Not so long ago, completing a ride of 1200km distance within 90 hours seems like a goal far too remote especially for an ordinary folk like me. I do enjoy riding long distances, but all the long rides I did so far was done within a single day or never exceed a 24-hour period. And on all occasions, the very next day I have little desire to ride, at least that’s what my body signalled to me. Listen to your body, as what the fitness textbooks always speak of. For the mind, it was also easier to motivate myself to ride long and far with the knowledge that I’ll be rewarded with a full day of rest the next day.
With each long ride, I notice my body slowly adapts to riding longer distances in a single day as I felt less tired overall and recovery times shorten. After the Oppy 400km ride, I participated in another 24-hour ride covering a total distance of 608km, a whopping 50% increase in the distance covered, albeit it was done in a criterium track this time. But this led me to seriously think if I could actually complete a 4-day 1200km ride. I was well aware that the Perth-Albany-Perth is a featured 1200km ride in the Audax calendar. Held only once every four years and this year being it’s fifth edition, the PAP is often regarded as Australia’s most prestigious classic randonnée. At that time, the PAP was still 6 months away so without too much thought I signed myself up. I had plenty of time for training.
Fast forward 6 months later, the excitement and nervousness swell in anticipation of the BIG RIDE. Why the nervousness? My academic life has taught me that one would only feel nervous if under prepared. Same deal for cycling. Quite often, one may not be able to tell if he or she is well-prepared for a ride until during or after the ride itself. But for my case, I was absolutely certain I was under prepared even before the ride. My training plan didn’t go so well, and I’ll explain to you why.
Just weeks after I signed up for the PAP, I was infected with shingles. The virus targeted my facial nerve so I was basically living in constant headache for an entire month. After the shingles went away, I developed a chronic cough which affected my riding ability. The cold and dry air of winter wasn’t helping either. By the time I fully recovered, 3 months flew pass and my fitness has gone down to an all-time low in the last 3 years. Because I had lost so much time from my academic work due to my absence, I had to catch up with work and found myself struggling to fit in rides into my schedule. One or two rides a week was all I could manage but every little workout helped to steer my fitness away from a downward spiral.
About 5 weeks before PAP, an opportunity opens up to do a 2-day 600km Audax ride. Having not completed any rides longer than 150km in the 4 months prior, the odds of completing this ride is close to non-existent. I gave it a crack anyhow, and not surprisingly, it was unsuccessful. I pulled out at 300km as I felt a build-up of pain on my left achilles tendon (had this in the past) and my right hip joint (never had this). Another contributing factor could be that I was riding on a new frame, and this being only the second ride on it, I really should have seen this coming. Came home feeling disappointed but my determination was undisturbed, as I knew exactly what went wrong. I have no regrets taking up this ride. I’d rather this problem arose in this ride than the PAP itself, as now I have the time to identify and remedy the problems.
A few more short 100km rides and some tweaking and mods on the bike, finally, just 2 weeks before PAP, I did a 340km solo ride to test out my body condition now that a decent amount of time was spent riding on this new frame. I did this ride on an average speed that I anticipate will be doing for the PAP (i.e. 18-20km/h). Came home feeling great without a single pain on my hip joint. Achilles tendon played up a bit but not as bad as the failed 600km ride. So for the first time in the lead up to PAP, I was getting some confidence. I had carefully built the bike up from a bare frame with all the added accessories for randonneuring to make it 100% ready to tackle the PAP. I was as calm as I can get and kept my spirit high so mentally I was also 100% set for the ride. Everything is good, all but my body condition. With so little mileage done in the 6 months preceding the PAP, I knew fitness-wise I was seriously under prepared.
Hi Melvyn, Looks like you got the taper perfect and were mentally in the right space. By the way, 608km in 24hr is awesome and getting into Oppy record territory! Technically you just need to do a very slow spiral in (or out) to avoid riding the same route twice (but I’m not sure if Sandy would approve it).
Mark, I’m not even sure you can call that a taper when there’s no fat miles to begin with. The Oppy QLD record seems achievable, currently standing at 470km. The national record of 770km however…