18th Oct 2009 Sunday - Yellow Fish OWS plus my Brick Training

This morning was the YF OWS swim at F2 ECP; an event I very much looking forward to since it was my 1st attempt for a long sea swim.

"Body marking"

"With Melvin; our photographer"

This sea swim comprised swimming distance of 2km, 3km and 4km. I registered for the 3km swim. Many "rubber" guys and gals were in the 4km swim as all of them were trying out their wet suite in preparation for their Aust Basselton FIM. The swim route was a 500m rectangular loop coupled with a short shore run of 20km. I felt that the loop was probably 50m longer.

"me and 2 happy 'rubber' swimmers for 4 km"

"me with more happy 'rubber' swimmers; ready for 4 km"

"serious or worried......?!!"

For 3 km swim, I have to swim 6 loops of 500m. After our body marking, we were all ready to go. My wave started at 8.45am, 15min after the 4km wave. Half way into my 1st loop it began to rain, a threatened thunder storm nearly disrupted our swim, fortunately it was just passing cloud. My 1st 5 loops were smooth, water was calm but at my 6th loop; water was turned choppy as tide was rising.

My timing:-
1st loop 14.53min; 2nd loop 15.17min; 3rd loop 16.13min; 4th loop 15.36min; 5th loop 16.14min; 6th loop 14.58min. ( Total time 1hr 33min; official dist 3 km; probable dist 3.3km).

I took the opportunity to do a bike-run brick to prepare for my Lumut-Powerman on 8th Nov.

Cycle from F2 to East coastal road {3 loops, 15km per loop} to F2 = 4.5+45+4.5 = 54km (1hr 55min)
Tried to maintain 30km/hr, but all the return loops were tough as the regular head wind along Coastal road was strong, could hardly maintain 27-28 km/hr

Run from F2 toward chalet; 10km - 1hr 5min.
As I started my run in noon time, the weather was terribly hot without much wind or friendly breeze. Manage to do a negative split as planned. 1st 5km - 35min, returned 5 km - 30km

Total timing = 4hr 33min. It was a Sunday morning well spent for training and felt great I finally did a long sea swim which boost up my confident in any future long sea swim especially the FIM dist of 3.8km. I will definitely go for 4km for the next YF OWS.

I proceeded to Kallang Leisure Park to collect Lucille's GE goodies pack.
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6th Sept 2009 Sunday - My 7th Sea swim with YF; rain marred my brick training

My last sea swim which was the 6th, on 23rd Aug.

We started at 8.30am because of rain, big crowd today. No sea swim intro; so all started the sea swim together. Only one small loop which was about 250m.

1st set - 2 loops warm up
2nd set - 3 loops CCW - 16min (750m)
3rd set 3 loops CW - 15.30min (750m)

Coach reminded us to practice sighting, bilateral breathing, 4 stroke breathing, do some breath stroke, back stroke, even butterfly if one likes but not quite possible I thought, understand current direction. Wow too many things to focus; so I sticked to my easy to moderate swim and practice more sighting with front crawl; and practice a little bit on bilateral breathing.

The next practice, beach start. It was to run to the sea and as soon as the water reached knee level, made a dive and sped off as fast as we could to break away from other triathletes and made quick left turn and stayed in the front. I think this is tough for triathletes who are not very strong in swimming.

After the swim, we had Joel, our Singapore Youth Triathlete to demonstrate T1. Amazingly he could do T1 not more than 6 sec by putting on his bike shoe which was attached on the pedal while cycling, and he did it so smoothly and effortlessly. This was something we need a lot of practice; I would probably still stick to the traditional type. hahaha! Instead of of 6 sec, I might end up not even able to continue the race..........., wiser to keep to the basic at this point in time I guessed...!!

I was planning to do a brick training today; cycle 40km and then run 10km as last training for the next sunday Tri factor race. Alas the periodic rain marred my brick training. Since the weather was so uncompromising and unpredictable, I decided to proceed to collect my Tri Factor race kit and had Breakfast with Lucille and Deus at McD at Admiralty MRT.

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Quite a disappointing Sunday, though.....!!!
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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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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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5th April 2009 Sunday, My Third YF Sea Swim + 10km Run

Today was my 3rd sea swim with the YF and it was special for the new and slow swimmers; mostly from Friday class becasue Coach Lim was conducting a sea swim fundamental briefing, something he had done in Feb 09. It was from 8 to 9 am, and then from 9 to 10.30am actual training would start whereby other fast and regular swimmers would join us.

There were about 20plus of us. He explained what to looked out for when doing a Tri or Ironman on the actual day of the event. How to study the tide; preference on tide; how to tell direction of current and swim with current to stay on course. He also explained where to stand before the swim depending on each efficiency and how to clear the crowd when entering out in the first 200m. How to ensure that we swim straight without being swayed away too much from the course. He also advised us to always study the swim course and tide before each race.

Today route was 2 diamond shape: one big loop(approx 250m) and one small loop (approx 100m) marked by poorly visible buoy which Coach jokingly said that he was poor and provide bigger buoys. But he was serious to say that he has no safety guard boat, other than 3 live guards, so he advised us to take care of ourselves in this swim. We did some practices on the small loop after each of his explanation.

The actual swim started from 9 am and there were approx 40 to 50 swimmers by then. We were divided to 4 grp. Grp 4 being the slowest and Coach Lim assigned me to grp 4 which swam smaller diamond loop. The first swim was:-

grp 1 - 4 big loops ccw,
grp 2 - 3 big loops ccw,
grp 3 - 2 big loops ccw
grp 4 - 2 small loops ccw.

I was the first few to come came back to the shore from my grp, after the first swim, and coach was confused, he asked me why didn't I do 2 big loops. He had forgotten that he assigned me to grp 4. He smiled and told me that I had to be in grp 3. I must have approx 1.5 km today.

The second swim was the same number of loops but CW. Today swim was not quite unfortunate as some of our swimmers were stung by jelly fishes so we decided to stop after only 3 swims and it was approx 9.55 am.

I changed into my running gear went for a 10km run with Wung Y, Lyn, Sandy, Carol, Jacq, Kenneth and Chong. It was a 6 min/km pace jog. We run from F2 toward Ford road, but u turn after hitting 5 km. After that all of us went to Paya Lebar Hawker for a lunch. I felt it was a Sunday well spent, great work out.
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1st Mar 2009, Sunday, My 1st Yellow Fish Sea Swim Training

I have decided to join Yellow Fish after the trial on 20th Feb. I have always wanted to improve front crawl, but without proper coaching and doing appropriate swim drill, I will never improve in it. More so since I am planning to attempt a full Ironman in the very near future, then good and efficient swimming skill is a must.

The package that I signed was 10 pool swims +2 sea swims and today was one of these 2 sea swims. It was held near to the Jetty/F2, same place as the S'pore Biathlon. The swim started at 8am but I was 10min late because I mixed up the meeting point and parked at the wrong car park. If I had not met George (met him at the Jan Pengarang 100km ride), I would have disappointingly missed today sea swim.

When I got to the beach, Coach had already divided the trainees into 3 groups, (grp 3 being the slowest), started briefing them on the training. There were approx 30 to 40 trainees and I was glad to see a lot of familiar faces, most of them I met in the Pengarang 100km ride in Jan 09. I also met Scott Patterson Lucille’s colleague in MS and a seasoned Triathlete.

The swim route was a square letter P marked by five buoys. The training started with a relax warm-up swim. Grp 1 and 2 did 1 loop swim and as for me in grp 3, 3 of us, we were told to swim from shore straight ahead to the second buoy and back, and the distance was approx. 200m.

The complete “P”route was approx. 500m and was swam in clockwise direction. Grp 3 was always made to swim half the distance of grp 1 and 2 which I later got to understand that Coach Lim wanted to ensure grp 3 would end up with the grp 1 amd 2 roughly the same time in each set of swim. After the warm-up swim, we went on with the 2nd set; grp 1 and 2 swam 2 loops and grp 3 swam 1 loop (approx. 500m). We swam a total of 4 sets in different distance around the loop P in different formation:-

Group 3's sets were as follows, and group 1 and 2 double the distance.
1st set Warm up -200m (approx timing- 7min)
2nd set -500m (approx timing – 16min)
3rd set -700m ( 1-1/2 loop) (approx timing – 23min)
4th set -500m clockwise (approx 15min)

4th set was supposed to be part of the YF mini biathlon, that was approx 900m swim ( 2 loops) plus a 6 km run. We were made to swim counter clockwise in 4th set because Coach wanted us to familiarize next week S'pore Biathlon route.

By the time we finished the sea swim it was approx. 9.40am. Wow, this is the first time I swam front crawl for more than an hours in the sea despite swimming slowly as instructed by coach so as to focus on the correct strokes rather than speed. During the 1st and 2nd set swim, I noticed that I would always swim off course, and I shared this problem with George who advised me to check course after every 4th stroke. I took his advice and practiced in the 3rd and 4th set and somehow got use to it.

Every time I began my set I would stood for quite awhile on the shore to adjust my goggle to be 100% sure water wouldn't get into my goggle so that I would not need to re-adjust it again because I did not like the feeling of stepping on the soft, swampy and dirty sea bed due to low tide; and I would hear the coach calling me with his loudspeaker:-"Henry, start swimming, or every one will be waiting for you”. From this, one could guessed how slow was I...!

After the 4th set, I proceeded to my 6 km run. As usual in the first 2 km of the run, I would always feel my legs were heavy. We started to run toward the Lagoon, past the chalets and U turn at the second toilet on our right after the chalets. I maintained at 10km/hr or slightly more checked by my foot pod. I completed the 6km run at 33 min, which I think the total distance was less than 6km. At U turn I did 17 min and my return run was faster and thus I estimated 5.5km.
After the training I chatted with Lynn Ng and Lee Wung Yew (both met at the Pengarang ride )whom I did not know they were actually related, till I saw their loving picture in the Sunday Time’s sport section during my lunch, reporting their passion in this the endurance sport and their attempt in the Busselton IM end of the year, and also then did I know that Wung Yew was our national shooter participated in last year Beijing Olympic. No wonder he looked so familiar to me.

I enjoyed today training very much, though I found it tough because this was my first long sea swim since my Port Dickson Triathlon in July last year. It was also a very good preparation for the next week Biathlon. I also felt great that it was my first long front crawl swim in the sea. I have never felt ready to use it in any sea swim despite having trained on it these couple of months. I am impressed with Coach Lim who is very committed in his training and I could feel a sense of spirit in him wanting to see his trainees improve.

I look forward to coming to the 2nd sea swim on 15th Mar, but I will be back from Korea and Vietnam Business trip on the day before so I hope I will not be too tired to enjoy the training again. This 15th Mar sea swim will also help preparing me for the Aviva on 22nd Mar.

More photo of the day event could be viewed at
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/yellowwfish/SeaSwimRunMarch012009#
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