Week 25 of 26 - home is where the heart is!

I was pretty excited from the start of the week. I had only two days of work, the lady I was covering for returned from maternity leave, so a very brief handover. But she remembered most of the stuff, so it went pretty well. The department gave me a nice farewell lunch with a very generous gift too.

Monday evening, I swam at the Stoney Creek YMCA as my membership at Western recreation centre ended last week. There were swim classes at the Y up until about 8.30pm, so I was only able to swim then. 400m warm up, 400m pull buoy -150m pull/50m fingertip drag, 400m pull buoy, 200m pull buoy, 400m swim, 400m - 150m swim/50m fists, 400m pull buoy/paddles, 200m kick with board.

Tuesday was a nice 75km ride to Thorndale and Vanneck. Summer is definitely gone and it got a bit chilly past 7pm. My last ride in Canada actually. Wednesday I was no more working, I did a 90 minute run in the neighbourhood just before lunch. Then after lunch, I swam - 200m swim, 200m pull buoy, 5 x 200m swim, 1000m pull buoy/paddles, 5 x 200m pull buoy, 400m swim, 200m kick with board. My last session before the long flight back to Malaysia.

So I was travelling from Wednesday evening starting from catching the Robert Q bus from London to Toronto. A long 30+ hour journey ensued, including transits - an especially long 6+ hour one in Manila, The Philippines. It didn't help that my final flight from Manila to Kuala Lumpur was delayed by an hour. But at the end of it, I was really glad that I'm finally home - on Friday evening! A nice bak kut teh - herbal pork soup with my parents and sister, at the nearby restaurant also owned by a fellow Ironman triathlete. Then quickly assemble my bike for the ride the next morning.

Didn't sleep very well and up by 5.30am for the drive to Putrajaya for the ride. My sister's boyfriend was very nice to come pick me up. It was nice to meet the rest of the gang, some whom I coach but was meeting for the first time. It started pouring a few minutes into our ride and so, after 15km in, we decided to sit it out at the local mamak restaurant. We resumed our ride but as we were drenched, we decided to head back. Some of us changed into dryer clothes to continue with our ride while others, with the slippery roads, were a bit more conservative and decided to run instead. I was with the former and we did another 60km of cycling. It warmed up soon and we didn't get too wet. Followed by a quick 6+km brick run. And I meant really quick as one of the guys pushed me to a low 4 minute per km pace for the last km! We then had a nice lunch at Padi House and exchanged some handy tips, especially for those doing their first Ironman next weekend.

Big turnout! Photo credit Gary Fong

Some strong runners here. Photo credit Affendy Iskandar

You bet I slept well that night. Sunday morning was another early one. Both my parents and my sister as well as her boyfriend signed up for the Forest Trail run in FRIM Botanic Park. I didn't sign up as I wasn't sure how the route would be like, didn't want to sprain an ankle a week out from Ironman. But I decided to tag along and do the route after the crowd has gone. The first 2-3km was a very steep incline. The downhills were not too steep but I still had to take caution as it was quite slippery. I did most of the route except the final part around the footpath, 14.7km clocked for 80 minutes of running. My sis tied with another girl for women's open champion - a nice trophy and Sworke sunglasses along with a free gym membership trial.

Always nice to be running with the family!

I just realize that there is not much to update for week 26 of 26. I have a 50 minute run tomorrow and a 3km swim set the day after. I'll be in Langkawi from Thursday onwards and probably just do a practice ride and swim. Then it'll be the big race! I'd like to thank everyone for following my posts and hope to write up a nice race report when it's all done.

Week 25 of 26 statistics:

Swim 6.8km (2 hours 1 minute)
Bike 148.7km (4 hours 53 minutes)
Run 41.1 km (3 hours 19 minutes)

Total 196.7km (10 hours 13 minutes)