Since landing on base level zero, i haven't been stopping. It's been a while since i felt the same level of fatigue achieved through training.
Went on a round island ride last sat with Ah Boy. The lack of aerobic fitness was displayed prominently when the winds, terrain and heat picked up after 90km. The disc wheel and 90mm front did not help at all and made me work harder to spin the Transition up. Ah Boy said he never seen me like this and pulled me along majority of the remaining 60km, i felt bad that he had to slow down to "look after" me (usually it was the other case). My HR shot ridiculously high while my wattage dived to a awesomely low level. Morale took a beating for sure during the ride.
Went to the green on Sun, the soreness from the long ride was evident when i limped around walking. I attempted to warm up at the range prior to prevent injury and enhance flexibility. The routine works as i played one of my better rounds and felt better after 5 hours of blood circulation. The lactic acid were generally flush and i felt the soreness go away steadily.
Short run on my own at Monday morning felt good. I observed my quiet and rythemic breathing during the run. My HR was rather high, and i made a mental note that it should come down steadily as i improves on my aerobic fitness. It was also Sake night for Monday. Needless to say, i had a good time and was fast asleep after reaching home.
Swam Tue evening. It is always a happy session when i enter the water. I wish all training would be the same. Finally completed the installation of the Thule roof rack on the Merc. With the rack, i could easily drive to coastal, train and return safely without damaging the interior of the car. Small price to pay for big returns (i hope)
Got jio to ride on Wed morning (Being a public holiday most slept in). At 6am, i loaded the Transition up the Merc, drove 20 mins to ECP F2 (a very familiar place), met up with some of the fastest guys i know on bicycles. The short 2 laps on Coastal Road were same as the ones i used to do for EnR (Every Tue evenings previously) but with zero speed i tried to follow the group's pace (42km/hr) and i was barely hanging on the skin of my teeth for lap 1. I took a early turn hoping to gain some time to recover while the rest went slightly further ahead to u-turn. I hammered myself silly at 36km/hr on the return leg of lap 1 catching some solo riders out there. Surprisingly I also overtook smaller packs despite the shortness of breath, slight dizziness and endless dripping of perspirations. Lap 2 was averaging 34km/hr during the hammer stage and i was eventually overtaken by the group in the final kilometers. The feeling was good when i ended the short training session. Speed work was meant to hurt and this one did. Thanks to Enrico, Hui Koon, Sin Guan and Chris Smith (my all time favorite riding machine) for letting me be part of their training group.
Ran a hilly 8km on Thurs before work starts. Mentally i was rather defeated by the terrain especially after sustaining sufficient lactic acid after the last few training session. But Pin Chuan (a good friend) paced and chatted with me throughout the 42 mins. The pain and discomfort was distracted by the chatting and we finished the run strong. My cooling down took almost 90 mins as the HR and circulation slowly comes down. The 5+ mins pace was good and i felt good especially finishing strongly.
Today (Fri) i spin to the office. The spinning reminded me of all the fun i had on the roadie. The spinning also aided circulation and helps recovery (in terms of reducing lactate build up). In my studies, i found out that the lactate levels can take several days to go back to regular levels if left untouched. Hence, smaller workouts and stretching helps aid the process and more importantly keeps the fun in.
Tomorrow (Sat) is the weekly Tanjong Beach Swim. I am looking forward to dive into a familiar environment and helping others along the way (there's a good amount of swimmers attempting the Tri-Factor swim next week).
A lot of people got concern after the last blog entry, but patience is what i need now. A lot of positive self talks and thoughts goes into my mind often these days. I hope the knowledge from Sports Psychology will be useful in helping me get back my fitness levels.
To those following this blog, thanks for the encouragement given. I'm motivated to return to the good-o-days, it is a matter of when and how i get there. With Project 2015, it is going to be a different experience training and racing in that extreme condition.
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