Saturday 9 Feb. 3rd day of the new Lunar year. 14 days to Langkawi Ironman. Today is my go/no-go day. I will decide if I should go to Langkawi IM after today's 130km ride, consisting of two loops (Mandai - LCK - West Coast). Up till now, I have only rode two century rides - one on Christmas Day and one three saturdays ago.
There were only three of us : Joe Chua, Kok Aun and myself. Kok Aun has to be back by 8pm so he would turn back at the end of Mandai Road. We RV'ed with Joe at Thomson Road and he said he would do one loop. We did a relatively easy pace and saw Kok Aun off at Mandai Road junction. Joe and I continued to Neo Tew with Joe was leading much of the way.
My aim today was to get used to my feeding (Enery gel, yuk!) plan of 1 gel (110 cal) per 40 min. I also want to see if I can maintain 85-95 rpm cadence for all two loops. After finishing the first loop, we stop at Long House (Thomson) for a 100-Plus. Joe bidded farewell and adviced me to marry up and cycle in a group. I said I would but I did not see any groups later - must be CNY holiday.
Loop 2. Along old Upper Thomson and Mandai Road, I felt my quads stiffening and lost power. Oh shit, it looked like No-go. I quickly feed on my gel - the stop at Long House must have disrupted my feed. I focused on maintaining my target cadence to get best possible efficiency. (Power = Force x velocity. At the same power, increasing velocity means less force needed from muscles contracting). Fortunately, my legs somewhat recovered. The heat from the sun reminded me of Langkawi 07 and I wondered why am I still open to this "nonsense" again.
Loop 1 averaged 29.3km/h, loop 2 - 28.1km/h. Kok Aun said in his sms : "Not bad, considering the traffic lights".
Conclusion : Langkawi 08 - here I come. I want to see if I can finish in 15 hour with virtually no special training program. :-)
Written by Terence Ng
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