Subang 10k Photos

Photos in order 1 - The Start, 2 - Me with about 300m to go, 3 - Joel moments later, 4 - Large, Medium and Little after the finish!

Lucas' 5th Birthday & Hashing

Playing with some girls, including Fiona, at a recent Hash












pleased with his Lego X-Wing Fighter!
















Batman B'Day cake!! Mummy helps to serve it!

Making his Lego "Knight" on his Birthday










With chums at poolside party today

Subang Jaya 10k Race Report

I finished in 1:05:23, a new PB by a good 4 minutes, but judging from my drive-around the day before I reckon the run was 300m short. Even still at that pace I would have done a full 10k in 1:07:24 - still a new PB by over 2 mins!

We set off 5 minutes early (unexpected indeed!!) and for the first time ever in a mass-start 10km I was (a) slowed down by people in front of me and (b) overtaking people in the first few minutes!!
Normally I am lagging behind.

Joel and I jogged round at my preferred pace and as I checked the timings at approx. 2,4,5,6,8km I seemed on target for a 1:08:00 run. 'Twas a fairly flat course with only 23m change in elevation. Felt good, as I hoped following a good 9k run the other night. Apart from wheelchairs, roller-bladers and the 7k front-runners, not many people overtook us and as usual I began to overtake a lot of people towards the end.

My HRM went crazy again so I was a bit peeved as I like to continually monitor my HR. Usually 140-150 at the start 145-155 middle and 155-165 max at the end. In the end my average HR was an acceptable (for me) 152bpm.

Was delighted to finish inside 1:06:00 but disappointed not to get a medal or cert. Maybe they;ll post a cert. Although considering the entry fee was about GBP1.50 and I got two goodie bags full of free drinks I mustn't grumble.

Highlight of the race was bumping into KC (Pacesetters photographer) in the final few '00 metres and getting our photos taken - THANKS KC!!

After drinking water and Milo and stretching, we saw KC again and got a decent photo taken (will post soon if it appears online) and headed home. I was home by 9.30am having done my 'thing' for the day and not neglected anyone!!

Latest Training Run

I ran 3 long laps (9km) around Lake Titiwangsa last night, in 1:00:31. My target was to dip under 1:00:00. At the end of the first lap I was 20s ahead of target, 50s behing at end of 2nd, but managed to speed up at the end and finish only 31s behind. I felt like I could have sprinted the last 500m but didn't want my HR to go too high.

Anyway at that pace I could do 10km in 1:07:15, which would be a PB by over 2 mins.

That's 2 runs in a row now where I've felt significantly fitter than earlier in the year.

Sprint Powerman 2006

The long-awaited Powerman is in 8 days. My target time is.....

Run 1 (4km) 0:26:00
T1 0:01:00
Bike (30km) 1:14:00
T2 0:01:00
Run 2 (4km) 0:28:00
TOTAL 2:10:00

Subang 10k

It's the Subang 10k run on Sunday morning. For training this week I did the Bangsar Hash on Tuesday night (about 7km) followed by a 26km ride with PCC. Tonight I'll run at least 7k around KLCC.

My target for Sunday, which is a fairly flat course, is to set a new PB (as usual).......1:09:00. But it would be nice to get closer to 1:07:00.

Moto GP Season Finale

For those of you who don't know, Moto GP is miles more exciting than F1.

Mid-season: Consistent Hayden 51 points ahead of Rossi
Second-half: Hayden consistent but Rossi catching up.
Penultimate Race: Hayden's young team-mate Pedrosa crashes into him to give Hayden his first DNF of the season, and Rossi takes a narrow Championship lead.
Malaysia GP:Rossi and Capirossi play out a fantastic cat & mouse duel for almost the whole race (I was there!)
Final Race: Rossi makes a rare mistake and crashes on Lap 5. Hayden races a nervous 25 further laps to finish 3rd and take the title.

Lucas (5 years old today) & I really enjoyed the season and can't wait for 2007!

Chin Woo Biathlon 2006 Race Report

No stopwatch or HRM for this event as it is being serviced! According to the timekeeper at the finish I finished in 1:06:03, about 4 minutes inside my target. Considering that I verified the run distance as being exactly correct (7km) by driving the course the day before, and that I didn't seem to run particularly fast, I am a wee bit surprised that I managed to finish so far inside my 1:10:00 target. My time was actually calculated as 2:06:03 minus 1 hour according to the timekeeper. I guess this is because the competitors were spilt in to 3 groups with staggered starts, so they will have been recording cumulative times. I must have started exactly 1 hour after the first group.

Assuming a 22min swim and a 1min transition, I did 7km in 43 mins - that is 1:01:00 pace for 10km!

Subang 10km run on Sunday morning!

More to follow...

Climbs

Here's a spreadsheet of the details of all the climbs I've done recently around KL. I'll update it now and again. If you like this sort of thing look at www.climbbybike.com (mostly European climbs).

Film 2006

I have watched quite a few movies recently...

Derailed (Clive Owen & Jennifer 'Friends' Aniston) - Average acting, but interesting story with a twist. Worth watching.

Rabbit-proof Fence (Branagh) - Brits who think they know best splitting up half-caste Aussie families)

Lucky Number Slevin (Kinglsey,Freeman, Willis) - Surprisingly good. Tarantino-esque.

North Country (Theron, Harrelson) - interesting enough to keep watching but a bit predictable.

Snow White (White, Dwarfs, Queen, Prince) - the thing that amazed me about this 70 year old film is the absolutely spot-on animation of body and clothing movement when Snow White dances, without the help of computers.

M:I - 3 (Cruise) - typically good standard Hollywood action fare.

Fun With Dick And Jane (Carrey) - satisfyingly amusing.

...very much looking forward to watching The Departed and Casino Royale soon.

Deeparaya Rides

I just had 5 days off work (combined Deepavali and Hari Raya break) so managed a couple of long-ish bike rides. On Monday I cycled up Old Gombak Road to Genting Sempah, then tried to climb further up towards Genting. Unfortunately I didn't get very far after Genting Sempah (about 2km) as the road becomes very steep. Here's the profile...


If I had a smaller gear on my bike (current smallest is 42 x 23) and wasn't intent on limiting my HR max I could have gone further - I had the energy and strength.

Sempah is the first peak, then downhill to the R&R stop, then back up another 200m climb to my highest point.

Tuesday was a couch potato day, but on Wednesday I went cycling again, despite having to drive back home to collect my front wheel, which I had forgotten!!

I cycled from the Mosque near Batu Caves, all the way North to Ulu Yam. I couldn't face retracing my steps as planned, so continued to Ulu Yam Lama and back to KL through Rawang. Here's the profile for that ride...


The first small peak is the climb up and into the valley, next to the lake, followed by a gentle uphill ride about halfway to Ulu Yam. This is followed by a fantastic long and fast downhill on which I managed to reach 76.6km/h (47.6mp/h) with very little effort!

The road back to Rawang is rolling, the final climb from 50 to 60km being south out of Rawang towards Selayang.

As always when I ride North out of KL on the Ulu Yam road, my legs felt weak and my pace was very slow. However after a water stop in Ulu Yam at 30km I felt great. My theory is that this is due to my high-carb brekkie not reaching my muscles until 2-3hrs after eating it.

I got absolutely soaked in a proper tropical rainstorm around Rawang. Apart from being a bit worried about hitting submerged potholes, it was quite good fun!!

Selamat Hari Raya & Happy Deepavali!

Selamat Hari Raya & Happy Deepavali! to everyone who's celebrating!! Drive carefully.

Latest Swimming News

I went for another swim at Bukit Jalil last night, and tested out my flashy new swim gear. Despite seeming a bit slow and not concentrating properly on my stroke, I managed 750m in 18:44, a new PB. The 1000m came up in 24:53, also a PB. Here's my recent swim times, latest first...

750m - 25:07 - 20:43 - 20:08 - 19:53 - 18:44

800m - 20:02

1000m - 28:11 - 27:04 - 26:47 - 24:53

I did put in a bit more effort with my arms this time. This and the improved hydrodynamics (big word!) from not wearing baggy beach shorts, improved my 750m timing by another 1:09.

So, target time again... My target for the Chin Woo Biathlon is swim 800m in 20:00, transition 1:00, run 7km in 49:00...TOTAL = 1:10:00.

Titiwangsa Lake Training Run

As I drove home yesterday I was very very close to just going home and not going for a run. I really felt like I had an angel and a devil on my shoulders. The angel won and despite the haze and proximity of light rain, I managed 2 x 3km anticlockwise laps around Tasik Titiwangsa in record-beating time. I clocked 38:47 as opposed to a previous best of 49:06 on the same route, an amazing 20% improvement in time, at an average HR of 153bpm, only 2bpm or <2% higher than before.

[In my last Duathlon 5km run in July (June?), it took me 39 mins to do only 5km, although admittedly I had barely recovered from illness then.]

I really felt much better than before and knew that I was running much faster than earlier in the year. At that pace I would do 10k in 1:05:00. Next time I think I'll do 3 laps = 9km to see how I go, as I am hoping to beat the hour mark (for 10km) within 2006 or 2007. However I think my pace will have to be a bit slower as I'd want to keep my HR around 160bpm, whereas towards the end of yesterday's run it was rising up to 163-164bpm and that's only after 6km.

Off swimming tonight, with my new 'Orca' swim briefs - lets see how much faster I can go without the drag of my usual Speedo beach shorts, which hardly count as performance swimwear.

I am doing the 800m swim + 7km run Chin Woo biathlon in 10 days so should do some training. I'm doing an 8km Hash on Saturday afternoon, and might do another similar run on Sunday also.

Next Mon - Wed will be a holiday, so I'd like to get at least one big bike ride in - I am actually thinking about seeing how far I can cycle up towards Genting Highlands (1500m? climb).

PCC Ride - Genting Sempah to Bentong & Back

Had another good ride with PCC this morning. There were about 12 of us to start with. Those that I can remember are James, Ivan, Annie, William, Dennis, Ronald, BK, Me and 4 others whose names I don't know. The day got off to a good start when Dennis showed me how to strap my fi'zi:k saddle bag to my saddle properly - thanks Dennis! As a reward here's a picture of his nice Wilier Triestina bike...


Here's some of the gang getting ready at Genting Sempah R&R stop car-park...


As you can see from this profile, courtesy of my wonderful Polar HRM, it was downhill all the way to Bentong, apart from a little blip at the end of the 35km outbound ride.

'Twas a chilly start to the day, but warmed as we descended. There was very little traffic (good) but the road surface was a bit dodgy in places, so it was a leisurely descent. I only made it above 45kmh once.

Once we got to the valley floor at about 17km I cruised along nicely behind 2 guys in front. Eventually they let me take over so I time-trialled a bit for a while until I'd had enough. Then I was joined by AD and Ronald. We stopped at the petrol station at 33km to regroup, at which point I got my camera out again...

From L to R - William, Ivan, Annie, James, BK, Me!, ?, ? (sorry guys), AD.

Another couple of km brought us to the famous Kedai Kopi Kow Po, for Ice Kacang, although I had Cendol. After 10 mins or so we were joined by the Bike Pro riders, some L2A riders including famous Malaysian triathlete and generally very fit girl - Kimberley Yap. I also bumped into Tony from Leighton's (big Aussie construction firm who I might want to employ me in the future!!).

Here's the famous shop, with lots of bikes outside...

On the return journey it was one big bunch of about 26 riders, led by the Bike Pro gang with Ronald and I clinging on at the back.

We got sucked along at 30-35kph for about 17km until the gradient increased a little bit, at which point you can see my HR go up, and then down as I cracked and slowed down.

It was only a matter of seconds before a few other also fell off the back of the group and before I knew it I was back in a bunch of 7 PCC riders - me + Annie, James, Ivan, William, BK, Ronald.

As I messed about taking photos whilst cycling with no hands, the other 6 pulled away from me. After a while I caught and passed Ivan and could see BK and Ronald but the other 3 had gone off the front. I passed William as he waited to sweep up Ivan at the bottom of the climb, and slowly but surely caught Ronald and then BK.

Here's the gang...

The climb was quite shallow apart from a couple of short slightly steeper inclines. I was quite comfortable in 1st gear all the way up. Was pleased to note from my alititude reading that the seemingly flat bits were actually slightly uphill - thus explaining my slow speed.

On this profile, red line is my HR, blue is speed and solid red is the terrain. The climb was about 400m (1200'). Note how speed drops dramatically after HR peaks at about km 18 - that's when I'd had enough of the Bike Pro pace!

Personal Targets

Now we're coming towards the end of 2006 and I'm getting more and more involved in the sporting scene here, I've been forming a few personal targets in my mind, here they are...

By the end of 2006:

Cycle to the top of Genting Highlands.

Cycle to the top of Fraser's Hill.

Learn how to swim front-crawl.

By the end of 2007:

Run 10k in under an hour. (Current PB is 1:09:47)

Complete a full-distance duathlon.

Complete a 20k run in under 2:20.

Complete a half marathon (21k) in under 2:30.

Buy a fantastic new road bike with Campag Record groupset, Mavic wheels & a posh frame!

Pulai Triathlon 2006 - Thumbnail Photos

Here's some thumbnail photos I copied from the www.actionphotosasia.com website. I'll probably buy all the photos from them and post them here soon. I really hope to get a photo of the start, or the swim, with me in it - showing off my cool green cap and blue goggles.

BTW I'm not too impressed with the supposedly super-duper timing chip system. My official time was 1:42:05 but here I am clearly crossing the line no later than 1:42:02!

MMDS1 Photos

I managed to find another couple of photos of me on some photo-sharing sites.

These are from the Malakoff Sprint Duathlon held in KL in April.

I'm the tall guy towards the top left - blue jersey/white chest/red lettering.



In the second photo I'm near the right - you can see the green "M" on my jersey.

Latest Event Calendar

Bold means I've actually signed up.

2006

18/11 - Wangsa Maju / Setiawangsa Run, 8.4k
19/11 - Selayang 10k
26/11 - Gunung Nuang Climbathon
10/12 - KLIM 2007 Circuit Run 1, distance ?
16/12 - Putrajaya Night Triathlon *NEW*
17/12 - PDRM X-Country

2007

21 Jan - Pacesetters 20k, KL
3 March - Singapore Duathlon
March? - A'Famosa Triathlon, Malacca
April? - Kenyir Lake Triathlon
22 May - NB Pacesetters 15k, KL
July? - PD Triathlon

Chin Woo Biathlon 2006

I have signed up for the Chin Woo Biathlon on 29th October. It's a 800m swim followed by a 7k run and will nicely help fill in the gap between the Triathlon I did yesterday and the Powerman Duathlon in Lumut on 11 November. It will also serve as incentive for me to continue to go swimming on a Thursday night. It's worth it as it's good exercise and I can still be home by 8pm. Without an event to train for I'd probably be at home watching TV!

Pulai Triathlon 2006 - Race Report

Race Day

I arrived at the transition area quite early, about 7am. I then got my body 'numbered' and set up my gear (cycling shoes, helmet, sunglasses, jersey and race number belt) for the first transition. Ate a banana and drank a bit of water.

Saw some fantastic looking bikes, including a good few Cervelo's. As I'd missed the race briefing I headed for the water to find out the route. We had to swim around the two furthest yellow buoys, which certainly didn't look 300+m away. After that I thought I'd test my new goggles anti-fog coating by going for a swim. The water was quite warm and I was delighted that my goggles didn't fog up at all. The water was calm, with perhaps only 1-2 feet of movement further out. That left about 10 mins until the start, so I hung around a bit, went for another dip.


Swim

We got underway at 8am. I started from a wide position, as advised for the slow ones. After a few minutes I was quite surprised that the leaders were still only a short distance ahead and that there were others with me and behind me. As a breast-stroker I fully expected to be miles behind the bunch within seconds! As I continued it seemed that the buoys were indeed at the correct distance - they weren't as close as they looked! Had to stop for a second or two as a zig-zagging front-crawler swam across my path (at least breast-strokers go in a straight line!). I got to the first turn in about 8 minutes and was quite puzzled as I had expected it to take me about 13mins+.

On the return leg I had the odd look ahead at the beach and couldn't see anyone running up it, so was even more surprised that I'd done 3/4 of the swim before the leader had finished. I kicked somebody behind me repeatedly for about a minute, but only once badly. My philisophy is that if you're behind, it's up to you to avoid those in front. I eventaully reached the beach in about 17minutes. The leader finished in just under 12mins.

T1

I jogged to the transition area and puyt my bike gear on. Was shocked to see my HRM reading 177bpm - the highest it's ever been. As swimming doesn't feel too strenous I think this reading might be an anomaly due to the change in environment from salt water to air (this affects the transmission of the signals). During the transition my left small toe caught the lining of my cycling shoe and after a few seconds of toe-wiggling to try to fix it didn't work, I resorted to removing and replacing the shoe - losing time in the process. This transition took me 1m33s. The fastest T1 time was 30s!!

Ride

The first 500m was gently uphill and I was shocked to find myself struggling in 3rd gear. I was however fast enough to pass a couple on mountain bikes. My legs felt pretty weak, but after5/10mins they got used to the new motion. However I still felt quite slow and wasn't particularly enjoying the ride, especially as the haze made the atmosphere seem a bit depressing. I kept going and was pleased that I didn't see the leaders passing me in the opposite direction until I was almost at the u-turn point. I had 4-5 riders a few hundred metres in front of me but didn't manage to catch them. My heart rate was hovering just above 160bpm and I wanted to keep it there so I didn't push too hard. After the u-turn I slowed down a bit as I wanted to the start the run in the mid-150's bpm. I was passed by a couple of cyclists as my speed dropped, but morale was boosted by an official shouting "good climb" after the final hill, on which I think I caught up the guys in front. The final 500m downhill was easy and I even managed to get onto the big chainring! My ride time was 45m20s, inside my target of 48mins. The winners ride time was 35m36s.

T2

T2 is much easier. Shoes off, shoes on, helmet off, headband on, turn race number to front, run. I abandoned the idea of using lace clamps and tied my laces the normal way. This transition took me 1m17s, which is very slow. Next time I'll see how I can speed up lace tying!

Run

My least favourite disclipine and the first 5 minutes were awful! My body was telling me "you shouldn't be doing this!" however I plugged away at almost walking pace and felt gradually better as my legs got used to the second change in style. I seemed to be running very slowly, and was overtaken by a good few people. After 10 mins or so I realised that my stopwatch had stopped as it was in auto start/stop mode - very annoying, so I had to start it again manually! After the run u-turn I was pleased (for me anyway) that were at least a few people still behind me!! It was an almost flat course and I kept my HR at about 156bpm as I knew I'd speed up at the end and wanted to keep 10bpm in reserve. My no-sock running preparation earlier in the week worked a treat as the plaster on my big left toe prevented any blisters, although after 4k or so I could feel some other blisters but they weren't too painful. As we approached the end the organisers sneaked in a 200 or 3oo m loop past the point where we entered the course. I put a bit more effort and checked for anyone behind me, as I didn't want to be overtaken again...no-one there so I ran along the final striaght to the finish. I don't normally feel inclined to raise my arms after a 10k run, say, but as this event had been quite tough and tiring, I did this time!

Timing

According to the provisional results posted after the race finished, these were my times...

Swim - 17:42 (an amazing 35 people behind me!)

T1 - 1:33 (including footwear malfunction!)

Bike - 45:20 (32 people slower than me)

T2 - 1:17

Run - 36:08 (only 2 people slower than me!)

TOTAL - 1:42:05

The individual winner finished in 1:12:55. My time was only 40% slower than the winner. In my recent duathlons I have finished 60% slower, and am normally around 100% slower (i.e. double the winning time) in runs. Does this mean I'm a bit fitter?? Hope so.

For individual disclipines, my swim was the best (29th) next to ride (30th) and run (a lowly 43rd). My T1 and T2 times were 29th and an awful 47th respectively. There's no excuse for that as it's organisation and kit based, not fitness. However in my defence in T1 I had to replace a shoe and put on a cycling jersey with a broken zip. Next time I'll wear a top that I can swim with and be wary of shoe malfunctions! For T2 I'll sort out a faster way to tie my laces!

Post Race

I waited around for a while after i finished to cool down, drink some 100 Plus and water and watch the final finishers come in. I quite like the idea of a massage courtesy of the Pulai resort but there was a bit of a queue. I spotted Kristof Van Houdt and decided to introduce myself to him. He's a regular on the Malaysian running/duathlon/triathlon scene and finished 2nd in the long-distance event the previous day. We chatted for a few minutes and he seemed like a thoroughly nice bloke.

Homeward Bound

I had to head home then as I was planning to shop for a new printer for the PC with Jackie in the afternoon. I packed the car, changed, checked the results on the noticeboard and then headed off. I stopped at the nearby Petronas station and loaded up with petrol, water, Pepsi Max and a mars bar. I was feeling pretty tired on the way up the expressway to KL so stopped to buy a drink and Pringles to keep me awake! To avoid a repeat of yesterday;s episode when re the car engine wouldn't start after stopping whils quite hot, I decided to lock the car with the engine running, but keep the remote control so I could open it. Guess what - the remote wouldn't open the car. After much fiddling around with a long steel ruler, the Polis Bantuan (Help Police) came along and pryed open the drivers door and pushed the auto window button down with a long steel bar. They refused a "thank you" RM10. Another 30mins of my day wasted! I overcame this frustration by listening to some hip hop with extremely bad language in it.

Pulai Triathlon Tomorrow!!

I'm off to Desaru this afternoon and am doing the 750m/20k/5k Sprint Triathlon in the morning. I'm not really sure how long the swim will take, as it is in open-water, but I'm guessing at 30mins. I like to set a target time for myself, so I reckon on swim 30mins, bike 48mins, run 35mins, 2 x transitions = 2mins, TOTAL = 1h 55mins.

My Swimming Pool

This is the Bukit Jalil pool where I've been training for the last four Thursdays. It's part of the National Sports complex built for the '98 Commonwealth Games. It's about 60p entry and a refundable 30p for a locker - bargain! Bukit means hill.

Climb Details

Here's a list of climb locations, distances and average gradients. Being an Engineer and a cyclist , I love these stats!

Hulu Langat, Kg. Sg. Tekali (Westbound)

161m in 2.5k @ 1:16

Hulu Langat,

Kg. Sg. Tekali (Eastbound) - tbc

Genting Peres (Eastbound)

344m in 10.2k @ 1:30

Old Gombak Road from Highway Bridge to Genting Sempah

502m in 16.6k @ 1:33

Bentong to Genting Sempah, 407m in 17.1km @

1:42

SPRINT to Bkt. D'sara past Science Centre - 41m in 0.9k @ 1:22

Penchala Link Tunnel, TTDI to top - 100m in 1.9k @ 1:19

Puncak Alam loop hills - tbc

Blog Target Market

As I'm getting a bit more involved in the cycling/duathlon/triathlon/running scene here and have bumbed into a nice bunch of friendly bikers (Pedalphiles) I am going to add some more posts here that will be of interest to them (and me of course). So my blog will contain some family newsy items and also a few posts that will mean little to anyone except those swim/bike/run types in the Klang Valley (the valley in which KL lies). I've just got a new camera from Canon so I'll be able to take some snaps of my events/bike rides and post them here too.

My current topic of interest is Cholesterol....watch the next space...

Cholesterol

I have some good news regarding my slightly high "bad" (LDL) cholesterol level. According to my medical it should be <2.60 mmol/L (i think that is a volume ratio). I checked my last 3 years records - in 2004 it was 3.72, in 2005 it was 3.57. In my last medical it was 2.82. This is almost 30% lower than a year ago and only marginally high. This reduction also co-incides remarkably with a great increase in my exercising. My diet is no better than it was 2-3 years ago so it isn't diet related.

Aiming for <2.60 next year!

Swimmming, Rillette, Puncak Alam, Lunch

Hi folks, here's some recent news.

Went for my now weekly swim on Thursday night. I did the usual 1000m but didn't bother trying to improve on my almost complete inability to do front crawl. I beat last weeks time by almost a minute with a heart rate 1bpm less - good eh?!? One more session to go before my 750m open water swim next weekend.

MY training plans took a slight but pleasurable knock last night as I went out for dinner & drinks with Jim and James (colleagues). After a few beers we ended up in a nice French restaurant where I had "French" pizza (cream cheese replacing the tomato paste), rillette (I finally found somewhere in KL that has this lovely delicacy!) and then coq au vin. All very tasty, and washed down with red wine. At that point I was trying very hard to go home (10.15pm) and sleep well before my Saturday a.m. 23km bike ride to work, but my arm was severely twisted and I just had to go to another bar with J & J for a few JackDaniels & Ginger Ales.

I retired at 12.15am and failed to get up in time for my ride. Never mind - I'm cycling 70km to Puncak Alam on Sunday morning. I have some new "toys" for my bike. A small compressed air cylinder and adaptor to quickly inflate a tyre after a puncture, a compact multi-tool thingy (6 allen keys and flat/cross-head screwdrivers), a nice wee saddle bag to put them and a spare inner tube in, and a couple of new aluminium bottle cages, one of which will occupy the space vacated by the now redundant pump. Now I can go on a long bike ride with puncture repair kit and lots of water without needing anything (apart from a banana, car keys and cash) in my jersey pockets. It's also good planning for my triathlon where I need to jump on my bike quickly without having to load up my jersey with bits n pieces.

Was going out for a meal with Jackie tonight but we've had a change of plan - she's off out for dinner with her pal Nora, who is soon jetting back to her home in Sri Lanka. I'll relax and watch Bolton v Liverpool, and we'll go out for a nice Sunday lunch in a posh hotel - perhaps Dim Sum at the Shangri-La or a buffet at the Renaissance - sounds good eh?!?

Next post on Sunday night or perhaps Monday. Bye for now...

Mega Supermodel Lucas!

Lucas was recently shortlisted to model for Dutch Lady milk. He did a test photo shoot last week at which the client was a bit surprised at his height and lack of chubbiness - so we thought "no chance"!

Surprisingly he was chosen and spent all today (9.30 to 6.30) in a studio being shot. He'll end up on milk tins and packets in Malaysia, Indonesia & Vietnam and will get paid about 4,000 quid!!

So now we've told him he doesn't need to get out of bed for less than 4 grand!

He was a bit uncooperative in the morning but an injection of caffeine and chemicals (1/2 a can of coke and a bit of chocolate) soon sorted that out!!

Medical

I got my medical results yesterday. Basically everything ok apart from slightly high "bad" cholesterol and slightly low "good" cholesterol. So I'll be trying a bit harder to avoid cholesterol in my diet. On a positive note, I have "Sinus bradycardia" - sounds bad - but means a low heart rate i.e. I am FIT!! Hooray! Normal ECG. Dual heart rhythm (good) with no murmurs. Marginally low red blood cell count.

I didn't see the cardiologist due to the unusual system operated in Malaysia whereby you can make an appointment if you want to but the Doc just see's whoever comes in - 1st come 1st served. Wierd!? I'll go again in a week or 2.

Great Bike Ride with Profile!

I had a most enjoyable bike ride around the Hulu Langat valley this morning, my first Sunday ride with the Pedalphiles. We covered 52km, including the 10km Genting Peres climb (rising about 1000 feet) and the short sharp Tekali climb, rising about 500 feet over a distance of 2.5km.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is an image of the output from my wonderful Polar HRM that I so look forward to looking at after each exercise.

Blue is speed, red is HR, dark red is altitude (click image to load a big one). As you can see we had a roughly 15km flat-ish warm up followed by the main climb. This took 40minutes to go up, and 15 minutes to go down. The descent was fun as always but too winding to get any real speed up. The second climb went better than expected, although it was twice as steep as the first one. The descent was great and I managed to reach 69km/h!!

More to follow.

Swimming

I swam 1000m in about 27 minutes on Thursday night, followed by some lame attempts to do front crawl. I can do it fine without breathing!! Breathing to the right is ok, but to the left is a bit difficult - i suppose i'm a right-sided kinda guy.

That was an easy pace, HR only 142bpm. Next week I'll try a bit harder - 24 minutes target.

I cycled to work this a.m. averages 29.8kph/135bpm - quite good i think! Legs & HR ok, but chest a bit tight. This in addition to my suspicion yesterday that my throat was a wee bit swollen and feeling more tired that i should considering my sleeping hours, leads me to conclude that I might be coming in for a cold. If i'm right it's good as it'll be gone by the time my triathlon comes up, but bad as it'll mess up my last 2 weeks training. If i can keep it at bay for another 24hrs, do my hilly 50k ride on Sunday, perhaps my body will banish it!

Medicals & Toes

I had a medical on Tuesday morning and will get the results next Tuesday. All I know is that everything seemed ok and my lung function is 92%!! I did and ECG, blood & wee tests, chest X-ray too! On Tuesday I'll do an echo and stress test.

On Sunday night I had a mini medical emergency, stubbing my left small toe on our bed leg so hard that the nail got pulled of about 3/4 - no exaggeration!! It took what seemed like a second or two for the pain signals to reach my brain and when they did - my goodness!! - it was very painful!!! But it doesn't look too bad now and doesn't stop me cycling or swimming.

Off to the pool again tonight. Only 2 weeks until my Triathlon so I have to either improve my breaststroke/strengthen arm/leg muscles, or teach myself front crawl.

Bye for now!

More Genting Trailblazer Photos

Here's some more shots coutesy of fellow Bangsar Hasher Aileen, who was standing around marshalling as her partner pulled out at the last minute...



Here's me, Michael, Graham & wife Nina, and Joel before the start. (2 teams of 2).










Joel and I (looking rather cheerful) - again before the start.









...and finally a fantastic action shot of me actually running (that means it was either downhill, or in the first 10 inutes!

Mizuno Wave Run 2006

Here's Joel (little one) and me (big handsome one) after finishing this 10k run in 1h 14m.

For the first time on a run this length I felt quite good from the start and so thought a good time would be forthcoming. Sadly not as I came home over 4mins past my target. I am sure this run was over 10k, say 10.8k and I WILL cycle the route to try to prove this!!

My 2006 Event Results

This is partly me showing-off, but you might be interested too...

2006 Completed...

15/1 Siemens Run, 10k, Road, 1h19m32s, 162bpm
10/2 FTAAA Milo Power Merentas Desa, 8k, road/off-road, 1h12m00s, 159bpm
19/3 Power Run, 10k, Road, 1h19m14s, 158bpm
16/4 Polis Run, 10k, Road, 1h16m47s, 154bpm
23/4 Malakoff Sprint Duathlon 1, 5k/15k/3k, 1h30m37s, 162bpm, 49th/85 in 161% of winning time.
30/4 Interhash 2008 Bid, 1h45m55s, 157bpm
13/5 Petaling Hash, Pangsun, 11k*, off-road, 2h19m13s, 155bpm
21/5 NB Pacesetters Run, 15k, road, 1h49m47s, 159bpm, 436th/482 in 218% of winning time.
16/7 Seremban Run, 11k, road, 1h23m42s, 152bpm
30/7 Malakoff Sprint Duathlon 2, 5k/25k/3k, 2h13m20s, 163bpm, 36th/58 in 160% of winning time.
13/8 Bukit Gasing Green Challenge, 10k*, road/off-road, 2h01m30s @ 150bpm, 51st/74 in 195% of winning time.
03/9 Genting Trailblazer, 12k*, off road, 2h16m17s @ 155bpm
10/9 Putrajaya 10k, road, 1h9m44s @ 154bpm
17/9 Mizuno Wave Run, 10.1k, road, 1h14m07s @ 155bpm, 830th/1032 in 218% of winning time.
8/10 Pulai Sprint Triathlon, 750m/20k/5k, 1h42m05s, 27th/37 in 140% of winning time.
29/10 Chin Woo Biathlon, 800m/-/7k, 1:06:03. No HRM and don't know winning time!
5/11 Subang 10k, road, 1:05:23 @ 153bpm.
11/11 Malakoff Sprint Powerman, 4k/30k/4k, 2:02:11 @ 165bpm
12/11 IOI Community Run, 7.3k in 53:46 @ 138bpm
18/11 Wangsa Maju Setiawangsa Run, 8.4km in 54:11 @ 152bpm.

* = estimated distance

Putrajaya 10k Photo

Once again thanks to KC (?) - the roving Pacesetters photographer, I've found another photo of me (almost of me!), this time at the start of the recent Putrajaya 10k run...,and ..quel surprise!!...I am checking my HRM, as I seem to be doing in many photos of me. Actually this is the start so I'm just checking that my stopwatch has started...I'm the one with the white headband (as usual)...

MotoGP 2006 - Rossi does his usual last lap 'take!

I took Lucas and his cheerful chum Meheer to the MotoGP yesterday. I was praying for a dry afternoon following Saturday's farce when I took a 1/2 day leave and made a 120km 3hr round trip only for the Qualifying to be cancelled for the first time in history due to ridiculously heavy and prolonged tropical rainfall!!!

First photo is of me and Lucas in the Pit Lane on the Saturday. I was hoping to see the riders but they'd gone. There was an autograph session planned - but cancelled due to the rain - bummer! I was really hoping Lucas could see his man - Loris Capirossi.

Here's the two wee rascals posing in front of a nice Aprilia racing bike. We watched the 250cc race - the two boys were quite excited by all the noise, helicopters, planes (KLIA is next door), thousands of bikes, the Safety Car whizzing around etc...

Their favourite hand signal is, as shown, palm out two-fingers, which is ok - but at one point Lucas began waving his middle finger (both hands at the same time) around!!! Had to stop that one!!
In case you didn't know, at MotoGP races it is obligatory to raise one's knees to one's face out of respect to the riders, as they whizz by - here's the boys doing just that! Oh what fun!

The main race was excellent - one of the closest battles of the season, between our man Loris (Ducati) against the amazing Valentino Rossi. Rossi lead ealry on, then Loris overtook but Rossi was on his tail all the way. They exchanged the lead on the last few laps, when Rossi did his usual trick - overtaking an the last lap to win by <1 second. We found some mini-motos on the way out and the boys did some more posing...

Putrajaya 10k

I did the 10km run in Putrajaya yesterday in a new PB of 1h 9m 44s! My previous best was 1h 16m 47s. As I feel a bit fitter than my last 10k I set a target of under 1h15m. At the 2km marker my watch was on under 14min (= 1h 10m pace) which was good. The next few km markers seemed to be wrong (e.g. 4km was timed at 23mins, which is way too fast!). I plodded along, eventually pulling away from a few old folks I'd been running with. I was beginning to think it was going to be a "short" 10k but the lasst few km stretched out and appeared to be the right distance. As I approached the finish I saw I could dip under 1h 10m so went for it a bit and ended up 16s inside - hooray!

At home I plugged in my HRM and compared the data to my first 10k in early 2006. I have now run 10 minutes faster with the same average HR (154bpm) as then. This suggests I am fitter but today was a flat course. Next Sunday I'll do the hilly 10k Mizuno Wave Run - that'll be a better judge. Photos to follow if I find any.

Trailblazer

Thanks to the Pacesetters photographers, I have found a good photo of Joel and I about 7-8km around the 12km Trailblazer we did recently. I look surprisingly cheerful!! Here it is...........

Don't forget you can click on the images to load a full size version.

I wore gloves (as did many people) to avoid filling my palms and fingers with thorns and splinters!!

Lucas Supermodel Celebrity!!

Lucas is now a Internation al Supermodel!! This photo is from the www.cimb.com.my website, and he's on a full-page photo in all the local daily papers (English ones at least).

By the way - his "Daddy" in the photo isn't me.

Rindercella

In memory of a great man. Ronnie RIP.

This was originally shown on on BBC TV back in the seventies. Ronnie Barker could say all this without a snigger (though god knows how many takes).
Irony is that they received not one complaint. The speed of delivery must have been too much for the whining herds. Try getting through it without converting the spoonerisms [and not wetting your pants] as you read ...

This is the story of Rindercella and her sugly isters.

Rindercella and her sugly isters lived in a marge lansion. Rindercella worked very hard frubbing sloors, emptying poss pits, and shivelling shot.
At the end of the day, she was knucking fackered.

The sugly isters were right bugly astards. One was called Mary Hinge, and the other was called Betty Swallocks; they were really forrible huckers; they had fetty sweet and fetty swannies. The sugly isters had tickets to go to the ball, but the cotton runts would not let Rindercella go.

Suddenly there was a bucking fang, and her gairy fodmother appeared.
Her
name was Shairy Hithole and she was a light rucking fesbian. She turned a pumpkin and six mite wice into a hucking cuge farriage with six dandy ronkeys who had buge hollocks and dig bicks

The gairy fodmother told Rindercella to be back by dimnlight otherwise, there would be a cucking falamity.

At the ball, Rindercella was dancing with the prandsome hince when suddenly the clock struck twelve. "Mist all chucking frighty!!!" said Rindercella, and she ran out tripping barse over ollocks, so dropping her slass glipper.

The very next day the prandsome hince knocked on Rindercella's door and the sugly isters let him in. Suddenly, Betty Swallocks lifted her leg and let off a fig bart. "Who's fust jarted??" asked the prandsome hince. "Blame that fugly ucker over there!!" said Mary Hinge. When the stinking brown cloud had lifted, he tried the slass glipper on both the sugly isters without success and their feet stucking funk.

Betty Swallocks was ducking fisgusted and gave the prandsome hince a knack in the kickers. This was not difficult as he had bucking fuge halls and a hig bard on.

He tried the slass glipper on Rindercella and it fitted pucking ferfectly.

Rindercella and the prandsome hince were married. The pransome hince lived his life in lucking fuxury, and Rindercella lived hers with a follen swanny.

Sore Legs and More

My leg muscles are into their second day of pain following the "Wild" Trailblazer on Sunday. If I site for 5mins or more I struggle to get up like an old man. This is putting a big dent in my hopes to go for my weekly Tuesday night "recovery" 24km bike ride. And with a 10k run (Putrajaya - Men's VETERAN category!!!) coming up on Sunday, I feel the need to exercise every other day. "See how lah" as they say in M'sia.

On the subject of hearts (I read Max's email today) I have bought a 1-yr overseas membership of the Cardiomyopathy Association, in the hope that I can obtain some information from them that will inform me how likely I am to drop down dead without warning. As a Engineer who tends to analyse things and look at things quantitatively, if I can get my hands on some juicy stats that show I am more likely to be killed by a stingray (like poor old Croc Hunter) than to die from the condition that I "probably" have, maybe I'll begin to spend less than 90% of my waking hours thinking about it.

I am going for my yearly Shimizu medical on the 19th, 2 days after yet another early Sunday morning 10k run. I hope to arrange a stress-test and echo at the same time. I have done more exercise this year than ever in my life I think, so I am hoping to see some weight and blood cholesterol reduction compared to last year. I have dropped to 88kg for the last few weeks, compared to the usual 90kg.

I love my HRM stats. Since I got it in early 2006 I've done 64hours of exercise and burned 40,000 calories. More to follow!!

I am now trying to find a decent public swimming pool in KL so I can do some swimming training for my triathlon in October.

October = Birthday!!!!!! Hooray!!

Genting Trailblazer 2006

Yesterday morning Joel & I took part in the 14km "Wild" category of the 2006 Genting Trailblazer. This involved running along trails cut through the forest/jungle of the Genting Highland near KL. It was actually about 12km. A lot of the route was on steep slopes with lots of rattan and bamboo. The organisers had cut steps into the slopes and layed ropes on steep sections to make life a bit easier. There were a couple of easy river corddings but at the end was a man-made obstacle course of water-filled pits, steep earth walls and 25m long pools (see image). We finished in 2h27m. I felt much better than I did 3 weeks ago on the Bukit Gasing Challenge - mainly due to having eaten a good high-carb meal the night before, and having done about 50km cycling per week since then. I hope to get some photos of us in action soon. Here's some of the obstacles we had to endure....