Weekend Warrior

For one reason or another (laziness, missing equipment, tiredness etc...) I didn't do any exercise at all from Monday to Friday last week, so I had to catch up at the weekend to make sure I didn't feel bad about it.

Saturday a.m. Bike Ride - 16.2km

Lucas chased me around the condo car-park on Friday evening as I cycled around slowly adjusting the cleats on my new shoes. After successful adjustment I was fit & ready to cycle to work on Saturday morning, which I duly did (16.2km in about 31 mins at just under 30km/h).

Saturday p.m Run - 10.4km

Due to successful forward-planning I had all the necessary kit in the office already to change and have a shower after my ride, and go out for a run after work. All I forgot was my wrist coin-pouch (a freeby from the recent Powerman that I use to hold my MP3 player) but that didn't matter as I had my fantastic new Brooks Pacesetters running shorts, which have a pouch at the front big enough for my player, and a zip pocket at the back for my car keys.

Gone are the days of holding my player in a sweaty hand as I run and having to tie my car keys to my waist cord - hooray!

After work I drove to KLCC and parked illegally behing a line of also-illegally-parked Mercedes S-class' and BMW 7-series cars (no doubt belonging to some rich folks visiting the watch exhibition in the convention centre next door). I had been looking forward to trying the KLCC jogging track for some time - for a change of scene and lap length compared to Titiwangsa.

Also, the KLCC track is a round 1.300km lap - at Titiwangsa it is an odd 2.692km with a gap of about 50m between the start and finish - very strange!?!?

I set off aiming at 0:8:14 per lap, confident of an enjoyable run as I'd managed to stuff my MP3 player with 800MB worth of music. 1st lap 7:59 - so far so good! 2nd lap 8:22 - uh oh! 3rd lap 8:36 - eh?? My lap times got slower and slower until they reached a plateau at about 8:36-8:40.
I think that listening to music makes it difficult to pace myself as I often change my stride pattern as the beats change.

On the final lap I pushed hard enough to reach but not exceed my self-imposed 165bpm limit and clocked 8:09, for a total of 1:07:11, about 0:1:19 behind my target time.

Sunday a.m. PCC Ride - 52km

This was a repeat of a recent ride, 52km around the Hulu Langat valley, up the 9km climb of Genting Peres and a final 2.5km steep climb (Sg. Tekali). I took the first 15km very easy and was dropped by the group on the flat. At the foot of Peres I stopped for 5-10mins and then made my way up with a handful of riders just in front.

I overook about 5 riders on the way up and enjoyed the climb - managing a good rhythm in 2nd gear at some points. I got to the top about 4 minutes faster than my previous attempt.

I had another long break at the top before the 15 minute descent and rollong terrain to the foot of the final short sharp climb. I waited for almost all of the remaining group of 8 or so to set-off before I did - to see if I could catch them up!

'Twas a tough climb but I made it in similar time to before, and managed to catch up alomost everyone.

There were a number of new (to me) PCC riders today - Alauddin, Harun, Wendy, Bo, Meng? and some others whose names I didn't get.