Family Trip - Kenting, Southern Taiwan

On Thursday morning I first went to swim near as usual at the pool near our home. I was a little tired and after slightly fewer meters than normal I went to the jacuzzi for five minutes or so, and then back to the pool to slowly warm up for the 100m race. While I still lost the race (by about 0.5 secs), at least I was pleased that I covered the distance in 1m 25s, this being my fastest so far, and showing that the improvements are still coming even if they are microscopic. One of my turns was not much good either, but I managed to gain on my opponent going down the stretch. Shortly afterwards we raced over 50 meters and I just edged him out, finishing in about 40 seconds.
However, the big highlight of the day, and of today also, was the family trip we had to Kenting (墾丁) near the southernmost tip of Taiwan and about a two-hour drive from our home. Our elder son drove and did a very good job of that. We borrowed his friend's car as we still don't have one of our own. With gas prices, I am not sure I even want one.
The first day we arrived down there shortly after lunch and went to Maopitou (貓鼻頭) (lit. cat-nose-head), where one of the rock formations looked like a cat's nose and head. The sea looked beautiful, and had I been with my Kona swimming friends, I don't think we could have resisted making our way down to the shore and going in. However, had I tried to do anything like that myself, I guess the whole population of this island would have considered me to be nuts and I would probably have been put in prison.
A little later we were driving around where most of the hotels are and it reminded me of Waikiki - just shops and people, and some ocean and mountains out there is the distance. One of the only beaches we passed in that area was one close to the big hotels which was packed with people paddling in a fenced off area about two feet deep, with plenty of lifeguards and whatever else to prevent anyone trying to do anything more adventurous like trying to swim away from the seawater paddling pool.
Fortunately, our hotel was an almost ten-minute drive away from the beach up mauka (墾丁國家公園) and was a lot quieter and had some good views, as well as green grass. It also had a 25 meter outdoor swimming pool, and guess what, it was pretty empty most of the time. Here it seems only small children like to swim and they have a lot of fun, but are clad in inflatable arm bands and little inflatable boats so that they don't actually swim, at least not without artificial support. An adult might accompany them, but usually to make sure they don't stay in the water too long and can get to the next activity on time. So I was able to swim freely, but it was also rather lonely. In the real world I have few swimming friends. I just read about them on the Internet.
My family wanted to go to another swimming pool, which we did, and could because the two hotels were part of the same hotel chain, and so we had the privilege of using the other pool. This other pool was in the crowded part of Kenting (墾丁) and the hotel rates were much higher, way beyond what I could or would be willing to afford. It was like a playground, and there was no way I could ever have done any training there.
We tried to watch the sunset, but we miscalculated and ended up on the other side of the island. However, the views were beautiful. We had a good buffet dinner back at our hotel where we were staying which was part of the room deal, and I surprised even my family by eating probably more than the three of them put together.
The next morning the pool at our hotel opened at 8 am, and so I got in a training session of a little more than an hour and covered 3,050 meters. This wasn't something I had planned, so it was a kind of bonus. However, again I felt like I had just flown in from another planet. After a large breakfast, we eventually packed out things and drove down to the Oluanpi lighthouse (鵝鑾鼻燈塔), where we walked around for about one hour in the middle of the day - ouch! The sun was really strong. After countless photographs, we headed back to the car and drove about 15 minutes to Chaileshuei (佳洛水), which is normally a good surfing beach, but the sea was very calm today, and just ideal for a swim. However, we were in a bit of a hurry, so the fact that I even got wet was quite an achievement. This is where I went for training with some foreign triathletes in February, but the sea was very rough then, and I thought it darn right dangerous at that time. One thing that surprised me was the huge contrast between Kenting (墾丁) and Chialeshuei (佳洛水). Kenting is packed with tourists and is very noisy and you are not free to do anything as far as some serious swimming is concerned. Chialeshuei (佳洛水) is almost empty, except for some avid surfers, there are no stores, and just a few bed and breakfast type places. It is the ideal place to have a good rest.
From Chialeshuei (佳洛水), our son drove the car home and we got back in about 1 hr 45 mins. It is about 80 miles, which means one could bike, spend the night at a guest house, swim and then bike back the next day, or at least bike most of the way back and try and take a train for the latter half of the return journey where the areas are somewhat more built up. Fun if you have friends to do it with, and not fun if you do not.

The first stop on our family outing - Kenting is behind us in the distance

The hotel 25m pool - More or less maintained just for me!

At the up market resort pool. Living the high life.

View of Chialeshuei (in the distance) at sunset.

Our hotel doubles as a museum for Chiang Kai-Shek, who liked the area.

Kenting's pointed mountain. We climbed it when the boys were small.

The pool - My first time in an outdoor pool this year.

At Oluanpi - the southernmost tip of Taiwan

Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻)

Jumping in front of the Oluanpi Lighthouse (鵝鑾鼻燈塔)

Special thanks are extended to James and Morrison for their great photography. We had two smallish cameras with us, but both had problems, and the problems got worse over our stay down there. Looks like I need to buy a new camera.

Feeling Tired Today

Our younger son's room on the 4th floor of our home. Note that we had curtains especially fitted. This room also has a very good air conditioner, which makes no noise, because it is a very good Japanese brand and the motor (which is outside the room) is separate from the blower. The glass in the doors on to the lanai is slightly tinted and is reputed to provide UV protection. This is essential here. The sun during the summer months appears to be brighter and stronger than in Hawai'i. Fortunately, the sun does not shine into the room. The afternoon sun is blocked by the building opposite.

Monday was my so-called rest day (no swimming), and Tuesday I had a relatively normal swim. Today (Wednesday) the swim went OK, but as soon as I got on my bike to return home, I just felt a lot more tired than normal. While I stayed up the whole morning, around 12:45 pm I went for what was supposed to be about a 20-min rest, but ended up sleeping about one hour. I felt fairly tired and weakish much of the afternoon. I guess at my age, it catches up with you.

On Tuesday, I first swam 4,200 meters in 1hr 22 mins, of which the last 1,000 meters was at a faster pace (about 18 mins). That was a good way to finish that phase of the workout. After a few minutes resting and a slow 100m warm-up, I raced my friend over 100m and did 1m 27s, losing by a second. We then raced a 50m and I just lost that swimming it in 40s. Total distance, 4,500 meters.

Today, I first swam 3,500 in about 1hr 10mins, but I was struggling to keep my pace towards the end. I then swam 50 meters at a time, a little slower than moderate (around 50 secs each time) with something like 20 second rests in between. That got me up to 4,050m. Then a rest, and slow warm-up then a 100m race. I had one bad turn (where I was too near the wall so I could not push off), and I did not have a lot of energy, so I only did 1m 31s. Then we raced over 50m, and that was a bit better as I did that in 40 seconds. Total distance today, 4,300 meters.

I think today I just needed to catch up a bit on sleep. I also probably haven't eaten so well these last few days, and that may have sapped my energy. Tomorrow morning, I will go to swim as usual, but we will go on a trip later in the day, and I will miss Friday's swim training.

I realize that good rest is very important. There are always many things we need to be doing, and it is easy to be constantly busy. I don't think it is just age. I remember getting very tired sometimes as a student in my early 20's. It was very tiring just trying to think what to write when starting to work on my Masters' thesis. Fortunately, I do not have too many things that have to be done very urgently, and so I will try to be a bit more laid back these days. Hope you are all getting adequate rest. We all need it.

Today I also added a couple more "video bars" in the right-hand column. The top one currently focuses on Japanese anime movies (this time Miyazaki's "Memories of Yesterday") and is all in Japanese. These clips are short reminders of the movie, which I am sure all Japanese will be very familiar with. I particularly liked this movie, and watched it over and over again when in Kona. The middle video bar focuses on swimming (this time Alexander Popov as there is some useful instructional material), and the bottom one on music (this time the Japanese artist Kitaro). Since I have also installed the Playlist music player which turns on automatically, it may be necessary to pause the sound on this unless you like listened to two things at the same time. Maybe some multi-taskers can handle this.

I've Been Tagged

For those who have many swimsuits and other triathlon equipment that constantly needs washing and drying, it is best to have a nice big lanai on the top (5th) floor of the house. Here there is a good breeze plus running water and a washing machine and everything can be attached to hangers and hoisted up so that they are well out of everyone's way. Shoes can be left here to dry (if wet), otherwise the garage downstairs will do.

OK, since several people have tagged me today, here it is. If you read this, you may want to do one yourself.

10 years ago
I worked in Taipei and occasionally made trips to Palau, Guam and Saipan.
5 years ago
I was enjoying Peaman and Mango biathlons and triathlons in Hawai'i, but still only had a junk bike.
1 year ago
We left Hawaii and returned to live in Taipei

5 things to do today
Prepare more food for today's feeding
Continue to sort things and tidy my office
Finish at least one job I am working on today
Write my real blog report for the day
Go to bed early so I can swim well tomorrow

5 snacks I enjoy
Granola and milk
Bananas, pineapples, dragon fruit or mango
A piece of Toblerone chocolate
Potatoes
Home made soya bean milk

If I were a billionaire, I would:
Invest in a guest house in Hanalei Bay, Kauai so weary triathletes could rest there.
Donate some money to medical research.
Become a venture capitalist to help Bree achieve billionaire celebrity status (and resolve her running shoes by the front door problem).
Entrust most of it to Bill and Melinda and let them decide what to do with it.
Continue to live in my current house, eat potatoes, do my usual work and swim every morning (the race is only 12 months away now).

6 people I want to have lunch with tomorrow:
My wife and two sons (as long as I can eat my potatoes), Harry (in Kona), Brown Bear, and the Dolphin Boy.

5 places I have lived (all a long time):
Surrey, England
Norwich, England
Taipei, Taiwan
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii
Kaohsiung, Taiwan

5 jobs I have had:
Golf caddie
Accountant
Chamber of Commerce Executive Manager
Economics editor and translator/interpreter (Chinese)
Bible school teaching staff

There is no time like the present!

How I spent the "Off-Day"

What I see every day here - at least I feel at home, and am glad I live and train here.

Monday is a kind of rest day for me from training as the pool is shut, and I need at least one day's rest. So how did I spend it? It is not the most exciting of days, and for brief moments of time I felt extremely isolated and depressed as many of my friends were racing over in Kona or even Florida (at least yesterday, or today depending on how you define time).

I mainly set myself a goal of doing some work, today, since I am less likely to spend half the day asleep, and I can get off to an earlier start. So after checking the blogs and listening to some music, I got started on my work. It was a fairly tedious job today. However, that aids my ability to focus, as if you can focus on something you don't really want to do, it will be much easier to do something you enjoy. Around 11 am, I biked to the nearby market to get some meat, fruit and vegetables (to make sure there are sufficient supplies in the house for my several-times-a-day feedings), and since it was almost lunch time when I got back, I quickly prepared something and left it in the microwave oven. A few minutes to lie down on the bed while I waited, and then a little more preparation before sitting down to my main feeding of the middle of the day.

Since I ate a little more than I would have been most comfortable with, I went back to my bed and, with Japanese dictionary in hand, read a few sentences that I had printed off my friend's blog. It is so nice to read the sentence directly in the Japanese. I can really feel what the writer was trying to convey. Finally, after some stretching (the easy kind on a 7ft bed) and a short rest, I returned to my office upstairs, and although I was a bit mesmerized by the Japanese music I was listening to, I eventually got back into my work. A snack around 5 pm had me downstairs again, but I now had to make a good effort to get the work I had elected to do today finished. I eventually only finished it around 9 pm, at which point I made more food. My feeding times are often quite boring, and the food is bland. Sometimes my wife cooks, but a lot of the meals I prepare myself, since even if it is only potatoes, onions and cheese, at least it is getting into my system, and getting me ready for the next day's training.

By the time I had cleared up and got back upstairs, it was about 10 pm. At this point I attend to my blogging, and try not to stay up beyond 11 pm, otherwise I will be more tired tomorrow. I wasn't alone at home. I did spend some time interacting with both my wife and our boys, but perhaps not a lot of time. I also read or listened to some discussions on economics (my major) on the Internet for about 20 minutes today, and read a little sports news and did a little of my own bookkeeping.

The main thing to look forward to at the moment is sleep and how I interact with the water at the pool tomorrow. I want to try to pick up the pace slightly on those longish swims. Ultimately, how far I swim is not too important, but getting a bit faster is.

Finally, congratulations to my friends who participated in the various running events at the Kona Marathon weekend. I wish I had been there.

Easy Swim: 29,100 Meters for the Week

Today I swam shorter and relatively easy, although I did speed up towards the end. First, I swam 3,600 meters non-stop in 1 hr 30 minutes, and then after some minutes in the jacuzzi and a slow warm-up, I raced my friend over 100 meters. Although I thought I should do fairly well, at the first turn he was already a good second ahead. He pulled further and further away on the last 25 meters. When we looked at the times, he went 1m 22s to my 1m 26s, so although I lost, I still beat my recent record, and it was probably my PR for 100 in SCM. After about a minute, I raced my friend's friend over 50 meters. I lost that, too, but I got the satisfaction of doing it in 39 seconds. So, I am still slowly improving. It makes me tired, and I can hardly think as I write this, and so today I'll keep it short. My total distance swimming today was 3,950 meters, and my total for this last week (six consecutive days) was 29,100 meters. Today is my day off. When I wake up, the Kona Marathon will be over for most.

Kitaro (喜多郎) - The Silk Road (絲綢之路)

I have recently included a "video bar" (scroll down the right-hand column) and if you click on the top of the four pictures (a picture of Kitaro), you will be able to listen to Kitaro's music and watch it as it is being played. At the end of the song, you will see various mini screens on the YouTube screen and each of these is a different song by Kitaro, with some very nice viewing to go along with them. Maybe not the thing for the very busy, but if you are just relaxing or maybe doing some stretching exercises at home, then this may be of interest.
I first came across Kitaro's (喜多郎) music when I was spending my first year in Taiwan as a Chinese language student. I would learn about new kinds of music just by walking past the hawkers who sold music cassettes by the side of the street and listening to whatever they were playing. I was immediately attracted by the sound of the Silk Road, this title referring of course to the road that the merchants travelled on across China and Central Asia in the days of the Genghis Khan and Marco Polo. The music was certainly different from what I had been used to in England. It was very soothing and relaxing, and even though some regarded it as "New Age", on a subsequent trip to England a prominent couple in the church I attended actually handed the tapes I gave them to someone who was dying of cancer to help him relax, and apparently felt it had a beneficial effect.
Kitaro apparently had no formal musical education, and claimed he could not read or write music. He relied purely on his ears and his emotions. From the video one can see he really gets into the music as do the other musicians with him. Some of his songs sound more Western and others much more Japanese (for instance Heaven and Earth with a lot of Japanese drumbeats, which is brilliant in my estimation).
When listening to music from other cultures, I am obviously concerned about whether the music is suitable or not, just as I will sometimes listen to the music our sons play to determine whether the music and the lyrics are wholesome or not. While I am not sure what every Japanese would think about this music, at least a fine Japanese Christian lady I shared an office with when in Hawai'i a year or two ago very much enjoyed it, and she also very much liked the "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" music, which is what you may hear when you first look at my blog (if you stay long enough for the music to load). (If this freaks you out, you can pause the music by going to the Playlist box in the right-hand column.) Thanks Pat for putting Playlist on your blog!
This morning, I went swimming at 9:00 am (as I normally do Saturday), and due to the wet and stormy weather there were fewer people than usual. I decided to swim long and steady, and covered 6,000 meters in exactly two hours, with no breaks. I started with the lane to myself, but around the middle 2,000 or so I was at times sharing the lane with four others, some who were pretty slow, and hence I had to weave in and out of people quite a lot, as I had to stick to my schedule. However, it broke the monotony a bit. I slowed down slightly the last 1,500 or so. I think these long swims are quite good, because when I eventually swim something like 2,000 meters in a race, I should be able to swim pretty strongly the whole way, instead of weakening around the turnaround buoy. After the two hours, I had a quick needed break and also went to the small pool where you can be massaged by a fairly strong column of water coming down from above, and then I finished off with 400 meters with hand paddles, as well as an odd 50m without them, to finish on 6,450 meters for the day. I also felt pretty normal the rest of the day at home, so I don't feel I overdid it. Tomorrow being Sunday, I will probably have a lighter and easier swim.

Swimming Still Improving

Today I think I felt the effects of swimming the past three days and I was slightly slower or at least I found it harder to maintain the pace of the other days. I took just over 1hr 31 minutes to swim 4,550 meters, and then I rested for a few minutes before warming up for the "race" against my friend. He very quickly gained a small lead over me which he extended particularly over the last 25m. In the end he went about 1m 24s to my 1m 27.5s. Considering I felt a bit tired, I was quite pleased with my result. The turns were better, although I still need to streamline them more. With the long swims I am not getting very anaerobic, meaning that I recover relatively quickly after these short swims. Obviously I need a bit more speed work if I am to lower my times on these sprints.

In general, I am seeing improvements in my swimming, not necessarily in times, because since I am not really doing races it is hard to know how much effort I am really putting into going fast. However, the times are slowly improving and I am feeling stronger. While I have not done much in terms of land exercises, mostly due to lack of suitable equipment and also to avoid injury, all of the focused swimming has increased my ability to pull through the water more firmly while also feeling more relaxed.

My training does not just consist of the almost two hours I spend at the pool almost six days per week. Feeding myself during the rest of the day is extremely important, and shoveling yet more potatoes down my throat requires just as much discipline as the 100m race against my friend. Knowing when and for how long to rest each day at home is also essential, if I am going to get the most out of each day. I don't have the time to lie around doing nothing, but not getting enough rest leaves me in no fit state to focus on the work I need to get done each day.

I would benefit from some professional help, as constantly swimming and analyzing my stroke has me wondering whether I am moving my hands along the most appropriate trajectory, or whether I should restructure my pool workouts as well as incorporate dry-land exercises. In relation to this, I hope in the not-too-distant future to attend a swim clinic in the U.S. if something suitable can be arranged.

So for the time being, I will as it were continue to feel my way in the dark, although generally speaking I am pleased with the way things are coming. While I had some good swims while living in Kona, I feel that I could do better at any venue in Hawai'i were I to be there now than I did before when I was there. I am about two months into my training for Hapuna next year, and have just over 12 months of training to go.

Today's photos: View from the roof of our Taipei (suburbs) apartment (the tall building behind the hills on the left is the Taipei 101 (storeys) building), as well as views inside. We had this place 20 years, but it is fast becoming just a memory. Life goes on.