Sweating During a workout

Since moving to Singapore I have a goal that I have to run at least 25km a week. I'm finding this goal is getting harder to achieve because of two factors:
1. Later hours in the office
2. The rain. It seems that most days the rain seems to come through Singapore just as I'm about to knock off work.

Because of that I am doing longer runs during the weekend to make up for what I missed out during the week. I've always been curious what impact the heat and humidity in Singapore plays when running.

I have noticed that my running times are a lot slower in Singapore, as a comparison in Australia I could run 5km in 25 minutes but in Singapore I seem to run 5kms in closer to 28 - 30 minutes. I've also noticed that I sweat more than Josef Fritzel on an episode of Changing Places.

On Sunday I decided to do an experiment to work out how much fluid I lose when doing a run. Up until Sunday I had run 17kms during the week so to achieve my goal I only needed to do 8 more kilometres. However on Sunday it was such a nice day I decided it was time to run to the east coast park to have a look.

For those who don't know the East Coast Park is a man made beach park which has been built on reclaimed land on Singapore's east coast. A picture I took from my iphone is below

Before the run I went to the gym in my condo and jumped on the scales. I always feel a sense of nervousness when getting on the scales. I figure this comes down to the fact that I watch the Biggest Loser and I am used to the 'drama' that they put in during the weigh in. After 30 seconds of the scales going up and down and a cut to an ad break the scales finally revealed that I weighed 75.5kg.

After that I set off on my run, since this was my first visit to the east coast I didn't really know how to get there. All I knew was the general direction from my apartment, I figured that would be good enough as long as I continue that way I can't go wrong. For once I was actually correct, usually when I assume things it goes terribly wrong and I end up nowhere near where I wanted to be.

The east coast stretches for 15kms but there was no way I was going to do the whole thing, I figured I'll run until I reach 10kms total then turn around. Since it had taken 5.5kms to get there that was only a 4.5 km run. Everything was going pretty well up to the 10km mark, I reached it and turned around to head home. By the 12km mark I had a blister on each foot starting to form and the beginning pain of shin splints so I figured I would start walking.

The problem with walking is it takes so much longer to reach your destination. The first 10kms had taken me 1 hour and 7 minutes, but the second 10kms took me 1 hour and 33 minutes. So eventually after 2 hours and 40 minutes I reached my apartment. I went straight to the gym and jumped again on the scales to see what the difference was. I was expecting to lose about half a kilo but never imagined to lose what I did.

After another anticipating change in the scales they finally flashed and read 72 kilograms. I had lost 3.5 kilograms from just under 3 hours of exercise. According to the AIS for every kilogram of weight loss that equates to 1 litre of fluids you have lost. Wow that was a lot of water I had to drink to replace what I had sweated out.

The amount of fluids I lost was definitely more than I had anticipated. Next time I decided to go for a run along the east coast I'm going to take some money so I can purchase a drink during the run to replenish those fluids.

Below is the chart of my run

Swissotel Vertical Marathon

So today was the day that I have been training a whole life for...... well maybe only a month. It was the day of the Swissotel Vertical Marathon and run up 73 floors which is 1336 steps.

For those who don't know the Swissotel is a 226m hotel building in the heart of Singapore. At one stage it used to be the largest building in Singapore but I'm pretty certain it has been overtaken now by some of the buildings in the banking district. Below is a picture of the Swissotel from the base, highlighting the daunting task ahead of me.

My age group for the run was the 20 - 29 group, which was great but it's going to be depressing next year when I'm in the 30 something age group. I arrived at the Swissotel about an hour before my race just to ensure I had time to warmup and have a look round.

Prior to the race we could get free drinks of water and red bulls, there was a guy on the speaker constantly telling people to make sure they drink plenty of water because you couldn't take water in the stairs. It was fair enough, but the guy on the speaker wasn't the one who was going to be running and the last thing I wanted was to be 36 stories up and busting for the toilet.

Half a bottle of water later I was in line waiting for our turn to start the run. Whilst waiting in line I found out that the winner in this age group last year did the run in 7 minutes and 50 seconds, wow that was impressive but not as impressive as the world record of 6 minutes 46 seconds. After hearing those fantastic times my personal goal of running it in under 15 minutes wasn't as impressive.

Eventually after a bit of queuing it was my groups turn to take off. We where partnered in groups of 6 to obviously reduce the congestion in the stairwell. "Ten Seconds" the marshall yelled at us, great time to turn on the tunes on my iPhone. I had decided to run with my phone for inspirational music and it was full of great music.

I figured my starting track would be "Shooting Stars" by the Bag Raiders which has a good beat to it. Unfortunately something went wrong on my phone and with ten seconds till I start running I had this blasted down my earphones "IT'S A LONG WAY TO THE TOP, if you wanna rock 'n' roll". Damn you AC/DC, DAMN YOU!

Well no time to waste fiddling with my music the starter gun had gone. The 6 other people I was grouped with shot off like a greyhound out of the starters gate. Me, I shot off like my dad's greyhound..... slow. We had to run about 50 meters to the start of the stairwell and I was dead last in the pack.  After what seemed like an eternity my heart rate had rocketed to a steady 181bpm, I was sweating, my legs where full of lactic acid and I saw the sign I had been waiting for..... Floor number "1". Yes! 1 floor down 72 to go.

My strategy for the race was just to take the stairs two at a time all the way to the top. By the 20th floor I was overtaking some of the people who were in my group and then I started overtaking people in the previous group. By the halfway mark I had overtaken quite a few people but here is where I hit my first mental hurdle.

From the 1st level to the 37th level the stairwell had gone clockwise which was great because it was the same as the stairwell in my apartment. But suddenly the stairwell changed slightly and we started going up anti-clockwise. WHAT!!! I hadn't trained for anti-clockwise, was my legs up to the turning to the left instead of the right? Could I still help myself up with the rail using my left hand not my right hand? Was the left side of my brain up to the challenge?

I pushed through the mental block of the 37th floor, by the 40th floor I was finally back in my stride of 2 steps at a time. Eventually I reached floor number 70, you could feel the air get hotter so I knew I was close to the helipad. The last 3 floors seemed to take longer than waiting at a fast food restaurant behind a deaf man who's being served by an immigrant.

Finally I hit the bright sunlight and past the last step, there was the finish line only about 10 meters in front. I tried to jog but I'm sure I only achieved more of a drunken stumble. I had made it, I was on top of the Swissotel! My watched said I did it in 13:02 which I was wrapped about, I'm hopeful though my official time will be lower (since I stopped my watch late).

On top of the hotel we were allowed to spend about 10 minutes to recover, have a drink and take some photos. It was an amazing view from the top, unfortunately there is a bit of a haze in Singapore at the moment but never less it still made for some great photos.

After roughly 10 minutes I headed back down to the ground floor (by elevator thankfully). Overall it was a really well run event and I am definitely going to do it again next year.

My First Post

It’s been about two months since I made the daunting journey from Melbourne Australia to Singapore. Like many other people I chose to move to Singapore to find fame and fortune. Oh hang on, sorry I’m thinking of L.A. I actually moved to Singapore because I was lucky enough to be offered a job with the company I work for.

The purpose of this blog is to share my experiences on life in Singapore. Hopefully it can provide a bit of entertainment for my friends and family back in Australia and provide me with something to look back on in the future.