Exhausted again

This is what I look like after 50 kilometres on a bike.

I was up a bit too late last night reading, and so getting up this morning wasn't so pleasant. I made a somewhat disgusting glass of chia seeds in water, crammed as much food into myself as I could, then set off for Botanic Gardens.

Apart from almost being run over from a taxi as I left the end of our road (that's one way to wake up) the ride was uneventful: it's a very simple route, and the buses were about the only other traffic on the road that early. I got to the MRT stop nice and early, and then set off with my friend Rik to the jungle of Bukit Timah.

I was hoping that my running fitness would translate into speed on the bike, but it was not to be. I suppose the appropriate muscles have withered and weakened: I spent most of the day making horrible wheezing noises as I walked the bike up every hill. It probably wasn't a good idea to take a heavy bike designed for riding down rocky trails in the North of England, and try to ride it cross-country in tropical conditions in Singapore.

It was also a mistake to leave my drink bladder behind and drink from a bottle instead. I was weak and dehydrated, just like every time I go riding, but much worse than usual. When I'm running I don't have to contort my back and I can keep drinking as much as I need to: it's not like I can justify another bike, given how much I've ridden this year, but it would be nice if I was a different shape.

It's also been difficult to wear cycling shorts again: it felt for half the ride like I'd got a testicular hemoraghe or hernia, but let's try not to think about that.
After a couple of hours we paused at the jump spot and I contented myself with jumping over a small jump, until Rik pointed out it was the landing from a hip jump that I'd ignored. There was a guy with a professional lighting rig taking photos of us going over the jumps: I'm not sure anyone will want a picture of me wheezing as I roll over a double, but you never know.

Then we slogged off again, and an hour later fetched up by the zoo, where I was utterly done in. Then Rik told me we had to ride all the way back. I was aghast, incapable of speech, a broken man. But there was no other way back, and so we set off again.

Words can hardly do justice to this. I was ready to get off and weep so many times, and at every hill I had to get off and walk, my body completely unwilling to pedal. After an eternity we rolled back to the hawker centre near Botanic Gardens, where to add insult to injury there was no food I could eat. Luckily there's a shop selling overpriced burgers and underpriced beer nearby.

I rode home, going slightly quicker on a bike than I usually run, and fell into bed. Even five hours later I still feel ruined. Luckily I don't have any hard training tomorrow.

Apart from running 5 miles as fast as I possibly can. Oops.