Can Swim Straight?: Port Dickson Open Water Swim and other happenings

Whoa my last post was nearly three weeks ago! It’s been BUSY! I was going to get busy again today with a trail run in FRIM then it started chucking down rain, so I thought I’d dash off a short note here. But first, here's a route map of the PD Open Water Swim that I yak about at the end of the post:

Errr.... I can explain this (see end of post)

Desaru 116 International Triathlon 2011 Race Report: My Mish Mash!

Dedication

For Mama

Pre-Race Training

Unfortunately, training wasn’t as much as I woulda liked. I had a relapse of my autoimmune condition early in Sept that left me quite weak. I readjusted my goal and training from trying to do well, to trying to finish. As I pulled out of the relapse, I gradually increased training, which was mostly done at home on my Pseudotrainer. If I could keep going for 2 hours, I would be able to finish the race.

Friday, The Day Before the Race

Putrajaya Night Marathon Make That Change Reality Show: My Thoughts

Summary of Post
What I think of this whole Reality Show Contest thing. My personal struggle deciding which entry to vote for ('what, you don't vote yourself ah?'). A voting strategy that I feel comfy with now. And a pledge, if by some miracle I win, half goes to my friend with SLE, and half goes to Jiana's friend with DLBCL Stage 4 cancer. Be warned, a rambling blog with no pics!


Back in July

I was approached by Anand of Hooha.Asia to be in a video promoting the PNM Make That Change Reality Show.

I didn’t hesitate to say ‘Yes, I want to help’. I have wanted to run for SLE for ages (but was held back by my own illness), so this was a great chance to help raise awareness of this killer disease. The result: Make That Change Promo Video.

In the video, I was the friend who wanted to help another friend, who suffers from a lifelong autoimmune illness called SLE (Lupus). Viewers were asked to think of people in their own lives who needed financial help and to submit a 90 sec home video highlighting their ‘cause’. The five best submissions would be interviewed and re-taped. Then the official videos would be open to public for voting. A RM6000 cash prize would be awarded to the person/cause voted by the public as most needing the money (read more HERE).

This promo video, and also another sample video were publicised on Hooha.Asia, emailed to everyone who signed up for the PNM and etc. I thought there are 10,000 runners in the PNM, if 1% answered the call to ‘Make that Change’ that would mean 100 entries!

For whatever reason, by the Sep 3 deadline, only 2 vids were received, including my video. I suggested that Anand extend by another week, to give more time to people to submit. After the extension there were 4 entries total. Hm…. I think a post-mortem is needed to find out why response was so poor. Was it insufficient publicity, or people were intimidated by having to put out a 90 sec vid, or apathy (‘tidak apa’)?

Fast forward three months

The public is now voting enthusiastically for the four video entries each featuring a different cause, all noble ones.  (View Vids HERE)

Teaser Update! Desaru 116 Triathlon, Singapore Total Immersion Swim Race, Putrajaya Night Marathon etc.

I'm baaaack! It's been a busy three weeks since my last post 'Why I Love Triathlon' and it's possibly gonna stay that way until December! Here's what (I hope!) will be a short recap of the past three weeks, and brief of what shenanigans Gracie will be up to in the next month or two. I will follow with detailed race/event reports some time in November when I have a chance to sit down for the full day it takes me to produce each of these things. Ya, I'm so pokey, but hey, it's worth the wait right? ;)

My health was generally ok this month, kidneys somewhat behaving, though joints hurt a bit. I put in decent effort training on my Pseudotrainer (elliptical machine = pretend bicycle since I still too chicken to cycle on road), some swimming and a good-ish running mileage. I probably spent 1 to 2 hours a day doing some exercise, i.e., 1 hr swim, bike or run, sometimes combined. All great fun!

Gracie in pretend aero position on Pseudotrainer

10 Sep: Port Dickson Open Water Swim, organized with the help of consultants Kash, Jaja and Dogpapi.