T minus 26 weeks...

...to my triple A race this year - Ironman Langkawi, Malaysia.

I've been training regularly the past few weeks. Clocking around 10 hours, about 210-220kms a week, most of are spent cycling on the trainer. The temperature has risen which helps a bit. I managed to run outdoors a couple of times a week for the past few weeks. The ice on the roads have mostly melted, although there are puddles in some parts that never seem to subside. I've given up avoiding puddles and just run through them, which is why I haven't started using my new Asics GT2000 trainers yet. My poor Brooks Adrenaline are already very worn out and still taking a beating.

Weather forecast for London, Ontario for the next few days. Taken from the Weather Network

The weather forecast looks promising. Finally, positive degrees Celcius everyday! We will still get some light snowing here and there but temperatures are warm enough for the them to melt quickly. With some luck, I may be able to start riding outdoors next weekend. Although, it may have to be a midday ride as temperatures hover around the freezing point early in the morning.

As if I'm not doing so already, I'll try to share my training log every week from now on. Yes, I'm one of those who overshares my training sessions and annoyingly floods your news feed with how far I swam, biked or ran today. But hey, it's my blog, my Twitter and my Facebook, so I get to do what I want haha. Plus, it'll give this blog a bit more activity as it has been quite slow the past few months.

The past few months of maintenance training has come to an end. The REAL training starts tomorrow. I'll try to get myself used to waking up early for some morning swims. I have been sleeping in everyday and only doing my workouts in the evening.

In 4 weeks time, I'm doing a half marathon at the Forest City Road Races - my first race for the year and I plan to do well to start the season on a good note.

Free birthday meals!

We celebrated my wife, Li-Ann's birthday over the weekend. Being the bargain hunters that we are, we subscribe to the mailing lists of some of the local restaurants and manage to score free meals in the months of our birthdays.

Here's one at our favourite Italian restaurant - Fellini Koolini's. My New York striploin was a bit dry, I'll ask for medium rare the next time. Li-Ann had the lobster lasagne and it was really rich!

On Saturday morning, which was the actual birthday itself, we had brunch at Maxwell McCoys. When we arrived the doors were closed but we noticed there were patrons inside. After waiting for a while, the cook came out and told us that the wait staff had gone home sick and they had call in replacement wait staff. But he let us in and we sat ourselves at the table and helped ourselves to the menu.

Burger with a generous serving of fries

Eggs benedict and you guessed it, fries!

Li-Ann had always baked her own birthday cake. But we didn't bring any of her baking equipment here. You can see that she improvised with a mooncake box from Tai Thong as the baking tray.

Happy birthday darling! I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful and supportive wife. Love you, muaks!

MH370

On early Saturday morning, news of a missing Malaysian Airlines plane shocked the nation and very soon, the world. Flight MH370 lost contact with air traffic control about couple of hours after midnight on it's way to Beijing, China. 48 hours have passed since then and yet, still no clear indication of what could happened to this plane.

I do not know anyone directly who is on this flight but going through news feed on social media, there are some of my friends who are directly connected to either passengers or crew members on the flight. My thoughts go out to the families and friends affected. I cannot imagine what they are going through at the moment. I can only keep on praying that the people on the flight are safe.

Taken from Pray for MH370 Facebook page

There had been bits and pieces of information emerging, adding to the mystery and many confounding theories of what could have happened. But I choose not to speculate and urge many to do the same. Instead focus your thoughts and prayers for the safety of the passengers and crew members of flight MH370.

Life can be so uncertain and fragile. A distant relative of mine passed away a few hours before news of this missing flight. He was not suffering from any illness, so his passing was a shock to his family and friends. I pray that he rests in peace and for his family and friends to be strong to get through this difficult.

Things like this really put things into perspective and shows how sometimes, the things I fret about can be really petty and in the end of the day, not worth getting stressed about at all.