bi sprint time trial

i held off doing the sprint trial for quite long, due to my hamstring injury that put me out of action for both sprint trials conducted a while back, so iw as pretty determined to do it today and do it well

since my knee ached since the early morning bike ride on wed, i rested by knee all the way, with some exceptions of trying (in vain) to do my x-campus time trial, all which ended up with me stopping within less than a 100m due to the pain in the knees.

i was so glad this morning when i woke up and my knee didnt ached anymore! but juz as a precaution, i taped up knee before heading out for the trial.

dom and daniel were the other ones who were doing the trial with me, so at aldrich's call, we went off in 10s intervals, myself first, followed by daniel, then dom.

i started out quite fast for the swim, and maintained a strong stroke throughout, keeping in mind to watch my stroke so as to not waste the energy i'll need for the run later. maybe i conserved a bit, since coach david that i could have done a bit better than the 12:56 i clocked for the 800m swim. i dunno, cause i know i pushed myself a bit when my arms were starting to ache at the three quarter mark, but i was quite pleased with my swim time nonetheless since i had aimed for a 13:20 at first.

averaged bout 48.5s every 50m for the swim, which i managed to lap the other two in the process. i knew that dom's run was very strong, so i wanted to build up a good lead in the swim first. however, i must say that my neighbour's swim has imporved by quite alot since he first came for swim training with the bi team. from someone who splahses about quite a bit to now a pretty decent average swimmer, i must say i'm proud of how far he had come, and i'm sure he will continue to improve with more training.

coming out of the pool for a very fast transition, juz slotting my feet into my shoes and grabbing my watch and top and ran off to the track. i did attract some attention, since i was only in my trunks, but heck, time is more important, especially since this was a sprint race.

last friday, after the majority of the team had completed their trial, zhenghong was telling me bout how he timed himself to do 1:40 for every 400m and how pleased he was to accomplish it for all 12 rounds of the run. being the very competitve runner that i was, i aimed to do my 400m's at bout 1:37-8. i was quite pleased when i managed to keep this up till the last 3-4 rounds, which were at 1:40 thereabouts.

i was more surpirsed when i lapped my 2 contemporaries. apparently the transition from swim to the run was taking a toll on them. i was glad that i had a strong base on transitions, from training myself for last year's sing bi, which i would do a 10k run after a 1500m swim at tamp SAFRA. i believed this helped me to adjust and shorten the recovery process from changing from one sport to another. just another thing in the past that i appreciate now that im doing these races competively.

on the last 200m i gave it my all. i remember that at the 7th round i was panting like mad, but i pushed myself telling myself it was only another 5 (or 2km) to the end. it was a very mental process, and i gotta thank aldrich for clearing the obstrcutions on lane one as well as the encouragement that he had given me along the way. however lame it may sounds, it really did help and i really appreciated it.

finsihed the run at 22:03 (or 04), which i was very pleased with. it's just a very good feeling knowing that you have given your best in a race to hit a good timing, and to be able to say that i had no regrets over the run. i had put in the effort, and i was satisfied with the knowledge that i had put in ALOT of it.

panting my ass off at the finish line is a good feeling, when u push the pain aside and find the inner you all happily fat and satisfied, well-fed on effort.

thanks aldrich/boss for coming down earlier to help us conduct the time trial. all the effort you've put into the team, really really thank you for the many things you've done for the team.

Thank You Lord for holding up my knee, and helping me achieve what i did today. without You i wouldn't be able to do anything at all.

and thank you, if you have read the whole entry. think this is the longest entry so far. so thanks for reading!