It'll be on the 5th of March 2006. I am aiming to the half-marathon distance (21.1km plus minus a few.. but knowing M'sian standards, it'll be plus a lot, or minus a lot). I've mapped out a rough training plan for the 14 weeks starting from last week.
Goal: To finish the 21km below 3hrs, secondary goal to finish at or below my Desaru 21k time of 2:47
Training Goals: Build up my running endurance base again, and to do more long runs.
My childhood pal KT has also agreed to join me for the 21k, and we both have started out training last week for it. But sadly, my training last week started out not that great, as I only managed to run 2 days out of the planned 3, and all less than an hour so far. I've laid off run-training for quite a while now, with work and shows last month. Even cycling took a back seat (until today).
Hopefully I'll be able to do more this week than not. Gotta start bucking up and really prioritizing the training aspect of things.
I'll try to blog my training as best as possible.
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I got on the bike today (after about 3 weeks of layoff due to shows), and did a long ride to Hulu Langat. Actually I found out Ajeep was riding to Hulu Langat alone, and I offered to join him.
We initially planned to start about 7:30am latest, but by the time I got up from bed at 6am, it was raining! We gave it another half an hour or so, and the rain actually stopped. We eventually met up at the Dewan Razak at Bt 14, Hulu Langat just after 8am, and parked our cars there.
We started out rather easy, as I was spinning (riding at 85 - 90rpm cadence) pretty much throughout the whole ride, starting from the low gears and slowly going up whenever it was possible to remain at the cadence. As usual, we turned off from Bt 18 into Sg. Lui, and rode all the way to the Kuala Klawang-Bt 18 junction. We turned right and rode all the way past the dam thru a couple of small hills and one or two long downhills.
Midway, we actually met up with some other riders who were hanging around at the Kuala Klawang junction. I didn't realise it at first, but I later recognized Edwin Ng from Joo Ngan Bike Shop SS21 PJ. We stopped a bit, talked to them and then went on our way.
Anyway, we rode past Sg. Tekala waterfall park, and straight past the Nirwana Memorial Park. About 3 or 4km after Nirwana, we decided to double back, as traffic was increasing on that side of the road. We stopped to rest at a small little stall (closed for the weekend) to rest. As I dismounted, I heard a loud sharp burst, and it came from Ajeeps slim Kenda front tyre! It had ruptured and burst from the inside, and there was hole on the tyre itself! Talk about bad luck.. and we didn't have a support car to help. Ajeep decided to improvise, and replaced a new tube and pasted a tube patch. He then fitted the tube with the patched area against the hole on the tyre, with the hoped of the tube lasting the 40k ride back! Thankfully it did!
We resumed our journey back to Bt. 14, back the way we came. But to do that we had to over come THREE long hills, with the first long hill being the toughest. It was at least a kilometer long, and threading up that hill really made my heart rate spike up to almost maximum! It was tough!!! Thankfully, there were some downward slopes after those hills, with enough time to recover before the next hills.
We came across a junction with a shortcut that heads back to Batu 14, without having to go through Sg. Lui. We were asking each other if we could take that route. However, I distinctly remembered that the route is a long, steep hill from the start. We turned in that road, only to reverse back to the original route. It really was a long super-STEEP hill! Probably "Lance Armstrong at the Pyrenees" standard!! We decided against it. I think it's a route that we can take after several visits to Hulu Langat, when we're a bit more stronger going uphill!
Continuing on the present route, we managed to ride back into Sg. Lui after another two long hills (but not as long or steep as the first one). The rest of the way was pretty much an easy ride back to where our cars were parked.
What a fun ride it was! I will start training on my bike again. I need to build up my cycling strength. However I will only start training on my bike more regimentally from January, to prepare for the first Malakoff Malaysian Duathlon Series in Dataran Merdeka (I presume it'll be on the 26th March 2006, two weeks after KLIM).
Here were the stats for this morning's ride:
Total distance: 78.04km
Average speed: 22.5km
Calories burnt: 1290
Total ride time: 3:28.50 (from my Polar HRM)
Average HR: 147bpm (76% of max HR)
Max HR: 186bpm (96% of max HR)
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I've also started swimming again.
Swimming in the pool when I was in Penang has refueled my interest to swim. I will train a little more on my TI Fishlike Freestyle technique.
Nothing like now to start training for a triathlon.
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