Bike: Charity Expedition and Challenge

To share some information with you guys. There are several cycling expeditions in the next couple of weeks. First of all, there is the Japan Charity Bicycle expedition that is organized by MIPR. This is going to be held on the 10 April 2011.

The second expedition is the Telbru Expedition and Race 2011. It is going to be held on the 17 April 2011. There are several categories, including a race and an expedition.

Any comments please post them up, thanks.

Sport: Triathlon Logo

What do you think? Cool eh? Should I put this up as a display picture on Facebook? Probably not...

Sport: Jog in the Afternoon

Not to be outdone, I needed to carefully strategies my training schedule. Since today is a running day, I decided to fend off swimming (ohh, the gravity of this situation) and go jogging in the afternoon.

I did a short 5.33k jog in 29 minutes 42 seconds. My average pace was at 5 minutes 34 seconds a kilometer. 481 calories burnt, and feeling fatigued after the jog. My leg muscles were scrunched up like as if on the verge of a major cramp, and my lower right chest felt like it was going to burst. Not a good sign eh?

As you probably know by now, I am logging my runs on Nike+ and this recent run made me wonder. I had a stable jog, but the last 100 meters or so my pace drop drastically. I wonder why.

It does not matter much, as long as my running mileage increases and I get comfortable with running. With the expected comfort, I hope to go further and faster in the near future... :)

Sport: Run

I had a run this morning, having finally learning how to set up the nike sports band. It was not that great but it is a means to the end. To me it is not about one end result but to progressively move towards a greater end than I can ever imagine.

Back to the topic, I had a 9.18k run, done in 53 minutes 14 seconds. The pace that I did that in was a 5 minute 48 second pace, calorie burn of 828 calories.

Not a bad run, but could be improved. As I finally found out (with a good blow to my ego), swimming is the worst of the three disciplines in a triathlon. This is closely matched with running and then cycling. I would not say that I am good at cycling, I am just saying that I am better at it.

Having done all three disciplines this week, I can now safely say that I will not be doing any brick training any time soon. More effort is needed to improve on my disciplines, and it is a long mountainous road in front of me. But, then again, I remember the saying "Only one man, bleary eyed, will pick himself up and plow forward"

I am not doing this because I am competitive, hell no. I am not doing this because some one told me so, definitely not. I am doing this to prove to myself that I can do this, and I will.

Rush to Wait...

... Wait to Rush. I do not like waiting. Well, For a long time.


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Rest Day

Today is a rest day for me. This meant that I did not do any form of sporting activity what so ever today.

So, what did I do today? Well, I accompanied my wife for her ante-natal appointment. She is five months pregnant and today is the day we hoped to see the baby's gender. Turns out that the baby is shy and did not show much. Haha. That is fine, as long as I know that he or she is fine and healthy.

In the afternoon, I tried to settle up what seems to be a problem with the rugby players. Being the adhoc manager of the rugby team and all, I needed to sort out some problems. even now, there are some problems that seem to be slightly difficult to handle.

Eventually, I need to sort everything out. As for sports, I hope tomorrow would be a good day. Planning to go for a swim in the morning and a cycle in the afternoon, what do you guys think?

Updates: Aviva IronMan 70.3 Singapore 2011

I would like to congratulate Team IronMan (Code name forever will be) on achieving something us mere mortals will always strive to become. Maybe one day I will also have the same pride when passing through the finish line. Maybe.

I know it is a little late to say congrats and all, but I would like to immortalize that moment on my blog. You guys are no longer mere half crazy dudes chasing a dream, but demi gods who have proven that with willpower, sweat and effort will make the most profound dreams into a reality. To the other Bruneians who were in the Aviva IronMan 70.3 Singapore 2011, I say "WOW!" You guys should earn a "Dato" title like they give to Malaysians who did something.

I am envious, in a way, and I use this as a target for myself. I aim to attempt the same feat. May it be in two or three years. The respect I have for you guys is immense and everything is now a strive to catch up. Thanks for showing us that even we, Bruneians, can do what others are afraid to do. :)

Tn Pg Azizul's Time sheet

Tn Sharif's Time sheet

JJ's Time sheet

Sport: Run in the Morning...

... and a sprint ride in the afternoon. That is how I could sum up the day.

I woke up pretty early today. Probably due to the fact that I had to get to Lumut before morning parade, which is at 0700, and the fact that I could not be in Lumut last night due to bad weather.

Once parade was over, I felt it would do disservice if I were to do egyptian pt instead of exercizing. So I went to the track and started ru-err.. jogging. I am quite amazed with the endurance that has built up in me and I went for the full 3.2k. I did not really time myself but I am just as pleased with my conditioning.

First, I lost 8 kilos in 3 months, now I can run further. This is a good start to my year. Sadly, I am not happy with the exhaustion that came after my run. Where was the Runner's High that everyone was talking about? I have tasted and now crave for the Cycler's High, and soon I would like to taste the Runner's High as well as the Swimmer's Rush.

To cut my day short, I was stuck in a meeting until 1740, and I knew that I would not be able to take a proper ride today. I figured that I should just go to the gym and do some muscle endurance training, especially for my triceps (stronger triceps will help in swimming).

Just then, Faizin called me and planned a ride. Since the sky was grey and we did not have a lot of light to ride with, we went for a sprint. Pleased with my speed and tenacity. I remember Tn Moza once said, "getting up to and above 35km/hr is easy, maintaining it is a b*tch" Word. I agree with him entirely, my legs felt like they were going to fall off, and this was me riding at 38 km/hr for 6 mins. Oh well, I will definitely improve. no, correction. I MUST improve... Hehe

To end it in a jiff, I would like to point out that I am extremely happy with my fitness currently. A 3 month old cyclist with my level of ride... I just need to pedal more and chase after the benchmark. What benchmark? The benchmark that was set by my friend, JJ Samid.

Sport: Cycling

Had a ride in the morning. This morning ride covered a distance of 31.1 k and the average speed of the ride was 29.5 km/hr. That is quite good considering that I spent quite a bit of time waiting for the other riders to catch up.

People who were part of the ride were Tn Amirul, Tn Gaz, Faiq, Faizin, Rushdi and myself. Simple route actually... JP -Tutong Muara Highway - Rimba - Muara Tutong Highway - JP

Bike: Brake Cable

Note to self: Once brakes feel stiff, get the brake cables checked.

Price of cables: $8

Every 800 to 1000 kilometers, check and/or change the chain.

Price of 105 chain: $58
Price of Ultegra chain: $79
Price of Dura-Ace chain: $89

It is going to burn a hole in my pocket. Haha.


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Location:Triple Star, Kiulap

Medical Check-up

I had my Cardiology appointment yesterday, and it was to determine whether I was healthy enough to resume my duties. It seems that I was not. All I could make out from the medical gibberish were to put me on the Heart Failure Team. What does that mean? I do not think my heart is failing, I guess. My wife has different opinions, mostly about atypical heart diseases. I guess I will have to follow through on this.

On a different note, I had my weight taken. This would be a medical scale that is proven to be as accurate as any scales go. So, what has cycling done for me since I started two and a half months ago? I emptied my pockets and stepped up to the scale. Lo and behold, I weighed in at 87.7 kg. That is and approximate drop of 8 kilos (7.3 actually) from my first weigh in at 95 kilos in the late week of December last year. I am hoping the rate I am losing weight will continue progressively and consistently. 2 kilos a month is my target and anything more is a bonus. All I wanted was to lose 12 kilos by June (when MRS weighs me in again) and be at my ideal weight of 70 kilos by my birthday. Hope it comes true.

I have several more doctor's appointments in April, will see what happens then...

Sport: Cycling

Just finished a night ride with the CLF (The Boss). People involved were CLF, IU LF, Tn Gaz, Tn Erawan, Tn Pg Zaid and yours truly. Distance covered was 45 k, done in 1hr 47mins. I forgot to used my Heart Rate Monitor band and so I just went with my gut instincts... and usually it is not that far off.

Night ride, with rain. Those are new things for me. Even with those conditions, it was an excellent ride. I am having a problem with my rear braking system (the right shifter). It is feeling too stiff. I may need to bring the bike to the shop. *sigh* I just hope that it would not be much of a problem. Next to get would be some aero bars... but that can come later when I get the other two regimes up to date. My aero position is getting better, -ish. Haha, but we will have to see in the months to come. :)

Definitely a ride to test out the rims. Uphill, Downhill and Flats, it was superb. The only thing that caused hindrance to it was actually me. Seems like I need to train more.

Overall, the ride was great. Sara Lee was awesome.

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Location:Tutong to Berakas

Sport: Cycling

JJ found out about my upgrades and I seriously do not know how he is reacting. Well, I would like to say good luck to the three of them for participating in the AVIVA 70.3k IronMan in Singapore.

About the ride. I named it as a sprint Time Attack due to the shortness of the route. We covered a distance of 25 k. Time taken was 47mins. Average speed at 29.7km/hr. The route of choice was Berakas Light Industry - Muara Tutong Highway - ITB junction - Rimba Junction - Rimba Airbase - Terunjing Link Road - Lambak Main Road - Berakas Light Industry. Plenty of undulating hills and plains to try out my near gear.

Talking about my gear, People said that it needs to be at 35km/hr to start performing, but it seems that for me, it started performing once I spinned over 30km/hr. Cool. The effort was halved and the distance was good. Sadly, I think I over-exerted myself, with a one time light-headedness close to blacking out. But then again, it was all good. Let's see if I can put up a google map on the route later. Haha.

Here's a picture of those following the ride. From the left: Yours truly, Tn Ghazali, Tn Erawan and Faiq.

Sport: Cycling and a Jog

Had a ride this afternoon. Participants of the ride was Tn Ghazali, Tn Erawan and myself. The route of choice was Light Industry Berakas - Tutong Muara Highway - Muara Beach - Muara Tutong Highway - Light Industry Berakas. Distance of 34.33 Kilometers on an average speed of 29 km/hr. Eversince I got the V3, I have been constantly looking at my heart rate and keeping in within the fat-burn range, quite difficult when you have that gut feeling that keeps on yelling, "GO FASTER!"

Average cadence was fine, at around 97 cycles, and average heart rate was at 150 bpm.

We had a slight pit stop at Muara Beach and met Tn Moza, Tn Hafiz and a couple of the SF guys. Once we finished our ride I went for a short jog, covering 1 kilometer only. Felt like a big effort in doing so, which shows that I am still not ready to handle a triathlon.

Oh yeah, Faiq came along riding on his new ride. It is a Giant TCR Advanced 2 year 2010. Looked good and he claimed that it is considerably lighter than his previous ride. I said to him "Giant is different, you don't want to stop". Haha, as the cliche goes, once you go Giant, it is hard to go back. Point of fact, when he got his Giant, it came with a reflector, pictures as shown below.

Giant Blue with its reflector... ;)

The Two Giants

Car: Rain

There goes 5 dollars out the window... :(


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Location:Sg Liang

Car: Wash

Here I am waiting for my car to be washed. Talking about which, it can be seen as a form of maintenance. More often than not, I hear people saying the interior and exterior whatnots of a car reflects the person. Haha, what a load of bull. It is like claiming, if you do not wash your car, you do not take a shower yourself.

To me, time and situation dictates everything. We live in a fluid time space. Things change in a matter of moments. Not that I dislike seeing my car squeeky clean, but the weather is unpredictable and i can not invest a great deal of time and effort on menial things.

Seems like i view my car as a menial thing. Well, it is a form of transport to get me from point A to point B. Simple enough is it not?

Hmm, watching them try to wipe away the dirt on my car makes me realize something. Life is all about oppurtunity costs. We do something in the sake of foregoing another. Trying to rationalize which is better. In the end, we live our lives with the decisions we make now (or in the past for that matter).

My car looks good now. Another decision that I might regret soon, with thixk clouds starting to loom overhead. Haha, it is all good. A good decision to get the interior cleaned as well...

It is all done now and onto the next of my itinerary for today. :)

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Sport: Cycling

Having a ceremonial roti after an easy ride with the guys. A distance of 30.7 kilometers covered, with an average of 25.5 km/hr. Heart Rate was in the fat burning zone at an average of 134 beats per minute.

This is a fun ride for me. I enjoyed it very much. The route that we rode was from JP - Tutong Muara Highway - Tungkulink Road - Rimba Airbase - Muara Tutong Highway (Lambak Kiri Exit) - JP. We started at around 0740 in the morning and finished a little over 0900. As I said, a fun ride it was, with abit of a hiccup here and there.

An incident occured with Faizin getting scraped after taking a spill. His bike is fine with a bent left shifter. He claimed that he was fine with no injury to his ego. Haha, no harm Izin... The story went like this, on the return route back (on the Muara Tutong Highway) Faizin had sprinted forward ahead of the group, and knowing that we need to keep an eye out for each other, I tried to catch up with him. On the smaller bridge at Jerudong (the on with pipelines underneath), his bike got caught and he fell. Amazingly, he was fine with some scrapes. As the saying goes, any ride that you can walk away from is a good one.

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Location:Simpang 153,Rancangan Perumahan Negara Lambak Kanan,Brunei Darussalam

Sport: Cycling

I just came back from a cycling session with CLF. A distance of 49 kilometers was covered. My average speed on my cycling computer was 28.6km/hr. My average cadence was at 89 oscillations, and my average heart rate was at 155 beats per minute...

That was a tiring ride. I placed alot of effort and burnt out on the ride back. The last 10 click was horrendous. My body ached and all that... But never the less, I love the cyclist high that came after the ride. Splendid!

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Location:Lambak Kanan Residence

Sport: Giant's new accessories

I got a new accessory for my bike. I consider it as an upgrade from my old wireless computer, which is the echowell bri-12w wireless computer.

Now why did I go and get something new for my bike? Well, apart from I needed something to upgrade my bike, I also felt that I needed to start train more efficiently. It is not just about getting on a bike and riding around anymore. I need to work on my fitness and shave those annoying Kilos that I gained over the years.

I am also considering to start swimming, I bought a pair of goggles and have yet to find the suitable time to actually start going to the swimming pool. I have done a bit of running but like always, running is not strong in my blood. I may need to remedy that. But this is a long term goal, and I have set targets that I MUST attain. Hehe, so serious.

Eventually it goes back to determination and commitment. Seeing myself saying this, I may well be a different person from yester-year. It is 2011 anyway, in another year or so, god-willing, I will be in the next decade of my life. Hmmm, that is so depressing the way I think about that.

This post is turning more into a rant, so I guess it would be safe to stop it here. :)

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Location:Triple Star, Seri Kenangan Complex, Kiulap

Rant: Recruitment and Retention

A study was done on these two topics.these two work well hand in hand, but through unknown circumstances, everything is in a sorry state.

Recruitment. It is the process of acquiring a size of work force that will enable us to work progressively.

Retention. It is the process of keeping the existing workforce to stay in employment as long as possible.

The study works mostly on the HRM, the Human Resource Mangement. They acknowledge the fact that the number of entrees is not sustainable against the number of retirees. In this form of acknowledgement, they attempted to address the issue.

What do I think of this? I think we need to think of the action that we have done in the past and try implement measures to "cure" and prevent a detrimental pattern to form up... :)

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Location:Jalan Kumbang Pasang,Bandar Seri Begawan,Brunei Darussalam

Rant: Traffic Jams

"why do they name the period of time with minimal vehicular movement as rush hour?"

This is probably due to the fact that it is the time that everyone gets up and goes to work (in the morning) or home (in the afternoon). In some instances, there are places that have no movement for a long time. It is not that I am not grateful for living in Brunei, where the traffic is not that extreme. But I feel that a traffic jam is frustrating, just as well.

Coming onto the topic, traffic jams are not just caused by the sudden mass urge to pack up and go home, but even becoming a bystander can cause traffic jams. Yes, I meant the events of an accident. More often than not, the accident has been moved off the road pretty quickly. What happens after that is catastrophic. People in Brunei are extremely curious people. They love to get information, regardless whether the information is useful or not. So when an accident occurs, it is like they must memorize the cars involved, who hit who, licence plate numbers, male or female driver, etsetera...

I am not saying that I am not curious myself, but a quick glance would suffice my thirst for knowledge. There would even be people who would gawk at the scene. Making their own critique on how the accident occured and whether which is the guilty party.

Moving on from accidents, we come to another behaviour of Bruneians that I am not so proud of. The feeling that we are the only ones in a hurry. I am not sure how others see themselves in a traffic jam situation, but I would often see people with ugly behavioural patterns during traffic jams. Overtaking using the road shoulder and forcing their way onto the other lane.

I guess that is enough of my ranting for the time being. Until I get another idea on what to criticize, this is my rant.

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Start: A New Beginning

I am rethinking about my blog. It seems that i have moved on from what I see myself. So I am going to do something different and re-invent myself so to speak.

Starting with this blog and moving onto the other aspects of my internet life. I suppose some people just do not keep updated with who I am. But to those who are following me and keeping up to date with my life through this blog, I hope that I can keep you guys entertained.

What I can foresee the things filled into this new iteration of my blog are things that I find interesting and probably my own rantings in this thing that we call life.

This is a new start, it is a new beginning.

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Location:Jalan Kumbang Pasang,Bandar Seri Begawan,Brunei Darussalam