Giro

I did my 2nd Turbo session on Saturday night.

• 10min warm-up @ 110-115bpm
• Pyramid set 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 minutes @ 157-163bpm (85-88% HRmax)
• Rests 1-1.3-2-2.3-2-1.3-1
• 5 min warm down

According to 220 Triathlon mag (my bible) I need to do 6-9 min. 5min reps with 1min rests - thats a bit tougher than what i just did.

I will buy the trainer if my offer price is accepted. Not moving is a bit boring, but some good loud techno music and the benefit of a controlled training session keeps me going. Once or twice a week for up to an hour will do me on the trainer.

I then watched the first stage of the Giro on Eurosport...


On Sunday I had an extremely rare lie-in (until 7.10am when Lucas dragged me out of bed). I drank some nice fresh coffee and watched the highlights of last weeks MotoGP (my man Stoner winning again!). My inner demons won the battle of wills with my inner angels and I failed to go for a 5k KLCC morning run as planned.

Then off to Petrosains with Lucas and Mihir. They've both been there many times, but not together, and they had a great time. They wanted to go back in once we'd finished!

Late afternoon I managed to drag myself to KLCC park for a run.

• 10min warm-up (easy jog)
• 4 min recover (walk to start point)
• 4 x 1.3km laps (7:35 - 7:22 - 7:13 - 6:49) = 5.2km in 28:59 NEW PB!

The PB was not surprising, but I was rather hoping to be closer to 28mins. But I felt good that I did go for my planned run! Must keep in shape for next weeks Duathlon!

In the evening I watched my favourite Judge John Deed, whilst keeping an eye on Hammo's progress in the F1 on the other channel - he got 2nd and beat Alonso again.

I then watched the final day of the footy season and indulged myself in 2 glasses of wine. The climax of Stage 2 of the Giro co-incided perfectly with half-time in the footy.

Back In Action

I still don't know what my recent stomach/abdominal ailment was, but it seems to be going away. Today, for the first time this week, I felt like doing some training, so I went for a swim at Bukit Jalil.

1. 400m warm up
2. 4 x (50m hard + 150m easy). My 50m hard times were roughly...55s 54s 53s 55s
   
3. 100m cool down

TOTAL 1300m

An easy workout, but I'm glad to be back in action after a whole 5 days of complete inactivity!

My plan is for an interval session on my still-under-trial turbo trainer this evening, and a short run tomorrow morning. I'm getting quite excited about the Duathlon next Sunday, and yesterday evening met someone else who's going - so at least I'll know a couple of people there.

I've updated my targets for the year. I officially consider myself to have learned how to swim front crawl now, but to keep me on my toes I've given myself a new target of improving to be able to do 1500m in 35mins. I'm also targetting increasing my bike speed from the usual 27-8kph to 30kph for a 40km distance. This will need some interval work on the turbo trainer!

How Not To Dive

It is 2007 - so EVERYTHING gets recorded - including my disasterous dive start at the BM Tri last Sunday. Thanks to my willingness to share embarrasing moments with blog-viewers, and phorographer Arif, here's how NOT to dive from a floating pontoon, for your viewing pleasure...

And here's the result of the Biathlon...

And finally - today I had the great pleasure of a surprisingly big black plastic endoscope being inserted into my stomach without any sedation (my choice - rather brave I must say!). I also had an ultrasound on my upper abdomen.

Everything is ok - peculiarly enough!?!?!? The doc said my stomach lining is "nice and pink" as it should be. They even gave me a CD of the video. Hey! - I could post it on YouTube!

Gastro Probs

As part of my efforts to quickly find out the reason for my continuing sore stomach I will this morning have the dubious pleasure of an endoscope being inserted into my stomach via my mouth - then an ultrasound. I did a blood test yesterday to see if i have an infection but i don't know the result yet.

This is in the hope that the cause can be quickly identified so that I'm ok in time for the Singapore Duathlon on 20 May. At the moment I really don't feel like doing any exercise, although 7-10 days of inactivity shouldn't affect me too much - the last time I was ill I took a break for a while and then did the Double Hill 10k run in record time!

Maybe a rest will do me good.

Random Thoughts

Here's the spoils from my weekend, including some nice artwork on the Ride medal...

And especially for Dennis, photographed at the second water stop on the Century Ride. Nice bike Dennis!

My right little finger is still numb due to compressing the nerves leading to it for 6 hours on Sunday - I hope the feeling comes back some time!

Lucas' first adult tooth is poking through now - I'll post a photo sometime soon.

I've been struck by a mystery stomach ailment since last Wednesday night - after eating some toast with a bit of Marmite on it. Previously doing this at night has given me a bit of heartburn the next day, but this time I've had an almost permanently sore stomach for nearly a week! I've got some Ganaton and Controloc pills that seem to do the trick short-term, but the pain is still there. However I'm pleased that today the pain has subsided. I really hope I'm ok tomorrow as it's swimming day, and I want to get a few runs and rides in before the Duathlon in 11 days, and the Kenyir Tri the following weekend.

And great news for us cycling fans - Astro (Malaysia's cable TV people) have added Eurosport!! That means extensive live coverage of all the big bike races including the Giro D'Italia next week and the Tour De France!! And due to the time difference here - it'll be live when I've just got home from work! Hooray!

Ipoh Century Ride

I did the Ipoh 160km Century Ride last Sunday. It was organised (very well I must say) by the Kelab Ipoh Road Runners. Here's the route profile. Click on it for a big one...


In order to beat my 1997 record of 179km in one day (Kelana Jaya - Ulu Yam - Genting Pagoda & back again) I decided to cycle to the start from my Aunt's house, about 13km. I arrived at the start point in Tambun at 6.20am and soon bumped into a big crowd of PCC riders. There was Bernard, Ashley, PK and family, James, William, Dennis, Wong C C, Ivan & Annie, Laif, Jeffrey, Wong Wai Lam, the Bike Pro mechanics and more. Here's Ashley & Bernard looking cheerful at the start...

Me looking cheerful at the start...

And they're off!...

In the first hour I did my usual of going at my own pace, not at all bothered at being overtaken by almost everyone. The main PCC group went off ahead into the distance. Still my 1st hour average was 28kph.

km30(ish) - an action shot of my ear, with Ah Fook on my shoulder...

km52 - we stopped for a few minutes at first station to refill our water bottles and I had my 1st powergel. Was pleased to get off the rather uninspiring Ipoh-Lumut highway at this point!

km65 - we turned right at a junction with "95km to go" sprayed on the road. Soon after this point the road became quite hilly and we started to come across riders suffering from cramps. From here on Ah Fook and I slowly began overtaking people and were hardly passed by anyone except when we stopped.

km83 - 2nd water station. Refilled again, wolfed down an apple and a pear and was interviewed by the KRI media lady.

km90 - we stopped again for a few minutes for Ah Fook to tighten his loose shoe cleat.

km109 - just after Kuala Kangsar, I swallowed my 2nd PowerGel and then we stopped at this roadside stall for a well earned cold 100+ drink. 4h05m of riding so far...

This is our second crossing of the river a few km later...

km124 - This was the 2nd last stop. PK and William were there - I had been wondering where all the orange PCC jerseys were as I had expected to catch them by now - and then some of them arrived here just behind us - ?!?!?!?

km134 - We stopped in a well placed rest stop under the shade of oil palm trees, just after a rather exposed and hot stretch of road. More refilling, 100+ and a banana! This guy was having a lie-down!...


Ah Fook with a good view of the best legs I saw all day...

In the last 25km I cycled alone but close to Wendy and a couple drafting behind their yellow support car. After 5h51m my HRM told me "MEMORY FULL" - sh*t!! Never mind. In the last 5km I managed to shake off the guy who'd been enjoying my draft for the previous 5-10km and even managed to overtake another rider in the last 500m.

I finished the 160km in 6:09:06 @ 26kph. This was 15 minutes faster that what I'd imagined so I was pretty chuffed. I did too little drafting to mention. Here's my seat post number, with all the checkpoint stickers in place...


After the race I immediately downed a Red Bull and a Soya milk drink and went around congratulating a few friends on their achievements. I then went to look at a couple of bikes that a small group were admiring intently. Both had US$3,000 Campag Bora Ultra wheels. One was William's Time bike and the other was a Limited Edition Colnago President LDV (Leonardo Da Vinci) frame, with a Record groupset and an integrated bar/stem. Check out the fantastic paint-job - you can see Leo's head beside the head tube...

This bike even had a Campagnolo computer and a Garmin GPS system. I estimate this bike to be worth over US$10,000 (RM34,500) without the electronics. The frame is worth US$4,600 (almost RM16,000). Here's a shot of the Colnago bar/stem and the gadgets...

Apart from ridiculously expensive new bikes, there were a few nice oldies too. I was admiring an nice old aluminium Alan frame from the '80's, which had nice big polished chrome lugs and a fluted Campag seat post. It also had an old Campag Record chainset - the best looking chainset ever if you ask me - here it is...

I didn't want to get back to KL too late so I made my way back to my Aunt Malar's house - another 12km!

My total mileage for the day was 185.6km (13.1+160+12.5), beating my 1997 record of 179km by 6.6km. I suppose now I have to do a double metric century = 200km!

I thought I'd record how red, sweaty and grimy I looked after all those kilometres...

The sun-cream did a good job today - only my nose was a bit red.

Bukit Merah Biathlon

I met Ah Fook in Ipoh and we drove up to Bukit Merah for the biathlon. We were running behind time as I'd arrived in Ipoh late having gone to the Doc in the morning to try to solve my aching stomach problem. Having been closely monitoring the 25mins fast clock in Ah Fook's car I was worried we'd be too late to report, but we got there just in time to change, set up at transition (first 2 photos) and have a bit of a swim warm-up.



When the swim started the pontoon was pushed backwards so much by the force of those in front of me diving in that my plan of doing a nice dive too was ruined - instead i ended up doing a half jump half dive. If anybody caught it on video they could put it on youtube so everyone can have a good laugh! Here's a photo - click for a big one - I am the tall lean muscly one with 101 on my arm...

I tried front crawl for about 200m then gave up. I reverted to a relaxed breaststroke and only did a bit more crawl when I felt like it or if my knees began to ache. The swim seemed to drag on for a while but i eventually finished in about 25 mins. Here I am just out of the water...

I jogged to transition - shoes on sunnies on hat on - off we go - oh no i forgot to put on my t-shirt - run back - t-shirt on - off we go again!!!

As usual the first 10mins of the run was pretty horrible - uncooperative legs+heat+long flat straight road. I saw fellow swimming students Ah Wei (leading the way) and Shahrom (close behind). Shortly Ah Fook caught me up to provide some well needed peer pressure. Here we are near the end - with me doing my best to look like I'm running quickly...ha ha!...

I finished the run in about 35mins.

Swim (1000m) - 24:59
Transition - 2:37
Run (5km) - 35:11
TOTAL - 1:02:47

After the race I met Karen Miss Met. College PowerBar Athlete and she took this photo of me with Eugene and Ah Fook...

Once again, PowerBar well represented in this photo...

Carbo-loading dinner...I ate lots!!

Another medal, an hour of fun and activity, and an enjoyable dinner afterwards - but a bit annoyed at myself for not trying harder at doing front crawl!

We headed back to Ipoh in the evening to get set for the big ride the following day!

Thanks to Karen, Fook's brother Lee and Arif for the photos!

Big Swim-Run-Bike Weekender!

This weekend will include plenty of cycling and driving, some swimming and running, and hopefully enough sleep to suit!

I'll be driving up to Ipoh on Saturday morning to check-in for Sunday's 160km Century Ride (see route map below). I'll leave my bike at my Aunt Malar's house and then it's off up a bit further North to Bukit Merah for a late afternoon Biathlon (1km swim and 6km run). Carbo-loading dinner afterwards then back to Ipoh for the night.

My plan for the biathlon is just to do as much front crawl as poss, get some experience of sighting properly, and enjoy battling in the water with the others. I'm not too bothered about speed. For the run I'll be taking is easy - my only desire is to test if I can run without socks and still avoid blisters and chafing.

A nice target for me is...

Swim 30:30
Transition 1:00
Run 36:00
TOTAL 1:07:30

I'm saving myself for the big one on Sunday, 160km around Ipoh. It's not a race but I really want to finish in less than 7 hours. If I'm feeling super-fit, or if there's any paceline action , it'd be good to do it in 6h24m at an average speed of 25kph.

Hard Labour Day

This post is doubling-up as the PCC weekly newsletter write-up...

Labour Day - a single day out of 365 when us hard-working employees can relax, have a lie-in, be a couch potato etc... OR - wake up at 5.15am to drive to KKB and then embark upon a 2.5hour bike ride up a 1100m climb into the clouds! Naturally, around 20 or so PCC Tar 'N Grimers rose early and met at KKB stadium to do just that.

And we had our very own mini Bike Show to titillate everyone before the ride. May Senn pulled her nice new Orbea Diva from her car, Bernard was showing-off his new Token carbon deep-section wheels and William was looking sharp in a full BMC outfit to match his bike. Ah Fook had new purple Look pedals and shoes.

As we headed off towards the dam, the pack slowly disappeared into the distance (my legs take at least 30 minutes to get going). At the dam we bumped into PK and family, and the day of climbing really began.

My trusty climbing partner Ah Fook and I steadily made our way up the lower slopes and we eventually caught the yellow jersey group (Mac). Before the ride Mac had reminded me that the yellow jersey should not lead up mountains. That job is for the polka-dot jersey. The yellow jersey should be "protected". So we protected the man in yellow for a while before moving on to catch our next rider - Big Ron. We caught a glimpse of him at one point but then didn't see him for another 10 minutes - I thought perhaps I was hallucinating due to the seemily never-ending winding road. At last we found him, and shortly afterwards we arrived at the Gap resthouse. End of Part 1!

We regrouped at the Gap, with Kim-possible Yap making an appearance to boost everyone's morale - if this hill is a workout worthy of Triathlon champions then there's hope for all of us! This was my first time up to Fraser's and I was apprehensive about the "difficult climbing" after the Gap. I was first back on the road (to get a head start!). And boy did I need it! 1km later we faced a piece of road that looked more like a wall - a 1:7 slope to get the legs warmed again. Althought it was only 200m long, my head start vanished as Arif, Bernard, Azmar, Gunter, Laif and Kenny powered up the hills.

The increased gradient was eased by a few flats and downhills, but the things that really made this part of the ride enjoyable despite the toughness was the view down into clouds, the cool cool breeze and the occasional silence, broken only by the sound of large birds cruising from tree to tree. These things really give one a sense of achievement - climbing so high - and getting away from the pace of city-life.

Finally we reached the Clocktower - Bert from The Netherlands and Richard from Holland (there is a difference folks!) were there - Richard having done 2 loop of the one-way system as he loves the technical descent so much! After much drinking, and consumption of nasi lemak and roti canai, it was time for the neck-stiffening descent. Just before we left, Ironlady May Senn arrived on her Diva, by now with no feeling whatsoever in her bum and legs - I must admit her new saddle doesn't look very lady-like! Nice bike but some comfort-adjustments needed I think!

The next hill to tick on my list of completed climbs is Genting - anyone care to join me??

And the menu for today says...

Bernard's Giant sporting new Token wheels

The Maillot Jaune prepares...

Mac's S-Works...

The gang - all set to conquer Fraser's...

Me pointing in the direction of travel about 15km into the ride...

At the Gap - safe n sound...

Gunter Pantani deep in thought...

Mac, Chin Hoe and PK staring at Kimbeley’s legs Chin Hoe's bike...

The road to the left starts with a 165m long 1:7 climb - reminded me of the Lake District in England...

Makan time at Fraser's - I recommend the nasi lemak!...

Ah Fook, Kenny + friend descending...

The reservoir on the way down...

Stats/Info:

Start 8.15am

Up - 42.4km in 2:35:23 @ 16.4kph
Down - 42.4km in 1:07:00 @ 38kph
TOTAL 84.8km (KKB-Gap = 31km, Gap-Frasers = 11.4km)

Ascent 1200m+

Climbs: Dam to Gap is 19.6km @ 1:34, then 9km @ 1:25

Nutrition/Weight: PowerBar @ 6.15am, 1/2 Triple Threat @ 7.30am, Nasi Lemak+banana @ top of Frasers. Weighed 77kg in afternoon.