And Counting 61 days to Langkawi Ironman

Wow, splendid week this was. To begin with, it was bonus time, more $$$ means more goodies!!!.

Took 2 days off during the week to do up my little girl's room. Had a deal with the wife that if all was completed by Friday, then saturday would be my time for a long ride. Achieved!!

Saturday morning 22 Dec, 2007, seven of us set off for Pengrang- Desaru ride. First time ride into malaysia. The roads so unpleaseant with portholes at the start. But as we moved along, the roads got smoother but the ride got harder. Why, it was because of the winds that was coming from almost all directions except the rear.

At the halfway point, I was like doing 19km to 21km on the climbs and managing 25km on the downhill. It was really punishing, but a good start to understand the conditions of riding in malaysia.

Thanks to the support car from Gordon, that helped to shealth off certain sections of the windy ride.

The return leg from Desaru to Pengarang was superb, with tail wind, we were hitting speeds of up to 45km on the climbs and along the flats with slight cross winds, up tp 35km/hrs for the entire 40km.

Completed the 103km in 3hr 41mins, not really to my expectations, but considering the wind factor, it was a good ride and great company with Encik, Kevin, Frankie, Dennis, Ryan and Kai Ming.

Did a run o Sunday morning of 7km, more of a slow recovery for the muscles. Planning to do 2 loops of costal on 25 Dec followed by a short run.

In all, the mileages are coming up to speed and should be clocking 180km rides by mid Jan 08 and 42km runs by end Jan 08.

Till my next entry, ride safe and train safe. Cheers

Entry 05 Dec, 2007 - 79 Days to Ironman Langkawi

It has been a while since I last updated.

So what has happened since the last entry?

Well for start, I got injured again. But this time was during a business trip walking down the hotel steps. Missed a step and badly twisted my ankle. This happened on 31st Oct.

So for the next 10 days after, I was only swimming and doing light spinning on the bike.

I have not clocked enough mileage yet to be confident that I would finish Langkawi in the target of under 13hours.

So far, I have only ran 12km runs with times of 1hr 5mins. Did short loops around costal and selarang climbs.

I need to up the tempo for the next 8 weeks if i want to survive Langkawi and meet my target.

In my plans, i target to do at atleast 8 long rides up to 190km, runs up to 40km and swim up to 3.5km for the next 2 months.

Knowing that December will be a wet month, hopefully mother nature would be kind to drop rain only in the night.

Another kind of interesting thing is I am comtemplating on doing XC riding during the off-season. But now I am not sure as to which bike I should get, an XC hardtail or 700C Cross bike.

Technically speaking a cross bike suits me fine as the geometry really does not need me to adjust much. And I have more comfort in riding a road geometry frame than a MTB.

Well let's see in the coming weeks, which bike I would choose as my off-season ride.

Till my next post, ride safe and stay healthy.