I didn't die today.

Nor did my daughter - Maya - Age 3

But it was close.

We were cycling to school and had to cross the last round about. A woman came in from the side and hit us.

Fortunately we managed to stay upright and no harm was done.

Some shakes.

 We survived because:

• I cycle aggressively. I try to block cars from doing stupid things that may hurt me. I had one behind me on the two lanes approaching the round about - so I moved into the central lane to stop him cutting me up on the round about. That gave me more time and space with the new line round the roundabout to react to the car that hit me.
• I cycle defensively - I'm always scanning for risks. I saw the car  that hit us - and knew it was moving too fast and I was in trouble 3 - 4 seconds before it happened. That gave me time to take action to protect us.
• I was signalling - the driver didn't see me or my signal - but it meant that my arm was in a position to give a warning wave. That I think was seen and got the driver to start braking.
• I shouted - Yep full on Braveheart war cry! Again I'm not sure that it was heard by the car that hit us - but it had two effects - it got people looking at the round about - great to have witnesses. And it released lots of stress hormones into my blood. Great for faster reflexes, strength and pain management
• I swerved and braked - With a child seat and 12 kg of child in the back evasive actions are difficult. No point being missed by the car - only to be run over as we've lost control!
• I do lots of core exercise - Big thigh muscles absorbed the impact. Core strength and stability meant that I stayed in control of the bike and didn't go over.
• God was graceful. Thank you.

As I cycled home I thought about what I should have done to the driver. The most attractive option - which was considered at the time - was to have dragged her out of the car and and started kicking and beating her to death. Carbon bike shoes I thought would do an excellent job in inflicting maximum damage on her face. This would have ended with police pulling me off her and my daughter screaming as she saw her dad being so terribly nasty.

The other option was to respond to it with love. 

And that is what I did. I told the driver off - with a focus on her actions - and the consequences that they had almost had to my daughter - then sent her on her way.

In life we must be grateful for the good things - but not vengeful for the bad ones. Today will change that woman's life. My actions in forgiving her will change her life.

I will not let her make me someone I despise because she has hurt and scared me.

I give good back to the world and hope to make a change 

Today God was compassionate and merciful. 

I didn't die

My daughter didn't die

I made the world a better place

Thank you 

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I picked up Senay and Maya at KLIA last night and was kicked out of bed at 0630 as the rest of the family had jetlag. No matter that it was muy alarm clock that had disturbed them from restful slumber.

Shortly after 7 I was on the road off to Gombak with the new 55 tooth chain ring ready for its first road test. The first 5 minutes were like - Oh Shit. This is hard work - but I think the majority of that was due to cold muscles, starting on a hill and of course the big gear.

I stayed on the big chain ring all the way - shifting down only when I bumped into Terry Tan - Terry whipped my ass a couple of years ago going up to the top of Genting - and almost killed me as I tried to chase him back down on my tri bike with no gloves. My hands kept on sliding off the handlebars leading to braking difficulties on corners! Terry was with a friend who was putting on a good show and so I shifted back up and shot off again.

I discovered that I could play my iPhone on loud speaker which was really cool - but not loud enough. I probably deserve some grief for this - but my answer is wear ear plugs!

I felt the ride up was a lot faster than last week - but my calculations made it either 53 or 63 minutes which was really disappointing. I over took 3 people and was caught by none and I rocketed past all 3. 43 minutes would be too fast.

The ride down - captured here by some dudes I don't know was a lot faster and more confident than last week.

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Another big catchup blog. Life is a bit busy at the moment and the blog has suffered.

Genting Sempah - Saturday

Saturday morning I headed out to Genting for my first bike ride in a year. I drove up and up and up towards the Orang Asli hospital but couldn't find it. Thinking that I might have driven past it and not wanting to miss out on the climbing I stopped and got everything together. 200m after starting to cycle I came round the corner and there was the hospital. :)

I was aiming to go up in as big a gear as possible and for most of the time I was on the 3 hardest gear of my 52-42. It was only after the bridge on one of the last tough corners that I shifted down. I spent most of the climb with a chap called Nizam from Taman Melawati  chatting away which was nice and I think kept both of us going faster than otherwise.

It was a good ride and I reached the road junction after 51 minutes  which was pleasing. Slow on the way down though as I wasn't comfortable with cornering and a bit shaky with my controls. I got used to it after a while.

Fallout 3 - Sunday

Well I'd intended to go running on Sunday morning but I'd started playing fallout 3 on Saturday afternoon. Senay and Maya were away and I had no other plans. as midnight on Sunday approached I realised that the run probably wasn't going to happen. I'd reached level 14 though :)

Work - Monday

Monday was a shit day at work. Lots of things went wrong; I was desperate for my swim by the time I headed off at 1500 for it. So my card didn't work in the car park and the attendant wasn't around. Trapped I went back upstairs to sort it out and got caught with more fire fighting. Leaving work just before 7 I was in 2 minds as to whether to go or not. Feeling guilty; not wanting to do it; needing to do it. So it started raining heavily. I went home.

TTDI Trail Running - Tuesday

I got up and couldn't face doing one of my usual routes. Boring - I'd done them all too many times  before. So I headed down to TTDI to do circuits there. The first one of the little park took 7 minutes. Running round another 8 times seemed miserable so I took a detour and headed up onto the mountain bike trails used for the Saloman Xtrail run.  Mondays are moderate uphill efforts and fast downhills. I followed the same route of the Salomon Xtrail run along the side of the jungle so I didn't get lost. I'd forgottent how long that initial climb was. Hard work - It must have certainly seperated out the racers during the run. I remember lungs burning by the time I reached the half way point.

Today it was easier. Lots of fallen trees and I wasn't  going at race pace. I was wearing my VFF's and was having to pay a lot of care and attention to where I was placing my feet. I got to where the first drinks stand had been and stopped for 30s before heading back downhill.

My coach has been telling me to run fast with a very high cadence downhill. On this trail and with my VFFs it really worked. It gave me lots of flexibility and control and I flew down. Landed on my ass and scraped my legs and arms. Whoops. Really good fun running - but actually hard to push myself to run at a hard pace over rough ground like that. I need to do lots more trail running.

Balcony Bike - Wednesday

Onto the 55-42 on the turbo. First thought was this was heavy. After a while though it wasn't so bad. A bit like swimming with paddles. Did my 50 minutes and really worked my legs and also my lungs every 3 rep. Pleased. Started dreaming of a power meter.

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As it is a recovery week I didn't feel the urge to get out of bed until 0630 and got on my bike at 0700 (front light isn't working so didn't want to cycle in the dark).

Fogot my heart rate monitor and the cadence sensor was playing up again so didn't really worry. Started off slow up the citibank hill and had nice rotation which meant I went up it quite fast. Did a U-turn at the bottom and tried the same thing and got about half way up before my legs ran out of power. Good thing that my next training cycle is on hill climbing!

Ambled along towards Kota Damansara and did a couple of power intervals ( I thought I was only meant to do 2 not 4!) and turned left towards the Guthrie Highway. Going down the under contstruction part on my aero bars I suddenly realised that there was a 2 inch deep trench across the road. Whoops. The front wheel hit hard but there seemed to be no real damage and I didn't puncture. Did the turnaround and then got caught in the traffic heading into Damansara.

Relatively slow coming back due tot he traffic lights and as the GPS and the Cadence Sensor were arguing no meaningful data was gathered.

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