Since I’d been feeling a bit sick the entire week, I woke up early to unicycle the Eastern Park Connector (yet again). Today marks the first time in a FULL YEAR that I’ve done the whole connector without any pain in that knee. Now there’s a reason why I keep riding the same route. Each time I hit around the 30km mark, I’d end up limping to a bus stop.
I lost my bottle somewhere early, possibly at a traffic junction and so was forced to stop at the 30km point for a drink. 2:05. Pretty decent. I continued on after a 10 minute break and the route between Changi Village and Pasir Ris has got to have the most traffic lights on EARTH. Very annoying to have to screech to a halt with short cranks. I stopped again for about 15-20 minutes at Pasir Ris to grab another drink and then headed back which made it about 45km (I did a short detour at East Coast) in 3:46 including breaks.
The last 10km or so was incredibly tiring due to the junctions and uphills. I still don’t understand how having speed bumps on a hill is supposed to benefit the cyclist. My knees feel surprisingly fine and the entire ride felt quite similar to running a half-marathon.
I think I’m going to repeat the routine for a few more weeks and maybe add a 5-10km run at the end of it all. Cutting down the timing to about 2:45 seems very possible if you take away the breaks (and traffic lights).