Two Loops Around Bishan - Ang Mo Kio Park

Since my nights this quarter are taken up by work, catching gigs and performances, I found time to meet the friends in the day. Bright and early in the mornings, I've been meeting O and W for weekly runs at Botanics or at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. They always remind me to turn up before the heat strikes at 9am. Yah lah. Yawn.

Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park is a big 62-hectare park with a 3km jogging path. Perfect. I'm no runner. Not the least bit interested in it. I rather dislike it. But I have to run once in a bit to keep up with stamina. The daily sessions alternating between pilates and swimming aren't quite enough to build endurance. I don't like to run anything more than 5km. So looping twice around this park twice a week works. Not keen on puffing my way through MacRitchie Reservoir, not to mention fighting the traffic on the expressways to and fro. I'm reasonably fit, but not conditioned enough. If I wanna be properly trekking in the second half of the year, I'd better do some sort of endurance training. Weekly runs scheduled from May till end of the month. Had whined to a girlfriend about the initial sore ankles and calves. She was unsympathetic. "They would hurt even more two days after." Grrrrrr. Thanks for the encouragement ah.

We try to run at first light, and are usually done before 8am. We don't run during the weekends, so we never get to have breakfast at GRUB Bishan Park. We do loop past it though. Hurhurhur. I snack before the run either on a banana or a small 400ml-smoothie. 'Breakfast' after the run is mainly a one-litre power fruit and veggie smoothie back at either O's or W's kitchen, depending who has stocked up fruits and stuff in the fridge to blend. The fruits make a smoothie sweet and that's the maximum level of sugar I could tahan. If we want more, we'll fry up eggs or do a decadent egg mayonnaise and onion sandwich.