dimanche, décembre 31, 2006

les entraînements du semaine W-7

25 lundi: Cycle 1hr 45mins (trainer), Nager 2km (Queenstown)
27 mercredi: Course 24km (West Coast)
28 jeudi: Cycle 45mins (trainer)
29 vendredi: Nager 3km (Queenstown)
30 samedi: Cycle 165km (Mandai -> Coastal loop, Mandai loop + NTU, Tuas loop), Course 5km
31 dimanche: Course 25km

En total: Nager 5km, Cycle 165km + 150mins, Course 54km

jeudi, décembre 28, 2006

double whammy..

Boo hoo what a sad day.

First of all in most probability have to cancel travel plans to Bangkok for lack of a travel partner! Everybody who I asked are busy/just came back from vacation/no money. Damn. Means that I have to spend the new year in relative monotony. So much for Chatuchak, Kachanburi and MahBoonKong. =(

Secondly got fined and given demerit points due to illegal parking while having dinner with Jinseng and the gang at Fong Seng. Jinseng is leaving tomorrow so we decided to get together to have a meal. Well, parked at the usual space in front of the coffeeshop place, but a little further down, near the pet shop. Suddenly the uncle from the neighbouring shop came over to tell us that "mata lai liao". Adrian and me scrambled to our cars, but when I saw that piece of paper stuck to the windscreen, I knew it was all over! I grudgingly peeled the notice of illegal parking off the wet windscreen and mentally cursed at the cisco officer. Sigh.. maybe its bad karma from calling in the cisco guards to fine another person the other night.

Bah. The only thing that can make me feel better now is if the plane I was intending to take crashed and if the cisco guard was on that plane. =D

Hehe.. Just fantasizing about it and I'm feeling a little better already. Think I'll go hug myself to sleep tonight for being able to think of such an ingenious revenge plot.

mardi, décembre 26, 2006

another ho hum day

Yepz.. Santa had decided that we were all bad this year so he decided to give us more rain and just practically screw up my training plan. Been raining non-stop since yesterday. Another slow start to the week, and possibly another few more landslides/submerged cars/floating plants in Thomson.

Got my results today. Well the good news is that I maintained my CAP. The bad news is that my CAP is only 3.25, which isn't saying much. I wonder how the others can consistently manage to score >4.00. Oh well, the amount of time I spend reading/understanding/studying/practicing my work does not even amount to 0.001% of what they are doing I bet. Oh well. Will have to try harder again next sem. =\

Such a boring day today. Hope the mood picks up tomorrow and I can go run my half-marathon. Hehe. Till then! =)

lundi, décembre 25, 2006

les faits divers

Les mises à jour rapide:

Le semaine dernier a passé très vite. Je ferais beaucoup de choses, mais je l'oubliais beaucoup aussi! Haha. Ok, Je ferais beaucoup de entrâinements car il est les vacances, et j'ai plus de temps. Mais le temps n'ai fait pas beau! Il pleurait toujours, et quelque fois je dois canceller mes entrâinements! Je prête un bike trainer de Jinseng, et j'espère qu'il me permettre de cycle dans chez moi, s'il pleura.

Mais de rien, j'ai pris cette opportunité pour faire des rendezvous avec mes amis. À mardi, après mes entrâinements avec Chin Cheong, nous allions à chez Grace pour diner. Grace et Botak ont faits le cuisine. C'étaient beaucoup de pasta et champignons! Haha. Nous ne les avons fini pas, et CC dois tapao-er. En plus à vendredi, j'allais à Village pour diner avec mes amis de français. C'était un soir très amusant.. et non, cette fois mon amie spinale ne me poker pas encore. Haha.

Le 24 December moi et ma famille allaient à Conrad pour le champagne brunch. Wah.. les nourritures étaient très délicieux! Je mangeais et buvais beaucoup! Wah, je vais devenir un gourmand déjà! =D Le repas peut-être cher, mais à mon avis, c'était en veut la peine.

Alors, je dois écrire plus, mais le temps est très tard et je me dois couche. Yawn yawn.. =P

dimanche, décembre 24, 2006

Joyeux Noël!

Season's Greetings from the Government and the rest of us in Singapore! =D

samedi, décembre 23, 2006

les entraînements pour le semaine W-8

19 mardi: Nager 2.8km (CDANS-Gombak), Course 10km (Harbourfront + Faber)
20 mercredi: Cycle 53km (Tuas)
21 jeudi: Nager 1.5km (Queenstown)
23 samedi: Nager 3km, Cycle 80km, Course 15km (Sentosa, Tuas, Esplanade)
24 dimanche: Course 8km (Harbourfront + Faber)

En total: Nager 7.3km, Cycle 133km, Course 33km

dimanche, décembre 17, 2006

Aviva Ironman Singapore 70.3

Yaay! The covers are hot off the press! The Aviva Ironman Singapore 70.3 is now a legitimate and official race! Check out Ironman Singapore 70.3 for more details.

Me and Grace went down to the press conference at the Ritz Carlton (official hotel) on Saturday to help out Adrian and his team. Alot of the other trifamers and triathletes were there too, like Jeanette, Ben, Harn Wei, Boon Pin and many others. Most of them were there for the bike ride with Ser Luck (who was the GOH for the day) though.

The program of the day was simple enough: Bike ride through the city with outriders leading the way, presentation of Ironman Singapore 70.3 and media reception. The bike ride went off without a hitch, and even the weather was nice and sunny (good omen perhaps for next year? =P). After the ride the riders were all treated to a first class transition reception! Wow, this has got to be the first time I have seen Gatorade being served in jugs and glasses! Everybody was in praises about the service. I think with this kind of transition, the race fee would very well be worth it. Hehe.

Next was the presentation which went off without a hitch. Watching the video about athlete #1390 was rather inspiring. Wow I so want to qualify for Kona next year! =D For the media reception I guess Singapore being Singapore, not much media was present so the segment was skipped and we went straight to the part where everyone was waiting for: High-tea!

Yaay.. the food was good and the service was even better! The Ritz is really THE Ritz man.. Talk about having your coffee stirred for you man! And the muffins were just seriously divine. =D

Ok got to go now.. Need to sleep for tomorrow's training (hopefully). It has been raining non-stop since Sunday! <_<
The cool people who had made it all possible - Look at Adrian's delighted face! =)

Me, my idol Harn Wei, and Grace

les entraînements pour le semaine W-9

11 lundi: Nager 2km (Queenstown)
12 mardi: Course 4.5km (ARC)
14 jeudi: Nager 600m, Course 4km (Queenstown)
15 vendredi: Course 3.5km
16 samedi: Nager 1.5km
17 dimanche: Cycle 113km

En total: Nager 4.1km, Cycle 113km, Course 12km

mercredi, décembre 13, 2006

somewhere out there

Its raining heavily now. Somewhere out there in Mersing, 5 brave Singaporean cyclists are braving the cold of the night and the harsh weather to try to make it back to Singapore..







... RIGHT. Most probably those 5 idiots are having the time of their lives eating cheap but unexplainably delicious food, touring the place and generally making the best of the favorable exchange rate.

Sigh, bad weather has caused me to cancel today's Wednesday bike ride, which was supposed to be my precursor to this weekend's Desaru ride. Hope that the weather hold tomorrow and I can squeeze in some training. Ok time to go play my PS2 and make the best of my time in this stormy weather too. Later!

mardi, décembre 12, 2006

food blog!

Wow trust Grace to religiously note down all the food which we partook over the last few days in KL! The link to her site can be found here. Quite ironic though, that a guide for eating healthily and race nutrition tips should be featured in the very next post! (Grace, no use trying to be goody two shoes; Santa already knows how you've sinned and the depths of decadence we went to in food hell!) =P

Ok for all you lazy readers out there I shall copy and paste an excerpt of Grace's "Foodie's gastronomic guide to KL" here for you to read. And please, do not try the following at home.

Thu, 7 Dec
Breakfast
Albert Center, near Rochor bus terminal (notchet leave for KL lah)
Spam, eggs, spam, spam, spam and beehoon.
Tau hway chui

Mid-morning Tea
Air Hitam rest stop
Epok-epok kentang (potato curry puff) x 2
Strawberry milk
(rest of the food didn't look too palatable)

Lunch
On board JB-KL bus
Water and half of a small granola bar

Dinner
Chinatown KL
Claypot rice with chicken and salt fish. Side of Chye sim

Snacks
Longan juice, Ma Kiok (horse hoof dough fritter) - street vendors

Supper #1
Secret Recipe @ Sungei Wang (or BB plaza?)
Raspberry cheesecake

Supper #2

Somewhere in B Bintang
Sang Mien with super fresh prawns!
Chicken Satay, Timun, Bawang

Supper #3
Another somewhere in B Bintang
Minced Beef Noodles - Lo Shee Fun (rat tail noodles)

If you went through Grace's blog, I hope you have stopped drooling by now. Use a piece of cloth to wipe off that dribble for God's sake. And speaking of God, I am now convinced that He exists.. =D

by golly, God sure looks good up close!

dimanche, décembre 10, 2006

les entraînements pour le semaine W-10

6 mercredi: Nager 1km (BH), Cycle 40km (Bukit Timah)
10 dimanche: Cycle 50km (Tuas)

En total: Nager 1km, Cycle 90km

samedi, décembre 09, 2006

Selamat Malam!

De l'endroit véritablement asiatique - Malaisie! =D

Hehe.. désolée parce que je n'écrit pas souvent! Après le jour de liberté - Mardi 05 Dec 06, mes amis (Chek et Grace) et moi sont allés en KL, Malaisie. Hehe.. c'était très impromptu! Dans le matin de Jeudi nous nous avons rencontré à Queen St pour prendre un bus jusqu'à Larkin, JB. À Larkin, nous prenions un autre bus pour KL, pendant 5 heures. Après nous arrivions, nous rencontrions Botak et Meng Kiang, qui étaient dans l'hôtel déjà.

Nous avions faim et donc nous allions à Chinatown pour diner. Nous mangions le riz claypot et il était très delicieux! Après nous allions à Sungei Wang pour faire du shopping. Wah Sungei Wang est le magasin le plus grand en KL. Il y a beaucoup de petits magasins! J'ai acheté 2 jeu électronique - pirated bien sûr! Hehe.

Le deuxième jour nous allions au KLCC et Berjaya Times Square. Malheureusement, il n'était pas beaucoup de choses pour acheter, parce que les prix sont comme les prix en Singapour. De rien, je n'aime pas le shopping quoi qu'il en soit. Au lieu, j'allais à la magasin du massage. Wah c'était très shiok! Il est moins cher que Singapour aussi - RM60 pour 60 minutes de massage! =D Après le massage nous mangeons encore. Haha. Botak et Meng Kiang sont retournés après souper.

Nous avons mangé beaucoup, et Botak a nous emmené à regarder le Dieu! Apparemment le Dieu habite dans un magasin de char siew. Haha. Grace l'a mangé et selon elle, elle pense que le Dieu était très délicieux! En plus, Grace mangeait beaucoup.. plus que les hommes combiner! Elle a écrit une liste de repas que nous avons mangés. Wah.. elle est véritablement une gourmande! =D Chek aimait les nourritures aussi, surtout l'oyster omelette. Yum yum!

Le Samedi, nous avons fait du natation et après nous avons préparé de retourner à Singapour. C'était une vacance court, mais nous étaient très amusants! Il faut que nous retournerons un autre fois!

Hehe.. les photos de KL:

Arrggghhhh! La bête!

looking pleased with the end of exams.

i am the swan princess!

les tours doubles comme vu de notre chambre.

la groupe avant l'arrivée du Dieu.

le Dieu!

MOI!!!

Enfin, je te laisse avec les bon mots.. Hmm..
=D

lundi, décembre 04, 2006

Perfect day...

wasted spent studying! Dang! >_<

dimanche, décembre 03, 2006

les entraînements pour le semaine W-11

28 mardi: Course 8km (Shenton)
29 mercredi: Nager 1.5km (Clementi)
3 Decembre: Course 42km (SCSM 2006)

En total: Nager 1.5km, Course 50km

le marathon!

Voilà! I'm back from the marathon! Weather was extremely good today, mostly alot of cloud cover and was not sunny AT ALL!

Started my marathon last night by carbo loading at Brewerz with 3 pints. Reached home but only slept at 12+ as my bodyclock is now like totally screwed up. No matter how I tried I couldn't sleep! Woke up groggy at 3am this morning (hey at least I got up!) then proceeded to the Marina after the usual pre-race preparations. (afternote: parking at Marina is damn expensive! Paid $11 for parking!!! Seriously it is more siong than the marathon! Next time walk to Padang or take public transport..)

Saw alot of people I knew even before the marathon. Met the rest of the pacers at the Cenotaph. Proceeded to the starting pens like 15 mins before the start. Even then, it was extremely packed! Whew.. After the race started it was much better. Did a very easy pace as my target finishing timing was 5hrs.

The 1st 21km flew by very easily. My team was laughing and joking most of the way to alleviate the boredom. We also checked ourselves quite constantly for our pace to make sure that we were not going too fast (very easy to lapse into this problem) or too slow. Maybe the pace was too slow or what, it started to get quite bad for me about the 30km mark. Was it the dreaded wall? Maybe. My body was not suited, even after 2 months of pacer training, to take the slow pace. Furthermore, I really felt like going to take a dump. Haha. Nevertheless, managed to keep the pace even though my body felt like running faster, so that I can stop running sooner.

If people were overtaking us in the first 21km, then we were overtaking alot of people in the 2nd half of the marathon. You could see that these runners were really struggling, and it reminded me of my race last year where I had a terrible ITB injury. Luke, Yanglyn and me took turns to cheer people up, commenting on their Adidas reasons, making small talk and generally keeping the environment positive. Meeting people we knew was also quite inspiring as we could encourage each other along.

The last 10km is always quite torturing cos the route turns into Lavender and there's alot of traffic. However it also means that we are 3/4 done. Yep we did a countdown all the way from 32km to the end. Everytime we passed a distance marker we would clap and cheer. You could see that the cheering really helped some people as they made some effort to start running/hobbling/fast walking. Wah got this girl who came up to me and told me I was her inspiration somemore!!! =D So touched lor.. Quite chio somemore. Hehe.

So yeah last 1.195km onwards I started really herding people, yelling at them that they had to be in front of me if they wanted a sub-5 hour timing. Hehe. Quite fun leh. Machiam PTI liddat, so sadistic. So yeah I finished the marathon in 5 hrs 00 mins 11 secs (gun time). Not bad for a first time pacer! It was truly fun and rewarding. Met alot of people too, like BG Bernard Tan (former CAO), LTC Lim Tong Peng (who never fails to have a smile on his face), MAJ Paul (I told you that you could do it!), Grace (of course! my training partner cum swim coach leh. Plus I tompang her, how to miss?!), Susan (who went with us for training ever so religiously), Billy & Tricia (triathlon's golden couple), Boon Tat (trailblazer bitch), and not to mention all the many many other trifam, NUS or Army friends along the way. (Sorry too many of you to remember! I shack cannot think.. =P)

The route this year stayed largely similar to previous years. The only difference was that the marina loop was slightly longer as we had to run to the new ferry terminal. This meant that we looped around the lagoon at ECP instead of heading all thw way down to Bedok jetty. Well I thought that this was a good move since usually most people hit the wall at about 30-32km and having more supporters situated at this critical area could help to boost their morale.

Aching knees and sore legs now but yeah still have to study for fluids later. Bleah. In the meantime there's IM WA on-going. Ah Beng has finished with a great timing of 13h 28 but Jin Seng, Adrian and Ron have yet to finish. Really worried for them.

Ok gotta go already. Looking forward to Tuesday - the end of exams! Till then, au revoir!

les jambes des pacers

les pacers sans moi, parce que j'ai eu une teste

can you spot me? =P

Boon Tat (dun you think he looks damn gay), me and Grace

Yours truly =D

samedi, décembre 02, 2006

Of thermoDIEnamics and NONSENsensors

Bonjour! Puisque les examens, je n'ai pas posté sur le blog depuis quelque temps déjà!

Les examens étaient une catastrophe! Bien que j'ai étudie pour le Sensors et Actuators, je n'ai fait pas bien, parce que j'étais nerveux. Peut être, Mechanics of Materials et Thermodynamics sont le plus bien.

Demain est le marathon. Je me sens que je n'ai préparé pas assez! J'espère que je peux finir la marathon et réaliser mon but d'être pacer pour les courants. Je suis dans le group de 5h.

Dans d'autres nouvelles, j'ai rassemblé mon vélo à Lundi. Wah la chaine d'or est très bling bling! Hehe. En plus, j'ai enlevé les zipps et remplacer avec les eastons. Quelque photos de mon vélo:

après la transformation!

le bling bling!

sans Zipps