The Great Cycling Challenge Ride Report – Fighting Children’s Cancer

Posted in: Blog, Cycling | Oct 30, 2016 at 3:06 PM

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INTRODUCTION

After finishing all the 3 x Peaks Challenges (Cradle Mountain, Falls Creek, Gold Coast), I’m happy to just do my easy daily commuting. My next cycling challenge will not be until next year anyway; and that is the L’etape Du Tour by Tour de France 2017. So life goes on happily ever after until a post on my Facebook page came up about The Great Cycling Challenge (GCC). What is GCC? Basically it’s a movement to fight kid’s cancer which you and your friends/relatives/colleagues have the opportunity to raise funds for the foundation. In return, you get to choose your cycling distance you want to accomplish for the month of October.

I must admit that I love doing these cycle challenges because it keeps me waking up every morning excited. It’s like there is always a goal which you can always aim for everyday. And with GCC I thought, “All I need to do is just to do the distance. Effort-wise it can really be just a recovery/endurance pace”. So how hard could it be compared to 3 Peaks, right? Dang…how wrong was I!

Long story short, without thinking further, I decided to aim for 2,000km. Generally, I’m doing ~800-1000km/month from commuting and occasional weekend rides with the bunch. So the 2,000km would be more than double of my general monthly volume. When I first decided the distance, I did not think too far. I thought, “How hard could it be?”. Then I started marketing on my Facebook page about my intention to join the challenge as well as emailing my colleagues at work, etc.

Only after the donations started coming in did I realise that aiming for more than double of your normal riding volume is definitely not an easy thing to do. After I started writing down the numbers, I felt so overwhelmed. “How am I going to achieve this?”, I thought. To give you a perspective, I commute about 40km daily plus the occasional (once a month) 60-120km weekend ride. So to achieve 2,000km I now have to do 500km a week – which equates to 80km daily commute + 100km on the weekend for every week in the month of October. Now that the donations have been going in, there was no way I would back out the challenge.

So long story short, I in the end achieve 2,000km. It’s 31st of October which marks the last day of the challenge and I can proudly say I have achieved my goal. In this opportunity I would like to share with you my riding experience as well as few life lessons I learnt a long the way.

Please check out my Strava page for the ride log.

THE FIRST WEEK

I came into the challenge tired. That week of 1st of October I have not had a rest day (ie. days off bike) for about 2 weeks. My friends have been asking me to go out with them on a long hill ride the weekend before. So when 1st of October arrived, my body was just so tired. That weekend of 1st and 2nd of October I decided to do the challenge through indoor rides: 101km on the 1st and only 38km on the 2nd. By that Sunday my body broke down. “Oh no…this is only 2nd day and I already am almost giving up”, I thought.

One of the reasons why I do GCC (other than the excitement of the challenge) is to get a very little glimpse of what these children have to go through day-in-day-out. Can you imagine how tiring it would be for these children to have to go through chemo and all the pain everyday and yet they never give up? So with their spirit, I push on.

Came Monday I did my first 60km commute. I wanted to do 80km but I was just too tired. I wish I could tell you how I felt. My body just didn’t respond. Even though I was riding on Zone 1 (Recovery), but because my body was already fatigued, the ride took its toll. Then I realised that doubling up your cycling volume is not as easy as it sounds. In fact, I read on the net that you should only increase your volume by 10% max weekly. Otherwise, your body will not be able to cope and your body will start breaking down. So I arrived at home at 7pm – which I would have arrived by 6pm normally; and all I could do was eat, shower then sleep. I went to bed at about 830pm that night.

Tuesday came. My alarm rang at 630am. This day I made a commitment to attempt 80km commute because otherwise, I may not hit my 2,000km goal by the end of the month. My body somehow has not recovered well from last night. Even though I slept for more than 9 hours, more fatigue set in. I achieved my 80km commute but I just felt sooooo bad that day. I had runny nose, eyes were blinkering. I felt so down mentally. I was only 4 days in and yet my body could no longer cope.

That first week was definitely the hardest because my body was just not getting used to the new riding volume. I only did 343.7km that week instead of the planned 500km. I must admit I felt discouraged that week because if this was how it’s going to be for the upcoming weeks, I definitely would not achieve my 2,000km goal.

But looking back, it’s only a matter of time before your body get stronger and you can start coping with the challenge! So the lesson for the first week is, don’t give up too soon. There is first time for everything and you need to allow room for failure in the beginning.

TAKING IT DAY BY DAY

In Tour de France, the GC riders always speak of this cliche: “Taking it day-by-day”. But I cannot agree more that this was the best way to tackle the GCC challenge. Often in life we try to get way too ahead of ourselves. I work as an IT Consultant; and often I hear how my client is preparing a 5-10 year plan for their IT infrastructure, etc. In reality, 100% of the time whatever they have planned will totally change in 5-10 years time. I have worked for a client who bought the best computers so it lasted for 10 years. After few months time the IT manager was changed and all the plans and strategies were scrapped. Who would expect, eh?

Through this challenge I realise that it doesn’t do anybody any good if you’re trying to be too ahead of yourself in time. Why? Because the things you were planning may either not go as planned or not happen at all anyway. Every time I achieved my 80km daily commute, I said, “Thank God”. I was learning to be grateful every single day. Let tomorrow’s difficulty be tomorrow’s. When I started planning too far, then you had birthday invitations, or dinner invitations and other things that would disturb your day and your sleep!

As Kungfu Panda said, “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mistery…but today is the day”.

RIDE HARD, REST HARDER

Throughout the month of October the first time in my life did I sleep at 830pm and woke up at 530am everyday. If I slept slightly later – let’s say 9 or 930pm, I would feel a little more fatigued the next day. As funny as it sounds, it truly happened. And these little accumulations of fatigue would cost you dearly in few days time. The rest included more than just sleep. It’s the food you eat, your stress level, etc.

Make sure that when you rest, you rest!

COMPUTER TIME AND SOCIAL MEDIA WOULD KILL YOU

Throughout this challenge I realised that any time you spend on your laptop, phone and social media is an added stress! After work I usually check my emails, going onto Facebook, checking online cycling shops, etc. But for the month of October I learned the hard way. The first week I would do the same after work: checking emails and FB while having my dinner. Then after shower I would check my phone again and bit more time on FB, reading news, etc. But when I woke up in the morning I felt more tired.

Starting from 2nd week I learnt to put my laptop and mobile phone away (after work at least). As I arrived at home at 7pm daily, I would eat my dinner until 730pm, then I took a nice long hot shower until 8pm, uploaded my ride to Strava (yes, still laptop time but that’s about it) then by 830pm I would hit the bed. You know what, the next day I felt more fresh than ever! I now realise that the less time you spend on laptop and social media, the more time your body can recover.

So I took this approach for my 3rd and 4th week and before I knew it, I was at the end of the challenge hitting my 2,000km goal!

Be reasonable with the amount of time you spend on social media. Learn to listen to your body. After all you will be the one paying the cost anyway. It truly doesn’t feel nice at all when your body is fatigued. At work you will be yawning every few minutes and you can’t concentrate. There was this particular day during the first week that I just was not productive at all. 8 hours I spent at work and I did nothing. It took me a long time to do a simple programming task.

THE RIGHT DIET

There was no place for bad diet. In fact, through this challenge, I realise that your body can’t function well with a bad diet. During the month of October I tried to avoid fatty food. I would not eat anything that is greasy and oily. Lean meats, carbs and vegetables were the favourites.

If you want to feel alive, change your diet to a healthy diet. People say that we lose weight because of the exercise. No, first and foremost it’s our diet that needs to change. We are what we eat.

LIFE IS ABOUT ENDURANCE

Life is an endurance sport. Full stop. It’s not about being good at the beginning then fading in the end. It’s about being good at all times! It’s the attitude of never giving up. It’s about being strong and keep fighting until you hit the finish line.

Sometimes life would hit you in your face, a set back happens. But it’s about bouncing back stronger than ever. You may get knocked down but you get up again.

CONCLUSION

Finally, I just want to say that through this challenge, I’m a changed man. The spirit of the children strengthen me. Together we can beat cancer. And for the children who are currently going through it I just want to say that all of you are super heroes! I truly don’t know how you can go through it day in and day out. All I did was commuting 80km daily in recovery pace and yet I’ve already complained so much of how hard it was. But you, you wake up everyday fighting. You are amazing!

You are not alone and together we can beat cancer!

Tommy

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