26th July 2009 Sunday - 5th YF sea swim with bike and run brick

Went to the 5th YF sea swim. There were 2 start time, earlier one is 8 am for the new Fish and the later one was 9.15am for the "older" fish, I somehow qualified myself to be the older Fish, Seasoned fish? Anyway I chose to attend the 9.15am whereby I did not need to rush in the morning. The swim was great and I had enjoyed even more than the last few sea swims. I was more confident; practice sighting; try to understand wave and feel for current drift; accelerated speed to over take other swimmers; learn self recovery swim. Moving to Thursday also did give me some confidence in this sea swim.

Swimming:-
Promoted to grp 2. Total 4 grp, swimmers were grp into 4 grp according to their speed.
1st set 2 big loops + 1 small loops; approx 850m 19min
2nd set 2 big loops + 1 small loops; approx 850m 19min
3rd set 2 big loops, 750m,17min

(Total swim time 55min).

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"YF Coach - David Lim"

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"Coach explaining the 2 big, 1 small for grp 2, and 3 big, 1 small for grp 1, etc"

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"off we go...; and the mean coach said:- keep standing there, don't go to Desaru.."

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"two happy fish enjoyed the swim"

Cycling:-
The purpose for this ride was to test out the aero bar that I have just fitted this week, to familiarise it so that I would use it for this Saturday Desaru long tri. I would still need to do some minor adjust to ensure more comfort. Hot weather, met head wind in the coastal road. Experienced smoother ride as gear set and chain was also just been serviced
52km ride 1hr 55 min. Could not fast as initial part of coastal road was closed for trial cycling so peddle on the path way for approx 12 km

Run:-
2 x 30 min from F2 to Lagoon/Chalet, approx 9 to 10km. Ran under noon blazing sun. Total run time 1hr.

Finished my brick at approx 2.15pm. This was also my last preparation for the Desaru long tri. Hope to do below 7-1/2 hrs.
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23th July 2009 Thursday - 2nd Semester; 5th YF Swim

I got a SMS from Coach David yesterday morning, and this was his exact word:-" Try to move away frm fri, good 4u. u can b faster".

Coach has encouraged me to "upgrade" to other faster classes since end of last semester; early June because he felt that I have improved. That time I told him that I was still not ready to go away from Friday class, apparently Friday were for slower swimmer or beginner and we concentrate more on stroke technique as we were doing a lot of drill. I felt I still need to further improve my stroke technique and coordination of fluttered kick with stroke; before I proceed to muscular endurane long swim. I explained this to Coach when new semester started on 26th June and he accomodated my request. I stayed on 4 more Friday classes since the semester started, and lately I knew I was ready to move. His message came timely. I responded to his SMS that I would move to Thursday class.

Tonight I was initially put on lane 2 (lane 1 and 2 being the slower lane, lane 3 and 4 were faster lane with stronger swimmers). After the usual few 100m of drill, Coach moved me to Lane 3, 8th swimmer before our long swim started.

Our Long swim consisted of :-
2 x (200m, 100m, 200m, 100m, 200m, 100m, 100m - 20laps) Wow, cool, my first's attempt to swim FC beyond 10 laps without long break (we stopped 15 to 30 sec in between). I did pretty well;

1st set
200m-4.34min, 100m-2.16min, 200m-4.43min, 100m-2.19min, 200m-4.36min, 100m-2.14min, 100m-2.16min ( 20 laps - effective swim time = approx 23min)

2nd set (I was stopped by the coach after my initial 600m to skip the next 200m and take some rest, before I continue my reminder 2 x 100m. He told me that I needed rest as my stroke started to get a little haywire and no point to continue if I could not focus on the right stroke technique when tired)

Timing for my 600m :- 200m-4.37min, 100m-2.20min, 200m-4.51min, 100m-2.22min ( 12 laps - effective timing = approx 14min)

Rested approx 4.5min ( 200m swim) before I continued to do the reminder 2 x100m.

We ended our training with 4 x 50m sprint. Ave sprint timing 58sec to 63 sec.

Looking at tonight's timing, I could swim 30 laps below 40min, the bench mark trial timing to qualify for Singapore Biathlon. I did 32 laps at 37min and if taking into account my effective rest time as 5 min for the 32 laps, then my timing would be 42min.

Tonight swim had given me a lot of confidence and morale for more muscular endurance swim. Tonight swim had also signified I can achieve my goal which is to swim 30 laps below 40min. I set this goal when join YF class and target to achieve it by end of 2nd semester. More importantly I have improved and moved away from Friday class, cool man!!!
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12th July 2009 Sunday - Port Dickson OD Triathlon 2nd Attempt; Mission accomplished

We moved out in a 24 seaters bus organised by Alvin Ong at 9am Saturday. Arrived race site at approx 3 pm and headed up straight to collect our race pack. We stayed at Regency resort, the room was mansionette apartment with 4 bed rooms; thus accommodated 8 of us. We skipped carbo loading and race briefing in the evening, and went to have our own carbo loading in a restaurant nearby the hotel, and after that we went to convenient store to buy our drink and breakfast for the next morning race.

On the race day, we were greeted with an earlier morning light rain which made the weather cool, sea water cold and very choppy. Good that I had my wet suite on. We arrived race site at 7.15am, had our body-marking and some photo taking. Race started at 8am after another round of briefing. There were 5 waves, and I was in the 3rd wave. My goal for this 2nd attempt was to accomplish any timing lower than my maiden PD timing 3hr 21min, but sub consciously I was aiming < 3hr 1omin.

Swim leg (1.5km)
Initially, I thought I have swam badly and quite disappointed that I took 44min to finish the swim. Last year with breath stroke I did 40min, but this year, with FC and after all the training with YF, did a miserable 44 min. Further more, it was unusual that my "visual navigation system" was malfunctioning; I swam zig zac in my return lap, totally could not get my direction correct, I believe I have swam longer distance than any other. However after the race, learnt from most of our guys that they did not do better either, most swam 5 to 10 min longer than their last year swim timing; and many lamented and blamed the choppy water.

Bike leg (40km)
I enjoyed the bike leg, did push myself quite a bit, I thought. My timing was 1hr 22min, 11 min better than last year. I have aimed to complete the 40km by 1hr 20min, that was ave speed of 30km/hr. The bike's rolling hill route was the same as last year. Felt that my training at Mandai Rd -Yishun Rd loop did help in preparing this race.

Run leg (10km)
The run route was different from last year; where we ran on the flat high way with the blazing hot sun above our head, an initial part of the bike route. But yesterday's route was actually the old route which was hilly, more cooling with a lot of shade even if the weather was hot. Thankfully the weather in the morning was good and overcast right thru my run leg. Clocked 55min as compared to last year 70min, though felt that the distance was not exactly 1okm.

Timing:-
swim 44min,
T1 6 min
Bike 1hr 22min
T2
3 min
Run 55min
Total = 3hr 1omin (last year 3hr 21 min)

Wow, shaved off 11 min, I wonder if I could do the same next year; another 10min with a goal of 3hrs, perhaps, perhaps, an achievable goal ......?

I had a good race and accomplished what I came for. However strangely; somehow felt that I did not push as hard as I should have, since there was no cramp during the race and the muscle was not as tired as it should be after the race. It must be due to the phobia of having possible bad cramp after the bike run transition that I did not really pushed hard enough. I will try 70min/40km ( 1hr 10min, ave 35km/hr) next time. I also felt that I could shave off a couple of minutes from the T1and T2; will work on it. Glad that most of us have improved our timing from the previous time.

We had buffet lunch in the resort and left for home at 3 pm after loading up our bike; yes back home to prepare and looking forward to my next tougher race Desaru HIM (2 time of this OD race) on 1st Aug with the a goal of 6hrs 20min (2x 3hr 10min)????
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