20 March 2008

Not a good week health wise. Stomach upset almost everyday. The day before work sucked too but today it was great because it's public holiday!

Woke up early to meet Wilson & Hasmadee in Hulu Langat. Arrived there at 0740. Got down from the car and notice my house key on top of the car! Luckily it didn't fall because nobody at home!

Then my stomach started to act up and I decided to go for it. looking around Bt 18 town, I didn't find any suitable place to do my business. Then I saw the bt 18 police station behind me. I went in and there's nobody inside. The place is almost empty except for a police radio. Went in into a not so nice toilet beside the lockup and did my business in record time! :)




After the Genting Perez climb we went to Sungai Congkak recreation area for some delicious nasi lemak. Nasi lemak shop coordinates N3 12.558 E101 50.578

Contrasting Weekend

This week is the opposite of last weekend.
Monday: Weights
Tuesday: 26Km cycling
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Jogging on the treadmill 3Km
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 68Km cycling
Sunday: Macro shooting

16 February 2008 Treadmill!!!

Hopped on the the new condo treadmill today. This is my first attempt at running after about 10 years. The main incentive is the heart rate function.

Pity the stationary bike don't have HRM, but it has the normal cycle computer. I use it for a while but it started to make noise. Disappointed I moved to the recumbent bike. I was not satisfied because couldn't go faster than 18 KM/H! So next I move to the treadmill.

I did 2KM in 30 min. Feel pretty proud of myself until I found out the norm is 3 miles or 4.8 KM in 30 min! I have to run constant 10 KM/H to achieve that! Today I was running at 6Km/H @ 6ºincline (183bpm ♥) before I hit the cool down button.

13 February 2008 Return to the Hills

After many months of not joining the Tuesday night ride, I went yesterday, bringing along my GPS.



It's an all guy affair, minus Arif. The first hill was tough as usually and I managed to stay behind Patrick's wheel. I reckon I can climb faster but not knowing the real condition of my fitness I decided to take it easy. A wise decision because on the second hill I thought I shit myself! On subsequent hills the suffering continues.

The good news; my riding times remained about the same. :)

Brain music: Kutty Pisase from 'Kaalai' & Ennai Thedi from Vijay TV serial 'Kadaillika Neramillai'.

19 January 2008 Hulu Langat

Going up. The above data from Nokia Sports Tracker, the graph dosen't look smooth. *read update below

Finally figured out how to display Nokia Sports Tracker data in Garmin Training Center. More on that later.

Today I went to Hulu Langat again. Another solo ride but I was joined by Yin who I met during the Fraser Hill ride. He was not riding. He was mapping a training route around Semenyih area for pre Fraser Hill ride in March.

The ride was tougher that last week's because I didn't do any training this week. When I reach the climb my legs went noodles but I I was determined to make it. The climb is not tough as Genting Sempah, it's just your legs are not fresh when you hit the climb.

Today I stayed in the middle ring and keep off from the last & second last cog at at the back. Halfway couple of pros overtook me! They were firing on all cylinders! Their cadence seems to be a lot higher. Amazing.

Reached the Jelebu/Selangor border and Yin arrived a few minutes later. He decided to be my support car for the journey down to Bt 18 town. We had drinks at Bt 18 town as I forgot to have my snack before cycling down the hill.


There's a loop on Google Earth above because I took a wrong turn and have to detour. Looks like from the image I should have went ahead and take the bridge to join my normal route.

Bike meter says;

Max speed:49KM/H, Distance:58.2KM, Riding time:2H 20Min, Average speed:24.9 KM/H




Going down. Data from Garmin XT

*Update; since Nokia Sports Tracker logs at 1 sec interval it will have more data compared to Garmin XT (4 sec) which makes the graph look bunched up. I have to filter the points by 4 sec or more in Mapsource to make the graph look smooth in Training Center.

16 January 2008

It started to rain as soon as I got out of my front door. I waited for a 10 minutes and then decided to stay home. It probably didn't rain in Taman Tun and the Tuesday night ride would have went on as schedule. Will try next week.

So this week I managed to fix the data transfer error between Garmin XT and Mapsource. I format my phone! I did backup my data using Nokia software but it didn't backup my data in the card! After re-installation the Garmin applications works.

Another problem I notice was the GPX format in Nokia Sports Tracker program. It doesn't put the actual speed in the tag. It writes the speed information without a tag. This is why every time I convert the data the speed is all wrong! Emailed the developers. So for now Nokia Sports Tracker is no good if you want to download your training data and display it on Garmin Training Center. However I'll still use it to do non- workout tracking for geotagging my photos since the application is lightweight compare to Garmin XT.

11 January 2008 Hulu Langat

Went to Hulu Langat alone after couple of weeks of no activity. This is my second ride, the first with PCC. this time it feels 'easier'. It took me 1hr 18 min to reach the Selangor-N.Sembilan border. If you start the climb at 8.30am you get to see magnificent view of the mountain range. The valley below was covered in mist and the mountains in the distance looks like snow capped with their tip covered in clouds.



The let down of the trip is my Garmin GPS software crashed when I reach home. All the data gone! I have to reinstall the program and upgraded to a newer version( XX.XX.60). So far the performance is good. Better and faster lock... indoors!

I've been emailing Klaus Bechtold of GPSies.com for him to include Nokia Sport Tracker GPX files in his converter so that I can view the ride detail in Garmin Training Center. Please visit his site.