Injured

Told Swee that my left heel hurts after running or prolonged walking. She referred me to Changi Sports Medicine Centre to have my heel checked. Doc said that I have plantar fasciitis and a small tear in my tendon cos' I have an inflexible foot type which makes the tendon unable to absorb pounding from running effectively. Eventually the shock and pressure went to my heel. Dr prescribed anti-inflammatory medication, sent me to the podiatrist (he said that orthotics will help to support the arch so that there will be less pressure on the heel) and also 2 sessions of extracopereal shockwave therapy. He said he'd be lying if he said it's not painful but the pain is bearable.

And he is right.

The machine 'taps' on my heel and when the intensity was increased, it felt like a hammer hitting my bone. I would have kicked the doctor if he weren't so cute. kakakaka...

That's my sports doc below - Dr Jason Chia.

Single ladies out there, heard that he's still single!!! :D

Kapas

I'm heading to Marang, Trengganu tonight. I gave EL's slot to Anita. At least she's more appreciative.

Englock said that he's not going because he has flu and the bus ride is unbearable.

He passed me the flu bug, and I'm gonna endure the unbearable bus ride, and swim 6.5km, and go back to work on Monday.

Some things are just a matter of priority.

Aviva IM 70.3

I was the swimmer in the relay team. It was quite a good swim. No one kicked me this time. Maybe because the number of participants were greatly reduced and the swimmers were really gentle and non-competitive. In fact, I was the one who kicked a few people along the way. Opps!!

Was swimming breaststroke to recover my breath after the run-up (after the 1st loop) and I accidently kicked someone really hard. I was really apologetic and was hoping that I didn't do much damage. The person whom I kicked then caught up and swam next to me. Was trying to keep my head submerged longer hoping that he won't recognise me. Alas! I heard a "LLIIIXXXIIIAAAA!!!!" Wah shit! Of the hundreds of swimmers, I have to kick someone I know and he'll probably hate me for as long as he remembers. It was Cookie (one of the swimmers from YF). I mumbled my apologies while catching my breath. Luckily, he said it wasn't too bad a damage and swam away. Phew! Good thing that Jiayi, Liping and I practise chatting in the sea during the sea swim training. Must make a mental note to tell coach that he shouldn't get too pissed when we do that. The skill will come in handy! Haha!

There were some swimmers being stung by jellyfish during the race. I was lucky. Or maybe the jellyfish have all lost their stings by the time I got there. Haha!

Well, at the end of the day, it wasn't too bad a swim for me personally. Clocked 52mins for the 1.9km swim despite the strong currents. Hopefully Kapas will be a better swim!

Kapas Swimathon

I'm going for the Kapas Swimathon over the Good Friday weekend. Hope I make it back alive. Haha. Really.

Heard that the support's terrible. Last year, one of the pro was way ahead of her pack and got lost in the sea. Then she panicked and had to be rescued. See. This is what they mean by kiang jiu ho...mai ke kiang. In any case, I'll probably get scooped out of the water cos' I'm taking too long in the water.

Heard about the jellyfishes too. Liping went to research on anti-jellyfish products and found this lotion that protects against jellyfish stings. It doesn't repeal jellyfishes, just make their sting less painful. The only problem is, it lasts only 80 mins. And we have 6.5km to go. That's assuming that we swim in a straight line.

I really hope to make it back to land alive. Haha...

Wanted to get a Blue Seventy speedsuit to protect against the stings. But one such suit costs $300-400 after discount?! I think a trip to the hospital will only cost a fraction of that! (In ringgit somemore...) Tried to look at 2XU wetsuits but Liping and I figured that we'll probably die from heatstroke before we swim into any jellyfish. So we decided to try a hybrid solution. I'll be wearing my compression top, and Liping will be wearing her compression tights. This tells a lot about which part of our body matters most. Well, at least I wear a compression top to prevent chafting on my arms + sun protection. I don't know if she gets any chafting from kicking too much. Heh heh...

Yup. So that sums it all up for my upcoming race. If I make it back alive, I'll blog about the swim. If I don't, you can narrow down to the above reasons.

Those were the days

I almost forgot that I have a blog.

Well, life is pretty much the same. Mon swim, Tue swim or run, Wed rest, Thu run, Fri swim, Sat yoga, Sun eat and get fat, and the cycle repeats.

Met up with Ah Chew, Ah Bee, Ah Nice and Celest a few weeks back. Remembered that we called ourselves the blacklisters after reading Ah Bee's blog. Haha...those were the days. I was always either cracking jokes during our term paper discussions or eating, or was simply absent (usually I'm late). I remembered Ah Bee was so pissed off once with me that she walked off! :D I hope we passed that term paper in the end.

Met up with Ah Tut and Bit recently too. 10 years ago, our topics centered around what is the meaning of life and whether love is a chemical reaction in the body etc. 10 years later, we talk about bills, aging parents and Ah Bit's love interests (hahaha...kidding kidding...).

Suddenly, I feel this sense of nostalgia. I miss those times with Ah Chew, Desmurn, Keemin, Samuel and the SWAPS company. The wooden tables and benches along A6 (was it A6?), where we plugged in our laptops and watch the world go by.. Those nights that we camped over at the GIS lab, synchronising the PCs to play a particular song simultaneously. Crawling into the NUS pool in the middle of the night to swim. Running on the track at 3am, and doing laundry at 4am... And Ah Chew's Qing1 Dan4 (which is basically a pot of whatever we have left of the week's groceries)!!!

And there were the trekking trips to Lombong, Ophir and Belumut. Cycling trips to Desaru - how our legs and butt ached then. During one of the trekking trip to Lombong, I was the designated "rubbish collector" on our trek down, and when I got down on all 4s to take a big step across a boulder, the bag of rubbish swung from the top of my bag right into the side of my face. It doesn't help that an idiot brought a glass jar of spaghetti sauce for the trek and conveniently offloaded it in the "dustbin". Ah Chew and I always preferred maggi mee, bread and Campbell soup for outdoor cooking cos' it's light,leaves behind little rubbish and almost fail-proof (no prob eating maggi and bread without cooking). During one of the treks up Belumut, Bit was too tired and had to unload some of the stuff in her bag. To my horror, she was carrying stuff like sparkling juice (complete with the glass bottle) and a water melon!! Wanted to smash the water melon on the leader's head then. Haha! Was so pissed off...They even brought things like rice and chicken for "claypot rice". Anyway, those were the incidents that made the trips memorable...

I wonder how they are doing now...

Powerman Malaysia

I think I created quite a name for myself during the Powerman race. A negative one, that is. There were 5 bus loads of us who went up to Perak for the race. After the A&E and IV drip incident, 5 bus loads of Singaporeans know who I am. Plus the Malaysia organisers too.

That's not good at all. Till today, strangers will come up to me and ask "Hi Lixia! So how are you?? How have you been??" Of course I'll be wondering who these people are...but when they start asking questions like "So.......have you been drinking enough water lately??" and I'll know they were from the trip. I've encountered people smiling and saying hi to me at East Coast Park, Holland V, swimming pools....all from the trip I guess.

Sheesh! It doesn't make things any better when I absolutely cannot recall faces and names. Sigh...

Races

Finally found some time to post something on my blog! It has been quite a while since the last time I had some personal time to myself.

Quite a few things happened since the last time I blogged. (Oh btw, I figured that to stay out of trouble with my workplace, I won't be blogging about work or bitch about my work online!! haha)

Did the Malaysia Powerman in Nov. It was a tough race. Hot and humid. They didn't give out isotonic drinks and the distance was darn accurate (quite abnormal for Msia races...hehe) - means I had to run every bit of the 21km and cycle the full 64km. Pushed myself to finish within the cut-off time of 5 hours. Came in at 4:55 eventually. Was totally exhausted and felt my fingers starting to go numb. Went to lie down for a while but that didn't help. Was lying there for 2-3 hours and things got worse! People started coming and check out what was happening to me...was grateful for those who kept massaging my legs. The cramps were really bad and my whole body went into spasm. They couldn't do much and was afraid that I was going into a heat stroke, so they evacuated me and sent me to the local A&E. The doctor put me on IV drip immediately. Amazingly, my cramps got better by the minute! When the drip was done, I could stand on my feet and walk out of the A&E (barefooted...)! Amazing!!!

Anyway, Swee said that I lost too much salt and didn't replenish enough. It was a painful lesson but an important one too cos' Stan Chart was coming and I didn't want to screw that up.

Stan Chart's just over. It was surprisingly much better than I expected. Swee had prep-ed me for a 6:30min/km pace but I played it safe with a 7-8min/km pace, with the target of coming in by 5hr 30min. At 4:50, I hit the 38km mark and started calculating the pace that I could go at with 4km to go, so I started walking!!! Swee wasn't too happy about the walking bit... :D But I figured that since I could hit 5:30 with a bit of walk in between...might as well just enjoy the last bit of my marathon. My final chip time - 5:25:09. Haha...quite happy with my timing despite feeling a little guilty for walking.

Swee said that she'll start gearing me up again for Stan Chart Hong Kong (I'm only doing the half marathon!) in Jan 09. Arghhhh!!!! The thought of having to do intervals again gives me the LS feeling!!!!

The amazing thing about the SCM - I had no cramps, no stitches, no knee pain, no ankle pain, and I didn't even need a knee guard!!! Swee must have done something very right with our training... :)

Now I'm thinking about the races to do next year. Contemplating the Busselton Ironman in Dec 09. That would mean that I need a new bike and arghhh......the training starts all over again!!! X_X

Somebody

I'm searching for that somebody too...

I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
She'll get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
She'll hear me out
And won't easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact she'll often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought and
With every breath
Someone who'll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don't want to be tied
To anyone's strings
I'm carefully trying to steer clear of
Those things
But when I'm asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
I'll get away with it

My holiday

My Bali holiday sucks. It was freakingly hot, I was feasted on by the mosquitoes, the food was bad, got blasted everynight at the hotel (we stayed at Hard Rock Bali), it was either to go somewhere for a meal, thinking of what to eat for the next meal, or hanging out at the pool. To make things worse, EL decided that he would go for his pub crawling at night, leaving me to watch cable TV in the hotel, and worse, came back at 2-3am a bit tipsy and SNORE right into my ear. Thank you very much. Just the kind of holiday I need - to appreciate my work even more. By the 5th day, I was dying to come back to Singapore. By the 6th day, I concluded that I will not travel with EL alone again.

I'm giving him the cold shoulder and he's probably concluding that it's PMS again. It's always me and me and only me. He thinks that he's always right. My boss thinks that he's always right. Everybody thinks that they are right and I'm wrong.

Life sucks. Wish that I can drop dead right now. DAMN.

Open Water Swim 2008

It has been an exciting season. I thought I've seen the worst waters in Singapore during the OSIM Triathlon in July, then it was the more-suitable-for-surfing waters in Desaru, and finally the ultimate during the OWS on 4 Oct. The underwater current was frightening! It took me 2 hours to complete the first 2km. Couldn't move in the water because the currents were so strong! Was so worried when it took me 10 minutes just to cover the distance of the breakwater. Anyway, glad that I completed it. Was the last female who completed the 5km swim in 4 hrs 10 mins. Didn't know how I managed to do it. I think not wearing a watch helps but I kind of knew that I took a long time when I started in the mid-day sun and ended when the sun was setting. Keke....