.... the jackal rides and run....

I used this for all 3 workouts over the weekend. The first 2 was for cycling and this morning for my 12km run. Cycling For cycling, I set the catch mode to 'extended' meaning it the GPS updates every 2s to save batteries. The 50km ride took about 2.5 hours to complete and I had still about 60%-70% battery left. Not bad I thought and it was paired with my speed/cadence and HRM units. Worked flawlessly. The smallish screen is not a problem too and its looks less intrusive compared to the humongous Edge 705. I could see the reading clearly, in fact better than the Edge 705 even without backlight on. At home, it was easy enough to sync via wi-fi to my Motoactv account. Almost as good as my forerunner wireless sync (because its syncs automatically whereas on the Motoactv, I had to sync manually). There are max of 6 metrics and I think that's sufficient. I have the tendency to max out all and on the Edge I had 8 metrics displaying, which can be dangerous when you are strug...

I just had to know. How does 42km feel like? So I set out at 5am, on my "Marathon Feeler Route" (I have 3, by the way), with the intention of finishing at 10am, with a pace of 7:00min/km. 'Modest' I thought. Oh how wrong I was! The route basically covers the Park Connectors. It was pretty interesting on paper but in reality, one can get confused, like I did as at times the PC do not really 'connect' that well. I entered the Siglap PC near my place. This brought me through Teluk Kurau, Kembangan over the PIE and into Bedok North. Made a wrong turn over here but luckily I stopped to check my GPS and u-turned back towards the correct route. At Bedok Reservoir......the usual dump-attack came....so had to stop at a coffee shop to do my business. I was running on the pathway here until Tampines ave 1 junction where I connected in the Tampines PC. This brought me towards Tampines Mall, Sun Plaza park etc and finally into Pasir Ris PC at Downtown East. At this poi...

This month has been dismal in cycling. I only covered a mere 250km up this this point of the month. Normally I would have racked up about 500km by now. No, I've not been lazy......I've been running. 110km covered on my minimalist shoes this month....about 35km of trail too. I guess after months of cycling quite intensively (by my standards even!) preparing for various events, I need some refreshing so that I may return to cycling more charged up than ever. I needed a diversion. Running has been more than just a diversion. Its not a real competitor to cycling for sure. Why? because time for physical activities are scarce these days, for a married man with many kids. :) That and the fact that running is just about the most convenient, economical and effective physical activity one can do. Just about anyone can get good at it, given the proper dedication. For me, its been quite an adventure, especially working on the trail paths and then finally getting on the road to run them. ...

Presenting....the duotone legs! I've been living with this tone since cycling again in 2008. Gotten worse this year thanks to some day events which I attended. Anyway, the point of this nice little leg pic is to show 'Le Sock' which I used for this first ever, epic, sub 56min 10km run! To be honest, I'm really please with this achievement and to get to this point only after achieving under an hour about 3 weeks ago, is to me, quite a feat. The sock does work (I think!) and as the morning was quite cold, I wore the compression top that my wife bought for me as well, with a singlet over it (to conceal my 'beautiful' contours). The impression I have from the compression sock is that the calves are kept 'quiet'....meaning they are not jiggling around and put in place when the feet lands on the ground. This, somewhat aid in lessening the shock on the calves, I feel, contributing to overall improved performance. Also its been 2 days since the brutal Trail...

3 Runs this weekend.......no weekday morning bike rides for a long long time. Managed to run 2 x 10kms under an hour. Best time was achieved on Wednesday, covering 10km in 58min 11s. This is a slightly new route; basically, there is an extension of ECP AFTER Fort Road turn-off which is I suppose, not officially opened yet. It runs for about 800-900m and is blocked again. I think its before long that this will open up and give direct access to the new park opposite the wheel. On Friday, I tried again, wanted to go below 28mins....started off pretty decent pace despite the rain and wet paths but nature came calling suddenly at the 3km mark. From them on it was a decision on whether I could continue ignoring the call....but it was apparent the big one was coming so had to double-back to the toilet I just passed. Did my deed and had a horrible time picking back the pace again. Still decent running time about 29mins 30s or so.....just made it under the hour. I will continue doing 2 x 10km...

Its no secret. I've been a little bit mad on running and cycling especially this past month and I'm tired. This weekend, I suffered a slight burnout. Mentally (tired, not willing to get on the bike even after waking up early) and physically (right leg knee issues surfacing, DOMs on calves and lower leg muscles in general). So I just did a short ride on Saturday and basically for today (Sunday); I'm gonna bum. I will start again tomorrow. October 2011 has been a record setting month for me:- - ~900km covered (after my morning ride tomorrow!) - 818km on the bike (April was highest at 830km) - 82km in my running shoes (highest ever, that's almost 2 marathons....nuts!) - this brings total distance to date ~7000km for 2011. 2010 total was 6880km. I have 2 more months! Should be within my means to hit the 8k target for 2011. My riding/running TOTAL DISTANCE trend is shown below from a SPORTRACKS plot. The HIGH months were Feb, April and July. Now there are reaso...

Morning RIDE I did not join the rare Masher ride scheduled for 6.30am (they planned to do the Eastern loop, a relatively flat course, avoiding Mandai altogether) as I needed to be back by 8am. Thus, I set out on my own at 5am to do the East West 80km loop.....basically to Tuas and back. the plan is to do a achieve a post 30km/h ave on my own without killing my legs. The route is relatively flatish so no problems. I was on a moderate pace when I caught up with a group of 8 riders at Nicoll. I opted not to overtake them but also not to draft them so I kept a distance of at least 5-6 bikes away. They were doing pretty much moderate speed about 30-32km/h. I waited for them to attack the pace at the Viaduct but it didn't happen and they remain at that same 32km/h pace.....so I overtook them and went at it to post 36km/h speeds at the viaduct. Surprisingly, no one gave chase. At the end of the viaduct, I took a quick peek behind me and they were out of sight. I slowed down to moderat...

......just killing off some lunch time that I have still left at the moment. So, I've done a lot cycling in previous weeks. In fact this month is going to be the 2nd highest in a month in terms of mileage covered on a bike. This is a big thing since most of the 'high mileage' months are due to events. This month, there is none. There is some worry that I'll probably burn out soon and my wife has even remarked that I was mad going on on the bike or hitting the road on my pumas nearly every single day. Hey, maybe I am but reallly, nothing matters if you are enjoying it! It cannot be harmful anyways right? Another thing is, the running. I covered so far a record distance on my feet this month and I'm loving every moment AND every step of it. Running on minimalist shoes has been an absolute joy (Thanks to Ryo) and reading the book "Born To Run" has been pure inspiration (and I'm still only halfway through the book!). Last week I ran my first 21km (...

Ok, this 3 day work week thing has really gotten me into exercise-crazy mode. Running and cycling, that's all I ever do these days in those non-work mornings. So pretty historic day! I completed 21km of pure ECP-ness. I've been thinking about doing this but reading that "Born To Run" book really helped me pull the trigger. The tagline that caught my attention : "You don't have to be fast. You just need to be fearless". That was it. Started out at 5.30am from my home and ran. Did not stop until 21km was reached (Siglap Kopitiam). So its confirmed that if one runs the entire ECP loop, its a half marathon, duh! Initial pace was about 7min/km. Somewhere along the line, I decided to try to get at least the average to not exceed that. A modest 6.59min/km was achieved in the end. My HR barely went over 155bpm. Cardio-wise there was plenty of room left for perhaps a 6.30min/km 21km run BUT I was worried about destroying my legs plus I have not run  on th...

A tough week at work as my company of 15 years is about to go...well....bust! Its morale defeating to everyone in the company. We have so many opportunities in the pipeline but just simply not enough cash flow. Tough week ahead too.... Well, that's another (boring) story. Saddle up and get on with life! OK, the good news, I was crazy enough to do 3 rides and a run over Tues-Friday. Tuesday : 30km TT-like ride with Ryo...of which I notice great improvement over my last similar ride with him last week. Managed to hit 33km/h average upon reaching end of straight coastal road. Took it easy from them on, riding through the park. Wednesday : 30km again, some route, this time, re-installed the Charge Knife saddle. Its more comfy compared to the Antares. Initially just wanted to do a 30km/h ave ride...but had a fast chase (aero bar road bike) at ECP. Thursday : 32km ECP-Siglap route....pretty intense. 31.5km/h ave speed, got to the kopitiam just a shade over 1hr. Previous b...