Friday, April 27, 2007

Why? Never Eat Rice Ah?

It rained from 4am yesterday morning. The rain did not stop even when my alarm rang at 6.30am.

Time to get up and prep myself for the Putrajaya BRICK, in conjunction with the installation of the 13th Agong.

Took a cold shower to wake the senses up. Wore the trisuit and strapped on my Chest Strap. Heart rate a low 56bpm. Could be lower right before i was jolted by the alarm.

Today is an exciting day. I am gonna attempt to do a 30kmx3 bike and a 3kmx3 run.

Reached Putrajaya by 7.15am. Raining heavily. Waiting in the comfort of the Info Centre outside Prime Minister Department was (visible) Azwar, Bacin, Shazly, Chipang and Ishsal. As i went down to greet them, i saw, for the first time, Azim, Sofian and Ngae and Zailan!!!

Then, i saw Faie, Aini, Azmar, Dicky, Saiful and Jaja. I forgot the name of 2 other person i saw, i know one of them is Steve's friend and the other is Azmar's friend. I'm so sorry!

Rained stopped/slowed down at 8.30am. Bacin, as the head honcho told everyone to kit up in 5 minutes. We were cycling by 8.45am.

Menu for the day changed to a 60km bike and a 3km/10km run, whichever suits your fancy. This was because of time constraint and a number of us are supposed to be back in the office for work.

Bacin took the lead infront and as PICC hill came into sight, he broke away and cranked up the hill. Everyone followed through...everyone. But me. I struggled up the hill. And this is just the first 5km.

"
Looked fast, but actually going at 28km/h only

Bacin, Azwar and the rest were really fast on the hills. I constantly had problem catching up with them.


Good drafting behind me because i'm so fat, blocking out all the wind


So, i also curi ayam draft behind SofianAzim and Bacin

The 3 pics above thanks to IronMan Azwar!. To see more pics, click here

First 30km split was done in 1hour 10minutes.

Second 30km split was about 1 hour 7 minutes.

Losing out constantly on the climbs to the rest of the more seasoned riders. A bit shy la.

Sofian and Ngae (which did the Sahara 200km ultramarathon) wanted to do another 30km loop. I decided to follow them. After all, the intention is to do a 90km ride today, no?

Wrong.

By the time i touch 65km, i was feeling hungry. I pushed the thoughts aside by drinking more water to fill up the void in the tummy.

By the time i came down from PICC, Sofian and Ngae was like 1km away. No way i could catch them. But i continued on, feeling slightly dejected as i'm such a weakling. As i touched 70km after passing the first bridge, i realised no matter how much i'm pedalling, i am going at less than 25km/h. Not very good since the same stretch i was gunning down at least 30km/h on the first 2 laps.

I decided to call it a day, picking up my ego and going back. Clocking in a mere 78km.

I'm skipped the run as well. No point. No energy. No point pushing on zero. I gain nothing but potential injury.

It took me 2hours 55mins to cover that 78km. My average speed was 27.2km/h, dropped from a high of 27.8km/h after the second round.


My daddy is a wuss

Two good things that came out despite this disappointment.

1. I was in aero position at least 60% of the time and felt comfortable. Able to shift the gears on the downtube with one hand resting on the bars and pedalling. No pain on shoulder, back or anywhere eventhough some says you might have it.

2. My last 90km distance as in Desaru last year, which took me about 4h7mins to complete. So a 2hours55min for 78km is pretty ok. I can even afford to do a 12km/h ride on the final 12km and still finish below 4hours in the bike! Woo Hoo...so, cycling time indeed has seen great improvement.

But in the end, i am dissapointed because i can't do 90km in one ride. Which means, i need to train more and clock in more mileage. I do not want to be able to do just 90km as IronMan needs me to finish 180km. At least. The KFC ads kept coming to my head. "Never Eat Rice!" I shalt not underestimate proper food intake during races. Time to plan for that next.

I will head off to PD with family for a break. I will be swimming in the sea and running the PD tri's route. News i heard is that PD tri this year might be cancelled. One less race to look forward this year?

I hope not.


Ryan showing papa how it is done on the bike...with mama's help.

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