In under four weeks, I will pack my bike and head for Hualien, Taiwan to attempt my first mountainous event. Here is a quick and very brief update:
On Track
- Outdoor training. I have racked up outdoor climbing mileage to the point that I am getting sick of going around NUS, NTU, Mount Faber and other mini hills (Vigilante, SBV, Bukit Chandu, etc) in Singapore. What has helped is being on a work training course for the past three weeks. This has given me sufficient time to train in the evenings. What has not helped is the recent insanely intense Singapore heat. For one reason or another, Singapore lost significant cloud cover for the past one and a half weeks. Some weekend late morning training rides had to be cancelled because of the heat.
- Bike prep. My Pinarello Dogma F10 Disk has been serviced and is ready to go.
Off Track
- Indoor training. My long serving Wahoo Kickr’s belt wore out and it took two weeks for replacement belts to ship in. There were many days (read: intense sunlight) when I would have preferred to train in an air conditioned room. I am just glad that my Wahoo Kickr is back up and running because I will need as much indoor training as possible. My personal view/bias is that indoor training is a lot more effective in building up fitness and power.
- Weight Loss. I have on average lost only about a kilogram which is just 25% of my full target. Being on course means I am getting fed snacks twice a day (2x tea breaks are standard for courses). I am aiming to slice off as much weight as I can without losing power before my cut off date of ten days before the event.
Next Steps
- Weekdays will likely consist of trainer evenings while I pray for good weekend weather for long outdoor rides.
- Weight loss will be touch and go but my rough estimation is that my current weight (65kg) would do fine. Anything more will be a bonus.
- I will have to get those Diamox pills for altitude sickness.
- Bike wise, I will have to try out packing the F10 in advance as this will be my first trip with it. (My previous trips were on my Crux.)
Here is hoping that the final four weeks pan out well!
