Labour day

Today is a public holiday in Canada and USA - Labour Day, or if you from around here, it's spelled Labor Day :)

My own home country celebrated it's 56th independence day on August 31. Here's a belated happy birthday wish to Malaysia! Malaysia will always be my home and I hope someday, I can actually return home for good, to be close to my family and friends.

So after three full days of rest... well, actually not complete rest. Monday was a tiring day travelling back from Whistler to London. We arrived in London on Tuesday morning and went straight to work. I volunteered for a MRI scan as part of a exercise science study that evening - I was struggling to stay awake in the scanner!

So okay, after three days of no training, I got back into it on Thursday. I have Muskoka 70.3 to train for and so far the signs have been good. I'm recovering well and responding well to the sessions. Did a 2 hour ride on Thursday, out and back to Embro, just over 60kms. Friday I did a 10km run and was able to keep it under 4:30 per km average. Saturday I did a 3km swim set. I didn't renew my membership at the Western recreation centre as I'm no longer working in campus. But I had some passes left over for YMCA. The one near our place had its pool closed for renovation so I went to downtown instead. I prefer to swim at the pool at downtown YMCA anyway.

Sunday, I did a swim-bike-run session with Coach Sheri and Clare at Port Stanley. It was such a misty morning, we swam in Lake Erie but I could barely see a thing and kept on stopping to check my bearings. Didn't think I covered much distance at all in that 30 minutes. Then we rode for about 2 hours, covered some hills and I did an additional hour as Sheri had to give a swim class at the beach. I finished up with a nice 6km run after and felt pretty good.

This morning's 16.6km run around the neighbourhood, I struggled a bit but was only over a minute slower than my usual time in total. The air felt damp so it was quite humid. I'll take a rest day tomorrow and I only have one session each for swim, bike and run this week before the race on Sunday.

This would be a new territory for me - backing up a 70.3 two weeks after an Ironman. Also, it is not easy course with lots of climbs on the bike without much breaks in between. The distance is also a bit longer at 94km, which has been that way for quite a while. 2010 Ironman World Champion Mirinda Carfrae is racing, I'm a big fan of Rinny mainly because she rides a Felt and wins most of her races in the run, something I can relate to although we're miles apart in terms of our racing ability.

Hope to write up a good race report next week! And perhaps an autograph or picture with Rinny :)