Originating from the picturesque town of Edam in the Netherlands, this cheese has a storied history dating back centuries. We visited the Henri Willig cheese store and a lot of fun sampling different flavours of cheese, and brought back home a 2kg ball of Edam.

Edam boasts a rich history steeped in maritime trade and medieval architecture. Strolling along its cobblestone streets, it felt like I transported back in time, passing by canals, centuries-old bridges, and beautifully preserved gabled houses. It’s only a short 30-minute car ride from Amsterdam, and is a popular destination for cycling tours too.

The town’s iconic cheese market (though closed on the day we visited), would have added a dash of old-world charm.

Moving on from Edam, we reached the nearby village of Marken, a village nestled on a serene island in the Markermeer. We wandered through its picturesque streets and admired the architecture of the quaint wooden houses.

Eventually, we reached the harbourfront and enjoyed the scenery. Life here seemed so much simpler, free of the complexities of modern life. It’s as if each day begins with the gentle lapping of waves against the shores and the sun rising over the horizon, casting a golden glow on the water. And in this small town, all the neighbours know each other by name and a greeting is never far away. The slower pace of life allows for a deeper appreciation of nature’s beauty. Sunsets over the water become daily spectacles, with evenings spent savouring simple pleasures – perhaps a freshly caught fish grilled by the water’s edge or a bonfire on the beach.

Though not far from Marken, immediately we’re teleported back to civilization. Their presence reminds us of how the Netherlands has advanced so much from the olden days of windmills.

Our next destination, was a nearby village called Volendam. We walked briefly along the seashore and along the inner streets, but didn’t stay long. After our enchanting experience in Marken, Volendam seemed to echo the same charm of Marken.

In a bit of a shift, we moved away from oceanside villages and made our way to the last destination of the day at the windmills of Zaanse Schans. Zaanse Schans is a living open-air museum that whisks visitors back in time to the Dutch Golden Age. This captivating village showcases an array of meticulously preserved windmills, offering a genuine glimpse into the Netherlands’ rich industrial heritage. After so many visits to the Netherlands, this was actually my first time seeing actual windmills!

As we tried to enjoy the scenery around us, one visitor found himself in a sneezing spree from the pollen-rich air. The sneezes were so strong we could see the particles coming out, and it was tough walking behind him ever since having to deal with COVID. It was kind of comical.

Here’s more of Edam, Marken, Volendam, and Zaanse Schans

The right stuff

There are three markers of endurance fitness: aerobic capacity, anaerobic threshold, and economy

• Aerobic capacity: AKA “VO2max”, is a measure of how much oxygen you are capable of using when riding at a maximal effort for a few minutes
• Anaerobic threshold: the percentage of your aerobic capacity that you are capable of sustaining for a long time, such as 40 to 70 minutes
• Economy: tied to all metrics of performance in that it has to do with how much energy you waste while riding (e.g. physical structure, pedaling style, position on the bike, and bike-handling skills)

Power duration curve and phenotype

This is a huge generalization, but it shows that performance can be predicted from metrics

• Climbers: can maintain high power outputs even over long durations. Best predictor of success is power to weight ratio
• Sprinters: even higher power outputs with short bursts but drops off quickly over long durations
• Time trialists: Best predictor of success is power at anaerobic threshold. Aerodynamic drag is the biggest obstacle since often courses are quite flat
• All-rounders: someone who is pretty good at at least two of the above and they are often contenders when course conditions don’t favour the specialists

Training beliefs

The athlete must have faith that he is going down the right path for training, and follow the path beginning to end

Some people respond quickly, while some slowly. Some people have muscles made for endurance while others made for power, and it’s the rider’s job to adjust his training based on what he’s know about himself.

Training is always a moving target – what worked last season may not produce the same results

Four steps to training with a purpose

There is no one-size fits all way of training

1. Clear goal – well-defined goal drives training outcome. Even workouts need to have a goal. The combination of the workout goals ultimately point to the season’s goal
2. Expert instruction – e.g coach, mentor, training partner, or even yourself (i.e. by reading this book)
3. Specific practice – Everything done should follow the goal and the expert instruction. Training alone is ideal as it allows control over all aspects of workout without accounting for someone else
4. Immediate feedback – Review data as the workout is happening or immediately after. Need to stay mentally engaged with how one feels during workout

Previous: Chapter 1 – Mental performance
Chapter list: Chapter summaries

For best results, training should be considered a full time job. One’s entire lifestyle must be directed towards this objective. This lifestyle will also require following the correct training program religiously over time.

All athletes are limited more by their minds more than their bodies

One needs to develop a winning attitude. One needs to combine physical fitness with mental fitness.

This chapter touches on a few mental opportunities for success:

• Motivation – Competitive cycling demands an inner drive to excel. Everything in your life must be focused on the goal
• Dreams, goals, and missions – high performance starts with a dream. This turns into a goal, and ultimately the mission. Are you willing to make any sacrifice, ride any number of miles, or do any workouts deemed beneficial to achieving the goal?
• Believe to achieve – there are bound to be setbacks. One needs to remain confident, patient and mentally tough to power through. Relive each day’s wins, big or small to boost self-confidence
• Mental toughness – when we’re at our limits, fatigue sets in, and the mind tries to make compromises. A fully committed rider gets through it
• Patience – success won’t come quickly. We can introduce incremental change, like: sleeping 30 minutes earlier each day, cutting out 10% of junk food from our diets, etc.
• Commitment and tenacity – there are moments where fatigue says to stop, but the fully commited and tenacious rider finds a way to keep going
• Consistency and routines – the mind and body like regular and standard schedules. Things like jobs, families, and other responsibilities may interfere
• Your high-performance team – surrounding each champion is a network of family, friends, teammates, coaches, etc.

This topic can get rather deep, so there is value in reading other books on the subject and speaking with other successful professionals from all walks of life.

By improving one’s mental approach to cycling, their training and racing will benefit greatly too.

Next: Chapter 2 – Physical performance
Chapter list: Chapter summaries

The book attempts to answer questions such as:

• How should I schedule my workouts?
• How is it best to train during the weeks of my most important races?
• How many miles do I need before starting speed work?
• Is it okay to ride on the same day that I lift?
• How long should my recovery rides be?
• What can I do to climb better?

Different experts would each have their different answers to these questions, because there is more than one way to solve each training problem. This book aims to present ideas and concepts such that why the answers are the way they are. I’ll attempt to summarize my learnings chapter by chapter. Each link will be updated as each summary becomes available.

• Part I – Mind and body
  • Chapter 1 – Mental performance
  • Chapter 2 – Physical performance
• Part II – Training fundamentals
  • Chapter 3 – Basic training concepts
  • Chapter 4 – Training intensity
• Part III – Purposeful training
  • Chapter 5 – Getting started
  • Chapter 6 – Preparing to race
• Part IV – Planning your season
  • Chapter 7 – Planning overview
  • Chapter 8 – Planning a week
  • Chapter 9 – Planning alternatives
• Part V – Stress and recovery
  • Chapter 10 – Training stress
  • Chapter 11 – Fatigue, recovery, and adaptation
• Part VI – The competitive edge
  • Chapter 12 – Muscular force training
  • Chapter 13 – Tapering to race
  • Chapter 14 – The training diary

STP 2017

In the summer of 2017, two friends and I rode STP over the course of two days (this was my first cycling event ever). At the time, I didn’t really know how to train other than just riding a lot of miles and I never really gave any conscious thought to hydration or nutrition. I clocked in about 1500 km over 70 hours of training from March till July (which was totally below what the official training plan called for).

On the event day, I ate whatever there was at the rest stops and drank the electrolyte drinks. I also ate this supplement called SportLegs that people were giving out. They supposedly improve muscle performance (however, sports dietitian thinks they’re more placebo than anything). I didn’t know anything at the time, and I just ate them anyway.

We were worried that our legs would be too sore to continue on the second day, but on the morning of the second day, we didn’t feel fresh, but nonetheless we made it through both days (with both legs still working!) and we were super happy with ourselves for having accomplished this. We joked that maybe it was the SportLegs (to this day we still don’t know). As we crossed the finish line, I said to my friends, “OK so we’re going to do STP in one day next year right?”. They thought I was joking, but I wasn’t.

The problems begin

The next event that summer was Obliteride 2017, a century ride to raise awareness and fundraise to fight cancer. I figured that since I had done STP, I’d be able to do this ride no problem. This is where problems for me started.

Around the 50 km mark, I started cramping up a little bit, and I still had 110 km to go. I started drinking much much more of the electrolyte drinks and eating, but the cramping just got worse and worse. It’s not that I didn’t have the strength – but each stroke I took, I felt the cramps. But the cramps weren’t SO bad that I couldn’t continue – I just had a terrible finish.

I went to see a physiotherapist to see what was happening, and she took a look, and she could only identify a slight pelvic rotation (my hips were leaning to one side of the bike), but she didn’t think that was the root cause. She couldn’t see anything wrong with the bike fit either, but thought it could have been a lack of training since Obliteride was much hillier than STP. I did the exercises she asked me to do and that was about it. I had also signed up for the Whistler GranFondo and Chilly Hilly as well, but I couldn’t even finish either of them. At one point, my entire right leg locked up on me and I couldn’t bend it for a couple of minutes. I began to worry if I could even continue cycling anymore.

Tackling the problem

I was so fed up with this problem, that I scheduled appointments with different doctors in sports medicine to get their advice. They all suspected that it was a nutrition problem and referred me to a sports dietitian. At my first appointment with the dietitian, she asked me about my lifestyle, how much I ate, exercised, etc. and immediately said, “you’re not eating enough for the exercise you’re doing” (I estimated that I was eating about 2200 calories/day). She wrote out on the whiteboard a high level guideline as to how I should eat.

I saw her for about a month and a half and after following her advice, my problems were solved! In a way, I got the OK from the nutritionist to eat as much as I want, even massive amounts of sodium and sugar, provided that I keep up my level of exercise. Knowing that eating more was the fix, I had no problem with that.

She also got me to measure my sweat rate, so I’d know how much water to replenish during big rides.

Training for STP 2018

I rode sporatically in the winter (I should have followed Rule #5 of the Velominati) and didn’t really start training seriously until June. From January to May, I clocked in only 848 km over 38 hours, which was only a bit less than year before at the same time, but I had started earlier in the year this time.

I made a plan for myself where I would do intervals twice a week with a big ride on the weekend (in June alone I clocked in 577 km over 25 hours). Two of the big training rides I had were century rides, where I got to work out the specifics in my nutrition and hydration plan. In total, I rode about 1600 km over 73 hours, not counting the intervals.

Three weeks before the event date, I started sleeping earlier and earlier (by about 15-30 minutes each day) to get myself used to waking up early since I would have to be on the road by 5:30am on event day.

Two days before the ride, I started carb loading (as per instructions from the dietitian).

My emotional state

I didn’t like the fact that training took so much time out of my week. I was already spending 10+ hours on the saddle, and I was beginning to feel mentally tired from all willpower required. The intervals drained me mentally even more because of the mental focus I needed to force myself to spin as hard as I could. It’s so easy to just stop when things get tough, and interval training was more mentally draining than any training ride I did.

As the event date drew closer, thoughts of my possible failure creeped into my mind, getting stronger day by day. I couldn’t think of anything else. I thought back to the wise words of Sun Tzu:

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

知彼知己，百戰不殆；不知彼而知己，一勝一負；不知彼，不知己，每戰必殆。

I even started meditating to calm my mind. My coworkers could tell that I was more distracted than usual and provided me with good encouragement.

Race day

My friend and I started the ride around 5:30 am, and because there were so many cyclists on the road, drafting propelled us quickly and we made it to the halfway point around 2:30 pm. I still felt pretty fresh at that time which was good.

I knew that most riders do the ride in 2 days, so I expected not to be able to draft behind other riders. By about 200 km, I started feeling tired, but I knew I had to keep going. There was still 120 km to go.

I wasn’t having fun anymore. At this point, it was just a grueling grind to the finish, where the finish line was hours away. I wanted the day to be over. and thought to myself, “this too shall pass”. Looking at my bike computer frequently to see how far we’ve gone made it worse – slowly watching the distance ticking upward while thinking “when will this end?”

The temperature that day went up to a max of around 38 degrees Celsius. We rode in the burning heat, slowly becoming more and more dehydrated. I wanted the sun to set faster, so that it’d be cooler.

Judging by the dozens of people we saw at rest areas, we figured our pace was pretty good. But as we went further along, there were less and less people at the rest stops. Either they bailed, or they were much faster than us.

The finish line would close at 9 pm, and there was no way I’d get to the finish line in time. I wish I had trained harder.

For most of the last third, we rode mainly on our own, occasionally seeing another rider, whom we’d ride behind just to get an extra bit of a boost.

At the last rest area, there was almost nobody, maybe like a dozen people at most, but we were only some 25 km away. We could do this.

My friend and I would swap taking the lead every five minutes so that we could balance out the wind load between the two of us. The fact that the two of us rode together allowed us to talk to each other and help lift each other up. I think that helped a greal deal mentally and emotionally.

At dusk, we finally entered Portland. We were now just 30 minutes away from the finish line. We joined a group of other riders and rode together till the end.

I called out to the other riders with encouraging words like, “yeah! We’re almost there wooo”, but looking back I think I sounded too happy (despite my true feelings of misery) and the people around me probably thought I was a jerk for being so happy while they felt miserable.

Finally we reached the finish line at 10:30 pm. People were still there and cheering us on as we arrived. I almost shed a tear. I was overjoyed having finally achieving this goal.

Other friends who drove to Portland met us at the finish line and could see our happiness despite how filthy we were. We weren’t even hungry nor thirsty. We were in no mood to do anything. We just wanted to sleep. My friend was told that he sounded brain dead because he replied with one word answers and lacked the concentrated gaze that he normally had, whereas I was still considered having a sound mind.

The next morning, I woke up with quite the hangover even though I drank no alcohol. I was just REALLY REALLY dehydrated from the bike ride in the blazing heat.

After this entire ordeal, I told myself, “I’m not going to do this again next year”. I didn’t get back on the bike until late August – I think STP scarred me a little bit. I definitely don’t regret having done this at all, and I’m still very proud of what I did.

Alright, now let’s get the tickets for the game

“Don’t worry about the tickets for the game”, my friend said. Next thing we know, the tickets were all sold out to season ticket holders. Our other friend found some tickets on viagogo, BUT, we didn’t know if they were fake. We needed a new plan. “It’s OK, we can buy tickets off scalpers on the black market”, my friend says. The black market sounded all well and good until the news reported armed robberies occurring where scalpers were robbed of their legitimate tickets which were now worth a couple hundred US dollars, a value that is a large chunk of a typical local’s monthly salary. We could now only rely on the viagogo tickets being legitimate. Then there is me, the clueless foreigner in his country and doesn’t speak any Spanish, who can only helplessly watch events unfold without knowing at all how to help.

In our already not-so-good situation, a representative from viagogo calls us and said that the tickets can only be picked up at 5pm close to downtown. The problem was that the stadium is on the edge of the city and the game starts at 6pm. There was no way to go to the pickup location for the tickets AND get to the game on time because traffic on game day would be terrible. My friend calls the viagogo representative and tells him the situation and guilts him into letting us pick up the tickets earlier by saying how we trusted the company with these tickets and whatnot and the rep agrees to let us pick up the tickets earlier. Whether or not the rep was sincere in that offer we didn’t know. We needed a plan B in case we really had to pick up the tickets at 5pm. This is where our plan got SUPER elaborate. We spent a good hour brainstorming a good plan and this is what we came up with:

The guy who bought the tickets (the American), would have to ride a motorcycle to the ticket pickup location, pick up the tickets, and go to the stadium, while the rest of us would get to the stadium early with a van so that when the bike arrived with the tickets, we could hide the bike inside the van. When his dad heard the plan, he began to scold him saying how crazy it was, and in his scolding, I heard a word come up over and over again. When I looked it up, I found out it was profanity. Awesome! My Mexican friend called all of his connections that he had to see how we’d get our hands on a van and a motorcycle. According to him, “he knows a lot of people, people owe him favours”. The problem with that plan was that the guy who had the van got into an accident (whether or not that was true, we’ll never know), which suddenly broke our whole plan.

Okay, so what if he rode a bicycle to pick up the tickets? He’d have to ride 12km from the pick up location to the stadium in terrible traffic. Not to mention the person riding the bike isn’t familiar with traffic in Mexico (traffic that does not respect bikers), and that most streets don’t have stop signs or lights. Throw in some lack of sleep – the guy would be flying in that morning in an overnight flight from LA. He was up to the challenge. My Mexican friend summarized the whole plan into a PowerPoint, calling it “the story to be told about this amazing adventure”. We wouldn’t be able to execute this plan until the day of the game. In the meantime, my Mexican friend showed me around.

Lake Chapala

Lake Chapala is Mexico’s largest freshwater lake, and for whatever reason, there is a substantial population of Canadian and American retirees here.

Tequila

Got to see some Agave fields (and eat some Agave too!) on a tour at the Jose Cuervo Distillery in a town called Tequila (where the name of the alcohol comes from). I made the tour guide speak English because I was the only guy on the tour who didn’t know Spanish.

Driving in Mexico?!

At one point, my friend’s brother asked me if I wanted to drive. I thought to myself, “okay, so there are no stop signs anywhere, I have no idea where to stop, and based on the driving I’ve seen, nobody really follows the rules on the road”. I drove anyway!

Knowing that I was a complete newb on the road in Mexico, my friend and his brother were both very watchful to make sure I was stopping at the right times. They had practically memorized all the places where cars should and shouldn’t stop. I had no clue whatsoever. I stopped and went when they told me to.

Later on, we saw police cars stopped on the side of the street in front of us. My friends just told me to play it cool and just drive normally. I also realized I didn’t have ID on me, so if I had gotten pulled over or something, I would have had to pay $100 USD just to get out. But luckily, nothing happened.

Picking up the tickets

Now it was time to execute the plan. My friend called the Viagogo rep in the morning and he says that we can pick up the tickets at noon. Okay, so no problem. We went and picked up the tickets while in the back of our minds we were still wondering if the tickets are fake. If the tickets were fake, then our whole plan would be meaningless.

We meet the rep and he gives us the tickets. We closely inspect them, and everything looks good. We were in a bit of a disbelief. Everything seemed too easy. But we wouldn’t know if the tickets were real for sure until we actually go to the ticket counter. At this point, we wouldn’t have to execute our crazy bike plan, and could only wait and see when we got to the stadium. With the couple of hours until the game, we spent some time walking around the city center of Guadalajara.

Touring the city center

Lots of people out and about on a hot day. We went in May, statistically the hottest time of year in Guadalajara.

The local boy/girl scouts were running a recycling campaign or something.

Game time

After lunch, my friend’s dad drove us to the game. As expected, the traffic was real bad. On the way there, as my friend’s dad drove, he says to us that he’s going to break a bunch of traffic rules and not learn from him. He then proceeds to cut a bunch of lanes, crossing the hatched areas on the road, and cuts in in front of people. He even made use of an handicapped sign on his car to get into the parking lot quicker even though he wasn’t handicapped at all (seniors just get those because they’re above a certain age). With his epic driving, we got to the stadium right on time.

Now, the moment of truth. The guard checking the tickets would be the one to tell us if the tickets were real or not. As we got closer, we got more and more nervous. The guard scanned our tickets and waved us through. What a relief. We didn’t need any of our contingency plans after all. Logically, everything went smoother than we could have possibly imagined. Now it was time to enjoy the game!

The entire crowd pretty much supported the home team, and there was a small section of Tigres fans, probably about 50-100 people only. Tons of people waved Chivas flags, and some even waved the French flag because it had the same colours as the Chivas jersey. We all bought jerseys for the game too!

As the game went on, the crowd cheered and chanted, “dale dale dale rebaño!”, which roughly means “let’s go herd [of goats]” (chivas means goats). At one point, when it looked like the Tigres were making a comeback, the crowd cheered even harder. With an amazing 2-1 finish (4-3 aggregate), the Chivas had beaten the Tigres to win their 12th championship!

Celebration

That night, large crowds gathered at the Minerva statue in the city to celebrate the team’s big win. My friend’s dad said he’s never seen the crowd this big in a long time. To celebrate, the dad made us all tequila cocktails (there was probably 3-4 shots worth of tequila in that) before we headed out and had a great time. As the only Asians in the city (my American friend is of Japanese descent), we stood out a lot and people occasionally said random phrases to us in different Asian languages. I guess that’s what happens when two Asians show up with Chivas jerseys!

Last, but not least, the food

My first meal when I arrived in Mexico: Menudo. My friend thought my stomach wouldn’t be able to handle it, because the meat in the soup was tripe. But, nope! Chinese people eat tripe all the time!

Not exactly a meal that I had, but there is a running joke that a guy can take a girl out with roses and a can of Jack Daniels. Once that joke caught on, the store intentionally started putting roses next to the Jack Daniels in the store.

Tacos with carnitas and guacamole? Sign me up!

Lonches. Basically a sandwich with meat inside served with a dipping sauce on the side (can also just be poured onto the plate to let the bread soak). The bread used is a kind local to Guadalajara (birote/bolillo).

Then there are tortas ahogadas. Very similar to lonches. It has a the same bread, but this one is way meatier and the sauce is a tiny bit of spice.

Ceviche! A dish with raw fish cured in lemon/lime with added spices. Can’t say no to seafood!

My friend’s mom also cooked food for us and I totally wish I had taken some pictures of that food. She cooked a pork stew and I wish I knew what was in the sauce! Both parents encouraged me to eat so much and they showed so much hospitality! They kept offering me more and more food until I was super stuffed. Good thing my friend’s brother taught me “estoy bien”! This was definitely one of the best trips I ever had – full of excitement and not just doing touristy things. Having a local show you around really helps!

Link to photo album: here