Category Archives: training updates

Training is going well and I’m definitely taking steps forward. Even though it’s not as fast as I would have hoped, but I tell myself it’s going to take time. With the steep learning curve, there are quite a few things that I need to get a hang off. The bike isn’t second nature to me yet. When I started in the boat, I was always very cautious. Not the best way to learn, considering my basics were appalling. 3 months back to basic with Sandy and I finally felt how the boat was moving. I’ll have to apply the same approach on the bike. I’ve made some major improvements with confidence but there’s plenty more to do. The technical stuff definitely comes with practice. At the same time I’ve been going out on the Parkers rides to learn to sit properly in a group. I’m alright on the straight. But when the road hits a bend or roundabout, that’s when I lose contact quickly. Really appreciative of the guys’ patience and still letting me sit in.

I was given the opportunity to race at the State championships over the weekend. Probably my first big race and with the level of the guys whom I was racing against, I wasn’t expecting much. I set myself some goals to achieve. Not times in particular, but more so the process of the race and approach to the various events. The Wibberleys have been super supportive and helpful and so is everyone at the track, knowing that I’m new and have a lot of catching up to do.

Check out photos from the amazing Tony Lendrum Photography, and Julia Kalotas Photography. Here are a few screen shots by Tony Lendrum Photography.

The event was well run by Track Cycling WA. I have never seen so many volunteers so willing and happy to be involved, not just for this 3-day event, but during Friday night racing as well. A wonderful bunch of people.

Looking forward to next couple weeks where I will start racing the crits on Sunday and track closes for Christmas. An early Christmas present came from The Sufferfest studios. Cheers for the awesome bibs and jerseys!

So I’m here in Perth and it’s been looking good so far. All settled in with the Wibberleys, which I am very grateful to for taking me in. Been out riding with the KHT boys, and have also done a couple of track session.

The body is starting to get used to the sudden rise in work load on the bike. Went up a couple of hills with the boys which was a first for me. By hills I mean proper hills, which there isn’t at all in Singapore. Managed to hurl my heavy bum up which I am quite pleased with. At the end of it, the high adrenaline stuff was descending. Bike handling isn’t exactly my forte yet, so I couldn’t entirely appreciate the descent. But i’ll get there. First couple sessions back on the track went pretty well as I worked on getting those fast legs and more confidence on the bike. I will have my first session with Matt where I will be able to get properly assessed. Really looking forward to that as we will then know where we are starting from.

Back from a week’s training in Bangkok and a race up in Korat. It was a great overall experience. A steep learning curve, just as it was when I started rowing back in the day. Things were a little rough not understanding the language and not knowing anyone at all. But the amazing thing about sport is that its a universal language and hand signs go a long way.

Really convenient to have a hotel which is just a 10 min walk away from the velodrome. Mornings are quite in the velodrome so it was just me doing rounds on my own, getting familiar with the track again, some hard interval efforts. A little crowd forms in the afternoon with a few from the Thai team and local club riders.

We hitched a ride up to Korat on Friday morning with Bas, who is from the OCBC Continental Cycling team. Really awesome bloke and we have him to thank for taking us around and helping sort stuff out while we were in Korat. We would have been pretty lost without him. And big thanks to Pong, for helping to translate the race program and Kit for helping us get our bikes to Korat and letting us tag along with his team.

Photo credit: Timothy Lim

It was a good opportunity to go through a few events to have a feel of what it’s like. I tried my hand at the kilo, sprint and kerin. My handling skills definitely let me down big time in the kilo. I was all over the track at the start which meant I was done. Sprint qualifying wasn’t any better, as I didn’t take a good line and my acceleration didn’t feel like an acceleration at all. Not exactly the way I hoped to have started but I’ve learn to looked ahead at my last remaining event. Making the finals in the kerin was a goal I set myself so I took no chances in the heats. I’m not sure if they had let me go, but I prefer to think that I caught them by surprise because there were 5 in my heat and only 3 would go through, compared to the other heat which had only 4, and between the local clubs, each would be wanting more of their own riders in the final to help their top sprinters.

Photo credit: Siripong Injai

4th in the final is a pretty decent result. Considering day one was an absolute disaster, I’m satisfied with that. I’ll be looking to sort out my technique on the bike to improve how I put out power into the pedals. Big thanks to Trimen Ventures for the Wilier Velodromo. Wouldn’t even be able to race if they didn’t get it to me on time. Exciting times ahead!

I would like to give special thanks to those who have made contributions and believe in what I am out to achieve. It truly means a lot to me. In the environment which I am in, support of any kind is a gem and I would not have been able to take that important first step without the contribution, help and support from everyone.

Through the online fund raising website gogetfunding.com and the event held at The Muffinry, I have managed to sort out basic equipment, a week’s training in Bangkok followed by a race in Korat over the weekend, as well as to Perth, where I will tackle their Summer track season sometime in November. More details coming up. Once again, special thanks to all who have contributed.

Close family and friends suggested I should go about getting t-shirts made, to continue to reach out, get support and share my journey with others, which I agreed was a great idea. The design originated from a photo by Tony Lendrum Photography. Check out his work. It’s really amazing. The design is courtesy of a friend, Jason Lek.

It comes in either black or grey color and in sizes Small, Medium or Large. Each are going at $30. If you would like to get one, feel free to drop me an email. Money raised will continue to go into getting more time on the track and sorting out better equipment. I apologise for having limited sizes. But if you who would like to get something smaller or bigger, please let me know as well. I’ll see if I can work something out. Thank you so much everyone!

So it’s set!

I’ve been using custom orthotics since 2008 and to be honest, even up till recently, I was still having to make adjustments. I’m no expert, so I trust my podiatrist and physios to tell me that I have quite a significant leg length difference. But even this information has been debatable by a few bike fitters I have come across. We’ll leave that for another time.

The challenge I had was shaving off enough at the heel of my orthotics to give me enough heel grip. Some shoes that have silicon heel grippers inside which might help prevent heel slippage. Then a friend introduced me to G8 Performance Adjustable Arches.

It comes with 4 different arch heights and has 28 different arch positions which makes it adjustable to almost any feet. It wasn’t hard to get the right position. The immediate feel I got was how stable my feet felt. There was very little to no movement of my feet within my shoe. In my opinion, stability is key in maximum and consistent force transfer.

I’ve had them on for almost a month now and I’m extremely pleased with them. I don’t have any direct force numbers to justify their efficiency, but I no longer experience any pain or discomfort in my feet, which does mean I have one less thing to worry about.
Try them out for yourself. Feel free to contact me if you’re thinking of getting a pair.

Recently I was humbled to be asked by Ling Er, top Singaporean female finisher at The Ironman World Championships 2011, Run Specialist and ACEndurance Coach to do a simply write up on recovery nutrition for the ACEndurance training squad’s blog. I’m glad to be able to share my experiences and I hope it’ll help their training in some way or the other.

Here’s the article:

http://acenduranceteam.blogspot.sg/2012/09/sports-and-nutritional-recovery.html

Sincere apologies for the extensive lack of updates. I was looking forward to some amazing sporting action the Games and pulling together updates around the world which might not have been reported at home, for the benefit of everyone. But I spent most of the entire period serving the nation back in military service. There were many outstanding performances to cheer about and doping cheats to jeer. But in all, i guess most would agree London 2012 was a huge success.
Military service was a great time to catch up with old friends and have a good laugh considering I missed my last two in-camps because of the Asian Games and SEA Games. So all was not lost.

As we move closer to the end of the year, things continue to shape up nicely. Extremely delighted to have Alan on board to tackle the track as well. He has been of great help and support to my cycling ever since I started visiting Athlete’s Circle when I was rowing. Or should I say when I first put my bike together at the now de-funct Passione. All round funny guy, hard arse bike rider. Besides what everyone can find on the internet, I’ve learn heaps from himself and LingEr while hanging out at Athlete’s Circle. Exciting times ahead for sure.

I recently dropped by The Runner’s Gait to catch up with the guys responsible for Compressport in Singapore. The new Pro Triathlon range is out and now available in Singapore!!

There will be an exciting event coming up at the end of September as well. Our friends from The Muffinry are organising a fund raiser for myself and Alan as we work towards the Asia Track Clubs race and ultimately targeting the Asian Championships in March 2013. Can’t thank them enough for the generous support and believing in what we do. They are working on the details of the event so more will be revealed soon. In the meantime, I hope to have your support and be part of this amazing sporting journey, in one way or the other. Any amount will be greatly appreciated and will certainly go a long way. Thanks everyone!

http://gogetfunding.com/project/wai-mun-at-the-2013-asian-cycling-championships

It’s been a great 2 weeks in Perth, where I began my crash course as a track cyclist. Track Cycling WA are just an amazing and passionate bunch of people, who were kind enough to host me. I was certainly a cause for worry on my first week. Plenty of stories of riders causing massive pile ups, I really didn’t want to go in the record books for that. I don’t mind falling, I know it’s part of learning, I just don’t wish to take someone innocent down with me.

The learning curve was steep for sure. And i appreciate all the experience riders for putting up with my noob riding skills. Being thrown into a pool of sharks might not be the best for learning. But it’s something that I’m quite used to, having learn the same way in rowing. I did have my first fall after a week of riding on the track, sitting behind someone who was going a tad too slow. She slipped off the bank, I went up to avoid running over her, but didn’t accelerate, that means going at the same speed, which is obviously too slow, and I slipped off, from a higher up the bank. Not pleased at all. Didn’t seem too serious, but after another week and now that I’m back, the scar has somehow become a swollen shin. Really have no idea how that happen.

Apart from the mishaps, I really enjoyed the riding. You can only truly appreciate track cycling if you’ve ridden on it before. The speed and the forces of gravity is an amazing experience. Plenty of adrenaline going around for the junkies.

I’ll be looking forward to what plans we have next. It’s clear what are the specific things I need to work on before we next hit the tracks. It’ll certainly be upwards from here. Really, there’s no where else to go

Things are coming along slowly but nicely. My 10s and 30s wingate anaerobic tests in the lab went well. Significant rise in peak power output, which is encouraging. Numbers dipped slightly on both step and VO2 max, which is expected considering a major shift to anaerobic sprint training since January. It’s been reported that pure track sprinters have very very little aerobic element to their training. For a start, it’s probably better for me to still have a tad of aerobic capability, until we see what I can put out on the track. Weights sessions with Louis will continue to focus of maximal strength and power, with primary focus on super fast execution and explosiveness.

The RunBikeSwim expo 2012 just 2 weekend saw quite good response from the public. Organised in conjunction with the Sundown Marathon race pack collection, it was a chance for consumers to get their hands on rock bottom price deals to stock up on sports stuff for the rest of the year. Huge thanks to Athlete’s Circle (their facebook page) for letting me assist them at the event. I took time to try out a pair of ON shoes and was impressed on the feel on my feet. Drop by Athlete’s Circle to try them on for yourselves!

The expo was also a great chance to meet and chat with like-minded people, who experiences and understands the challenges Singapore athletes face to rise up the ranks of elite in the international stage. I had a great chat with the guys from Runner’s Gait (facebook page) the same guys responsible for Compressport in Singapore. I swung by the shop during the week to get myself measured up for the ForQuad.

Fitted myself with the ForQuad at Runner’s Gait!

I’ve been having it a go for recovery and i’m looking forward to putting it on for Monday’s weights session.

Next week will be exciting as I hope to secure additional support to compete at the Perth Winter Track Cycling Grand Prix. Exciting times!