Australian Chinese New Year

It's Australia Day today... so for the first time I get a public holiday for Chinese New Year! Also, I get to see some fireworks action to usher in the new year after all. Not exactly your typical red firecrackers but the Lotterywest fireworks is quite a spectacle to watch every year. And this can be easily viewed from the riverfront near my house.

This is my 4th Chinese New Year here in Perth. My 1st, I was invited to my housemate's (back then) church group for dinner. Didn't know many people there but enjoyed the food nonetheless.

I spent my 2nd with Marc and Jer Sie as they were the only ones around that time. Food was delicious as well and seeing some familiar faces helped quite a bit.

Sis was here for my 3rd and so were all my SLB friends. We had a real blast last year, with 2 separate open house functions at Eric's and Jer Kie's!

This year, some of us have gone back to Malaysia to celebrate but we SLBs still had loh sang and some very ang moh Chinese New Year lunch (see below). Thanks, Jessie for hosting us!

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I apologize that lately my blog posts have been pretty one dimensional - updates on Ironman training. But with less than 32 days to go, I can't help myself but to spend most of my time thinking of the big race.

I've finally pulled off the 160km bike 30km run combo... but not without its glitches. Saturday's 160.6km ride took 5:46.02 (average 27.8kph) with a total time of 6 hours 25 minutes including rest and brunch. Was maintaining above 28kph average until the 154km mark where I was hit by a headwind. Haiya... One day, I'll take out that 28kph!

Sunday's 30km run started off pretty well... with 48.24 for the first 10km. But I suffered a stitch shortly after that. Even had to walk 2km as recovery. Really didn't want last week to repeat itself, so I willed myself to complete the remaining distance. Total time taken was 2:41.56 (average 5:23 per km).

A nice, midday 1 hour swim today. Was somehow still slower, could be due to fatigue from the hard workout for the past two days. But glad I could still meet the intervals... and I had the energy to throw in some butterfly as well :) Covered 3.7km of distance.

One more weekend of HARD training before I start tapering...

Looking forward to darling's return this Thursday night...