Hi all,I hope you had a good weekend,and plenty of riding,

Serene Lee again is keeping us company from Down Under.Here it is her weekly report.

First up folks, sorry to disappoint but it’s important for me to make this clarification…

I’m NOT a pro rider. I’m your everyday common folk – the wannabe full-time cyclist but the real-life full-time research student. Yep, it’s a rather practical world out there.

Secondly, I love green. My dad says emerald is my lucky stone; apple green my lucky colour. I’ve always been put in the green house (pardon the pun) at school. Did I say my school colours – for the best 6 years of school life - were green too? I’m a proud Rafflesian. It also just happens to be Oakley’s 30th anniversary for their performance eyewear this year and their celebratory Heritage collection has a lot of green in them (N.B. I love the retro look too but we’ll get onto that in another post).

Anyway, I had been bugging Joey, my superstar from Oakley Singapore, for a pair of green lenses to go with my shades. She finally relented and sent me some Jade Iridium ones (along with those aforementioned goodies). I collected and snapped them on, before leaving for a club race 30 minutes later.

Well, I won the race rather unexpectedly. 1st female; 3rd overall (among the men). FLAT and WINDY course, doing my fair share of work in the paceline, frisky in the moves that went off the front and in contention for a podium in the reduced bunch sprint. Rest assured it is nothing characteristic of my racing style. I guess GREEN makes everything happen. Or maybe it’s the 2x aspiration of my heel and 3weeks worth of antibiotics. Whatever.

I also collected my trophy for my 1st placed female finish earlier on in the month. It happened to be my national day that day so HAPPY BIRTHDAY SINGAPORE!

On a side note, it turned out that my awesome ride drove me into an automatic car-wash pre-race. It was claustrophobic and induced a lot of adrenaline in me, which could partly explain the unfathomable of the race, but I guess it was green too. Maybe I should add that to my pre-race routine.

The fog that once shrouded and clouded my mind;

The crossroads that I stood upon;

Gave way to a semblance of rainbow and butterflies.

Literally, and figuratively.

Melbourne weather can be so unpredictable.

The grandeur of promise always supersedes its actual delivery.

Word of advice or rather, note to self: Never forget the power of sufficiency.

And so, I’ve decided to continue being a nerd for a little while more and march on at school. It is probably a good idea when spew worthy efforts of 3mins on/off can throw up these amount of words.

Training and Studying great combination for top results

Mind you, SUFFERFEST was playing right in front of me but I don’t think I heard/saw anything. It merely masked the whir of my Lemond and my gasps for air. I was hyperventilating throughout the session and only realised that when my neighbour popped his head into the balcony and tried to get my attention. He was concerned that I was about to pop dead and die. It seemed just about right as I not only had the usual pedalling muscles’ cramps post-ergo session; but also facial cramps to go along. #nextlevelhurt