Ironman 70.3 Desaru Coast 2024 (17 May to 19 May 2024)

17 May 2024 

We’re going to Desaru and this time we driving my dad’s car in. We got the car from him the night before. My dad told me that his car has some locking problems. When we started driving, it seems to have some noises too… just hope for safe drive to and fro. 

I was feeling so tired today and luckily I took one day leave instead of half day leave. So i managed to do some packing in the morning and took a short nap. 

When Lexuan is back from school, we asked her to quickly eat her lunch and shower. She has a lot of homework but we don’t have time to do it. We left house around 2.35pm. Then we drove to Tuas checkpoint. There was a jam so we spent about 45 minutes queuing. There is no queue at Malaysia side. Thankful for papa Alan’s touch and go so we could enter Malaysia. 

We went for toilet break then off we drove to Desaru! Seems like our touch and go got not enough money. It’s weird as Alan’s app shows that it has RM70+ but the actual card only got RM4+. Luckily we managed to top up RM50 at Shell petrol station. Lucky we topped up as there is another toll gate. 

We finally reached Westin just before 6pm. It’s so familiar! Checking in is a breeze and so we quickly went to our room. The room is good and comes with bath tub! 

Jianhui went to collect race pack and then we went for dinner at the Beach Bar. We ordered the coconut vanilla milk shake, 2 pints of Tiger Beer, fish & chips and desaru burger. The food is just normal. Haha. Then we went back room to rest. Lexuan wanted to play at the games room but it’s no more. 

We slept around 10pm. I couldn’t really sleep though. 

18 May 2024

Happy Birthday to Roo Roo and Senja! 

We woke up just before 7am. We relaxed a while then we went for breakfast. Was kinda excited about the breakfast. I remember the nasi lemak is nice! Haha. 

Lexuan is happy with her cereal, doughnut, fruits and dragonfruit juice too. I drank teh tarik too! 

Then we went back to our room room. At 10am, we went to race village for shopping! We bought some shirts while Lexuan was sitting at a corner, playing with her tablet. She just doesn’t like to shop at race village. 

Then, Lexuan and I went to the Adventure water park! The weather is so hot! It costs us MYR250 (SGD72) for Lexuan and me. Lexuan is so happy playing the slides. I must say I enjoyed this water park too! She also made a friend which made it even more fun as they took those slides that Lexuan previously didn’t dare to take.  Her favourite got to be the slide with the floating board meant for kids. I also played a few times until the life guard told me to play for the last time as it’s meant for kids haha. Another of her favourite slide is the green tube slide! 

I took out my card from the locker and bought drink for lexuan and me. The locker is locked by our birth date and favourite colour. And it will last for one whole day so it is very worth it. Then I also bought our favourite butterfly ice cream which we used to buy from the mama shop near Teck whye LRT. Then this girl also told me she wanted to buy mamee. I also bought a waterproof pouch for our next water theme park adventure! 

We went to the cafe at Hard Rock to buy the jumbo twisties and cheezels! Then we walked back to our hotel to shower. 

We went to Woodfire for lunch. It’s just 5 minutes drive from our hotel. It’s crowded. We ordered the gourmet burger, curly fries, smoked chicken, strawberry milk shake and root beer. The damage is MYR75. We waited relatively long for the food when we finished our food in 10mins time. Haha. 

The fries is a bit spicy (to Lexuan). Smoked chicken and burger was not too bad. Lexuan likes the milkshake. Then we drove back to hotel to rest. 

I took a short nap and we relaxed in the room. Then Jianhui went to check in the bike at around 5pm. When he is back, we went to the transition area and the beach. Lexuan played with sand for a while. 

Then we went to the restaurant at Westin for dinner. We had the buffet. Lexuan ate her favourite egg sushi. And she was happy to eat chocolate marshmallow. We also got to make our own ice kacang. She loves this buffet concept as she can take the food she wants! 

I was very full. I can feel my tummy is so big. It feels so good to be back in the room lying on the bed. 

Jianhui and Lexuan were so tired that they fell asleep within 1 second. As for me, it took me a while before I fell asleep. 

I had a better sleep than previous night. Though I woke up a couple of times in the night, it was definitely a better sleep. 

19 May 2024

It’s race day! I woke up around 5.15am and Jianhui had already gone down for breakfast. Lexuan was feeling lazy and kept on saying she didn’t want to go down. 

Eventually, we managed to persuade her to go down together. The perk of staying just at the starting point is we could go down like at 6.20am when the race starts at 7.05am. Convenient to the max. 

Jianhui started around 7.08am. Then Lexuan and I went to eat breakfast. Lexuan is happy to eat the pancake, milk and fruits. As for me, I am happy with my nasi lemak! 

Then Lexuan went back to the room while I went to see Jianhui coming back from swim. Lexuan is now happy to stay alone inside the room though I must say I am still worried about her alone in the room. I got to see him cycling out with his bike before I went back to the room. 

We’re going swimming as promised to Lexuan. We spent about an hour in the pool. Then we went back to the room to shower. 

After shower, I rushed to see Jianhui at the u turn point for bike but I realized I was at the wrong place. Ended up I didn’t get to see him for 2nd lap. So I can only wait for him to be back from his bike. When he came back from Bike it was raining heavily. But strangely, the rain stopped when I was going back to the room. I was all drenched so I had to shower again. 

I ordered pizza for lexuan and she’s happy. She finished almost the whole pizza (except 3 pieces by me). Then I went to welcome Jianhui back after his bike. 

I managed to catch him for his first lap of run. Then I went back to the room. Lexuan wanna go to the beach so I brought her down. There is some activity for kid and so she made a paper fish which is very cute. She played with sand and we played soccer for a while before going back. It’s so hot and I am perspiring non stop. 

Around 3pm, then Lexuan and I went to the finishing line to wait for Jianhui. So happy to see Jianhui completing another Ironman! So proud of him! It’s such a brutal course. The weather is so bad! He’s our Ironman! ❤️

There is a foodline for athletes and the food looks good. Lexuan is excited for her papa to get the ice cream for her. Haha. We took some photos then went back to the room. Jianhui was enjoying the food he brought back. 

After resting for a while, we went to get che che. Then we needed to get ready to go back. 

We left the hotel round 6pm. Off we go! Lexuan is so funny. She said when she is a grown up and she has SGD300, she will bring ah gong ah ma to Malaysia. So sweet of her. And the reason why she wants to bring ah gong and ah ma is because she says they haven’t go Malaysia before.

We stopped over at Shell for the toilet. Lexuan fell asleep and managed to sleep again after going toilet. We also pumped petrol. Thereafter, it’s max confusion and jam in Johor. We kept on going rounds and rounds due to road diversion. It’s so confusing until we finally made it to the long jam. This is when Jianhui decided that we may as well drive to Tuas 2nd link. 

And so we drove to Tuas 2nd link then I realize Legoland is near Tuas 2nd link. We managed to go one last time toilet at petrol station. Then it’s all the way jam back to Tuas checkpoint. We then realized that the Jam is so bad today because of heightened security due to the murder of 2 police officers pre dawn at Johor. 

We were so relieved when we finally cleared Malaysia immigration counter and then the queue was at Singapore side still manageable. So glad to be driving back to Teck Whye. 

We finally reached Teck Whye lane around 11pm+. All of us (except maybe Lexuan coz she slept about 2hrs plus) were so tired. Lexuan was busy clearing her homework and of course I had to teach her. Luckily she slept well enough just now to have energy to do her homework. I nearly thought that she had to “skip” school the next day. My dad’s car has problems locking and so we went downstairs to fix it. I told the car that we are thankful for him to give us a safe ride and please be good. Luckily, it works after restarting a few times! Thanks goodness! 

Then we can finally rest. 

I was so tired that I slept all the way to 5.30am in the morning.