17th May 2009, Sunday. My 4th YF Sea Swim Incoporated With Lazy Brick Training. Jelly Fish attacked Yellow Fish

This morning I headed to F2 ECP for my 4th YF sea swim. Melvin Jur joined us too. The training started punctually at 8am as usual. After Coach David gave a short brief, sorted out and reconfirmed all swimmers into respective group; gp 1 and 2 fastest swimmers (more seasoned swimmers), grp 3 moderate speed swimmers and grp 4 slow swimmers. Melvin, PS and I were were in gp 3. Grp 1,2 and 3 swam a bigger loop marked by 4 orange buoys and approx 320m, gp 4 swam a smaller loop marked by 3 white smaller buoys and approx 150m.

We started our swim with a loop of slow warm up swim. Next set of training was longer slow swim; grp 1 and 2- 3loops, grp 3 - 2 loops and grp 4 -2 small loop. Many swimmers ran into trouble in this set as most, included PS, Melvin and I were all stung by jelly fishes. Jelly fish attacked Yellow Fish. I was attacked on my left hand and it happened at the 1st loop approaching the second buoy. This was my first time stung by jelly fish, and the pain was like thousand of tiny needles poking on the skin, not exactly needle and pin sort of feeling but more painful than that. The pain lasted thru out the training. I reminded myself to bring along vinegar in the next sea swim. Coach Lim left it to individual to decide if we would like to continue and it seemed that no one backed out; wow what a bunch of brave yellow fishes.

The 3rd and 4th sets were 1 loop with increased swim speed intensity at subsequent loop. I managed to clock the time for both sets, 10min+ few sec (which made me think that the distance could be 350m,= 7 lap pools), no bad as a non seasoned sea swimmer, I guessed. I also felt that I was not panting as much after each set compared to the last 3 sea swim; I think I was getting use and more familiar to this sea swim. I remembered in my last few sea swims, I was alway uttering breathlessly after each set; pant, pant, pant.

We ended the swim with relay competition by divided into 8 gp with 5 swimmers. I was in the 7th gp 3rd swimmer. We were told to swim the smaller loop around the 3 white buoys. My first 2 swimmers did quite well, came in 2 and 5 spot respectively, but blurred me, DQ my team because I unknowingly swam passed only 2 buoys, that means I took shot cut hehehe. After the first buoy, I headed for the the 3rd buoy which I thought was the 2nd buoy. Bad navigation haha!!Fortunately there were no prizes for this race or else my team mates would "kill" me. Anyway all enjoyed the relay challenge as all swam in the spirit of speed. We end the swim at 9.45am.

After the swim Melvin and I discussed what should we do next, and since we have already brought our bikes along, we kept to our plan to bike, and for me I was planing to bike 40 km and run 8 - 10km. It was a lazy brick as we took our own sweet time to get ready for the ride. We started the ride at 10.15am with 30min-transition haha!! As I was not so familiar of the distance in the ECP I agreed with Melvin to only to cycle up along Coastal Coast Rd and headed up to Changi Village and back. I tried to maintain at 30 km/hr thru out the ride to made this training fruitful but just to lazy and only occasionally got to 30km/hr. I noticed Melvin was very fast. We made a u turn at one of the car park at coastal rd, and the total distance was 28.5km.

As Melivn called it a day, I put on my running shoes and ran toward Fort Rd intended a 1o km run. Again, another long lazy transition. I started the run at 11.55am when the sun was blazing hot. I u turned after 30 min with a running speed guided by my HRM. Was trying to push up t0 150 to 154 bpm, but was lazy to push my self HR of above 15o bpm. Only on the return route that I maintained at 152 to 154 bpm and push up to 158 bpm at my last km. My timing was 61min with a 2+ min including rest at the u turn point and refueling isotonic drink. When I finished this run in the hot blazing sun, I could not wait to buy a ice-cold bottle of mineral and sprinkler myself. "Shiok man", feeling great with those ice cold water flowing down my body. And by then, my tummy was also screaming for food; as I only took 2 breads and 2 packet of coffee for breakfast in the morning.

A well spent Sunday for endurance training and guess what; I have fallen fall in love with this East Coast Park. How nice would it be if there is a permanent distance -buoy marker in the sea that we can do brick training here in other sunday, right Melvin Jr?; who will propbably saying I " siao liao" (crazy already). Right Melvin Jr??
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