Ipoh, Malaysia - Racing

Practice Makes Perfect
I haven't raced in a long time and with a few more races coming in 2020, I viewed this as a practice race.  I've only been training seriously for about six months so I don't really have the fitness to race, but it's good to get out there and become familiar with it again, see what works and doesn't work, get in some reps.  With the technology available now, I knew what time was realistic - I was targeting around 3.5 hrs based on my power profile.  Everyone now uses a power meter, which measures watts of output, and based on this you can predict your times pretty accurately.  The past winners of my category - 45 years and up - finish in about 2.5 hrs.  So, realistically, I was racing myself.  I wanted to see if I could hold 80% of my hourly power for the entire race - especially since I was not feeling well.

I'd been fighting a bad sinus attack for a week or so.  Made me sleepy and a bit dopey and on the morning I woke up for the race, nauseous.  I couldn't even finish my oatmeal.  I also had a bout of diarrhea.  I was talking to myself "it's all in your head" - and that was only half true.  The race started at 7:30am so I left home at 6:45 for a warm up.  In the middle of the warm up I realized I'd forgotten my jacket.  I had to go back home to get it, which killed my warm up and got me to the starting line late.  By the time I got there I was way at the back of the pack.  This is why you practice.  It was amazing how many people were there - 800, most on road bikes, but some were racing in the mountain bike and fat tire categories as well.  There were welcoming speeches, blessings from an Imam and well wishes from local politicians and then we were off.  It took almost five minutes for the riders in the back to get rolling.

There were six miles of flat before we hit the climb, so I made my way past as many people as I could in the hopes it would lessen the possibility of a crash.  I had a simple plan.  Put the ego aside, don't chase anyone, just look at the bike computer and ride at a steady power.  When we hit the climb, that went out the window.  The first two miles are the steepest - a healthy dose of 10%.  Even in my lowest gear I was above my targeted power number and I knew I'd pay for it later.  My legs felt like they were on the verge of cramping, so I drank a lot of water.  After that initial steep section, it dialed down to gradients between 4 and 8% so I kept an even pace, telling myself to back off once the power went to high.  The first hour went well - I passed hundreds of people and had forgotten about my sinuses.  Climbing for hours has a way of focusing the mind.  At the two hour mark, I no longer had to worry about going above my targeted power, I couldn't even reach it.  I was getting tired and most likely the altitude had started to hit me.

At hour three we were in the clouds and I was actively looking at the number of miles to go.  They were ticking down very slowly.  The temperature was lower by about 30 degrees and to add insult to injury we had a nice headwind.  It also began to spit a bit, just a light mist.  I was riding with one other guy, who was on my wheel and when I motioned for him to go ahead of me, he replied "Nevermind la, almost there."  When I saw the "5k to go" sign I couldn't do the math to turn it into miles in my head.  When I saw the "1k to go" sign, I told myself "that's nothing, like two par-5s" except a golf course doesn't tilt upwards at 8%.

When I reached the finish line I was amazed how many people were already there.  It was a bit disheartening, to be honest.  There was complementary food and drink.  Everyone was shivering in their lycra.  I put on my coat, dug into my chicken and rice and took it all in.  Good practice for sure.  Most had transportation waiting to take them back down.  I, however, had to ride back.  All downhill, so fun.  Only interrupted once by a bout of nausea.  I thought the chicken and rice were coming back up but they didn't.  It's a well organized race.  Very cheap too.  For thirty bucks, you get to race, get a really nice KOM polka dot jersey, food, water stops.  I checked the results when I got home.  I finished in 3 hours and 28 minutes, which put me mid-pack in both my age group and overall.  I was a bit disappointed until I checked over the power numbers.  I'd ridden at 81% of my hourly power for 3.5 hours on a day when I wasn't feeling my best.  Pretty good.  Now all I have to do is train harder and raise my power.......