Paul Arden | Tuesday, 30 September 2025
Well not quite, but almost. The Malaysian Ironman is a little over 4 weeks away (Nov 1st), so that has my attention. It’s been a pretty solid year of training since the last one. Almost every weekend a 4-5hrs indoor bike ride. And every week a long run of around 21km. Other days have been a mixture of shorter bike rides, weight training, shorter runs, my idea of yoga and some swimming. Total training hours has been 10 to slightly over 15 hrs almost every week. It’s not really about the Ironman; it’s about the training and the fitness it provides. But now, four weeks out, now it’s about the Ironman!!
I’m looking forward to it. All month I’m going to swim, because I’ve been meaning to do this and living on a boat you would think that easier than it is. Two solid hard weeks and then I’ll start to taper. In fact I have a guest for 6 days during the taper. A bit of cash in the pocket and I think guiding fits well with the taper.
The fishing at the moment is actually rather good. This morning I was giving a Zoom lesson and noticed a Gourami on the stumps. Which was a little bit annoying because I specifically looked for this behaviour yesterday evening, and of course didn’t find any! Although I did get a few shots at Snakehead.
And then immediately after the lesson from the Battleship, I noticed a set of babies. So I did what every angler would, dropped everything and chased after them. The adults weren’t breathing and then when they were they were a bit fast. So that didn’t work. But moving around a bit I had a few shots at freerisers and picked one of those up. I do like the colours on these juvenile fish even if they are on the small side!
The lake is very low at the moment and down about 12 meters. I don’t think I’ve seen it this low before. Close but not quite. Apparently they are doing some maintenance on the dam. The lake is extremely dodgy to drive at night. There are stumps where I didn’t know there were stumps. There are a surprising number of wrecked boats appearing as well, which adds to the foreboding.
The next couple of days I’m in Kuala Lumpur. My wife and I are having some swim coaching. I’m also dropping off three outboards in various states of destruction and trying to work out how to wire the 25 Yamaha 4 stroke to the thruster battery. Yes, I’ve decided to refit this motor, despite the late night swim about 6 weeks ago. If I flip the boat again then I’ll stop using it.
I had my casting lesson cancel tonight so I can go for a long run instead. And then this weekend I’ll head East to see what is going on over there. I haven’t visited that part of the lake in months.
It’s really nice to see freerisers on the lake and I’m hoping for some more gourami shots before the Big Wet arrives.
For 20 years of my life I used to enjoy the change in seasons. Spring, Summer, Autumn and then Spring again. Autumn was my favourite; I love the colours and it’s some of the best trout fishing of the year. And knowing that Spring was next just made it even better.
I find I get a similar feeling here. While we don’t have the major changes in sunlight and temperature (both day-length and temperatures are fairly constant throughout the year this close to the equator), we do experience seasons; Wet, Dry and “Summer”. “Summer” in this case meaning an afternoon or evening thunderstorm every 3-4 days, Wet meaning heavy continual downpours mainly at night but also sometimes during the afternoon and Dry being bone dry for about 3 months. And the jungle changes. Not just the lake level, but the Wet makes everything appear very green, Dry Season sees many trees bloom… and “summer”… well that’s just the other six months of the year and technically is “summer” because we are north of the equator and it fits with the Northern Hemisphere summer.
I’m looking forward to the Wet. I have a lot of guiding this year. I expect two one-week trips every month and three in January. Three new guests visiting as well as the regulars. That’s my busy guiding/hosting time. And it’s going to be a blast!!
But first… let’s see if I can negative split the Marathon I’m next month. In fact I’d like to negative split all three disciplines. That would be a good day.
Have a great week!
Cheers, Paul