Erhai 120km

This is the furthest I have cycled on a bicycle within a day. This is also the first time I biked around Erhai (Er Lake) within a day.

My thoughts after finishing:

Darn it, I am so tired. And my butt hurts. Am I so unfit? Whatever it is, I just completed 120km. That’s a good achievement!

Due to COVID and also being first time dad, exercise and running took a pause. Before COVID, I was quite passionate about running, and I did it for about ten years or so.

I joined marathons, did trail runs, and even ultras. At the peak, my marathon PB was 3:37. Not too bad for someone who when I ran my first 6km in my mid-late twenties was aching for a week after. I never dabbled in long distances when I was in school, I do remember the 1.5km physical test we had to do, that felt long then. I did try to get into high school track and field for 100m but I just missed the mark.

As for biking, I loved the feeling of cycling, but running felt more natural to me. My group were more into running, and I eventually did more trail running, as I really enjoyed being lost in the woods.

Actually this reminds me of how I got into cycling. I lived in Beijing for about 2 and a half years. I’d say those were my formative years as an adult. I was away from family and friends, in a foreign place, with the challenges of getting up to grips with local chinese culture and the chinese language. But I digress, I remember being on the Internet and I stumbled upon a story about a bunch of English graduates, who decided to cycle from UK to Beijing for charity, and it took them more than 200+ days! I found their website on the Waybank Machine. I was so enamored with the idea that I started to wanderlust about cycling from Beijing back to Kuala Lumpur (Note: I still have not done this trip and I still dream about it…). But I did spend a good part of my monthly salary then to buy a decent bicycle in Beijing, which I quite enjoyed using daily to get to work. And I even shipped it back to KL when I left Beijing.

As I am already well into my forties, there is more and more reasons to maintain my mobility and physical strength. My partner and I have started exercising, running, and cycling a lot more these days.

So I want to do this cycling thing more. Build up more strength and endurance. And maybe eventually one day I have the courage or foolishness to cycle back to Kuala Lumpur.