My first long swim, and a nice long run

Recently there have been talks about swimming and participating at bi/tri events, and some of those excitement are rubbing on me a little. There has been swim sessions by trifam, and even basic ad-hoc sessions done by SgRunners. I have never really liked swimming, and my swim skills are really poor.

I took some time out on Tuesday evening to gauge my swim standards, and attempted to swim laps of breast-stroke to see how I felt. I went to SAFRA MF pool. There were some slight showers, but we were allowed to swim. The pool was relatively empty...hmm, good time for me to try some swim techniques I read from the book 'The Triathelete's Guide To Swim Training'. I jumped into the pool, and went about doing 10 laps of breast-stroke...I think I took about 18min or so, didn;t really timed. I then did 6 alternate laps of freestyle and breast, to try out some techniques of freestyle. I also did a 5min practise on my water-treading skills.....hmm, much to improve here. If I can tread water well, it will help me improve my swim confidence leading to better swimming distances and timings.

After my swim, I changed quickly into my running gear and met ws for our run into sentosa. I didn't feel like joining in the hill repeats at MF which the MF Runners were supposed to do, and they were preparing for the HK Marathon. ws and I ran a leisurely pace along Harbourfront, then into Sentosa for the 10km NBRR route, and out back along the Kampong Bahru side. I enjoyed the relatively nice paced run, and it was a good workout for both of us. Along the way, we saw some event and filming at the Tanjung Beach, and as we were exiting Sentosa, we saw very nice fireworks emiting from the top of Mt. Faber. The entry/exit to Sentosa is more or less done up, and in future, it will make running into Sentosa even smoother and more fun.

We did an estimated 18km in 2hrs, and later met with a large group of SAFRA MF runners back at the ClubHouse for a good makan. Eileen, Bug, some new faces were there. Colleen and William were back to run with SAFRA after quite a long absence. Yuen was there too...long time no see. Akira will resume training with MF in Feb. Seemed like the running group at SAFRA MF is getting bigger this year....hmm, lots more fun.