Thursday, April 1, 2010

ENG: choices

(same rant as yesterday's but in English.....)

After Sunday, I'm really undecided on what to do: continue cycling or return to run?
(Which is' a sort of misnaming ... because in reality I "returned" to cycling which was the sport of my youth ..).

In my head various considerations overlap, totally contradictory to each other and without yet a conclusion

A) I am decently competitive in both sports ...
B) HK cycling races are ridiculous (16km in 18 laps around a factory at 6.30 am, or time trial of 2.4Km ...), while Running races in my opinion are many and well organized
C) cycling training is '10 times more' pleasant than running... (I know that all runners will revolt, but probably they have never experienced what is the real feeling of being "cycling" fit), but it also much harder ...
D) the bike requires a bigger time commitment, both for training and for all ancillary activities such as maintenance, etc, etc.
E) all the bicycle races in China and Asia are out of my reach because they are well over 120km and I can not train for that...
F) for me, since I live/work in a shuttle between China and HK, training on the bike is really complicated ...
G) I would do everything to join the South China Tour (local cycling stage race), because for years I always had this dream (or rather, mirage ... since I had not touched a bike for years ...) , so trying to give it a shot would be nice...

and so?

still undecided...

2 comments:

Stefano Passarello said...

Well, my opinion may be a bit biased by my desire to come back and run with you but I would say, to choose running for 2 set of reasons:

1)Competition: Running Races in HK are quite fun, well organized and being a "not at pro" level may give chance to have a few nice satisfations.

2) Getting prepared for being in the Italian or HK national team of ultramarathon. I am quite confident that starting from the basics of your training philosophy we can get close to it and have a lot of fun.

Ciao coach, the italian team is waiting for you.

by7 said...

Stefano,

I totally agree on point 1)... the reward/effort ratio for running (in HK) is much higher...
you train and you can join nice races of different levels and distance...
In HK cycling... or you join the HKCA races of 15km...or you go for the serious races in Asia for Pro or Semi-Pro, which anyway would require a level of training far beyond my possibilities...

for point 2)... NEVER... I already die after 2-3 hours running, I do not see myself training for a 100km...