Kapas

I'm heading to Marang, Trengganu tonight. I gave EL's slot to Anita. At least she's more appreciative.

Englock said that he's not going because he has flu and the bus ride is unbearable.

He passed me the flu bug, and I'm gonna endure the unbearable bus ride, and swim 6.5km, and go back to work on Monday.

Some things are just a matter of priority.

Aviva IM 70.3

I was the swimmer in the relay team. It was quite a good swim. No one kicked me this time. Maybe because the number of participants were greatly reduced and the swimmers were really gentle and non-competitive. In fact, I was the one who kicked a few people along the way. Opps!!

Was swimming breaststroke to recover my breath after the run-up (after the 1st loop) and I accidently kicked someone really hard. I was really apologetic and was hoping that I didn't do much damage. The person whom I kicked then caught up and swam next to me. Was trying to keep my head submerged longer hoping that he won't recognise me. Alas! I heard a "LLIIIXXXIIIAAAA!!!!" Wah shit! Of the hundreds of swimmers, I have to kick someone I know and he'll probably hate me for as long as he remembers. It was Cookie (one of the swimmers from YF). I mumbled my apologies while catching my breath. Luckily, he said it wasn't too bad a damage and swam away. Phew! Good thing that Jiayi, Liping and I practise chatting in the sea during the sea swim training. Must make a mental note to tell coach that he shouldn't get too pissed when we do that. The skill will come in handy! Haha!

There were some swimmers being stung by jellyfish during the race. I was lucky. Or maybe the jellyfish have all lost their stings by the time I got there. Haha!

Well, at the end of the day, it wasn't too bad a swim for me personally. Clocked 52mins for the 1.9km swim despite the strong currents. Hopefully Kapas will be a better swim!

Kapas Swimathon

I'm going for the Kapas Swimathon over the Good Friday weekend. Hope I make it back alive. Haha. Really.

Heard that the support's terrible. Last year, one of the pro was way ahead of her pack and got lost in the sea. Then she panicked and had to be rescued. See. This is what they mean by kiang jiu ho...mai ke kiang. In any case, I'll probably get scooped out of the water cos' I'm taking too long in the water.

Heard about the jellyfishes too. Liping went to research on anti-jellyfish products and found this lotion that protects against jellyfish stings. It doesn't repeal jellyfishes, just make their sting less painful. The only problem is, it lasts only 80 mins. And we have 6.5km to go. That's assuming that we swim in a straight line.

I really hope to make it back to land alive. Haha...

Wanted to get a Blue Seventy speedsuit to protect against the stings. But one such suit costs $300-400 after discount?! I think a trip to the hospital will only cost a fraction of that! (In ringgit somemore...) Tried to look at 2XU wetsuits but Liping and I figured that we'll probably die from heatstroke before we swim into any jellyfish. So we decided to try a hybrid solution. I'll be wearing my compression top, and Liping will be wearing her compression tights. This tells a lot about which part of our body matters most. Well, at least I wear a compression top to prevent chafting on my arms + sun protection. I don't know if she gets any chafting from kicking too much. Heh heh...

Yup. So that sums it all up for my upcoming race. If I make it back alive, I'll blog about the swim. If I don't, you can narrow down to the above reasons.

Those were the days

I almost forgot that I have a blog.

Well, life is pretty much the same. Mon swim, Tue swim or run, Wed rest, Thu run, Fri swim, Sat yoga, Sun eat and get fat, and the cycle repeats.

Met up with Ah Chew, Ah Bee, Ah Nice and Celest a few weeks back. Remembered that we called ourselves the blacklisters after reading Ah Bee's blog. Haha...those were the days. I was always either cracking jokes during our term paper discussions or eating, or was simply absent (usually I'm late). I remembered Ah Bee was so pissed off once with me that she walked off! :D I hope we passed that term paper in the end.

Met up with Ah Tut and Bit recently too. 10 years ago, our topics centered around what is the meaning of life and whether love is a chemical reaction in the body etc. 10 years later, we talk about bills, aging parents and Ah Bit's love interests (hahaha...kidding kidding...).

Suddenly, I feel this sense of nostalgia. I miss those times with Ah Chew, Desmurn, Keemin, Samuel and the SWAPS company. The wooden tables and benches along A6 (was it A6?), where we plugged in our laptops and watch the world go by.. Those nights that we camped over at the GIS lab, synchronising the PCs to play a particular song simultaneously. Crawling into the NUS pool in the middle of the night to swim. Running on the track at 3am, and doing laundry at 4am... And Ah Chew's Qing1 Dan4 (which is basically a pot of whatever we have left of the week's groceries)!!!

And there were the trekking trips to Lombong, Ophir and Belumut. Cycling trips to Desaru - how our legs and butt ached then. During one of the trekking trip to Lombong, I was the designated "rubbish collector" on our trek down, and when I got down on all 4s to take a big step across a boulder, the bag of rubbish swung from the top of my bag right into the side of my face. It doesn't help that an idiot brought a glass jar of spaghetti sauce for the trek and conveniently offloaded it in the "dustbin". Ah Chew and I always preferred maggi mee, bread and Campbell soup for outdoor cooking cos' it's light,leaves behind little rubbish and almost fail-proof (no prob eating maggi and bread without cooking). During one of the treks up Belumut, Bit was too tired and had to unload some of the stuff in her bag. To my horror, she was carrying stuff like sparkling juice (complete with the glass bottle) and a water melon!! Wanted to smash the water melon on the leader's head then. Haha! Was so pissed off...They even brought things like rice and chicken for "claypot rice". Anyway, those were the incidents that made the trips memorable...

I wonder how they are doing now...