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
