It dawned on me yesterday that today was Singapore Biathlon. I only worked out the time to be at the venue at like 1030pm last night, and then proceeded to continue slacking. Ha ha. But nevertheless I managed to get up for the event the next day. Time to start moving after 5 days of complete motionlessness.

I cycled there again, in a half daze. It was apparent the Zzzz monsters still had a foothold even though they had retreated in most areas. I wasn't in the mood for breakfast simply just turned up at the venue.

I wasn't in picture mood either so too bad but I don't have any pictures of the event.

The Singapore Biathlon is undoubtedly run on a much larger scale than NUS Bi. I think the number of participants are about double, and there's no sprint category. Well, thanks to the fact that manpower was a plenty, things were very very efficient I must say. The queue, although seeming long, moved at a fast pace. I simply threw my bike on the floor this time instead of attempting to tow it along inside the human dragon. Figured there were no crazy bystanders who would pull off a stunt since everyone was busy getting ready, supporting loved ones.

There were really a lot of registration counters, and labelled according to race number / wave, and they used the good old manual pen and paper to record registration and hand out the race kit. Very reliable, vs using laptops which are actually slower and can fail / run out of batt. And yes! There wasn't a need to go collect the race kit on an earlier day! That's great! Although I did nearly forget about the event... There was also an efficient bag check in counter, but I was too lazy to utilise it. It did help clear up more space in the transition are though. Security also felt tighter at the transition zone, as the 'volunteers' (hur hur) looked quite watchful. The atmosphere was also a little better as they had good commentary over the air dispensing very useful tips and information (eg. You can try drafting a swimmer in front by etc....)

Oh yah, I was wondering where the registration was when I heard a "Good morning Sir, would you like an energy snack?" I turned and saw it was someone I knew -_-'' Charmaine was there once again helping her sister, just like for 70.3. Ha ha... Looks like Yingming or Joey weren't there either as she asked if I joined alone. Yeah. I signed up for all the events alone. Hur hur. So my breakfast was settled that way.

Well, the course was good. It was a one lap swim and a one lap run, as compared to NUS Bi's 2 lap swim, 2 lap run. The swim for my wave started and it was kinda weird. People walked to the water line instead of running. And then I found myself severly boxed in. People were like crawling at the start, it was bad. I ended up drinking a mouthful of sea water at one point. Yucks. There were people everywhere on my right, and the line on my left, and when they slowed due to kena blocked, they changed to breastroke and started kicking... It wasn't good. My advise to other next time would be to use front crawl as much as possible especially when it's crowded, so you don't end up killing anyone. Think a well placed kick to the side of my knee would probably sprain my leg. Don't even want to think about one to the head, chest or stomach... The current was pretty ok actually, so swimming wasn;t that hard. Going straight was pretty ok, although my fogged up googles did, once again, reduce my visibility to like 20 meters. For the 2nd 750m I slipstreamed one fella who was passing me, and hung on for the rest of the journey. Ha ha. It was weird but this time I was pretty comfortable front crawling my way for the whole swim leg. Although it was still slow.

I kinda stumbled a bit back and forth when coming out of the swim. Weird, it was like stepping off a boat that had been rocking back and forth a lot. Ha ha. And guess what? At the transition area I saw Ghim Song, who was busy applying some secret stuff to his legs. I wonder what. Oh, I think I also saw a Ghim Song supporter from Chem Eg. Ha ha. Any way, it was drizzling a little when the run started. So my shades became nothing more than a hairband for the trip. The run was ok, although I didn't really have enough to last the journey. I was passed by 1 fella from tribob. And he belonged to the wave AFTER mine. Think it's 15 mins intervals AFTER mine. Goes to show how fast my running / swimming is eh? And oh, I realise Hao Sia's swim is faster than mine, cos it took me sometime in the run to finally catch him...

On the run I also met Wei Fa, the guy who won my T1 1000 finals in JC. Not sure where he's studying now but think he was on some scholarship. Ha ha.

Actually my mind was kinda wondering off as I was running. I found it strange that I was able to still run, given that I was totally in the wrong frame of mind. I thought for a moment if this was harder than cycling. Hmmm... nope. Canoeing? Nope. Then I looked at East Coast Service road on my left and saw a large pack of ANZA riders pass by. Think they were well into their Sat morning long ride. Maybe I would be better off there I thought. Shrugs.

I was going to run pass this fella who was going at a pace similar to mine. He was always busy saying high to other army friends and cheering them on, and he tagged along when I ran level with him and he suggested we run along. I said I run at my own pace, but so happens we were now on par. It was weird but we were having a casual conversation for about 1km plus. Apparently he'd just ORDed, and was from ITE doing something related to Chem Eng. When I said I was doing IA at a pharm company he asked if it was Shering Plough or Novatis. Seems he never heard of Merck though, haha. He commented on my running style being very hard on the legs because I tended to lift my feet high and land hard. The PTI who takes the AHM training has commented about this too, along with another friend of mine (although not so specifically). Well, I guess it's cos I don't really run much, and only cycle, so my running gait is kinda weird. But it works for me so far. In the end I said bye at 2km and went ahead. He said his cardio wasn't good enough so he remained at the same pace (which is weird since he was the one talking more lively then ever and saying hi's to people even as we conversed).

Oh, and I ended up sprinting for the line this time, over taking some guy who took me up for the challenge. Wow, it's been so long since I ever did a sprint finish for anything.

At the finish I met some Army dudes. One was a major, a PTI warrant and another an ex warrant who's still with the army but as a civilian, I forgot the term. One of them was Mr Victor, who's like an icon for his generation to some extent. So Mr Victor asked me how I finished. I looked at my watch and said 1:25? He said: "That's quite ok, I also.".... Hmmmz I was thinking: "Right..." I'm less than half his age (he's 53), and guess what? he just did his first Ironman Langkawi 6 days ago. Mr Victor is this very muscular looking "old man" whom you might have seen running along ECP topless before. Think he's stronger than me in every sense. Hur hur. What a weak 24yr old.

Cycled home in a small rain. Refreshing.

Next 'race' MR500, then Changi Coastal ITT, then perhaps TTT and another criterium. I should soon start training cycling full time perhaps... And then maybe next year I can go for Tour of Egat.