Training with newbies

When I first joined this sport I had the honour of learning from the best people in the field, mostly colleagues from Malakoff who had done duathlons before. They are always there to answer my questions regarding training and nutrition and of course the race day jitters.

When they first learned that I bought a bike, they were kind to organize a group training ride for a newbie like me.

Today I had the pleasure to continue this tradition by taking out some cycling newbies who contacted me via this blog.

The idea was to do a 30km ride around Putrajaya, followed by a half hour run. No set distance, just run to familiarize the legs. In attendance was Ibrahim(an avid cyclist), Kash(a design director in an advertising company), Siti(just transferred to work in KL from Penang), her friend, Ironman Saiful and Mat Nor, a triathlete.

We started from Taman Warisan Pertanian Putrajaya and made our way to PICC. I told Ibrahim to use a route with less hills as this was supposed to be the first long ride for the newbies. Didn't want to scare them off by taking them to Shangri-la Hill just yet.

So we took the road to Dengkil toll from Putrajaya. Unfortunately Siti's friend crashed with Mat Nor on our way to the toll. They were both trying to distant themselves from a lorry coming from the right when suddenly a car came from the left pressed his horn and startled them, causing them to crash each other. Both suffered minor bruises and lucky nothing bad happened to either bikes.

I know this sounds rude but to most cyclists, the first thing that we will asked if we were involved in a crash is "How's the bike? Is the bike OK?" Yes, we are more concerned about our bikes than ourselves. If the bike is damaged, then how would we ride back to the car? We don't want to burden the others to accompany us back and hamper their training plans.

Saiful accompanied Mat Nor back to the parking lot while I accompanied Siti's friend and acted as a sweeper for the group. I know how hard it is to ride after a crash because I had crashed on the bike 2 times before. The whole body must be aching and with road rashes on his knees and hands still bleeding, it must be difficult for him to concentrate on pedaling.

After making a u-turn at the toll, we headed back to Putrajaya. I was surprised that the newbies managed to climb the long incline just after the toll en route to Putrajaya. We then followed the road to the boulevard in front of PICC back to Taman Warisan.

After safely securing our bikes in the car, Kash, Siti and myself changed to our running shoes for the half hour brick run. Siti noted that she could barely feel her legs running after the 30km ride. My legs were kind of draggy and making one step at a time was an effort. I must practice this more so that I won't suffer on race day. Kash however led the way the whole time. Yeah, I'd expected that from a Sundown marathoner :)

All in all, it was a good initial 30km ride for the newbies and a good brick after that for me and the girls.

Let's do it again next week, shall we?

UKM MUDS is 14 days away(and so does my PD triathlon.. now I'm scared!)