 4 X 1600 m.  (1600 m is the "Metric Mile" consisting of 4 circuits of the 400 m track).  I kept these reps well under 5 min/km pace.

Sunday was recovery day with a 1 km morning swim incorporating lots of drills and easy swimming, followed in the afternoon be an slow and easy 42 km ride.

I am very happy with the routine so far and felt very happy to keep all sessions well under the pace that I need to perform at to meet my goal of completing the Singapore Triathlon in under 2 hour 40 min.

Total Distances for week 4

Swim: 5200 m
Bike:  184 km
Run:  17.3 km

Preparing for Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 3

It was a busy few days so I have put together a few days into one post.

As I wrote at the beginning of this series of reports on my preparation for the Singapore triathlon, the month of July will be important to ensure that I work on baseline fitness.  This means getting as much volume as possible in the first few weeks of preparation.  So I am happy that I have been able to put in 3 bike rides of over 2 hours and 3 runs of around or just more than an hour and this should provide me with a strong base for the next period of my training which will focus on training at our around race pace.  Of course the problem with doing lots of long distance work is that it tends to get you into a plod and makes it very difficult for you to pick up the pace to race pace.

The risk of training faster is that this puts more strain on the body and this causes some muscle soreness and joint pain as the body adjusts to the greater stresses.  In my experience it takes a few weeks for the body to adjust to the harder effort, so the month of August is well timed for me to prepare to faster work and adapt in the lead up to the race month of September

Saturday morning, I spent a lot of the morning watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

Fired up, I went for an 11.4 km run.  Later in the morning I jumped in the pool and swam 1 km of FS technique. 

Sunday morning, I was up at 5:00 a.m. and went out for a steady 100 km ride.  It is pretty hard to find 100km in Singapore, so what I had to do was cross the Island East to West, 2 times.  This was exactly 100 km.

Following this ride I had a nice relaxed morning and afternoon and went to sleep with great contentment.  The reward for my 3 weeks of fitness work is a rest day on Monday.  I am very happy to be able to take a programmed day off, as opposed to one forced upon me by a virus!

Combined totals for week 3 of my preparation.

Swim: 9100 m
Bike: 143 km
Run: 28.4 km

Preparing for the SIngapore Triathlon: Week 3 Day 4

I am starting to find it a challenge to plough through the same breakfast every morning.  So today I kept it simple, fried egg on English muffin washed down with a cup of Illy coffee.  This is my other favourite brand of percolated coffee.  In fact, the best coffee that I have had since my move to Singapore was an Illy coffee that I had at a hotel I stayed when I travelled to Bangkok for work last year.  Delicious.

This morning I had a session with coach Louise at the Queenstown pool.  As most of the squad that I  normally swim with were away today, I had the coach to myself.  This is a good thing, because you get lots of attention, it is a bed thing because there is nowhere to hide.  Still I need to work very seriously on some aspects of my technique such as right arm recovery, body rotation, stretch under the water.  The whole stroke in fact..

This morning was scheduled a special time trial.  10 X 100 m with 10 sec recovery, see how fast you can go so that rational interval times can be calculated for future sessions.

With a 400 m warm up and 400 m drills and a 300 m hypoxic swimming, I covered 2100 m for the session.

That was pretty much me for the day as far as training goes.  I had my regular chicken lunch and dinner of chicken and vegetables in a light tomato sauce washed down with a bottle of Austrian (no spelling error) white wine.  Light and fruity with just the right amount of sharpness.

To bed and ready for what may come tomorrow.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Week 3 Day 3

Wednesday.

I had planned to have a game of soccer last night and jump in the pool at lunch time today.  However, as I had skipped the foot ball, leaving my legs in a relatively good state, (after 1 hour of football I can barely walk the next day), I thought it a good idea to move things around and get in an easy run this morning by jogging into work.

Easy it turned out not to be. 

I started out with a good, high protein breakfast of sausages, scrambled eggs and some fresh salad, then put on the back pack filled with fresh business shirt, pair of shoes and regular kit and headed onto Grange Road to make my way to the office.  The weather was very mild this morning.  Overcast and a temperature of 25C.  9.6 km I covered, and not once did I feel I got into a comfortable rhythm.  I can only put it down to the ride yesterday.  I think the sprint along Farrer Road took a little more out of my legs than I realised.  I contented myself with the thought that I might redeem something from the day on the return run home.

Lunch consisted of Chicken with stir fried vegetables and rice.

In the afternoon I took a shorter route home which takes me along the Queensway before following the canal that runs parallel to Commonwealth Avenue.  There was no redemption.  Not today.  But I did cover 7.5 km to make a total of 17.1 km for the day.   Put it in the mix I say.  Come September 29, this could be the set of runs that makes the difference.

For dinner I ate some steamed wontons with a light soy sauce and yogurt with honey for afters.  (Capiano Honey of course.  There is much by the way of good Australian produce to be found in Singapore.  In fact if one wanted to I am pretty certain that I could eat exactly the same food in Singapore as I could in Australia.  Maybe I should do an experiment one week?)

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Week 3 Day 2

We are well into the swing of normal routine at the moment.  The whole family up at 6:00 am with the girls getting ready for school.

This morning I kicked off with a breakfast of sausages, a fried egg and Chick pea salad.

Off to the pool by bike where I swam 2 km easy free style, concentrating on bilateral breathing and getting lots of extension with the lead hand in the water.

I got quickly back on the bike and finished the ride to work.

Lunch consisted of roast chicken with rosemary with a side of stir fried vegetables and a small bowl of rice.

It was my plan to join work colleagues for a game of soccer this evening.  However, I got a late call up to attend an information evening at my daughter's school.  My elder daughter is heading in to her final 2 years of high school so there is much to be considered about subject choice.

So just after 5:30 I headed off to Larong Chuan on the bike.  I took Farrer Road North.  It was a hair raising experience at that time of day, though I did get in a few km of quite sharp work as fear drove me on ahead of the traffic.  None the worse for wear, though feeling kinda older, I stopped for a snack of chicken curry in puff pastry at the local service station, washed down with a small bottle of iced coffee. Not ideal, but it hit the spot.

After the meeting at school, I packed the bike into the back of a cab and headed home, where I had a ham and salad sandwich, lots of iced water and made my way to bed.  A good day with a 2 km swim and 25 km on the bike, and still I breath.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Week 3 Day 1

I both love and loath Monday mornings.

Monday is the start of the week and there is always a sense of a fresh start.  The opportunity for a mini New Years Resolution.  A New Weeks Resolution if you will.  On the flip side there is the Monday morning swim session and I can be pretty sure that some time during that session I am going to wish I was somewhere else.

I started the day with a true breakfast of champions.  Omelet with onion, red capsicum, garlic and a little ham, with a side of chick pea salad.  (for recipe see my earlier Blog)

I then made my way to the pool.

The session today was lots of fun:

400 m warm up.  (lots of Finger drag drills)

5 X 200 m with fins

            (50 FS  100 m kick and 50 m FS)

4 X 200 m Medley

           (25 m drill and 25 m swim for each leg of the IM)

200 m warm down

If you're wondering when I wished to be somewhere else, it was jut before I set out on the third IM.

I then set off to work, ate a Starbucks egg white wrap for morning tea and ate a few pieces of stir fry beef and chicken for late lunch.

Monday nights are when I go to dance classes with my lovely wife.  Since we came to Singapore we have been trying to get a handle on a number of different dance styles.  Currently we are taking on the Tango.  I really have found this very useful.  It is great time out with my partner and it really has been very helpful in getting me to concentrate on my core body strength and my ankle strength and flexibility.  In fact, I put the recent troubles with my Achilles tendon, in part to the fact that it has been about 4 to 6 weeks since our last dance lesson. 

We had a great time and so did our dance instructor who seems to delight in our attempts to remember the steps and look all passionate at the same time.  Finished up with Slow cooked beef in a whole meal crepe.   Then home and to bed, ready for Tuesday.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 2

I really am very happy with the fact that I was able to get some exercise in over the weekend.  Thursday found me pretty low but Saturday morning I felt OK, but took a conservative approach to training.

I went out for an easy ride on Saturday morning, starting at about 5:50 am.  There is a very weird phenomenon that I have still yet to get used to fully even though I have been living in Singapore nearly 18 months.  As Singapore is right on the Equator, the length of days seems not to very throughout the year.  It is full night until about 7:00 am, all year round, and there is very little dawn or twilight.  So when I go out for a ride at 6:00 am in the morning, any day of the year, it is still night time. 

I did a short ride around the local area to measure one of my running courses and then I rode out to Tuas and home for a nice easy 54 km.

Sunday morning, again I was up at dark and out on the road for an easy 9.4 km, taking my short course around the back of the Botanic Gardens to Burkit Timah Road.  Again, nothing too hard.  I was happy this weekend to be getting any exercise in at all.

I made breakfast when I got back home. We had pancakes with butter an honey.  Not quite the breakfast of Champions, but real fine all the same.

I have taken the opportunity of being a bit off colour at the end of last week to do some stretching and strengthening of my Achilles tendon.  One exercise that a number of physio therapists have recommended to me is one where I stand on the ball of my foot on a step, with my heel suspended beyond the tread, then I raise and lower myself on the ball of my foot, raising myself on my toes and then lowering myself so the the calf muscle is stretched.  The most important part of this exercise is to ensure that the lowering part of the exercise is slow and controlled so that the muscle is stretched while being subjected to a mild eccentric contraction.  Doing about 10 - 12 of these exercises on each foot has been really helping with reducing the tenderness in my tendon.

In the afternoon on Sunday I had a hit of tennis with my younger daughter.

Dinner consisted of a steak with a mix of steamed and roasted vegetables.

Totals for the week 16th to the 22nd of July

Swim: 5 km
Bike: 120 km
Run: 9.4 km

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Week 2 Day 5

Well, having a wife with a bad cold and training through, it had to happen that I would come down with something.

I woke up on Thursday morning feeling not at all well, so I decided this should be my rest day with an option of a few more in the next few days.

Friday was not a lot better, but I had taken my clothes to work anticipating that I would run to work in the morning.  Instead of a run I had a very easy ride.  As easy as is possible while still negotiating the traffic between my home and work.  Actually by lunch time I started to feel a bit better so I should be able to get some kms in over the weekend. 

Given that my training hit a bit of a hole for a couple of days I have taken the opportunity of the down time to check through the details of the triathlon that is scheduled for 29th of September.

The excitement is building.  I received an email from the Triathlon Association of Singapore (TAS) during the week to let me know that they have a new logo for this years event.  I noted on the website that there is a notice that the Standard Distance Triathlon will be limited to 1000 places and this should be filled fairly quickly.

I have noticed over the past couple of weeks that a number of readers of this Blog are from UK and Europe.  Perhaps some of you are even thinking of making the trip to Singapore for the triathlon in September.  I strongly recommend, if you are planning on travelling to Singapore to participate in the Triathlon, or in any sporting event here, you give yourself plenty of time before the event to get used to difference in Time Zone.  I recently returned from Europe and it took me fully 1 week to get my internal body clock synchronised so I felt I was getting good sleep during the night and was fully awake during the day.  This was also the experience of the whole family.

What tends to happen when you travel from West to East (ie EU to Asia) and you shift your time zone about 8 to 12 hours in this direction is that you feel shattered. On the second night in the new time zone, you wake up, wide awake in the middle of the night, and there is almost no chance at all of going back to sleep.  The effect is not so bad when you travel East to West.

Now there is a lot of advice on how to over come "Jet Lag" and I have tried many of them such as taking melatonin, ingesting sleeping pills doing meditation or simply staying awake for as long as possible during the day, even though you feel completely miserable, and then going to sleep only when it is dark, and they do not work nearly as well as giving your body sufficient time to adapt to the new time zone.  I will set down my experience with each of these in turn.

Melatonin:  Hmmm, not so sure about this one.  I really don't think that this works for me any better than doing nothing. 

Sleeping pills:  The good thing about taking sleeping pills is that you do get some sleep, so you my not be completely exhausted for the first couple of days in the new time zone.  But on the few occasions that I have used sleeping pills to get some sleep at night, I felt that they become less and less effective with each night that I used them and they did not seem to assist me with resynchronising my body clock. Eventually I stopped taking the tablet, and then... Bam, wide awake at night.  So the net effect was really only to delay the timing of the sleepless night as opposed to easing my body into the new time zone.

Meditation: Well you can visualise yourself feeling all full of vip and vim, even if you don't truly feel it.

Staying awake all day to speed up the synchronisation of your body clock:  Well, I do really feel miserable in the afternoon taking this approach, and certainly on the first night, when I am completely exhausted, I do sleep through.  The effect of wakefulness really only then kicks in on the second night.  You still feel rough for the first week in the new time zone.  I do this, but I am not sure that there is any benefit to me resetting my body clock faster than it would otherwise adjust given no conscious change of sleeping pattern.

Now these are my experiences, so they may not, and probably don't apply universally.  The point I am making is that there are ways of getting into a new time zone a little quicker, but they are not conducive to best performance.  I note that the Australian swimming team have gone into camp in Manchester already, some 9 days before the commencement of the Olympics and I am sure that it is in part to overcome the effect that I am talking of here.

Granted, Singapore can be a slightly expensive place to stay and hang out in for a week, but if you are planning on travelling to Singapore in September and if you want to get in the tome zone a week early, there are inexpensive options for you to stay such as in Bintan, Indonesia or even somewhere such as Malacca in Malaysia.

I recently wrote about our recent family excursion to Bintan.  You can read about this in one of my earlier Blogs "Away by Sea to Bintan".  I will put together some information about Malacca in the near future so look out for this soon.

So today I rode very slowly from home to work and back.  Total distance on the bike: 17.6 km.

Dinner of roast chicken with steamed vegetables and then to bed for rest and recovery.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Week 2 Day 3

The weather today in Singapore was mild and a little overcast.  A perfect day to get some extra distance in.  I woke up with the intention of getting in a few km on the bike and a swim.

Things are a little hectic at work so to keep my energy up in the morning I decided to skip the swim before work and schedule in a session during lunch time.

I woke this morning quite early. My wife bought a flu back with her from the UK last week so I have had some disrupted sleep and this morning I was up well before 5:00 am.  I did some stretches and had a cup of coffee.  For breakfast I ate sausage and 2 eggs scrambled.

I rode to work, just letting my legs tick over nice and smooth and started working on September budgeting process.

I finished up around noon and headed over to Buona Vista pool where I set out to do a 1 km time trial.  The aim was to go out easy for the first 200 m, concentrating on bilateral breathing and really reaching as far forward as possible upon entry.  My goal is of course to get the 1 km under 20 minutes.  The first 400 m felt really fine and I was well on time.  By 600 m however I was starting to get really ragged.  At the 800 m mark I pulled the pin.  16 min 30 sec.  My form was shot and my pace had dropped right off.  I knew that I had dropped off the pace.  I was disappointed, but by the same token, this is an improvement in pace.  I just need to keep my form for longer.  I finished the last 200 m in 4 minutes after a 90 sec rest.  My 20 min 1 km will come soon.

Back to work, after a lunch of chicken and stir fried vegetables with half a bowl of rice.

More budget planning.

Then rode home.  I got a break with the lights and got up to 54 km/hour coming down off Kent Ridge.  Rode the rest of the way home quick and smooth averaging around 34 km/hr.

I finished the night with a light supper of cheese, pate and biscuits and desert of yogurt an honey.
Total distance covered in training today:

1 km swim;
17.5 km bike.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Week 2 Day 2

As it inevitably must at some time, my diet went off the rails today. 

Breakfast consisted of yogurt with banana and honey.

When the girls were out the door and on their way to school, I made for the pool by bike where I swam an easy mile (1600m) and finished the ride to work.  Starbucks had run out of egg white wraps when I got there this morning so I settled for a chicken pie for my second breakfast.  (There were some vegetables in the chicken pie but I am not sure I could give you a full rundown of the ingredients).

I had a work lunch today which was held at a vegetarian restaurant, so I went the pasta option with mushrooms, onions and Parmesan cheese in a white wine and cream sauce.

I decided to skip the soccer game this week in order to take some of the pressure off my Achilles tendon.  But it is only very mildly sore and poses no real threat to my preparation. 
Today I read a great article on motivation by Chris McCormac that I will link in here.  It contains some really good insight into maintaining focus on the goal that you set yourself and how this can keep you getting up to do your training everyday, when really, you'd like to be taking it easy like friends and family around you.

In the evening I completed my training by riding from work to home, thereby fulfilling two goals.  One of successfully negotiating the commute to work and the second of getting in some distance on the bike.  The first part of the ride home was through some heavy tropical rain. One of the good things about rain in Singapore is that it is never cold, and you are very unlikely to catch any sort of chill from getting soaked to the skin.  I thought I was in for a very hairy ride, because, even though I was not afraid of catching a chill, the breaks on my bike weren't having that big a retarding effect on my speed.  However, once I got off Kent Ridge, the rain eased and I had a relatively dry ride home along Commonwealth Avenue.

Dinner was waiting for me.  Chicken soup and vegetable quiche with salad.  Excellent!
All in all another land mark day in the countdown to the 29th of September; 1600 m in the pool and 21 km on the bike.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Week 2, Day 1

What a difference a few days makes!

During my swimming session last Thursday I was feeling particularly whimpy.  Today, not.

I started off today with a light breakfast of sausages, scrambled eggs and chick pea salad.

Then I set off to the pool.

The session today was a lot of fun, starting with 400 m of drills for warm up.

Then 12 X 100 m with fins consisting of 4 sets of the following:

100 m IM on 2 min 15 sec
100 m kick on 2 min 15 sec
100 m FS on 2 min

Then I did 2 X 300 m with paddles and pool buoy broken up as follows

100 m easy and 50 hard and repeat then take a 30 sec rest before doing the second rep

Finished off with a 100 m FS warm down

Total distance covered was 2300 m.

I then raced off to work where I had a egg white wrap and capuccino from Starbucks

For lunch I had braised chicken.

Dinner consisted of vegetarian quiche with salad washed down with 2 glasses of red wine.

Very happy with the session today, I went to bed tired and content.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: End of Week 1

Week of 9th to the 15th of July

My good friend and work colleague Tony has taken an interest in my swimming, and good for me that he has.  From my earlier posts you may recall that it was Tony who directed me to getting coaching for my swimming to improve my technique.  About 6 to 8 weeks ago he gave me some tips to improve my technique by watching me for a few laps at a pool near work.  On Friday he asked how I was going.  In particular, he wants he reemphasised my need to concentrate on extending my arm forward in the water following the recovery phase as if I was reaching for the end of the pool with every stroke.  "You should feel like you are trying to dislocate your shoulder you are stretching so far forward".

So this morning I went down to the pool in our condominium to work on my stroke.  I did about 1 km of swimming technique.  During the day I could certainly feel that I'd worked my shoulders, my right shoulder in particular, in a way they were not used to. I will continue with this drilling until I seem to have equal strength on both sides of my body.

After a rest during which I had a lunch of smoked salmon on avocado and bread, I went for a Long Slow Distance (LSD) run of around 12 km that took me out Holland Road to Holland Village and Back via Commonwealth Avenue to River Road and Back up Zion Road to home. I finished this in 1 hour and 2 minutes.

Estimated calories burned during this run was 910 Cal.

Finished off the day with a beautiful dinner of Pork medallions accompanied with apple and mushroom jus.


Totals for the week 9th to the 15th of July

Swim: 8 km
Bike: 102 km
Run: 23 km


So at the end of the first full week of preparation I am feeling pretty good. I have recovered from the worst of the jet lag following my holiday in Europe and my sleep patterns have normalised. I am happy with my fitness in general. The 60 km bike ride on Saturday was, if anything a little short as I felt very comfortable at the end of the ride. I will need to increase this distance next week. I have a slight strain on my left Achilles tendon that flared up during the soccer game on Tuesday night, probably because I was so tight in the legs from the travel. I need to continue to massage and stretch my lower legs, but all in all I feel in good shape going into week 2.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Day 7

Saturday morning is a great time to get out and do some longer sessions.

Today I planned to do a 60 km ride.  Luckily for me the distance from my front gate to the entry road to Changi Beach Park is exactly 30 km.  Even luckier, the weather in Singapore has been surprisingly mild.  Today was no exception.  There was light rain falling as I set out from home and this accompanied me for the full 2 and quarter hours of my ride.

The course I follow takes me through the cavernous streets of Downtown Singapore's CBD and out past the structurally surprising Marina Bay Sands Hotel.  From there I travel past the Esplanade Theatre and from there, out the Nicol Highway, onto Mounbatten Drive to East Coast Park.

Marina Bay Sands Hotel, Singapore.

The Service Road along the length of the East Coast Park is very popular for cyclists.  Unfortunately the surface of the roadway is the worst in Singapore.  I mean it is not as bad as a cobbled road as you might encounter in Europe, but it is very poor by Singapore standards.  The potholes, speed bumps and ripple strips gives your kidneys a good work out.  There is also a constant wind blowing from the East that presents a head wind that can only be measured in the effect that it has on your speed on the outward leg of the ride.

At the end of the East Coast Park I go onto the Changi Coast Road which runs parallel to the main runway at Changi Airport.  This goes all the way to Changi Beach, which is my turnaround point.

Today I rode 59.6 km at an average speed of 28 km/hr. During the ride my estimated energy usage was 1460 Cal.  As it was cool today I did not drink a full bottle of Gatorade during the ride. On a normal day I would drink as many as 2 litres of sports drink on this ride.

I woke a bit late today and for better or for worse, I skipped breakfast before heading out on my ride.  This morning I had a late, yet filling breakfast which consisted of two eggs, a cup of Lavazza coffee and 6 mini sausages prepared by my delightful younger daughter.

Because breakfast was so late the family and I did not consider making lunch so by the time dinner was on the table we were all very hungry! Tonight, dinner was a steak and salad sandwich with steak (obviously!), capsicum, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots and fried onions. Yum!!

I finished the day with a short session of yoga in preparation for a long run tomorrow.

Preparing for the Singapore Triahlon: Day 6

There is no question that today I need to get on the road and get some running into my training program.  So far this week I have only been able to get a small amount or running in during the foot ball game I played on Tuesday night.  This probably didn't amount to 1 km.  So today I have to pull on the running shoes and get on my way.

Breakfast consisted of 2 rashes of Bacon, 2 eggs, half a tomato and some chick pea salad, washed down with coffee.  I supplemented this with a Vitamin C and zinc tablet for good measure.

Because of commitments with the family, I don't get out on the road as much as I should, but I try to work them in as part of my commute to the office, just as I do with the bike rides during the week.  So this morning I commuted to work on foot.  The distance gate to gate is 8.8 km.  The running in Singapore is nice and flat.  The challenge is the heat.  Carrying a back pack with work clothes complicates that matter as the back pack blocks off a large area of my back which is ideally available for heat exchange.  Fortunately the weather in Singapore this week has been particularly mild.  Even so, I knocked off 2 cans of 100 Plus when I got into the office and was still trying to rehydrate myself with water until well after midday.

For morning tea I had an egg white, cheese and roasted capsicum wrap and a cappuccino from Starbucks.

Lunch consisted of green chicken Curry with rice and stir-fry vegetables

Dinner was spinach and feta triangles and a couple of glasses of vino, red and white.

The weekend is where I plan to get in some distance on the bike and running.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Day 5

This will be an important couple of days for my preparation.  Although it is early in the training period, it is after about 4 to 5 days that my willpower starts to wain.

This morning I kicked off with a breakfast of beef rissoles and a 2 egg omelet, one yolk removed.  This was preceded by an early morning cup of coffee. 

At 7:30 I set off to the pool.  I know this seems late but surprisingly to me, people in Singapore don't start their day particularly early.   Swim Coach Louise Tan runs her sessions from 8:00 am to 9:00 am.  Work office hour officially start between 9:00 am and 10:00 am.  There is a deal of flexibility here.  People who start work after 9:00 am generally work beyond 6:00 pm.

Anyway, back to the pool session.

400 m warm up (Various Drills)

4 X 100 m on 2:20
3 X 100 m on 2:15
2 X 100 m on 2:10
1 X 100 m on 2:05

Fins

2 X 50 m FS Kick
4 X 50 m BF Kick
4 X 50 m 1 arm BF drill
4 X 50 m combination 1 arm X 2 with 2 Arm BF (3 strokes of each in rotation)
1 X 50 m BF

300 m Hypoxic warm down

Total for the session 2500 m.

Felt the burn in the shoulders long after the session was finished.

With the session over I west off for work.  Picked up an Egg white, cheese and grilled capsicum wrap from Starbucks and jumped into work at the office.

Lunch found me back in my favourite Chicken joint.  Today the menu included Satay chicken with stir fry vegetables.

I had a cup cake for afternoon tea and dinner consisted of Thai Red Chicken Curry.

To bed early and ready for a run tomorrow.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon Day 4

I am planning that Wednesday will be my rest day during my preparation period,  However, as I have come off a fairly extensive lay off and am reasonably fresh, and given I have so much to make up on my swimming, I thought today should be a light work out consisting of an easy ride and a few laps of the pool to get my kms up.

Breakfast this morning consisted of beef rissoles, 2 eggs (1 yolk removed), chick pea salad and a cup of Lavazza coffee.

I rode to Buona Vista swimming complex where I swam 1500 m, then rode on to work.

For Lunch I had one of my favourite egg white, cheese and grilled capsicum wraps from Starbucks.

The day was rounded off with a short ride home.  Total bike distance for the day 17 km.

Dinner consisted of a deep dish beef pie from Starbucks at Changhi airport where I went to pick up my wife

Unbelievably tired, I fell into bed at 11:0 pm.  Ahh sleep.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Day 3

I woke up this morning early.  I am still feeling the effects of jet lag and am not sleeping very well at night.  My weight this morning was 72.4 kg, which is 0.4 kg lower than yesterday, and about 1 kg lower than Sunday morning.  Hmmm, maybe I didn't put on as much weight as I had thought over the past 6 weeks.

Breakfast consisted of pork steaks with scrambled eggs and Chick Pea Salad (See my post 8 July for the recipe).  I ate 2 eggs but removed one of the yolks.  I also took a Vitamin C and zinc tablet for good measure.

This morning I rode to work via the pool at Queenstown sports complex on Stirling Road.  The idea was to follow up on my swim session from yesterday, get in some extra laps, while taking the opportunity of getting my legs moving on the bike.

The Queenstown pool is a bit tricky to swim in because of a current that runs down its length.  Yesterday's session during which I had to count strokes while doing finger drag exercise showed the magnitude of this current effect.

For the six lengths that I did on Monday stroke counts were as follows:

1.    42 strokes
2.    53 strokes
3.    41 strokes
4.    52 strokes
5.    39 strokes
6.    51 strokes

Needless to say, this is not an ideal pool in which to do a time trial.   The best pool in the area that I live in is the Buona Vista Pool at Holland Village.  However, this pool is closed on Tuesday mornings, so I use the Queenstown pool.  I did a 1 km swim in 22 min 7 sec.  This is about 1 minute slower than a similar swim that I did 4 weeks ago.  That swim was at Buona Vista and it was after a day rest.  Still, to realistically reach my goal of 2 hr 40 minutes for the standard Triathlon, I will need to swim 15% faster.

After my swim I took off to work.  Lunch of Baked Chicken and her Sauce with stir fried vegetables and no rice.  I did drink a number of cans of 100 Plus today.  This is the local sports drink.  You lose lots of fluid and salt while working out in Singapore that it is important to maintain a much higher intake of electrolytes than you would in a more temperate climate.  Even with this I suffer many more cramps in Singapore than I did in Sydney.

In the evening I rode over to Turf City Soccer centre and played soccer for an hour with colleagues from work.  After the game I drank more 100 Plus and a couple of beers.  (We were saying farewell to one of our regulars who after about 9 years in Singapore is returning to Australia).

QUFC in the farewell appearance of Michael in front row middle

After the game I rode home.  Round trip on the bike for the day was 25 km.

The soccer game is usually pretty intense, so after eating three mince rissoles, I had a soaking bath to see if I could circumvent some of the anticipated leg soreness.

So ends day 3.  Tired but content.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon: Day 2

Today is my first day back at work after 3 weeks holiday.  It is also day 2 of preparation for the Triathlon Association of Singapore Triathlon.

I woke up early and made a breakfast of beef rissoles, fried eggs and salad.  The salad was made of left overs from yesterday morning with Greek feta cheese on a bed of fresh lettuce leaves.

Breakfast of Champions

Off to the pool with coach Louise Tan.  Louise is a pure swim coach and she tends not to focus on triathlon sessions.  I don't mind this because I like to mix up the strokes and makes the shoulders move in a variety of ways, thus reducing some of the risk of repetitive strain.  Her favoured stroke seems to be the butterfly

The session was challenging, given that I am only 2 days back from holiday.  But then, I always find swim sessions tough.

It stated out with 400 m warm up
(25m skulls, 25m pull X 2
50m SSS, 50m FS
50m finger drag 50 m FS X 2)

8 X 100 m with 20 sec recovery  (this was done as 75 m FS with the remaining 25 m of each rep done with a different stroke in the order of the IM ie butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle)

6 X 50 m finger drag: count the number of strokes

300 m butterfly kick with fins: 100 prone; 100 side position; 100 m on the back

200 m warm down

Total of 2000 m

Comments:

My biggest challenge is maintaining the quality of my freestyle stroke when I fatigue.  And there is nothing more fatiguing than doing a 75 m free style ending up with 25 m butterfly.  It really takes the wind out of me.  When I get tired I shorten my stroke, fail to get the full rotation of my hips and swing my right arm across the line of my body to make up for the lack of rotation of my body.

The finger drag exercise is a good way to correct this overreaching of the arm as it enters the water and can be practised at a slightly slower pace than the other sets in the session.

Lunch consisted of herbal chicken with stir fried vegetables from my favourite chicken aunty.  I skipped the rice in an effort to keep my carbohydrate intake low while I am trying to get my body fat percentage down.

Dinner consisted of stir fry pork with stir fry vegetables with vegetarian oyster sauce.

After dinner I did about 45 minutes of stretches.  Ironing out the kinks.

Preparing for the Singapore Triathlon 2012

This year the Triathlon Association of Singapore (TAS) will be conducting their Championship Triathlon on the 29th of September.

My Goal for the Triathlon will be to go under 2 hours and 40 miunutes.  This is a goal that I set mysef about 10 years ago, but one which I have not gone close to reaching. This Blog will be a record of my preparation for the event.  I have one major consideration in planning my preparation.  In addition to having a job and a family that require my attention in equal measure, I also have to plan for a very busy September during which I will be holidaying in Bali and possibly travelling to Australia for work.  This means that I need to plan to have my fitness training completed by the end of August and then work on speed, strengh and technique while travelling during September.  I am lucky to have a good base that I built up while preparing for the Aviva Half Iron man and I will need to rely on this as I start increasing load over the next 7 weeks.

Day 1: Sunday 7/7/2012

I woke up a bit shakey this morning.  Suffered a bit of jet lag and tiredness from returning from Europe yesterday.  I travelled with Sandra, (Claire's mum), Bridget, (Claire's niece), Sophie and Gabriella from Nice to Singapore via Rome, Venice and Dubai.  The story of this trip is not for this post.  Maybe I will set this down elswhere in my Blog.  Maybe it is beter just to forget.

Prepared a breakfast for champions.  I put on about 3 and a half kgs since Bintan.  I was trying to build  up a bit of muscle in the 3 weeks after the Bintan triathlon and I did not worry too much about diet while I was travelling.  I am confident of getting my weight down to about 70kgs over the next few weeks with the rigth diet and exercise.

Breakfast consisted of Sausage, scrambled eggs and chick pea salad which consists of:

1 can of Chick Peas

1/2 a red capsicum

1 whole Japanese Cucumber

Dressing

juice of 1 lemon

Equal measure of Olive Oil

1 garlic clove crushed and finely cut.

Complemented beautifully by a cup of Lavazza coffee.

After breakfast, I went out for a very easy 40 km ride.  I didn't get any stats from the ride as the battery in my trip computer faded out overnight last night.  Later in the day I picked up new batteries for the trip computer from our loocal bike shop. 

It was a nice easy day with an easy ride and lots of walking.  Dinner consisted of Chicken soup and caramel tart.  Not so much the dinner of champions!  Delicious none the less.  I didn't get tim for lunch.  A couple of spoons full of peanut paste and some codien tablets.  (Bad headache from sitting on plane and getting dried out like an Egyptian mummy.  Anyway, day one is done,m my preparation is started and I am very excited about what is in store over the next 2 and a half months.
 

Grecian Dreaming: Aegean Island of Lemnos

We travelled to Lemnos from Venice with a short stopover in Athens.  With 6 hours up our sleeves we decided to make a quick dash to the Acropolis.  Do not believe the cynics as I have for many years.  The Parthenon is breathtaking in its splendour.  Just  breathtaking.  And if the ruins are of no interest, then the view from the top of the Acropolis alone is worth the entry fee with a clear view over the magnificent city of Athens stretching out to the beautiful Blue of the Mediterranean.

Church overlooking the port at Myrina, Lemnos.

We flew to Lemonos with Olympic Air. It can also be reached by ferry from Athens, but this takes about 12 hours.  We decided to take the quicker option.   Situated strategically in the in the northern Aegean sea, near the mouth of the Helles straights Lemnos has a population of around 20,000 people today, down from around 40,000 inhabitants in the late 1950s.  One of the cab drivers who we travelled with told us there are as many as 25,000 natives and descendants of Lemnos living in Australia alone.  The island is surrounded by protected Sandy beaches.  It is a great place to go for a long training swim.  The waters were clear and relatively safe.  Of course always check with the locals before going for a swim off any of the beaches.  One gentlemen was very helpful in letting me know not to swim on a particular part of the beach, even though he could not speak English and I no Greek.  He just pulled out a sea urchin out of the rocks and saved me from a particularly spiky experience! 

Crystal clear water and
rugged cliffs, attesting the
volcanic origin of the island.

We stayed at the Apollo Pavilion using the main port of Myrina as our base during our stay in Lemnos.  A highlight of the trip was a sea cruise up the west coast of the island.  We went to the far North West tip of the island and sailed back down with a swim at Karvounolakka Bay.  The water is fantastic to swim in and unbelievably clear.   I was able to clearly see the sea floor to a depth of about 8 m even without goggles.  After our swim we were treated to a lunch of dolmades, baked eggplant, fresh garden salad and pasta with Lemnos Bread.  Lunch was delicious.  After lunch we cruised on down towards Myrina and stopped for one more swim before proceeding back toward port.

Sun Setting over Holy Mt Athos

 There was a plethora of Cafés around the port and they serve a wonderful range of traditional Greek meals including sardines, octopus, souvlaki.  Beer is inexpensive and the wine available copiously.  It is a treat to sit by the port and sip on Ouzo or eat dinner in one of the beachside restaurants as the sun slowly sets over Mt Athos and the long twilight lingers.  We didn’t eat out every meal.  Our favourite supper during our stay consisted of Greek yogurt, Lemnos Honey and bananas.  Lemnos honey has a beautiful aromatic flavor, redolent of the flowers and thyme that grows wild on the hills of the island.

The "Parliament" site at Poliochni

On the East coast of you can visit Poliochni, one of the oldest cities in Western Europe and thought to incorporate one of the oldest parliaments in Western Europe.  Poliochni which was first settled in about 4000 BC and is thought to predate Troy.  On a clear day one can see the coast of Turkey near Troy, and the archaeologists believe that there was trade in technology between the 2 settlements.

The site at Poliochni was first excavated in 1936 and the archaeological work was finished in the early 1990s.  Many artifacts from the site are housed in the museum of Myrina, as well as the museum of Ancient History in Athens.

View from the top of the port at Myrina.

The port of Myrina is dominated by the Byzantine Castle that sits high over the town.  We walked to the castle in the late afternoon.  The castle was constructed over 200 years of occupiers from Turkey and Venice on top of fortifications first set down by the Etruscans who were earlier immigrants to the island. It took us about 20 minutes to climb from the port to the top of the Castle and the view was well worth the climb.

The comfortable cruise ship tied up in port.   This trip is a must during a visit to Lemnos.

 We visited in June and the water was still very refreshing.  Best times to visit according to the locals are Spring, when the hills are covered in wild flowers, and September to October, when the air is mild and the water beautiful and warm, early to mid autumn when the air is cool and the water still warm from the Summer.  Summer is great as the days are long and hot; maybe a little too hot for some.  Winters universally described as dire with a cold wind whipping across the island and the place best to be avoided.

We loved our stay in Lemnos.  There is a lot more for us to see than we were able to get to during our short stay and  would be more than happy to drop in should we pass that way again.