Amazingly, after so many years of being a dormant member, I am still receiving stuffs from SDU (that's the Single, Dumped or Undesirable club of Singapore's matchmaking group).  Probably too lazy to unsubscribe but sometimes when I go through some of my dormant accounts (where I have to thrash hundreds of junk mails but I happen to read this).  This one's very interesting; it's not even an invite to an event or talk or anything, just a reminder to the members.

The topic is "Did I Marry The Right Person?" and it goes on a while talking about relationships, how people fall in love and it's not that hard, going thru the initial euphoria of love, yet after years, one's spouse's idiosyncrasies start driving one nuts instead of being cute.  There's a dramatic change from initial stage of love and much duller, even angry subsequent stage.  And at this point, the question is asked.

The answer to this dilemma does not lie outside your marriage; not to say one could not marry a different person, and *TEMPORARILY* one would feel better, yet be in the same situation again.  And Kit, you better be listening to this.

THE KEY TO SUCCEEDING IN MARRIAGE IS NOT FINDING THE RIGHT PERSON; IT'S LEARNING TO LOVE THE PERSON YOU FOUND.

Love in marriage is indeed a 'decision'.. . *Not* just a feeling.  It ends with a saying that God determines who walks into your life. It is up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go.  I think I'm stubborn that way.

I've been making it a point not to work over time for the last week, even though there are tonnes of things outstanding.  It's not healthy and it shouldn't be the way and I'm burning myself out by doing this.  So I'm taking things easier and just do whatever I can.

This happened to us today, when both Ben and me were spinning synchronously to the beat of Collin's music and then there was a skip and we were trying to get back into beat and yet trying to sync ourselves at the same time.  Which means he was trying to catch up to me trying to catch up to him which makes us ending up unsynchronized.  One of us have to move to the beat first, and the other sync.

On a separate note, saw Andrew Fang in gym today.  He just switched to Calfitness since last month.

If you love someone, let her go.  I don't know if she'll be back.

One of the things I've learnt about money early in life was from a comic book I read.  In Lone Wolf and Cub, one of the characters mentioned something to the effect of, two bowls of rice, that's all a man can eat, that's all he really needs.  Can't bring anything out of this world when you die.  It's struck me the importance of getting one's priorities in life right.

Of course, it'll be nice and good to have a lot, lot of money.  Don't have to work, can buy whatever you want, etc.  But nevertheless, I am happy.  I think I'm easily contented.  I have... enough.  More would be good.  Less wouldn't be good, but it wouldn't mean the end of the world to me.

Sometimes people get the wrong priorities in life.  You only get to live once.  Every second ticks on.  Sometimes you find something good and important.  You don't throw those things away; you treasure things - like friendship.

Wondering if I should ride tomorrow morning.  I feel like taking the morning off, at least work from outside office.   Probably hang around Starbucks or Coffee Beans... except I don't have the Huawei card where I can connect to the internet yet (using my phone will drain it's battery).  I still have problems connecting in using Singnet; it's a 50-50 chance.

Today I was tired.  When I was spinning (high cadence, at least 130rpm), my heartrate was still too low.  And I know I wasn't going fast either.  Probably recovering from yesterday, when I was spinning between 140-150rpm.  Yeah, that's pretty amazing, but the thing is I've gotten so efficient that spinning at 130rpm only raises my HR to 130bpm... barely.  And today was even worse when I kept dropping to 125bpm.  So I tried to go against the music and spin faster... but was tired, painful and I just stuck to around 130rpm.  Which I think is still pretty impressive.

I just need some time to clear my head.  A lot of things in my life now are beyond my control.  So I leave it to the other parties to do what they want.  Just a bit of quiet on my own.  Maybe I'll start from LH but maybe I will drop back to do my own recovery ride, where I just don't push and take my own sweet time to ride.

I forgot again - don't take 980 on Sunday evenings.  It's also the same evening as when taxis are not available.  Fortunately it wasn't that crowded on the bendy bus I was on.  In the afternoon, I went to check on some Initial D episodes on YouTube.  Then, too busy to watch, I cached them into my laptop, specifically Stage 4's last two episodes (23 and 24).  On the way back, I turned on the computer and started watching episode 23... and finished by the time I reached Thomson where I had to drop off.

Haha.  Way cool.

The ride began at 7.11am.  We rode out... slowly

Heading up Prata Hill, still going steady.  Looks like it's going to be easy going day...

NOT!  As we are still travelling at 34kmh at the top of Prata Hill.  This was the time for me to get away to get a headstart at Sembawang Hill and let the rest catch up to me.  I need the break; I was too heavy to climb Sembawang Hill.

Unfortunately, even as I gapped to Kit, Stefano had followed behind and there was the three of us heading out.  The group behind faded...

We reached the base of Sembawang Hill.  Kit pulls...

We are still going at 37kmh near the first peak of Sembawang Hill.  I call to Kit to slow down the pace.

It works.  Kit slows it down.

Stefano takes over and we speed up again...

Here we were still going at roughly 35kmh when I decided to let them go ahead.  Call it a day and let the pack catch me.

I take it easy.  Lance catches me but somehow we're not going the same pace.  Another guy comes along and we work together.  Same pace.

The rest of the pack catches up to us after the Expressway lights.

We don't really wait that long as another pack chooses to go ahead.  So we go...

I hang back and conserve.  HR is still high but I'm feeling better... recovering.

Have recovered.  Ready for second round.

We climb the first Neo Tiew hill at 34kmh.  Steadily.  It's manageable.

The pace is steady thru Neo Tiew.  Nice...

Some of the guys decide to go for the KONT sprint.  I don't.  But then a group tried to break away...

The corner is taken at just 24kmh... far from Thomson speed.  It seems fast though; I always chicken out at this corner.

I make an effort to gap to the group in front, drafting first, then pulling.

We gap.  Time to take a rest and let the rest do the work.

Sitting in along LCK Runway.

I'm too far back to go for the sprint but everyone else was just drafting so I went.  Didn't gap to the front group.  Not even close.  But it was a nice sprint for me.  I hardly sprint, so it's a good opportunity.

Regroup at LCK was fast.  The pack was pretty much together so we just went ahead after making a small U turn.

Oops.  The "break" at Boon Lay.  You can see we slowed down a lot here.  Riiiiight.  37kmh (but the HR is only 146bpm).

Tried waiting.  Didn't work as the group was heading out and I had to gap to them.  I almost didn't make it but fortunately the light was in my favour - the rest stopped while I caught up to them.

Took the corner into Jln Buroh without braking, two by two.  Woot.

Just drafting.  Didn't figure I could do much anyway.  Pooped already.

The bridge was bad.  But I managed to recover... and tried to gap to Kit who has a break now.  Oh uh.  Didn't realize the whole group decided to follow.

So now I gapped to Kit but I couldn't sustain the pace.  I can't even speed up to make it back to the paceline.  Over the red line... fortunately the line is long.  By the time the line ended, I actually had recovered and managed to get back in.  *phew*

A tiny sprint.  Nothing much can be done as again, I was too far back...

but not so far to realize the couple of guys in front wasn't stopping.  I passed Daniel Gan at this point, shouted that they looked like they were going (coz the lights was green)... and I didn't look back.  I just pushed as hard as I could to close the gap... made it in time.  Ah Boy and Stefano were in front.  Daniel made it too, with a couple of others.

Ah Boy has warmed up and with the trucks going around us, we were picking up speed even as I am recovering (again).  After this, we kinda splitted up as I waited for the rest who were obviously caught behind the Roundabout lights.  Couldn't go up to take photos and cheer the 70.3 guys.

Scott waited for me.  Together with Stefano, we climbed SBV slowly....
Up to the point just before SBV, we were doing 33.8kmh avg and I had like 148bpm avg HR for 50km.
 

And then made it to Botanicals.  Great ride.