training on last day of January

yesterday was a wonderful day training... I ended school at 1 pm... received a call from one of my close friends to help him to take his swimming classes at Queenstown swimming pool... after completing some work, i went down at 4pm to coach the kids.. 4-5pm was a group of foreigners.. primary school kids.. age ranging from 6 to 11... and they were real good swimmers.. i mean for their age they are considered quite good swimmers! and after that 5-6pm... was a group of secondary school kids.. also foreigners... quite amazing.. i met one of the girl who looks like the younger version of Victoria Beckham... the cute thing about her is her attitude.. like those so called "bo chap" ... when i give her a workout.. she willl say "ok..." then zoom she goes off... then when she completes the lap, she will have a habit of touching her hair and make her short bob hair stand instead of allowing the water the make her hair so wet and still... funny... the kids were cute! i had this boy student who insisted on wearing his new flippers for warm up! haha
oh ya... and they mentioned that the training was too tough as compared to what my friend usually gives to them.. they said that It was double the mileage! and i only gave them like erm...

100m warm up
100m free kicks
100m dolphin kicks
100m sculling
200m single arm pull
200m medley
100m swim with 3breaths, 5 breathes and 7 breathes

and they had a scissors, paper, stone relay... it was quite fun

but the not really fun part for me was... to be late for my training at Bukit Gombak stadium... training was supposed to be at 6 pm... but then i left the pool at queenstown at 6 pm and reached gombak at 7 pm!!!! oh no... i rushed like mad... I thought that training was already towards the end...

when i reached Gombak, lucky team was still training.. i just did a 2 mins warm up and head off for my 10 x 800m... supposed to be running at 3:30min pace... but the first set i came back was 3:13min... then coached asked me to slow down... and the next few sets was ran at 3:15 min pace... then coached joined me for every alternate set.. he ran BAREFOOT!!! haha... strong right! oh after that, Coached joined me for the last 2 sets... it was nice running with him...

my heart was beating and legs were getting tired at the 6th set... i dropped to even 3:18 min.. but coached said they were still good timing...the legs lactate acid was perpetually flowing ! haha... no la.. i mean my legs were feeling the strain... and i was feeling so warm... i took off my top and ran in my swim suit.. felt so weird running in swim suit at Gomback stadium... but then again... what is running in swim suit in a biathlon race or even triathlon...

the 8th set i felt like giving up... i asked coach whether i can do a slower pace.. and then he agreed.. but dunno why, i still came back at 3:18min.. maybe running with coach has a great impact on my speed.. i just kept behind him all the way and he asked me to draft him when the wind was very strong...

the last set i pushed my all at the end and ended up with 3:11min... it was really tiring but i felt so great after that because initially i thought i could not have done such timings.. but coach told me this "see.. if i told you to go all out, you could have done a below 3 min.. but just for maybe one or 2 times... but when i set u to go for 3:30mins pace, i believe that you could do 12 times at the very least.. but because you did at 3:15 average pace, you realise that you could only do about 10 times? so gauge yourself.. whether you want to end up feeling strong or end up feeling sore.. depends on how you run.."

makes a lot of sense to me.. i went back thinking about it seriously...

went to Suntec after that to meet Junko and Sim... they came out to celebrate my belated birthday!.... and we had pepper lunch dinner.. talked about my first training... i rememeber SIM as my first coach who helped me to gain 4th position in A division cross country from the 25th Position the previous year... he helped me a lot.. act like my dad... bought my first bike for me... encouraged me a lot... never looked down on me.. coached me for free... tape my races and does analysis... never endind care and concern for me... until now, he still meant a lot to me... really...
when a person has touched your heart in many ways, there is nothing that can make you forget about this person...
remember the roots... i always remember him as the one who brought me up... thanks SIM...

oh ya.. i received another birthday present! he gave me an ang bao! haha... and it contained 100 bucks! he said for my past 3 years presents... hhaa... thanks SIM...

Junko and Me went home in his car... and slept right after we got home.. both of us were so tired after our individual training...