Three left feet

True confession: I was a clumsy, clumsy kid.

Once upon a time, when I was about three years old, I waddled up to a coffee-table and yanked on the tablecloth. Unfortunately, sitting on top of that tablecloth was a full pot of hot tea. I still have the burn scar...

When I was 15 we went on a school trip to East Malaysia. It was a geography trip, so there was plenty of hiking through tropical rainforests chock-full of lethal things like rattan:

Yes, those are spines. No, you don't want to walk into them face-first. Image courtesy of http://pedaldamnit.blogspot.sg/

...and speedboat rides across lakes, et.c. And my one injury from that trip? We were sitting down in a nice, air-conditioned, carpeted theatre for a cultural performance. At the end I stood up, tripped over my own shoelaces, and scraped my knee raw on the carpet.

And I bet I'm the only person to have sprained my ankle on a backyard trampoline by landing wrong...that one did my prima donna ballet career in. (Joke.)

Every now and then you think you've managed to outgrow the clumsiness, but life smacks you right in the face.

Yesterday afternoon, after running some errands (the only thing I've run since Sunday, sigh), I slid down some steps, landed wrong, twisted my ankle spectacularly, and fell flat on my face. (Go big or go home.) Luckily or unluckily I was outside a restaurant, and the manager saw this, came out and gave me some water and a bag of ice.

So now my ankle is still massively sore and feels awfully weak. I have a feeling I'll be doing rehab instead of the aquathlon. The one that's 1.5 weeks from now and requires a 1.5km swim followed by a 10K. Under normal circumstances neither of these would be a problem, but I haven't run anything longer than 10K since the triathlon and am feeling exhausted and sluggish.

Fortunately, as SF Road Warrior puts it, a little break from running is survivable with books and wine. I don't drink for medical reasons (that liver disorder I was born with) but you bet I can read, and I can eat all the things.

Reading the first of my library books kind of put me off eating all the things, though.
- Salt Sugar Fat - Michael Moss: The American processed-food industry deliberately adds - and has added more and more - salt, sugar, and fat to processed food over the years. You could condemn them for knowingly using addictive, dependency-promoting substances. But the industry itself has been so precisely engineered to rely on these ingredients to provide the shelf life, stability, texture and taste customers want. So who's manipulating whom? Either way, this book will make you aware of what goes into processed food.  

- Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson: I'm cheating; this is a reread of a childhood favourite. I can't believe it's 22 years old. One of the first cyberpunk novels, about a new plague that's linguistic - or is it biological? Or is it binary code? The ideas in it are better than William Gibson's.

- Dead To Me - Anton Strout: Simon Canderous is psychometric, which doesn't mean that he's really good at psychological measurements, but that he can 'read' an object's history by handling it. Oh, and he's trying to figure out why this cute ghost he met doesn't seem to realise she's dead. This one is a fast, fluffy, forgettable read (this is how I've finished three of my library books since Saturday).

- This slightly wacky but backed-by-science post by the author of The Talent Code, on becoming an adult prodigy: the trick is to learn like a kid, conscious, daily, high-quality, intensive practice.

I finally finished 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami, just in time for his next book to come out. Part of the reason I took so long is the pace of the darn thing just got slower and slower until by the end it was like reading through molasses.

Other things that are on my burgeoning list - if I can't find them I shall have to resort to actually buying the e-books, it's not like my shelves have that much more available space:

- The Magician's Land - Lev Grossman: This is the third book in the oddly compelling Magicians trilogy, which tracks Quentin Coldwater and his friends through their exercise of magic, their stint at Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic, and down some much darker roads, in a series about coming of age, quarter-life crises and facing life head-on.

- How We Learn - Benedict Carey: New York Times science writer Carey explores the how (and when and where and why) we learn.

Tri-Factor Triathlon: a race report

The long and short of it 

Final result: 3:12:19 (22/42 women in the open category, 23/46) - not pi (3.14) as I was hoping (I saw the race clock at 3:44 coming into the finish and was crossing my fingers for a good nerdy number), but much better than my target time of 3:30 for a first standard-distance tri, and faster than nearly a third of the men who finished - I'll take it! 

44:05 swim (1500m)

3:21 T1

1:19:31 bike (36km)

1:43 T2 

1:03:41 run (10km)

There is no 'after' shot, for good reason. 

The scenic route

Pre-race: Painted my nails blue the night before. Had pasta for dinner. All of those little pre-race rituals that I'm so used to by now. And of course, I slept terribly. 

There was a little drama at 5.45am when I thought I'd have to go pick my friend up because her husband hadn't come back from watching tennis. And then again at 6.05am when I had a contact lens malfunction. Fun times. 

Blue nails are my war paint.

At 7 I got to the race site and got everything set up, did a swim warmup, peed in the ocean (hey, fish do it)... and then waited for the race to start. 

Swim (44:05): The swim was two laps long. Alas, it took me 1.5 laps to get into any sort of rhythm. To be fair, the midsections of those laps involved fairly big waves and a strong current that felt like two strokes forward, one stroke back. Somewhere along the line, someone kicked me in the head and my goggles came partway off (thanks for the concussion, mate). 

But when I finally remembered how to swim properly I overtook a bunch of guys. I was fairly dizzy coming out of the water into T1 and the sand had also been chewed up by 5 previous waves of men so the run-in was a bit slow...

Bike(1:19:31): The bike course was 6 laps of twists, turns, and small hills amounting to 36km -- not a fast course at all. The bike was fairly uneventful...thank goodness! I overtook some people and was overtaken by many people, but none of those were women doing the standard distance - and now I know why, there were only 46 of us.

The bike and I don't have such a great relationship, and I am now sore - maybe I just need a proper bike fitting? I am very proud that I managed to eat some shot blocks and actually drink on the bike (pick up water bottle, drink, look down, wobble, replace bottle) without falling off. Go me.

On all of those turns I kept in mind Hillary Biscay's very good practical advice: look where you go, and you'll go where you look. I also had a hamstring cramp coming off the bike. Interesting. (How do I know it's a cramp and not bum bruising? When I sat on the foam roller there was relief instead of yelping.) 

Run(1:03:41): Oh run. Where do I start. I was not tremendously proud of my performance at all. I can push on a 5K but have the magical ability to talk myself out of pushing uncomfortably hard on a 10K, let alone a 10K off the bike, and I'm really only satisfied with the ones I really PUSH myself on. Remember - I can go and go and go for ever but not being able to breathe isn't really my thing. 

The run was two laps of a (hot!) 5K course; I rolled into transition and snagged my sunglasses and previously-frozen water bottle (I'd stuck it in the freezer the night before and retrieved it in the morning; by the time the run leg rolled around it was the perfect temperature for drinking or dousing oneself with). Then I looked around for the 'run out' exit and set off. This is where I first spotted my husband, who'd done 30km from home on a training run for the North Face ultra (!!) - which was a nice boost. Our friend Rachel was doing the run leg of the relay, and he said she was just a short way ahead of me. Short distance, pah! She was perhaps 300m in front of me and it took me a full 5km to catch up to her. 

I just kept plodding on, knowing I had 10km to cover, and somehow still kept overtaking people. I didn't have my Garmin on so had no way of knowing what my exact pace was. I have a pretty good feel for pace normally, but running off the bike feels completely different from just plain old running. I was still breathing and I could definitely still talk, so what was my excuse? I just didn't feel like pushing it. Which is a lousy excuse for anything if you ask me. 

There were at least three water stations on the run leg, which is pretty great for a 5k loop, so I would drink from my handheld and douse myself in their little cups of cold water.  Coming around the curve on the second lap, I spotted a fellow tri-nerd friend who was there cheering his teammates on, and he ran with me for most of the second lap till the turn-off into the finish chute - thanks for the encouragement! 

One small sticking-point: the run leg volunteers were so dumb, they told my poor husband the run leg was 3 loops. He figured it out when he got to the far end and discovered the turnaround point was at 2.5km, but by that time he'd missed me coming into the finish. 

End point: Electrolyte freezepops for sale. Unlimited, ice-cold electrolyte drink at the finish. Well done Trifactor.

I hadn't measured anything (time or distance) and had to estimate my time by the race clock, my estimated start time, and the time stamp on the text message I sent my husband ("hey I'm done and in transition!") after I'd been wandering around for a few minutes. Type A, I am not. This morning they put up the official results so that's what I've got. 

And now I have all the chafes. A heel chafe from my ankle strap; a boob chafe from a bra that doesn't chafe the other 364 days of the year; and let's just say that if I happen to do another tri I WILL be getting those nice seam-free tri shorts I've been drooling over. 

For fellow triathletes and tryathletes - here's my full tri checklist, in order of item usage:

Pre-race Larabar 

Bodyglide 

Tri kit: top, sports bra (Moving Comfort Alexis fans, unite), tri-shorts

Swim goggles

Swim cap

Wrist tag 

Ankle strap with timing chip 

2 towels - one for transition, one to sit on in the car home

Bib on belt, to be put on in T1

Helmet, to be put on in T1

Socks and running shoes, to be put on in T1 (yeah I don't clip in; one of these days I'll learn to do that but I felt trying a totally new distance was scary enough. One new scary thing at a time!) 

Bike

Water bottle on bike 

Shot blocks for during the bike leg

Sunglasses (didn't need them in T1, put them on in T2 so I could look cool on the run and have the sun out of my eyes)

Pre-frozen water bottle in handheld 

Obligatory pre-tri check-in

So, the last couple of weeks have been immensely hectic. I left my newsroom job at the end of last week, but am still working for a number of outlets - I'm now a full-time independent journalist and am juggling several work projects at one go. (I've always thought freelancing is a very important survival skill. Especially when one is about to move continents without a specific date or job lined up.)

It's now three days out from my first OD tri. I don't count chickens before they hatch so ask me again in three days what I thought of it!

Some things that have kept me entertained this week:

1. I went to a green-building conference, partly because I am a nerd and partly because I was covering it for work, but anyway the point of this was to say I now get off work at a time when I can still see the sun set.

Overlooking Marina Bay. I took a walk across the bridge to meet a friend for dinner. (Meeting friends for dinner on a worknight! Another thing I can now do!)

2. These ads for SkinnyMint tea have been popping up in my Facebook a lot lately and I can't figure out why. I guess that means Facebook doesn't know me as well as it thinks. Or, it's doing this purely for my entertainment.

Here is one gem.

Her feet! Her arms! Her poor neck! That isn't a yoga pose! Jeez, this stuff needs to stop before they hurt somebody.

Also, never mind the complete pseudoscience of a 'detox' (nb. that is what kidneys are for, you should try using them sometime, it's great) --  I understand, via a friend, that this stuff has a laxative effect. I'm a runner. I don't want farts I can't trust.

Why do people keep getting correlation mixed up with causation? Changing your weight does not lead to good health; heck, your weight is not always even a reliable symptom of good health. Your weight, however, may change while your body is in the process of becoming healthy. Weight gain, or weight loss, is a side effect of the underlying changes you are making - eating less processed food, taking up new gym classes, entering road races, etc - to get healthy. (I gained a little weight during marathon training because I was also strength training a little bit. Which, fine by me.) Weight loss by pooping? Will definitely not make you any healthier than you were before. Unless you used to be constipated.

Here, read this one instead.
To everyone who's told women they 'shouldn't get too muscular'

3. In my email inbox this week: the Great Eastern Women's Run has an all-female pacer team!

See, Shape, it's not that hard to find women willing to pace, you just have to ask them. It is not 'more entertaining' for women to be trailing along after male pacers. It is inspiring for us to see other women where we want to be, and maybe talk to them about how they got there.

Just another example of Great Eastern apparently reading my mind. Or my blog. Whichever. You are my heroes and I'm looking forward to this half.

4. As a sort of Florence hangover, I've been reading this book by popular historian Christopher Hibbert, on the House of the Medici. I'm not even normally a big history buff, but this book is written like a popular thriller.

The next few weeks are going to be packed race-wise: this weekend is the tri; next weekend is the Yellow Ribbon Prison Run which I swore up and down last year I'd be on time for this year (doing it as a fun run, I swear); the following weekend I'm volunteering at another ultra; and there's an aquathlon (swim 1500m, run 10k) in the last week of September. Why does all the fun stuff have to happen this month?

Things I've learned about myself on the run

This year marks the 6th year, pretty much, that I've run with any degree of seriousness. It's true, I've always run. It's been my touchstone, my stress relief, my therapy, my universal balm. But after university when I started work, I had to actively learn how to make time to run (answer: early in the morning, which is the only time I can be certain there is nothing else on my plate). I signed up for the first road race of my adult life and never looked back. I had to choose running, and I chose to run. 

So what have I learned about myself since then? 

- I spent much of my childhood right through university being inside, in dance studios or in sports halls (I also used to play table-tennis and am still absolutely appalling at it). So I'm making up for lost time and always want to play outside instead. That's why I signed up for the outdoor activities club in high school and got to go climb mountains and shit (in the woods...literally...). 

- Doing active things indoors* bores me to the extent that I have to take a class that forces me to lift weights, in order to lift weights. I have to take a spin class that forces me to do hard bike intervals, in order to do hard bike intervals. In order to make myself stretch? Yoga class, bring it on. Some people scoff at Bodypump; to which I say that any lifting (with good form, that goes without saying) is better than zero lifting. Also, I have to be threatened with pain (quad cramps in a marathon), injury, or severe bodily harm (aka my PT would like to smack me) to do my hip and glute strength exercises. There is a certain buzz I get from long endurance cardio things that you just can't replicate. 

* There are some exceptions: like dance classes. 

- What happens when I don't run for five days in a row? EXTREME CRANKINESS. My ankle hasn't been 100% happy with me lately (some sort of mystery tendon? muscle? ligament? issue that produces sharp, shooting pains on the inside of the ankle above the malleolus) so I'm resting it. That means no running, and all of the swimming and cycling I want. Still...extreme crankiness. Guess I'm only a fake triathlete. 

 

- Speaking of long endurance cardio things. We all know that I can go and go and go at a moderate pace for ages. The other day I quite happily did 50x50m in the pool with a pull buoy (see: grumpy ankle). 

But going fast when it hurts? That's another question altogether. 

So between September 7 and the Great Eastern half on November 9, we're going to play a little game. We're going to make it hurt. 

I dug up this 'run a half in under 2 hours' plan. 

Check out the first and last weeks of that plan. 15x400 is the hallmark of a Coach Shem training plan, I thought. Lo and behold, it's one of his. 

Anyway, whether it works or not, I'm going to learn to hurt. 

And I'll probably enjoy it. 

Relentless forward progress

Nothing to see here - just working through some issues. I think best when I type, so this is just going to be me thinking out loud. Writing is my therapy; if all else fails I can just go for a run! 

Picking up from where we left off last week... it's pouring again (thanks, brick Tuesdays) AND I slept clean through my alarm, so here we are instead of playing outside. 

Last night I hit a new milestone. On a day when absolutely nothing went right, my crowning accomplishment was...falling off my bike trainer! I know, I'm a genius. 

How does one fall off a bike trainer, you ask. ('Did you hit a stationary vehicle?' my friend asked...har har.)  I hadn't checked the setup in a while, and the back spoke worked itself loose five minutes after I started riding and the whole thing slid sideways. Fortunately my couch is next to the trainer and I simply slid off onto the couch. I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. 

I was very tempted to just stay on the couch in a heap, but eventually I scraped myself up and rode for another 50 minutes. (Pro-tip: stick veggies in pan. Put pan in oven. Leave to roast for duration of bike ride. Bike ride done = dinner done. Ta-da! 'Why don't we cook dinner like this more often?' my husband said. 'It's so painless.')  

Input != output 

If not for the swim training, I'd be quitting my tri training group now. Yesterday one of the coaches posted a message congratulating everyone from the group who podiumed at this weekend's Singapore Triathlon events. Everyone else who raced...roundly ignored.  What's sad is that a lot of the mid/back-of-the-pack age-groupers who commented ('Yay!' 'I'm inspired!') are the ones who are most enthusiastic, who work just as hard, who put in just as much time and effort. (Not me - I haven't, in all honesty, been training that hard.) I'd like to think that the equation is hard work in, outcomes out. But life is also not a level playing field and some of us start with our ankles tied together. And we need people to believe in us, too. I'd like to find a training group that believes in us. 

I think part of the frustration is the nagging feeling that I've stalled out, progress-wise. This irrational feeling makes absolutely no sense considering that this is only my 4th triathlon and first OD. But I suppose I'm comparing it with running, where my optimism is directly proportional to the potential progress I *feel* like I can make. With local running the field is enormous and over the past few years I've drifted up through the field, which is a satisfying gauge of some sort of progress. Also, I've been thoroughly spoilt by the massive progress (outcome-wise) I saw shortly after picking up interval training, and have to remind myself...it's not every day you get to PR in a marathon by over an hour!

If I'm going to be honest with myself? I haven't been training that hard. I swim a paltry distance twice a week, cycle a couple of times a week, and cannot live without my long run. 

BUT. The sprint triathlons of the past couple of years were done on basically no cycling (for the last one, I literally cycled ONCE before the tri.) No cycling for those versus cycling two to three times a week for this one? I'm comparing me now to me then and I expect results. And I think somewhere deep down I'm scared of putting in the training and then not producing any results. (Editor's note: aha, now we are getting to the root of the matter.)

Hard work in, outcomes out, ankles tied together? 

But it's just stupid to be running scared, or pissed off because no one (even you) believes in you - it makes no one happy, least of all yourself. I don't know what the solution is but I feel better already after writing all this down.  

Things I'm irrationally scared of

Crashing 

Coming in dead last in my AG 

Coming in dead last in my AG despite actually having cycled this time 

Things I ought to remember

New distance = automatic PR!

IT ISN'T A GOAL RACE, YOU DUMBASS, CHILL OUT.  

With triathlons, just like with marathons, I'm playing a long game and every season is just more data. 

and  

In the grand scheme of things none of this matters to the state of the universe. 

tl;dr - training environment doesn't help with self-doubt issues; need to learn to believe in self. how?

Look where you go and go where you look

Tuesday morning, as usual, I ran to the gym for a spin class (the tri training plan has brick workouts on Tuesdays), ran a bit on the treadmill after class, and then as I was running home, the skies opened up and it rained on me sideways. 

As I was miserably sloshing through puddles, wondering whether to take my phone out of its pocket on my waterbottle handheld and put it in a ziploc, I had one of those Moments. 

The Moment went something like this: what the heck am I doing all this FOR? Why am I waking up at 5.45am to do lengthy cardio things to myself, why am I doing my 95th clamshell or leg lift of the day, when I'm obviously not a professional athlete, when I'm never going to make it to the Olympics unless they start a new category for competitive napping? When I'm the least competitive person I know, can talk myself out of pushing hard in a mere 10k, and will most likely never see the right side of a podium?  

This is the sort of Moment that's lasted half a week now. The question nagging at me is not 'why do I run?' but 'why do I work THIS hard to race?' 'Why do I run' is easy. I like being outdoors, I like fresh air, I like the feeling of running. It's like dancing - because it feels good and because it looks beautiful and because adrenaline and endorphins and serotonin and you're having fun while you're at it.  

But racing is different. There's a clear-cut winner, a hierarchy of participants. Someone has to be first. Someone has to be last. I know where I want to be (BQ? really race a tri for once, and place?) and also that I am very, very far off. Why do I work (talentless) this (clumsy) hard (genetically challenged) at something that will give me zero external validation? Give me a few days to think about it and I'm sure my rational brain will come up with a justification. Right now my lizard brain just wants to go back into hibernation. 

Why do you? 

I had to listen to this talk by triathlete Hillary Biscay to get my head back into the right place.

Holes

Gosh, you mean it's been ten days since my last post? I seem to have fallen down a rabbit hole. Triathlon is in and of itself a deep enough rabbit hole (an expensive one too, and I need to eat!). Said rabbit hole (are we sure it isn't a black hole? Is this post finding its way out?) also contains a veritable mountain of work, entertaining, etc. Now where is my bunny rabbit? 

Speaking of holes, several giant holes have opened up in the ground in Siberia. Possibly due to permafrost melting up, warming, and releasing the gas stored in them - poof!

Other things in my life have developed holes.

Case in point:

I wore my work shoes to death. Those poor shoes. They've been through monsoon storms, around construction sites and charcoal-dusty recycling plants, down muddy trails... and here I was wondering why the sole was peeling off.

My Kinvaras also recently developed holes in the same places, which, come to think of it, probably means it's time to rethink my swim strategy of having toenails so sharp they can fend off sharks and sprint-tri participants trying to swim over me. Also, any excuse to buy new shoes.

Tri training is...well, it's going. I have a plan and I'm actually vaguely sticking to it this time.

This past weekend I ran the Tri-Factor half marathon as a training run, felt awesome the whole way, took it VERY easy, and emerged at the other end with probably my slowest timed half marathon in years (2:23:06). It was GREAT.

And quite pretty. And surprisingly, for a path along a waterway, not as flat as you might expect.
From this angle you can't see my approximately 500 new friends who also took part in the half marathon. 

It was also very humid. Not pictured: the soggy butt-prints I left while sitting along the path waiting for my friend Lin to come in.

Tri-Factor is very low-key, but does a lot of things right:
- full, searchable lists of results
- starts mostly on time
- very small competitor field (500 half marathoners)
- plenty of water points along the way and plenty of water at the end
- electrolyte freeze pops for purchase at the end this year (!)
- the cutest kids' 1K race on the face of this earth

Which all bodes well for the tri! Don't fail me now...

Speaking of humid, the other day it was raining, but thank goodness for RPM classes or else rainy day brick training would basically never get done. As soon as I wrote that last sentence I heard my coach's voice in my head (an obvious symptom of trizophrenia*): "And if it rains on race day then what? No need to race?"

* - Trizophrenia: The mental condition that spurs a person to sign up for three sports on the same day. As though there are three of you around to do 'em.
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I felt Holly's comment about food-shaming on my last post was so much YES that it deserved space up front and centre here all by itself:

Have we really never discussed this food thing? The fact that one I ADORE eating in Singapore, with Singaporeans: It is absolutely and completely expected that I jump in the moment the food hits the table, that I take as much as I want, and that if I'm fast enough to grab the last bite of a tasty dish, I darn well better take the chance and thank the lucky stars for my fast reflexes. [Elder deference at family dinners aside.] Singaporeans, in general, of both genders, positively adore food and don't feel ashamed about that. They will order extra dishes, eat more, and encourage each other to do the same. It's AMAZING.
In the US, among many groups, there's still this female habit of not eating first, not seeming too eager, and DEFINITELY not taking the last bite (in fact, people will let the server clear a tray of even the most delicious dish with one final bit on because no one wants to appear too greedy and take the last bit). Women are more likely to eat salads, nibble around the edges, and steal a french fry here and there. And if you eat a big meal, it's because you had a small breakfast/did a huge workout/won't get dinner until late - and people (women, usually) make that fact clear to their companions when ordering. They will eat, while bemoaning how damaging what they are eating is for their figure/diet. Women feel pressured/expected not to eat too much (usually from each other, but possibly also from men - there is actual discussion over what is/isn't an appropriate amount/item to eat when going out on dates), and too much zeal for eating is "unladylike".
Of course, this isn't the case in every group - and the degree/level varies. But even as someone with almost no food "issues", I have felt the unspoken (and spoken) pressures in the US. And I really, REALLY hope I can carry the devil-may-care attitude I've been able to freely cultivate in Singapore when I'm back in the US. In short, the Singaporean love for/appreciation of food is incredibly refreshing, and I absolutely LOVE to eat with locals. /end rant

Bravo.

When I lived in the US I was largely blind to those pressures - either I was a naive, hungry* little college student and those rules don't totally apply when you are just looking for your next event with free pizza; or I did most of my own cooking anyway; or I really am just oblivious.

* - What? Some things don't change.

Tri training: a grab bag of thoughts

- You know how marathon training plans are full of those easy runs in which you are explicitly warned not to go too fast? And how the bread and butter (mm, bread... mm, butter) of a marathoner is zoning out and running for an hour? Tri training is a whole different kettle of fish (mm, fish and chips). There is no such thing as an easy workout in tri training, you guys. NO EASY DAYS. It's either long something or intense something. Long bike ride, long run, tempo run, speed intervals at the track, hill reps on the bike, tempo swim. Every workout *does* something. No more 'zone out and run for an hour, there's chwee kueh at the end' (mm, chwee kueh). It's ALL key workouts.  I know I said one of my training mantras was 'DON'T THINK - JUST GO' but even if I don't overthink so much that I fail to get out the door...my brain is tired. 

This post is brought to you by post-long-runger. Gosh, what gave it away?... 

 

- Top of my to-do list now, training-wise, is figuring out when to do my glute/ hip strength exercises. I do most of my training outdoors - pool, run, bike - so it's not like I can just lie down in the middle of the road for clamshells (mm...clam chowder, but only the New England kind) and leg lifts. This week I've done the exercises whenever I've been at the gym (I sit down and immediately soak a gym towel because I ran there) - so twice now. It'll have to do for the time being. 

-- This list is here in case I happen to forget it. 

- Clam shells

- Leg lifts 

- Bridge (stability ball optional) 

- Marching bridge

- Donkey kicks

- Plank 

- Back raises 

- Pushups

- Hip hikes 

- Standing bird dog 

- Wall sit 

Was there something else I should be doing? 

- Anyway, the theme of this year's tri is apparently 'do something that scares you'. 

Simply doing my very first OD tri - that's scary enough. 

Riding 40km scares me - so I did it last week. 

Doing a 65km group ride with my super fast tri group* scares the shiznit out of me - so I'm doing it next weekend. Yes, I will get dropped. Yes, I have already pre-emptively asked for a map and my tri group friend's cellphone number. 

*How fast is the tri group? I am not an especially SLOW swimmer, compared to the general population. At training on Wednesday, I was dead last in the last lane - the farthest one right at the edge of the pool. I popped up between sets, already an entire pool length behind everyone else, and looked at the coach plaintively. 'Can I drop down a lane?' 

- I've also discovered that looking for a no-one-gets-dropped, longish group bike ride that caters to total n00bs who don't even clip in (i.e. me) is basically like looking for a unicorn in a tropical rainforest. A pink unicorn. That happens to also be invisible. 

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Can we talk for a second about a few things I've read lately? 

1. I went on holiday and my pretty little Google spreadsheet of all the books I've read this year basically spiralled out of control. But I've just finished...

... Charles Stross's Iron Sunrise (I still think Ted Chiang and Geoff Ryman are the world's most underrated sci-fi/ speculative-fic authors, but I'm quite partial to Charles Stross too.) 

...the Brownlee brothers' Swim Bike Run (I don't usually go in for athlete biographies but this is honest and quite funny and they have an interesting sibling dynamic) 

...Gregory Maguire's Wicked (probably better than the musical? quite drastically different?) and its sequel, Son of a Witch. 

2. 'The Good, Bad and Ugly about Squats for Female Runners' 

It disturbs me that in lists like this the author always feels the need to make it about being attractive to men. Or, alternatively, 'chicking' them (mm...did someone say chicken?). Why do we need to define ourselves in relation to other people and other genders? Can't it just be 'run times get faster, fewer injuries, yay; pants don't fit, boo'? Oh but that would make for such a boring list and then no one would read it. 

3. 'Are you really going to eat that?' 

Everyday Sexism, via the Guardian, on the sort of bizarrely rude, busybody food-policing that appears to go on in less civilised countries. 

So, oddly, I've never experienced it in Singapore (my Caucasian friend from Australia who posted it on Facebook says 'It's an ang moh thing'...Singapore friends, can you corroborate please?) I don't know why, and I could be wrong and am plucking this theory out of my rungry ass, but honestly, most people in Singapore live to eat and understand what it is to really enjoy your food. Plus traditional foods and the act of enjoying food are deeply embedded in my cultural identity - so criticise my food and you criticise my culture, and you wouldn't want to do that now would you? 

4. Here is an excellent response to food-policing, body-commenting and general backhanded complimenting. Look them in the eye. And say: 'I don't fucking care if you like it.'

Tri training, week 1, and a mid-year check-in

Some time ago I read this from the Telegraph, that bastion of liberal gender equality (/sarcasm cos it don't translate well on the internet) and was mostly baffled by the entire thing. Sometimes the stupidity is not worth getting worked up over. 

Anyway, it reminded me that the secret to a happy athlete marriage is that only one of you can train SERIOUSLY for a thing at one time - and you take turns and SHARE. Umm - I learned this in kindergarten, didn't you? Husband is training for the North Face trail 50K in October (I'll be there cheering, with gummy bears) so right now I'm taking a step back. (He has his own training plan - I'll leave him to it!)

I know it sounds like I have a funny definition of 'taking a step back', but the Tri-Factor OD tri in September isn't really a goal race. It's my first Olympic Distance tri, 1500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run, so I'm happy to complete it - even DFL. But since I'm used to a nice little six-day-a-week marathon training routine I figured I might as well carry on. Fortunately it's literally a change of pace from marathon training.  

Some people can believe six impossible things before breakfast. Here are all the short-term and long-term thoughts about training I am capable of having on any given morning before breakfast. There is way too much to think about: Ugh, am I going to be too late for swim? I'm already late, is it worth running for just 20 minutes? Am I running enough? Should I do more swim intervals? Should I add another bike ride?

But marathon training has given me a couple fine pieces of wisdom. Especially for something that isn't a goal race:  

a) don't think - just go 

b) trust in my training

c) ENJOY YOURSELF 

And so I'm trying not to habitually-overthink things. running late? DON'T THINK - JUST GO. Is my training going to be enough to get me through this tri? DON'T THINK - JUST GO. TRUST IN YOUR TRAINING. 'Ok brain, whatever you say.' 'Go enjoy yourself, Pinky.'  

...Not gonna lie, the thought of doing my first OD scares the crap out of me.

In case you were wondering, here's my basic routine. 

Mondays - 45-min to 1h solo swim (this sounds substantial but it's not - usually 2km or so) (and yoga?) 

Tuesdays  - bike for an hour, run 20-30 minutes, glute & other strength exercises - I really miss AM track so I may just try to hit them up once or twice. For purely social purposes.  

Wednesdays - swim in the AM with my tri club  

Thursdays - tempo run, glute & other strength work  

Fridays or Saturdays - rest, yoga/ strength, or longish easy run (I can comfortably run up to 20ish km relatively easy as my long run for the OD tri, and not have it be too taxing) 

Sundays - long easy bike or bike/run brick with friends (accountability FTW!) 

And that's pretty much how it played out this week. This morning I checked off one of the items on my list of Things for this year: 

- go on a bike ride longer than anything I've ever done before. Enjoy it.

Lin, Boya and I rode about 40km along the East Coast Park/ Changi park connectors. Which is a minuscule distance, but I am a total n00b and it took us two hours with breaks. By the time the tri rolls around I would like to not take two hours to go 40km, thanks very much. I foresee checking off that list item several more times over the course of the next few weeks. 

I fell off only once, 

Please don't tell my mum. 

and that was a mis-stop (stopping too fast to avoid crashing into large group of cyclists that had inexplicably halted, couldn't dismount in time so I tipped over into the grass). I am fairly tough and chewy, so in general after the first fall of the day I'm good. 

I am also the world's slowest cyclist. People on foldies were passing me. If nothing else this tri is my way of entertaining myself! 

Here's something I need help with though: where did you learn bike maintenance and etiquette and the basics of how to be a cyclist? Not how to ride, that's simple enough. How to be a cyclist.

A visit to the physio (some literal and metaphorical navel-gazing)

On Monday I had a day off and paid a visit to Gino the physiotherapist over at Sports Solutions. ('How on earth did you hear about us?' 'Blog.' And of course when your ex-colleague, the best athlete you know, links to it you pay attention.) 

Of course, like a good reporter, I took notes. 

- If the same muscles cramp at the same time in every marathon - chances are it's good old fatigue. Of those particular muscles. Some possible reasons... 

- ...I am knock-kneed. Yes, this was the bane of my life when I did ballet - YOU just try being knock-kneed AND duck-toed at the same time. 'Turn out! Turn out!' 'I AM turned out!' (Except you never, ever talk back to your ballet teacher - you just push yourself harder.) 

- ...My knees collapse inward, because my gluteus medius are weak. (More on that in a bit.) 

- There are all kinds of unholy knots in my ITB and hamstrings. (And also my calves, but those aren't causing any issues yet and...oh hello foam roller, nice to see you again.) 

- We didn't do a running gait analysis for now. Frankly there are other obvious fixable issues to deal with first, which are causing my vastus medialis muscles to fatigue first. 

And came home with some suggestions: 

- For general fatigue: During the marathon training cycle, do the occasional long run that goes up to the duration of the marathon, but at a much slower pace - this is probably a good idea to put a heavy dose of fatigue into my legs and let them train their way out of it. But something I'd do probably only once or twice per cycle. Four hours of running, even very slow running, is likely to leave me wiped out for the rest of the day. 

- For the gluteus medius weakness leading to fatigue of the quads: I came home with a couple of exercises - leg lifts (the secret is to point your toes inwards) and standing leg lifts. I reckon I should also continue with those hip hikes and single-leg bridges I've been doing... 

- Consider a 10-day or bigger training cycle - I am ruling this out for the time being because it takes all of my logistical ability to even plan a single week's sessions. I do start with a rough week by week plan for the whole cycle. But the time that I start work changes from week to week. The time that I get off work changes from day to day. I have slight control over the former and almost no control over the latter. It is tough enough to figure out when I can go to track or swim with my tri group, and/ or ride or run with friends, when my training week is the same length as everyone else's! I might consider this when I have a more flexible (and relaxed!) schedule. Someday... 

We also did a bit of dry needling on my leg to attack those unholy knots, but since I am a single data point and the only available data is how I feel pre-treatment and how I feel post-treatment (remember I have never done this before), it's impossible to tell whether it worked, only that my leg felt subjectively less knotty. 

Of course then this week I hurled myself right into training for the Tri-factor OD in September so now everything is back to normal. Hungry, tired, knotted up, etc; and I haven't been in the pool or on a bike for ages so now I am remembering how to swim/ ride all over again. (In fact I went to swim training this morning and the swim coach was like 'HEY, LONG TIME NO SEE', but then I survived 2.2km of swimming so it's all good.) 

Meanwhile my training group is trying to find a new head coach, since the last one left for family commitments. I really liked working with the last one because he wasn't super technical or a lifetime elite athlete, but empathised with what it's like to be a slow talentless adult beginner who struggles. (My philosophy is, if you have zero natural talent you cannot get by just working hard, you have to work smarter than everyone else too. And if you cannot be tougher physically, well, you can be tougher mentally.) 

That's also what irks me about most athlete autobiographies. I must be the only person on earth to dislike Chrissie Wellington's 'A Life without Limits'! I simply could not get into the 'I'm a gumby n00b but somehow I managed to win this tri' tone. (She and I have very different definitions of gumby n00b. During my first tri I was trying not to fall off the bike or drown.) Dancer biographies are so much more relatable - dancers are all very tortured people... 

Wrap-tastic

This week I was utterly sidelined by a combination of work, a nasty cold, and early morning rain, and so what was supposed to be a rest and recovery week after the marathon turned into a no-good, very-hectic, very-stressful, no-running-at-all week.

Today I finally had the day off and was absolutely desperate for a run. (It's true, running keeps me sane and the whole getting to train for a marathon thing is a bonus. I could just as easily swim or bike or go to the gym for classes, but...too much logistics.) So off I went.

Now, I think of myself as being pretty up to date on workout gear. Sometimes to the point of absurdity. I don't *really* need two separate triathlon tops because let's face it, I do one tri a year. Or four pairs of the exact same shorts. Or the race number belt. Or more arm and waist pockets than a human being can use at any one time. Or the arm sleeves...well, okay, I needed the arm sleeves in Australia.

But clingwrap?

Apparently I have missed some sort of memo, because out there the path, there were two women brisk-walking together, and one of them was wearing what appeared to be plastic clingwrap wound around her upper arms down to the elbow.

A few possible reasons scrambled through my head.
- Clingwrap as makeshift stability brace - maybe.
- Clingwrap as sunshade - unlikely; the clingwrap was colourless so it wasn't really protecting her little skin cells from the sun
- Clingwrap as spot-reduction tool - yes but WHO THE HELL tries to spot-reduce their elbows?
- Clingwrap to keep one's elbows fresh and fancy - the stuff is airtight; this is a pretty good bet.
- Clingwrap as insulation - I mean, when I lived in New Hampshire we used to insulate our windows against the freezing winter with plastic film, and come summer the whole window frame would be mysteriously full of dead flies... So uh anyway maybe she was just cold. (30C temperature notwithstanding.)

GUYS APPARENTLY THIS IS A THING. Apparently cutting off airflow to portions of yourself...that maybe don't have as many sweat glands as other parts of you... is a thing. Video is pinched from Youtube. (I watched, dumbfounded, as she basically wrapped herself in a clingwrap onesie, and am still shuddering at the thought of clingwrap onesie PLUS being slathered in cream.)

And thus I present to you my honest and unbiased review of clingwrap.

Last week we made a bit too much polenta so I fried it up in chunks (and even then there was still a bit too much). Turns out there are approximately 1057 containers in the household and 1056 lids, and the box I had already dumped the polenta into (try frying it, it's tasty) was the sole lidless one. In a bid to save my leftovers, I slapped on a bit of clingwrap, and lo and behold the things remained crispy till the next evening when we gobbled them all up.

I know, it's a bit anticlimactic.

FTC disclaimer... I was not provided a sample of plastic clingwrap for review and will not be able to give one away; however, you may go to your nearest supermarket or dollar store to find affordable clingwrap...for whatever purpose, you filthy-minded whippersnappers. Please tag yourself on social media showing off your best athletic use of clingwrap! Best photos will be featured on this page to be giggled at for all eternity. #clingwraptastic 

PS - tomorrow I have the day off AND an actual, real-life physio appointment so I can finally start figuring out what is wrong with my #%(& quads. 

Same old gory details: Gold Coast Airport Marathon 2014

I'm going to warn you upfront: you will have heard this story from me before. It's like a horror movie where you know exactly who jumps out of the bushes and who dies at the end. Same old story. It's going to be a little repetitive. But you can read it anyway.

If you recall I had a nice little race strategy all planned out:
- Absolutely no faster than 6:22/km for the first half
- Shot blocks every 5km; electrolyte tab and a minute's walk break every 10km
- I am allowed to run-walk if I cramp - I will probably cramp... (OBVIOUS FORESHADOWING, I COULD BE A SCRIPTWRITER NOW)

On Friday morning Holly got into Gold Coast and we ran about 2.5km to the Broadbeach convention centre for bib pickup, stood in line for five minutes, picked up bib, wound our way through the usual assortment of watches/gear/ads for other athletic activities

This watch is telling me it's 'exercise day'. What, you mean like every day except Wednesday? 

and popped out the other side...

...just in time for a Friday afternoon coffee with Char, who was in town for her 10th Gold Coast 10K in a row. We'd never met in person before but when you share your lives on the Internet it can feel like you've known someone for a very long time.

Photo credit: Holly and her long arms

I was suitably impressed, by the way. I haven't lived in one place long enough to do 10 of any race in a row.

And it was incredibly sweet of her to bring us (cup)cakes despite having had a rough week - thank you!
Here are the ruins of one of the cupcakes. Didn't pause long enough to take photos. Rest assured they were very pretty. And delicious.

On Saturday morning we went to watch the 10K and get the lay of the land at the race precinct, and then went on a whale-watching cruise. Humpback whales come up the Australian coast from Antarctica in winter to calve and mate, and we saw several pairs.

I was not fast enough to catch a photo of a whale.
Fortunately, clouds don't move as fast as humpback whales, so I got a nice picture of one shaped like a boxfish. 

That afternoon, three more friends got into town. Holly, Mel and Sarah were doing the half; Boya and I would do the full, and it was Boya's first full marathon. (You never forget your first...though sometimes you'd like to, especially around the 30k mark!)

Sunday morning was race day, involving a 4am wakeup for the half marathoners and a 4.45am wakeup call for the two of us full marathoners. Race organisers had provided shuttle buses to the start and the early ones were apparently very crowded with long queues (said Holly). But by 5.30am they were fine and we hopped on the first bus that arrived, for a 15-minute bus ride to the start.

That sunrise. I was pretty chilly, but I really can't complain.

but first, let me take a selfie...

We shuffled our way into the last corral. I had picked up a 4:30 pace band at the expo but was so far back, and so relaxed about the whole affair, that I never even really saw the 4:30 pace group. I had no time goals for this race except 'maybe finish under 5 hours again?'

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there was really no excuse not to high-five all the little kids, including a small girl in unicorn footy pyjamas.

And this view. I could have high-fived this view. 

Along the beach there was a guy in what I can only presume were very small and possibly hideous swimming trunks, holding a large and alarming sign in front of them: 'Run faster or I drop this sign'. And around a corner, there was a nine-year-old boy holding a sign that could really only have been composed by a nine-year-old boy: 'Run faster, I just farted'.

The course wound its way south for 15km, then turned around and continued north for another 15km along roughly the same stretch we'd come down. I obediently chugged on at 4:30 pace, stuck to the fuelling plan, and went on feeling pretty good. Ominously good. I knew I'd maybe be a little sore by the end, but experience tells me there is a big difference between sore and damaged, and I was not going to be damaged.

And then, going uphill around 31km, disaster struck. (DUN DUN DUN.)
It was a totally predictable, very familiar sort of disaster. With a terrible sense of deja vu, I felt my right vastus medialis muscle, the lower part of my inner quad near the knee, go TWANGGGGG and seize up in a spasm so powerful I nearly screeched. And then my left one. For probably three or four minutes, I stood there, clutching the centre rail, trying to stretch. I'd stretch one leg and the other side would clench; I'd stretch the other and the first one would fire off - TWANGGG. And again (twanggg). And again (TWANGGG). And again (ARGGGH COME ON STUPID LEGS WHY WON'T YOU COOPERATE).

And that's why my splits look like this:

'30 to 35km: 42 minutes 16 seconds'. Not stated: 'Five of those minutes were spent stretching and screaming invective at the sky in front of hundreds of spectators'. Yes, my quads had chosen the start/finish point to seize up. 

When I finally started hobbling on again, my crazy sport-psychologist bike-crash-survivor long-distance-triathlete friend popped into my head. 'What would Kirsten do?' The answer turned out to be 'relax and focus on the process'. The process turned out to be:
- Drink more water.
- Take another salt tab.
- Run six minutes. Cramps? Walk one minute. No cramps? Run another six minutes and check in with your body and make sure you're running tall, loose, and tilted slightly forward. Rinse and repeat. You know perfectly well you can do this because you've done this a dozen times before.

The remaining 10km became a sort of death-march shuffle, a delicate exercise in warding off cramps, at exactly the tipping-point speed between bobbling along and debilitating spasms. God, but I loathe my treacherous quads. (When other women say they hate their thighs they usually mean something different.)  I have cramped in exactly the same muscles for five marathons now. Also one sprint triathlon. And very probably one hot-weather OD triathlon in September. Do they do muscle replacements?

So at this point I had plenty of time to pay attention to the signs and road signs along the rest of the course.

Along a narrow bend there was DO NOT OVERTAKE. (I followed instructions.)

A spectator held one that said WORST PARADE EVER. (I kind of agreed.)

I counted down shot blocks to the finish. (30, 35, 40... just three more! 35, 40...just two more! 40k...last shot block! As I finished chewing the last one I realised I had only one mile left but I was proto-spasming too hard to run for it.)

Hence the hunched-over, paroxysms-of-agony marathon shuffle in this photo at 41k:

Photo credit: Char

In the end, I PRed by one crucial but deeply unsatisfying second: 4:54:17, down from 4:54:18 in Perth. I know I said I was going to chip away at my PR but seriously this is ridiculous! Is there even an upside to this? Yeah, well, I guess I now know a sub-5 marathon isn't a fluke.

Temperature-wise, while the temperature hovered between 12 (at the start) and perhaps 20C (at high noon), much of the course was in full sun and I ended up feeling like a salt-baked chicken by the end. I was wearing shorts, compression socks, a tank top and arm sleeves and thus have some interesting tan lines...

Ten minutes after I finished I had already snacked, cleaned up, stretched, and was lying on a bench with my legs up in the air texting the husband when Holly and Mel found me. Normally after a marathon or even a long run I'm passed out by mid-afternoon, but on Sunday afternoon I was still bouncy. We waited for Boya to finish, scraped her off the ground, and then headed back to the apartment for a shower and some hot-tub time, already plotting where to have dinner. (Priorities.) (Indian food followed by churros, bitches. I finally passed out into microsleep mid-churro.)

But really? Do all my marathons have to go the same way? It's like a bad movie script. In the last 10k and in the few minutes after I finished, I probably went through all five stages of grief that I was taken out by something so utterly stupid. Yes, all five at the same time.

Denial - This isn't happening. This isn't happening. Maybe if I ignore it it'll go away.
Anger - UGH WHY did I decide to do this STUPID thing to myself? !$(*(&# marathons.
Bargaining - C'mon legs. You can do this. Just six more minutes of running and then you can walk.
Depression - I'm never going to not cramp in a marathon. I should just give up now.
Acceptance - FINE. THERE. I'm DONE.

Right now I'm just kind of meh about the whole thing. In general I really did enjoy it. The race was well-organised and well-supplied with bananas and oranges and water, and man, did those volunteers and spectators know what they were about. The breeze! The sun! The views! The signs!

If I had no real time goals, why am I so mad? Well, I'm disappointed because the whole thing was so predictable. Frustrated because I know I'm aerobically, at least, capable of much, much more. In the final 10 km or so post-spasms I felt like I was shuffling along solely to ward off cramps. If not for the cramps I would've literally been bounding happily along, I had that much energy left over. I'm deeply annoyed that I never even got the CHANCE to hit the wall. Look, I HAVE a 4:30 in me. (Well-hidden.) Just that my legs seem to disagree...

Should I try something new? A different challenge? I refuse to even dream of doing an ultra until I've got this marathon-cramp thing sorted out. An OD tri, maybe. But let's face it, I tri purely for amusement and running is where my heart is.

So in future, what are my options, really?

a) Maybe it was hot and the perfect fuelling strategy was short of perfect, and maybe I could have taken in more Endurolytes and water. Endurolytes do have more magnesium than other brands but perhaps a dedicated magnesium supplement might help.

b) Maybe I'm just destined to cramp, so instead of cramp prevention my race strategy should be cramp anticipation. The cramps seem to show up no matter what I wear or how I fuel or how slowly I go at the beginning or however cool/ flat the marathon is, so perhaps I should just run very fast for 32km and hobble 10km? This will make me a very good half marathoner...and make for a pretty unhappy marathon experience.

c) What about doing faster/ longer training runs? What if I ran a marathon as my long training run for a marathon? (The most likely outcome would be 'here you go, two sets of cramps'.)

d) Is it something about my gait? Should I bother investing in a gait analysis that costs more than a marathon entry, just in case that's the problem? I'm not exactly going to win any medals anyway and I'm not fast enough to be worth it. I'm just a back-of-the-pack hobby jogger who runs because I happen to really really like running.

e) Or maybe I should stop trying to run marathons and just retire from this full-marathon shtick altogether, because I am flipping tired of writing the same race report over and over. 'Felt good for 30+km, then cramps, then long cramp-prevention shuffle'. I'm fed up and bored of it. Help me out - I know you are too.

Daily entertainment

What is it about Queensland? Both days I've been here have been endlessly amusing. 

Yesterday I took a quick day-trip to Brisbane for some museum-hopping and churros - both terrific. On the way back, a man got on to my bus which was about halfway back from the train station. 'Do you mind if I sit here?' he said. Sure, fine. Nice of you to ask. I was engrossed in my book anyway. 

I don't mind chatty strangers but this one seemed very eager for conversation, which put a full stop to my reading. In the first two minutes it emerged that he knew Japanese (when a non-Asian male stranger drops knowledge of [random East Asian language] into a conversation with me it is occasionally a hallmark of yellow fever - DING, on went my warning light) and how long had I lived in Australia? When I said I was from Singapore - oh they don't speak Japanese there do they - and in town to do the marathon, we talked about running. 

- Which one are you doing? The 10k? The half? 

- No, the full marathon.

- How many km? 

- All 42. *polite smile* 

- How did you get into running? Stole a wallet? 

- Ha, no I'm not that fast. 

Now he could just have been chatty, but it's not really promising when someone asks you 'So if you're doing the marathon then I guess you won't be having a drink' in a tone that suggests they'd like to buy you one. 

Eventually I re-engineered the conversation over to Japanese. 

- Did you live in Japan? 

- Oh yes, five years. Teaching English and then running a small business.

- Wow, that's amazing. Teaching English? Oh, JET? My husband did that for a while. 

Finally we got off - at the same stop, which was a stop or two late for me because 1) it was dark and I couldn't see where I was, gee thanks winter and 2) frigbiscuit if I'm going to let a total stranger know where my stop is! I paused to get my bearings and he'd gone off in the opposite direction. 

And then I fast-walked all the way back to my apartment.