.... the jackal rides and run....

Ok, will be leaving for Ipoh Century Ride tonight. Me and Ben will be making a trip up Cameron Highlands tomorrow morning upon arrival on our bikes. It will be a non competitive ride of course. On the Ipoh Century Ride, I am just not in that kind of competitive spirit as last year to be honest so I'm just gonna shoot for a 5hr finish. I think doing so is already in itself quite a challenge! Monday : Went for a 10km run at ECP. Warm up 3km and then went on to sprint and recover exercises. Basically run fast for 18 light poles and recover for 8 light poles all the way up to the 10km point. Tuesday : Went for a 43km ride with Ryo. Revisiting the hills in the west, namely for this time; Pepy's road, Telok Blangah hill and Mt. Faber. In addition, a sprint finish at Nicoll Highway. Good workout. Wed & Thurs : Rest. Was on MC yesterday due to sore throat and cough. My whole family is down. I better take it conservatively this weekend....

I was planning a fast 100km+ ride for Saturday but me mate Ryo needed to be back early so we went through the relatively flattish 80km East West route (Tuas and back). Even though it was shorted than the initially 100km plan, I found it to be a thoroughly satisfying ride as 1) we attacked every slope we encountered 2) we attacked the flats, more so if there was headwind! 3) I had thigh burn from every attack. Although the ride average for was only 30.3km/h, its not reflective of the intensity of the ride. A quick look using Sportracks shows that we started very slow and only picked up speed after Nicoll...we slowed as well due to traffic at Tuas and also Raffles Marina, just spinning and sightseeing there. Average speed from Nicoll - Tuas - Nicoll (about 70+km) was about 32km/h. The ride back from Tuas - Nicoll was 33km/h ave. Average speed at Viaduct was impressive, probably about 42.5km/h for the full length. I managed to pull up to 45-47km/h at some stage. Pretty good for 2 guys...

Saturday Started off early at 5.15am on Saturday as the usual hardcore early birds were the only ones available for rides. Ryo, kl and me did the usual Singapore round island covering 112km. Average speed for the ride was 31.2km/h....and we did not draft any groups during the entire ride. Everyone did their part in pulling with some short attacks thrown in as well. Notable section was the coastal straight where Ryo and me could not overtake and lead a solo rider. We were trying to lead the 3 man group (KL was dropped at this stage) but he just refused to allow us to lead. It was all in friendly mood but this guy is impressive! Sunday For Sunday, Ryo and me went for Mt. Faber. We did 6 loops and boy was I drained. As expected, he was quick to leave me behind on the climb. Seems so effortless for him! Best time up Kg.Bahru was 5mins 10secs...still at least a minute slower than my best time achieved early in the year. I attribute this to lack of climb training! Also perhaps th...