Its less than 3 weeks to go!

I admit I really had cold feet. I was doubting if my preparations were adequate. That despite all that effort in the last few months, my physical attributes and strengths are truly not quite up to scratch. My good mate SE gave me some timely advice: finishing dead last> DNF( did not finish)> DNS( did not start). Great advice indeed.  I promptly went out and did a long run of 20 km incorporating the hills of clementi and north buona vista and ulu pandan road. Had to carry the good old water bag( is that what you call it?) on my bag because weather was scorching and kept a slow pace of more than 7 km/min, aiming to run at a HR of not more than 140 on the straight and not more than 160 on the climbs. Took me 2 and a quarter hours but at least felt half decent. Also did a time trial in the pool of 2 km and completed it in 55 minutes with a combination of frontcrawl( with sighting) and occasionally breaststroke to simulate the turns. Also did a 60 minute workout climbing rifle range 3 times. The bike had been given a clean bill of health by the boys at Soon Watt and it was my first outing since the fateful crash. Was funny, went i mounted the bike i almost fell again this time on the right! landed on the bonnet of a parked jaguar! Thank goodness it was unscathed and there was nobody in sight to witness that embarassing moment. Did 3 loops huffing and puffing. my heart rate was 170 on the upslopes. had to avoid families of monkeys who by 630 were sitting in the middle of the road as they were not expecting any traffic. had to weave past them. i shudder to think of the possibility of me hitting them. given their close social structure, they would probably attack me if i was on the ground with a twisted bike after mowing down a couple of them. i know how sharp and fearsome their teeth are. i saw it at first hand at the lab!

as i move into the weekend, i have planned a bike-run-bike-run with SE tomorrow and hopefully i can do another hard bike followed by a short brick on sunday.