Astalavista 2011

We just had our annual performance review for 2011 yesterday, portraying to everybody in the company what have I achieved (read: contributed) for the past twelve months in terms of profit margins.

Continuing the same spirit, but diverting the attention to my current passion which is endurance sports, allow me to present you my glorious track record for 2011.

I gloriously spent EIGHT freaking months resting. Hahaha..
Satu contoh teladan yang tak wajar diikuti sama sekali.

To put things in bullet points...

1) I only ran in four events this year. Yes, FOUR only. And they were all short distance runs. Pirated two of them (Men’s Health & KOTR). The final two events were Nike KL 10k Run and Malakoff 12km.

2) My only medal of the year is the one that I get during Malakoff 12km run. Seketul aje dong!

3) No multi-sport events at all. No duathlon, no triathlon. I only participated in the jealous-thlon events when I saw my friends updated their stories on FB.

4) No marathon event at all. Makanthon event je yang selalu buat, almost every month.

5) Eventhough it has given me some degree of sun tan, I never consider golf as an endurance sport. It was purely for work/business, although it feels good when I started to see some improvement in my consistency of hitting those tiny little white balls.

6) Gosh, I miss my tangan-dan-kaki-belang-belang-hitam-putih due to sun tan caused by running or cycling.

7) For some reason, I’m quite surprised that this blog still exists until today.

To be honest, I do wish to make a come back in 2012. How, or what, or in what magnitude it will be is still in the planning process. Whether the plans will really come true, is nothing that I can promise either.

One thing I find out though, is that, indulging in your passion (like sports or anything else) is a good way to balance up your life, even though it is often not easy to find the right balance to do it. Just saying…

Astalavista 2011!!!

Pantun Penutup Tahun

Ucapan salam pembuka kata,
Pemanis mulut senyuman diserta,
Blog sendiri dah lama tak buka,
Asyik ber-FB dan Dailymile saja.

Ikan siakap ikan kerapu,
Dimasak sweet sour enak juga,
Sekian lama aku tak merapu,
Rasa dah macam tak pandai pula.

Blog tak update sekian lama,
Rasa rindu terkadang menerpa,
Mood dah hilang entah ke mana,
Idea dan ilham tak kunjung tiba.

Sepanjang 2011 banyak berehat,
Event dan races semua tak hirau,
Seluar dah rasa semakin ketat,
Perut dah buncit jiwa dah kacau.

Bila dah makan terlebih kenyang,
Butang seluar hampir tertanggal,
Nak lari semula bukannya senang,
Penyakit malas sangatlah tebal.

Perlahan-lahan mengorak langkah,
Berlari anak terkinja-kinja,
Baru nak lari memanglah mengah,
Kalau nak terer sangatlah seksa.

Berminggu-minggu berbulan-bulan,
Mileage ditambah hari ke hari,
Letih dan penat tetap ku tahan,
Asal terasa puas di hati.

Bila fitness dah makin meningkat,
Terasa diri semakin semangat,
Kekadang enjin ter-over hangat,
Kaki dah lembik jantung dah penat.

Tahun baru bakal menjelma,
Banyak rancangan banyak acara,
Nak masuk yang mana tak tau nak kata,
Poket dan wallet harus ditanya.

Tahun yang baru lagi seminggu,
Terasa nak buat lah azam baru,
Nak update blog lebih selalu,
Berjaya ke tidak belum ku tahu.

Kepada rakan dan juga kawan,
Yang jauh dikenang yang dekat tak lupa,
Happy New Year saya ucapkan,
Semoga terus gembira hendaknya.

Demi Kerja

Demi tugas dan demi kerja,
Panas dan hujan ku harung jua,
Kalau dulu berlari sahaja,
Sekarang terjebak dengan golf pula.

Ku hayun hayun ku pukul pukul,
Si bola kecil berwarna putih,
Bukannya senang nak straight betul,
Banyak melencong itu yang letih.

Kalau 9 holes kena dua jam,
Kalau 18 holes minima empat jam,
Di bawah mentari terasa nak pitam,
Kulit dah makin hitam al-legam.

Makinlah susah nak balance training,
Family, kerja dan juga sukan,
Makin lama hai makin pening,
Silap strategi ada chance pengsan.

Amacam, berapa bintang nak bagi markah untuk gaya ni?
Hehehehee...

Runners Are Weird

Runners are weird, when they say “Never again!”, or “This is so going to be my last race E-V-E-R!!” after finishing a very challenging run race, they will end up registering for another race almost immediately after they reach home.

Runners are weird, they know all of the running shoe models (including the color variations, model year, price) in the market. Don’t be surprise, they might not know how many model of Proton cars are on the road currently. For them, cars are all same. But not running shoes, each of them are different.

Runners are weird, they can memorize other runners from the type or model of shoes they are wearing. Statements like ”Eh, do you know Mr. X? Alaaa… the guy yang pakai kasut Nike Free kaler merah tuuu…”.

Runners are weird, when other people collect fridge magnets or key chains, they collect running vests and medals (and some of them even collect running bibs!). Running shoes are already a collection item by default laa, no doubt about it.

Runners are weird, they have more running shoes than their work shoes. And they wish their work shirts or uniforms are made out of dri-fit material.

Runners are weird, they don’t mind if they get stuck in a traffic jam for an hour. But it will drive them crazy if there are too many runners starting up in a 10km race as that will slow them 3 to 4 minutes for having to maneuver in between them.

Runners are weird, they have this amazing ability to wake up at 5am (or earlier) on weekend mornings. However, they find it difficult to wake up before 7.30am on any other working days.

Runners are weird, some of them may appear quiet or serious. But once you tell them something like “I’m planning to start running…”, you’ll see how talkative they can be. You’ll fall sick listening to their non-stop dramatic stories.

Some runners are weird, when they feel they are not good at running fast or far anymore.. they switch to playing golf.

Eh wait, that sounds very much like me...

10 Perkara Dulu Dan Kini

Masa tengah fit dulu…

1) Training hari-hari pun tak kisah. Infact, lagi banyak training lagi terasa ‘high’.

2) Hujan ke, panas ke, tak menjadi faktor penghalang. Kalau hujan boleh training dalam gym. Kalau panas di siang hari, boleh training di waktu malam.

3) Waktu bangun pagi di hari minggu adalah lebih awal daripada waktu bangun pagi di hari kerja. Semata-mata sebab nak keluar awal untuk pergi long rides or long runs.

4) Adakalanya sanggup makan nasi putih dengan ayam rebus je, demi nak dapatkan low fat percentage supaya bertambah fit dan lean.

5) Merata alam sanggup ku jejaki untuk pergi race events.

6) Pilihan makanan dan kuantiti makanan adalah untuk replenish tenaga yang telah diguna semasa training. Sangat berdisiplin.

7) Setiap kali nak masuk race, mesti training betul-betul supaya boleh buat PB baru.

8) Kalau kena muscle cramp semasa race masih boleh senyum sambil berkata, “Aaah.. biasa la tu. Orang kata no pain no gain kan”.

9) Tiap-tiap kali timbang berat badan, tersenyum bangga dengan pencapaian diri sendiri me-maintain berat badan.

10) Orang kata, badan sihat otak cerdas. Nak blogging pun terasa happy, idea flowing like water fall bak kata orang putih.

Bila dah tak fit dan bergelumang dengan virus MALAS…

1) Kalau boleh hari-hari tak nak training. Buat apa nak training kalau tak masuk race, kan?

2) Eish… orang kata tak elok dok kat luar time jerebu ni.. tak gitu?

3) Pagi hari minggu la yang paling tak senonoh. Kalau bukan nyaris-nyaris nak jadi subuh gajah, subuh dinasour la jawabnya… ish ish ish. Teruk betul.

4) Makan ayam rebus? Buang tebiat ke apa? KFC kan ada…

5) Merata alam sanggup ku jejaki bila ada orang ajak makan…

6) I can’t think of any other reason… semua orang makan sebab nak kenyang… kan kan kan? Mana ada sebab lain...

7) Langsung tak tau apa race event minggu depan dan minggu-minggu yang akan datang. Majlis open house raya ada la...

8) Jangankan muscle cramp, baru kena gigit nyamuk pun dah menyumpah seranah tujuh keturunan. Kesian nyamuk tu...

9) Tiap-tiap kali timbang berat badan, terasa makin menyampah.

10) Orang kata, badan pun lesu lidah pun kelu. Dah lapan kali terasa macam nak tutup terus je blog ni.

Drama betul budak EnAikAY sorang ni... kan?

Entahlah Belalang

Dahulu asalnya nak rehat sehari
Konon nak rest kaki dan sendi
Sebelum badan terkena injury
Juga nak focus pada family

Semakin lama semakin menjadi
Dulu sehari sekarang dah banyak hari
Berehat terasa hai senang hati
Perut pun mula menambah inci

Kawan-kawan tegar berlari
Menambah mileage setiap hari
Diri sendiri terasa envy
Tetapi malas membukit tinggi

Bila nak re-start susah sekali
Memberi alasan tak henti-henti
Meeting dan travel ke sana ke sini
Hujan, jerebu dan juga busy

Sedar tak sedar badan dah berisi
Lemak dah mula menonjol diri
Masih rasa tak sedar diri
Hari ni pun rasa nak rehat lagi

Marilah berehat lagi sehari
Cuaca pun mendung nak hujan lagi
Terpaksa cari alasan begini
Supaya tak rasa bersalah sendiri

Bergelak ketawa bergeli hati
Sambil tangan menepuk dahi
Sampai bila nak jadi macam ni
Daku bertanya diri sendiri

Entahlah belalang…

Slim La Sangat

I was chatting with a runner friend, when suddenly we changed topic and started talking about weights and metabolic rate and about me losing 3kg during the fasting month without any exercise. Here goes some of the excerpts... (of course modified, for better dramatization effect).

Me: I langsung tak run sejak start puasa. The last one I ran was at Putrajaya yang time malam Men's Health run tu je. Shockingly, I reduced about 3kg by the end of Ramadhan. Langsung takde run the whole month. Within 1 week of Raya je I dah easily gained back 1.5kg or so... and the number is terrifyingly increasing day by day.
Perut sudah bolaatt...

Friend: Wahhh so good ar turun 3kg. hehe. I think I gained back 1kg ni balik...
Metabolic rate you tinggi ok la. If you lose weight just like that meaning senang for you to control your weight...

Me: The truth is, bukan senang nak tahan nafas lama-lama di depan korang supaya kelihatan slim tau... especially bila ada photographer. Hehehe.

Moral of the story:
Training-training jugak, makan-makan jugak. Tapi jangan lupa training tahan nafas supaya nampak slim ye.

Ngeh ngeh ngeh...

Kot Ye Pun

Kot ye pun kalau nak perli aku, janganlah sampai hantar kad ucapan raya yang sebegini rupa bro.... bergenang air mata woooo...

Bergenang air mata sebab lupa bawak ironing board balik kampung.. huhuhuu

Hahahahaa... don't worry bro (identiti sebenar pengutus kad ucapan ni terpaksa dirahsiakan). I like this very much. Honestly speaking. Tergelak aku sorang-sorang bila bukak email pagi tadi.

Inilah kad raya virtual yang paling sempoi aku pernah dapat sepanjang berkecimpung dalam arena endurance sports ni.

Thank you my friend. Nanti kita training sama-sama lagi.. tengok sapa yang lebih terer iron seluar 2XU...

Not to forget to my dearest readers:

SELAMAT HARI RAYA AIDILFITRI
MAAF ZAHIR DAN BATIN

Night Time Mumbling

Last year when I was still working in JB, I was targeting to participate in many running and triathlon races, with an ultimate dream of finishing an Ironman triathlon one day. My typical weekly schedule was roughly like this:

Monday: Gym session + Swim
Tuesday: Run + Swim
Wednesday: Bike + Run
Thursday: Run
Friday to Sunday: Switch to my ‘weekend husband/daddy’ role in KL, while squeezing at least one long run (LSD) during the weekend. Or perhaps a back-to-back session if I feel a little bit desperate to ‘up’ my fitness level.

Starting this year when I switched my career and return to KL where my family is, my weekly schedule turned out awesomely not-as-what-I-wish kind of thing:

Monday: Lucky enough if I can run in the evening. Or else I’ll be stuck in the office doing some paper work when a submission is about to due.
Tuesday: I might need to go home early to pick up my kids, it depends.
Wednesday: I may set this day as my ‘off day’ without being obliged to justify any reason for it.
Thursday: High possibility for a round of 9 holes golf session with a client.
Friday: Again, high chance that what happened on Thursday might be repeated, although with another group of clients.
Saturday: A very ‘tough’ 10km run, which feels more like a 25km. (“tough” here doesn’t mean the running route is difficult. It simply means I FEEL IT IS DIFFICULT to finish this distance)
Sunday: It is the only day when I turn into an iron man (unless if one day I decided to start seeking some help from a third party, also famously known as ‘The Laundry Shop’.)

Tak dapat jadi Ironman triathlete, dapat jadi iron-man kat rumah pun jadi lah...

So you can see now why I haven’t done any single race this year, despite of already being in KL where races are abundant and just a few minutes driving away from home.

Am I whining?

Am I blaming?

Am I being hard to myself?

The answer to these are a strict and clear-cut NO.

No, no and no.

So, why do I bring up this issue?

It’s is to show how important someone has to prepare before attempting such an enormous endurance event in the like of marathon or triathlon. The higher the mileage of the race events, or the better Speedy Gonzales you are trying to be, the bottom line depends almost entirely on how much you prepare for it.

It is also to show that if you see your friends crossed the finishing line of a triathlon or climbathon or swimathon or marathon or makanthon or whatever which you thought you could never ever ever ever do the same, then you should think again.

It is really not a matter of who you are or how your body size is. Sports background or not, fat or not, busy or not. It is a matter of whether you set your mind to do it or not. What should appropriately come next to that is your proper preparation for it. Follow that through with smart execution, and put gazillions of patience while doing it. Never rush for a result.

At the end of the day, you’ll be crossing the same finishing line as your friends did.

Amboi amboi, pandainya aku ceramah. Macamla aku ni terer sangat.

Ngeh ngeh ngeh…

But the real fact is... I miss racing...

Pantun Side Stitch

Di pagi Jumaat nan indah berseri,
Cuaca mendung nyaman terasa,
Hormon pantunku tetiba tinggi,
Mari tengok apa hasilnya.

Anak haruan anak keli,
Berenang bersama bersuka ria,
Akibat dah lama sangat tak lari,
Maka side stitch datang menjelma.

Nasi lemak ayam berempah,
Dimakan bersama sambal berlada,
Pabila side stitch dah makin parah,
Mula lah gelabah tak tentu hala.

Mata terpejam mulut ternganga,
Melayan cerita movie yang horror,
Stretching dah buat tak hilang juga,
Nampak sangat aku tak terer.

Poco-poco ramai yang tengok,
Di KLCC Park they “move-it move-it”,
Bila dah side stitch lari pun tak syok,
Muka pun kelat menahan sakit.

Selalu bersukan banyak faedahnya,
Badan pun sihat otak pun cerdas,
Nak hilangkan side stitch senang caranya,
Traininglah selalu janganlah malas (macam saya!).

Ikan siakap goreng bercili,
Tomyam udang ‘terbaek’ juga,
Cukuplah dulu sampai di sini,
Hormon dah turun ke paras biasa.

Dengan kata lain… dah takde idea nak pantun la ni.

Have a nice weekend y’all!!

It Is Now Four

Today, four years ago was the first day EnAikAY blogspot came as part of my life. It started of when I was in the States having my job training, and I had plenty of spare times to blog about my sports activities.

And that's how I started doing endurance sports, in conjunction with blogging.

I did the runs, the swims, the cyclings, the races... partly because I want to have something to blog about. And I think that's pretty much what I always blog about, which unfortunately makes some people feel fed up. Well, as a matter of fact I cannot please everybody. Heck, I can't even please my own self all the times.

So, coming to the beginning of 2011 when I moved back to KL for a job change, a lot of things have changed. And with the appearance of my second child, that too has shifted my focus in life, for the time being at least.

Combination of both, I know I had to re-balance my focus and I made the decision to keep it low and slow this year.

I'm taking this opportunity to celebrate my fourth year of blogging by re-starting my writings. I hope it continues for a much longer period. It's been a fun journey and though I sometimes fall into trouble when some of the readers get the wrong perception or understanding of what is being posted here, I guess that's part of the package. I'll take it as positively as possible for what I believe, nobody is perfect. Myself included.

So with that, happy fourth year birthday to my blog!

May EnAikAY keeps moving forward.
"To be, or not to be."

Yet to Decide

Every time my right brain wants to write something for this blog, my left brain will start to dysfunction. At the end, nothing came up. The idea to write just flew through my head without being jotted down. Time availability, a.k.a. the “line-not-clear” factor also contributes to the lack of blogability I’m experiencing nowadays. For that reasons, this blog is going to:

a) Be closed forever and ever. Sayonara.
b) Be re-activated, but with more nonsense and crappy entries which have nothing much to do with endurance sports
c) Be continually ignored, as it is for the past couple of months until Blogspot deletes it automatically
d) Be sub-contracted to another blog writer (anyone interested?)

I am yet to decide actually.

The truth is, I find it fun to blog. I find it fun to share something which might be beneficial for others in endurance sports specifically, rather than just being a plain bed time reading material. And it is fun (for me at least) to be virtually socializing through words left by readers on the comment box. I have a mix feeling between pitiful and happy when I see the statistics of visitors. Happy that there are still some of you out there who come and visit this blog albeit it being inactive. Pitiful because I can feel their disappointment when seeing nothing new is being put up.

I am yet to find the key to unlock this mental blocks inside my head.

Until then, let’s just hope there will be another blog entry after this one.
Ngeh ngeh ngeh.

New Prince of EnAikAY

Introducing, the new prince of EnAikAY
NIK ABDUL AZIZ

Once upon a time, there was a friend who told me that there are four significant phases of life which will somehow change our character in a way or another.

The first phase is when you start a job/career.

The second phase is when you get married.

The third phase is when you get your first child.

The fourth and last phase is when you get your second child.

I'm not so sure what was his source, and I'm not sure whether he said this based on his own experience. Anyway, if the above is somehow true, I'm now passing through my fourth phase of life. And if by any means my character is going to change, I hope the changes will be in the good direction lah.

Poison

Sometimes we do not realize that some of the words we use on daily conversations are not the best options there is. And even worse, these words bring negative energy, which I like to believe may have a subsequent effect on how we behave or react. For example, the word lazy, or in Malay, malas. You may not realize how often you use this word in your daily conversations, but let’s look at some of the classics (that I mostly experienced saying them myself).

“Hmm, malasnya nak pergi lari petang ni, mendung semacam je iklim khatulistiwa kat luar tu.”

Or,

“Aduh, susah betul la nak register race marathon online ni. Asyik sangkut je. Malas aku nak layan. Aku pirate kang baru diorang tau.”

Or,

“Hebat betul la diorang ni, almost everyday diorang update blog. Aku sorang je malas update.”

And you may have also heard about the “M-bug” flying around, haven’t you?

I know it is naturally difficult to reflect or observe our own behavior, and specifically our weaknesses. Having some little experience working and living in Japan for 364 days back in 2002, I generally concluded that one of the reasons why Japanese can be as what they are now today is that, they are not lazy. It is so obvious even in their conversations that until today, to be frank, I don’t know how to say the word “lazy” in Japanese language. For what I always hear, they would either say “I don’t want to blahblahblah…”, or “I cannot do blahblahblah…”. I never heard they say “I’m lazy to blahblahblah…”

It may be difficult to prove this scientifically, but somehow I believe using negative words may have direct consequences to how we react, or behave. It is such a poison to our little subconscious brains.

Talking about poison, don’t you think it is also a kind of negative word?

Especially when we talk about influencing another runner into doing something greater. Like motivating them to go for longer distance, or to run faster, or to upgrade from half marathon to full marathon. We tend to use the word poison, rather than any other positive words. How often have you said something like, “I want to poison him/her to do marathon”. Pretty often, right?

But, is it the best word to use? I mean, poison is a sort of negative word in this essence. So, when I woke up this morning and got a little sparkle of idea of what topic I want to blog about today, I came to think about this. About how we should promote using positive words, so that we become more positive minded and behave more positively.

Then I came to think, instead of using negative word like poison, why don’t we use the opposite and positive word like, fertilizer? Just like how we want to grow beautiful flowers or fruit trees, we would use fertilizer and not poison, right? And it would be much better especially when associating it with growing, or influencing, or motivating another runner into doing something better like a marathon. Don’t you think?

Perhaps we might try saying something like, “I think I want to fertilize her to do a marathon lah.”

Eeerrrkkkkk!!!

I think I’ll stick to the word poison lah.
At least it is a safer word. Hik hik hik...

Apa Khabar Ku?

Alhamdulillah diriku sihat,
Walaupun perut dah makin bulat,
Keje kat ofis berlipat-lipat,
Nak makan pun rasa dah macam tak sempat,
Nak baca blog dah rasa tak larat,
Nak tulis blog sendiri lagilah penat,
Tak lama lagi password pun tak ingat.

Tapi apa boleh buat,
Di dunia ini begitulah adat,
Sekejap lapang sekejap terjerat,
Bila senang bolehlah berehat,
Bila dah busy nafas pun tersekat,
Syukurlah badanku masih sihat,
Akal pun masih berputar ligat.

Walaupun cuma sekadar sekerat,
Cerita dah basi story dah berkarat,
Inilah aje yang aku larat,
Kepada korang masih ku ingat,
Pembaca setia dan juga peminat,
Waktu rehat ku dah hampir tamat,
Di sinilah aje yang aku sempat,
Semoga bertemu di lain tempat.

Oh, I miss group running so much...

Gambatte SCSM Runners!

Oleh kerana hormon pantun saya hari ini sangat tinggi menchanak, terpaksalah saya kumandangkan beberapa rangkap pantun merapu moden untuk tatapan rakan-rakan yang akan berjuang di tanah seberang Selat Tebrau pada hari Ahad ini.

Pulau Pandan jauh ketengah,
Gunung Daik bercabang tiga,
Training dah sudah prepare pun sudah,
Waktu berjuang tiba masanya.

Pisang emas di bawa belayar,
Masak sebiji di atas peti,
Flight dan hotel sudah dibayar,
Jangan lah sampai tak jadi pergi.

Pucuk pauh delima batu,
Anak semilang di tapak tangan,
Mulakan langkah satu persatu,
Berhenti halfway dibuat jangan.

Buah cempedak di luar pagar,
Ambil galah tolong jolokkan,
Korang semua pelari tegar,
Apa nak takut apa nak heran.

Tuailah padi antara masak,
Esok jangan layu-layuan,
Pelari dah ramai bersesak-sesak,
Yang penting jaga keselamatan.

Modal berpantun dah makin kurang,
Otak dah beku idea dah tiada,
Good Luck All The Best kepada korang,
Semoga berjaya di Singapore sana.

P/s: Oh ye, pesanan penaja sikit. Adalah dengan ini ingin dimaklumkan bahawa EnAikAY tak masuk acara marathon kat SCSM tahun ni ye. Jangan percaya kepada dakyah-dakyah yang disebar oleh parti "Lambung Sakan" tu. Sekian, terima kasih. Hehehe.

When Long Felt Short

Last Friday was Deepavali so we had an extra day of ‘weekend’. It was a long weekend for me, which felt quite short as it was filled with many interesting things I managed to do as a mean to rest my brain from the hectic work life. I’m still busy with work, so I hope I’ll go along with photo-log this time around.

Friday

It became the day where EnAikAY turns into a DIY (do-it-yourself) guy. We went to the filled-with-human-beings Ikea to get some shelves and chest drawer. The home needs a little bit of housekeeping lah.

I started off with assembling this Gorm shelving unit. Since we live in a relatively small house, we need to store things vertically wherever we could.
In total, we have five of this unit altogether since we first moved in.
(Photo from Ikea website).

With a little bit of extra space in the credit card before it hits its limit, my wife wants to have this white chest drawer for the master bedroom.
It took me about the same time of doing a half marathon run to finish up with the assembly of this chest drawer. But it was fun, for me at least.
(Photo from Ikea website)

Saturday

EnAikAY puts on his running attire and did a relaxing run from Bukit Aman to Hartamas and back. It was a pretty quiet and descent morning for a long run. Syah and I chatted all the way, reflecting on lots of things from school day memories (yes he was my senior back then), past racing and training experiences, future plans, and also on some other general gossips (ahahaaa). Lambung session was held at a very sopan santun manner.

By the way, it almost went into a disaster day when I wrongly updated my Dailymile for the time we took to run that 20.7km. I wrote 1hr09mins instead of 2hr09mins.
Thanks to Syah who quickly SMS-ed me for the typo, or else I might end up with bleeding ears for the whole day. Tak boleh kasi chance sama itu lanun-lanun jalanan di dalam Dailymile
(I didn’t carry my camera this time, so above photo was the one during KL marathon this year).

We also had some fun time in the swimming pool. Though my daughter was initially a little bit scared to be left alone, I managed to convince her with some water confidence.

We then went for a wedding in the afternoon where I happily did my post run recovery carboloading. The nasi minyak was perfect, with gulai kambing and roasted chicken as the main side dish. It’s ok to be boroi once in a while, right?

An unexpected decision was made to travel to Kuantan to pay a visit to my wife’s grandma who was not feeling well. My daughter was also looking forward to re-visiting the beach after a long while, so did her daddy.

A very heavy storm was heading our way. My daughter was a bit frustrated as we only spent 5 minutes there. So, I promised her to come to the beach again the next morning.

Sunday

Sunday gave us a wet morning with some drizzles but a promise is a promise. After breakfast we went again to the beach. I love spending time at the beach, even if I don’t go into the water for a quick swim. It was so relaxing, and calm.

While they were busy enjoying themselves with the sand, I made my self busy practicing some photography skills.

And with no other chance for good heavy, free and guilty meals of the day (read: wedding ceremonies), dapat telan buah kelapa pun jadi lah.

The journey back to KL yesterday evening was a bit packed, especially upon reaching the toll gates. But nevertheless, it was a great get-away weekend for my family.

This coming weekend, another get-away race weekend in Seri Manjung, Perak. So this week will be a combo of peaking up, tapering, carboloading and final gearing up, all jumbled up baeek punya. Pening kepala aku.

P/s: Oh Monday blues, why do you have to come and visit me today? I never invited you lah.

Pantun Hari Kelahiran

26 Oktober hari ini,
Hari lahir saya sendiri,
Usia meningkat satu lagi,
Rasa bersyukur pada Ilahi.

Pejam celik pejam celik,
Rambut putih tumbuh di kepala,
Tiada yang ajaib tiada yang pelik,
Itulah tanda saya dah tua.

Tiada apa yang special sangat,
Cuma terasa sedikit ralat,
Birthday kita orang ingat,
Birthday orang kita tak ingat.

SMS masuk bertubi-tubi,
Ramai yang bagi salam ucapan,
Di Facebook wall pun ada banyak lagi,
Terima kasih saya ucapkan.

Keje pun banyak tak siap lagi,
Eloklah saya mengundur diri,
Terima kasih daun keladi,
Hadiah saya bila nak bagi?

Takyah susah-susah la, kalau nak bagi hadiah, Cervelo P2C yang macam ni pun ok je.

Weekend Warriors' Babies

Last Saturday afternoon, we had a small gathering at Ian's private studio to celebrate (belatedly) the babies of our weekend warriors.

Ian with his baby boy, Aaryan.

Syah with his baby girl, Aiden.

Jaja with her baby girl, Alya.

Fong with her baby boy, Aydeen.

Zaki with his baby boy, Halief.

(P/s: Don't ask me their full names.. I can't even spell them)

And since I'm all upside down with work load for today and the rest of the week, I can only leave you with the slideshow of the photos I captured during our gathering. It is a I-dumped-in-everything photo album. No time for any captions, or to even put my signature watermarks. No time for story telling this time.

All in all, we had great time gathering around each other with our families. We get to know each other, we get to know our families, we get to eat amazingly delicious great food prepared by Ian, and Syah, and Kash, yummy cheese cake from Shaqi, and also able to enjoy fresh cold cut watermelons and grapes by Jaja, and oh-sorry-I-forgot-lah-who-else-brought-what.

But, one thing for sure, I guess we all had fun. Thanks so much to Syah for organizing this gathering, and thanks so much to Ian for hosting and allowing us to do carboloading party (sort of) at your private studio.

Banana Fruit Twice

Do you guys still remember when I blogged about the U-Nik-ness of my full name? If you've forgotten, you can revisit it here.

I thought only in primary school that people would mistaken me for a girl, based on my name. Tak ku sangka-sangka, pisang boleh berbuah dua kali rupanya...

And this invitation came from the secretary of my very good old friend, who just called to ask for my email address.
Now I wonder if people still get confused of my gender even after hearing my voice?
Urgghhh!!!

Note: "Puan" in Malay means, "Mrs."