I was a little crazy the other day for running a 10 km at the stadium … that is 25 laps around the track!! Surprisingly I didn’t get bored running round and round (dunno why). In fact I had plenty of energy (thanks to the milo cereal balls which I stole from dar haha). Yesterday I went for my speed workout. Did 300m x 8 sets. After that we had “yoga” session haha. Last week we befriended a girl and she’s been teaching us some yoga stretchings since hehe.

Awww I saw a very cute white fat cat at Yishun’s pet shop. The cat’s eyes are of 2 different colours! His right eye is blue and his left eye is green! So adorable and huge!

NB Real Run 2005 Results are out. Ayo my surname was cut. My name is too long

I got myself another pair of training shoe last Friday – a Mizuno Wave Rider 8. Half a size smaller i.e size US 6.5 would have been better. Anyway … the shoe is comfortable and I like it. It’s lighter than my Adidas Adistar Cushion.

Today was my first race of the year and my first time taking part in the Real Run! Yep, the New Balance Real Run 2005 was held at Sentosa beach this morning. It was a 10 km run (6 km road, 1.6 km sand & 2.4 km trail) … The terrible and most mentally torturing part was the sand part indeed. I finished in 52:34 mins and came in 13th (women open category) nevertheless. Here’s a report on my race.

Woke up at 0530 after 8 hours of rest. For breakfast I had some pieces of sweet tapioca + sweet potato and then 2 slices of bread. hmmm I wasn’t feeling much hungry cause my stomach was still full from last night’s dinner. Actually I was hoping to clear my bowel this morning but alas! … it just wouldn’t want to come out and I didn’t know how to force it out

Left home at 0625, took a cab and met Balasing at Clementi. We then both took the bus to Harbour Front (HF). Upon arriving HF we queued up for the Sentosa shuttle bus. We reached Sentosa at 0730 and met the rest of the SGRunners dudes. Nice to meet you all!

The race started at 0845. Me and a few SGRunners managed to start off quite near the starting line. Once the horn sounded, everybody just dashed. My run started out well. I neither went too fast nor too slow. I reached the 5 km mark in 24 mins. I was still okay then, just bugged by a slight side stitch that faded away (thank god!). Once I reached the 1st stretch of sand, the mental torture started. I can’t remember the last time I run on the sand. Probably last October! Anyway aaaya yes the sand was terrible! My mental, my legs and my whole body weakened. I just couldn’t carry on running on the sand. So I ended up walking – running – walking! Yes the sand really slowed me down. Heh it didn’t seemed to have slowed others much because all those runners who were behind me overtook me. I must say it was a bit demoralising … Some more, due to the uneven sand surface, my lower back hurted. I even had to run with both hands holding my lower back or hips. I was so happy (thank god the sand is over!) after crossing the 1st stretch of sand but little did I know what awaited – another stretch of sand further down the road!! Wahh it was double torture! haha. I spent about 10 long minutes just to cover the 1.6 km sand part. The last 2.4 km was also mentally challenging. My body wanted to stop & walk but I told myself that I have to keep running. So I kept running and gave my best for the last 2.4 km. I ran as fast as I could for the last 200 m.

I was sooo happy after I crossed the finished line in 52 mins. It’s not my personal 10 km best but still … I couldn’t expect much due to me walking through the sand part … But getting a medal for the 13th position is a good motivation!! This is my 1st medal! hee. Top 20 runners get medals. Congratulation to all SGRunners who ran today!! Some of them clocked in the 40 mins range, which is great! You all did well!

Right after I crossed the finished line, the same thing that happened to me after the MR25 time trial happened again today – My body just went flat on the ground for a few seconds until I had enough energy to stand up again. After I got up, I had a brief chat with this caucasian lady. She asked how I had the energy to sprint in the last part haha. Also, she told me it was better to run in the water during the sand stretch. She did that and she did well although her shoes got wet.

I think my Polar heart rate monitor went crazy. It recoded 231 (117%) as maximum heart beat. This is a bit off the limit huh… haha. Average heart beat was 173 (87%).

Anyway … here are some pictures … photo courtesy of kops21. More pictures soon!

[Edited] – NB Real Run 2005 Results are out!

Name: Carine Olivia Lim Gnuk Lee Attan
Position: 13th
BIB: WO0735
Start Time: 8:41:47
Check Point Time: 0:24:03
Net Time: 0:52:34
Gun Time: 0:52:44

FD & Me

SGRunners group pic. TLR printed the banner and made some SGRunners stickers, cyberkinetic made some SGRunners tattoos and FD helped us tumpang some stuffs. Thanks!

NB Real Run Goodie Bag. The smallest T-Shirt size is S size, which looks like an M size on me haa.

Back home I took some more pics hee. Aya I still haven’t cleared my bowel!

View all photos

Next Race? Mizuno Wave 2005! The few upslopes are gonna be challanging. See you all next Sunday!!!

Again … the same feeling around this time of the month. I’m feeling bloated, heavy, lethargic, lazy and weird. The good thing is that I don’t have to worry about running with pads & tampons at the NB Real Run 3 more days till the race day! The SGRunners will have a mass gathering before and after the run. We plan to take a group pic in front of our newly printed banner hehe. By the way, Waikit interviewed Alex. Read the interview here!

“You are a girl I love the most in my life” … awww isn’t this sweet. Muacks. Love you darling! Come back from JB safe & sound! I haven’t seen my boy for almost a week.

One of my best friends is turning 1 year older today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY girl!!!!!!! Miss you sooo much!!

I collected my NB Real Run Race pack today and bumped into Yojanjan Nice meeting you! Bought 2 pairs of NB socks for $10 and 2 NB singlets for $20 at the expo. The singlet looks baggy on me because I took the L-Size. Well there were only L-Size left! … hmmm nevermind – I can still wear and run I also tried a NB racing shoe and a NB training shoe but I was somehow hesitant to buy … After my race pack collection, dar and I headed to one of the coffee shops (the one beside World of Sport) for a delicious fish soup + rice! Yummy. Their fish soup is good, tasty and it’s cheap! Must try!

NB Real Run is next Sunday. My race starts at 0845. Hmmm isn’t it gonna be hot running at 9 am !?? I have no idea how the route is like and how my running will be like. This run is actually my first race of the year! Phew.

I’ve recently emailed a fellow mauritian runner to ask about the runners in Mauritius, the running events and where the short & long distance team usually train. It is not common to see people run along the roadside especially in my city i.e Port Louis. Well the fellow runner has already replied back and all my questions were answered. Thanks my friend! Dar and I are planning to meet them when we go to Mauritius this December i.e after the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon (our trip is more of less confirmed as we are already saving $$ which will cost about $1300 each for a 2-way ticket). The International Marathon of Mauritius has already been held in July. There is a semi marathon this November and a cross country league in December.

Anyway … Today’s Training: 3 km warm up, 400m x 6 sets [99, 98, 97, 96, 94, 95 secs] with 90 secs rest interval and 1.8 km warm down.

Tomorrow we are having a company BBQ at my colleague’s place! hehe. Food. More food And more pics

Awww I’ve been thinking too much of cats lately!!

Yoohoo! The ‘italics’ problem is solved. It turned out that my ‘arial’ font was corrupted as there were only ‘italics’ and ‘bold’ type in my arial font (the ‘regular’ type was missing). I only realised this this morning when I used ‘Photoshop’. No wonder all wordings that use arial font appeared in italics!! This is the first time that I encounter such problem i.e the ‘regular’ font type disappears or gets corrupted. Weird huh. As for the ‘Dreamweaver’ problem, well I will just unsinstall and reinstall it (doing it now). Alright today I’m feeling much better than yesterday. Maybe the hot cup of coffee of this morning woke me up hehe. I switched from milo to coffee about a months ago.

@ 10 pm

Today’s training at NYP – 2.7 km warm up, 300m x 10 sets [72 - 72 -72 -72 -72 -73 -71 -69 -63 - 65 secs] with 100m walk as recovery, 8 laps barefoot on grass soccer field as warm down. Can’t remember whether my 300m was 9 or 10 sets. Duh. My arm swing isn’t good. Gotta do those static arm swing exercises … So every Tuesday and Thursday it’s speed workouts. Sunday is my long run. And the rest of the days is normal run or rest or body exercises. I’m starting to get the hang of it.

Went for a 20 km long run this morning with some MR25 members. 3 sgrunners tagged along with us too. We started to run at 7 am. I finished my 20 km in 1 hr 52 mins … I’ve broken my own half marathon’s (21 km) personal best because my last year’s half marathon time was 2:10 I can’t call this morning run as an LSD run because I was running at my fast pace. Coach paced me all the way from start to finish. I’ve never run where we ran today, which was along the road and not inside the MRitchie trails. I reached the 5 km mark in 27 mins and the 10 km U-Turn point (where I stopped for a drink) in 55 mins approximately. My pace was still steady then. But after 12 km, I started to slow down … At around 16 km I stopped for another sip of water (I didn’t hydrate myself enough last night). My last 5 km wasn’t good as I slowed down completely! My heartbeat was around 166 bpm then, yet my legs wouldn’t move forward. Boy I hate that feeling! Anyway it was a good run and I’m looking forward to running with them again. After the run we all went makan (eat) and chit chatted.

So yep that’s what I did today! Now I’m gonna rest for a while before meeting dar for an evening movie (Land of the Dead).

PS: Congrats to Stéphane Buckland, a fellow Mauritian, who finished 5th in the 200m Men Final (20:41 secs) at Helsinki IAAF World Championships.