Slow is my middle name

I'm enjoying a few much needed days off. Actually I tooksoem work home with me but I haven't touched any of it sofar. It's school holiday and yet the house is quiet. Ati went back to kampung for two weeks to spend time with her auntie. Hehe, we send Danial and Dayan out to work (child labour). The two of them are on Perhentian island with friends of us who run chalets there. They are helping out by doing small jobs and enjoying a break as well. Life has come full circle: Perhentian island is the place me and Kalam met many years ago. We were both helping out at D'Lagon as well, now it's our kids working there....
So Darimi is getting mum's full attention. Actually I enjoy taking the kids out separately so I can focus on just one rather than bustling to get the whole bunch organised and moving.
Tomorrow I'm taking Darimi to the zoo, we are both looking forward to it. In fact he's allready telling me where we should go the next school holiday (movies and Perhentian island)!

Training wise things are ambling along. In March I started swim training with Mr. Peh together with Danial (Kalam doesn't want to join). It has helped me alot. Before my free style was horrendous, I could only finish a short distance before I got out of breath and my speed was slower than my breast stroke! Now I can free style without problem (it feels as comfy as breaststroke) and my speed is faster than breast stroke. But not only that, my overall stamina has improved. There are four two-hour sessions a week but I usually attend three of them. The six hour of solid swimming a week has definitely improved my fitness level. Before training during weekdays was limited to short half hour runs/ cycle or swim sessions as I have only that amount of daylight hours left when i reach home from work. Run after dark is scary here, not because of crime but because there are a lot of wild boars and dogs around!!!
Danial's swim has improved too, he;'s quite fast but tends to burn out because he cant control his speed. And in typical teenager fashion some days he loves the training, other days he gripes about it.
Yesterday Alvin tried to teach me bilateral breathing but I'm afraid I dont quite get the hang of it yet. Apparently i have to rotate more to the left, should be easy enuf, being well-rounded rolling over should be a piece of cake but it wasn't. In the end it looked more like a lesson in drowning techniques!!!
Quite a number of people have commented that I have lost weight but strangely enough I haven't. Would be delighted if i did lose weight (I'm still aiming to reach a normal BMI some day). Yet I have to admit that clothes fit more loosely, so probably changed some blubber into muscle.

In the weekends I have been cycling Sunday mornings, 40 - 55km rides around Putrajaya. Permanent members of the group are Sue Ee, X-man and Ike, nice group for me to fit in -not too superfast and fanatic (Broga is not yet for me, need to build up first). Other people who join us are Juli, Sandy and ken, Jason, Aini, Lin (hope she still wants to join us as she was accidently left behind when her bike broke down) , Norizan and sometimes Damian joins us halfway. Last friday was the first time I joined them on their friday-nite ride as well.
I have hardly done any running, (some pain in my hip after A'famosa triathlon) so I just take it easy for awhile.

I've doen some free-lance translation work last month and with the extra money I paid for swimclasses AND flight tickets to Miri for Danial and myself (Kalam will book under UPNM), so I will be taking part in the Sarawak triathlon for the 3rd time!!! Look forward to improve my time (hihi, can hardly do worse).

My watch broke so I had a good excuse to buy a heart rate monitor (nowadays they are so cheap, same price as a watch). I have only used the monitor once sofar (walking up Iron Hill) as in general I dont like being strapped in. So mainly it's just a cool looking watch. However I did monitor my resting heart rate (ialah, tak pandai baca manual, use for the wrong thing). My heart rate is in the lower fifities while reading or watching TV (depends on the show haha). Still an indication my overall fitness level is not too bad.

All in all; nowadays a 40km nite ride is just nice for relaxing, a 3km swim a good workout, sure slow is still my middle name but who cares....