Jabir dah 'steam'

Relax...pls don't get the wrong idea. The term 'steam' as we know it, had been used to describe men's physiological condition, but it can also be used to describe the out most joy or feeling.

Well it was Bandit(fellow OP, my senior from RMC), who said 'Jabir dah steam dah', when we completed the ride from Genting-Peres to Lata Tekala. Well, he was 100% correct. Mmg I dah naik steam. It was quite obvious as I had this 'puas' look on my face when we stopped to load up our drinks in Lata Tekala.

And now, I can declare that 'cycling' is indeed for me. Not to say that I'd be focusing on doing it alone, but I think I have enough experience to say that I can do it to complete a full triathlon. One needs to complete 40KM of cycling leg based on Olympic standard. I did 65 KM last weekend, which in term of distance, I have covered the requirement. Next step is to focus on timing.

Ok, lets talk about what I did last weekend.

On Saturday, I did arnd 8KM of running in the morning. It was a failure actually as I had initially planned to do 11K. I think(just making an excuse), it was due to overloading of protein the night before. We went to this restaurant 'Bif Sentral' near my house. On Fridays, they have buffet for 25 bucks. The amount of red meat that I had was a little bit too much, no actually, way too much than what I ought to have. So the next morning, when I did the run, my calf just felt so heavy. I made the decision not to run extra 2-3 K. But to reciprocate that, I sprinted up a hill about 300m. But still, I'd regard the whole run as unsuccessful becos I did not achieve my earlier target.

Arnd 12, I met up with Bandit to test out the road bike that he wanted to sell to me. After few pedals, I knew already that this bike will give me a totally new experience, mainly bcos its a road bike. So far I've been using Chipang's mountain bike, which has totally different features from a road bike. That was one of the reason why I wondered whether I shd pursue cycling or not as the weekend before I did abt 46 K using mountain bike, and it was not really a pleasant experience. With some basic modification to suit my body, and newly purchased cycling short (very, very important), I'm all ready for Sunday's ride.

On Sunday, the plan is to do BT18 - simpang tiga - Genting Peres - simpang tiga - Tekala -simpang tiga - BT18. Its gonna be T-shaped route. Ride from BT 18 -simpang was an easy 11K flat road. Good for warming up. Next was 9K of hard climb to Genting Peres, at times, I was cursing to myself, why did I sign up for this? But for the last KM, I was practically cursing to Bandit(sorry). He told me it was only 8K climb, I dont know where he got that 1KM discount from. But as I reached the peak, it was well worth it. And I enjoyed it even more during the ride back down. That was the 2nd Phase.

The 3rd phase was from Simpang 3 to tekala, it was abt 10K ride of rolling hills, not as tough as Genting Peres. But the challenge was that the road is more open and we were exposed more to the heat of the rising sun. I was doing this leg with Chipang, except for the last 2-3K, Chipang had to stop to fix his chains but asked me to carry on. The view was quite nice as we were riding along Semenyih Dam. As we reached Tekala, we re hydrated ourselves and rest before the last leg home.

I started to really struggle after the killer hill in Tekala, most of it bcos of the heat. Suddenly the view is not so nice anymore as I started to feel the pain in my shoulders, especially when I need to tilt my head up to look for directions and oncoming traffics. (Note: need to work on neck and shoulder in the gym).

We stopped 3K before pekan Bt 18 for Laksa Buyung, fully recommend this. So while waiting for the food n drinks, I was quite amazed to see small crystals of salt appearing on my arms, and I was not sweating at all. But, as soon as i started drinking, suddenly my body was drenched with sweats. So, earlier, when I was not sweating, I was actually dehydrated, hence no sweats only salt coming out from the body. After Laksa, we rode back to Bt 18. Had another meal in the Kopitiam. Bandit mmg terer, gila byk dia belasah kat Koptiam tu.

All in all, it was a very satisfactory ride. Good enough to convince me to buy the bike from Bandit. 2 key points
1.I was using the right type of bike
2.I wore the padded cycling shot, It had tremendously minimised the pain in my ass that I had the weekend before.

So guys, I think I can do cycling, and betul cakap Bandit, 'Jabir dah steam'. Just did 10K spin on Deepavali morning after 1K swim pasal dah naik gian dgn beskal baru.