I was just kidding and pulling my friend’s leg when I said I don’t know the brands he mentioned. There’s no 1 formula to achieve anything on earth. In recreational and competitive cycling for instance ; 99% rider , 1% bike? 33% rider, 33%bike and 33% luck? They can be mixed up, cooked up any way you want it to be. That’s why not all coaches deliver the best teams, and not all underdogs are unbeaten. Depends too on what exactly you want to achieve. If you have the means, then why not. If not, do with what you have. Or work hard to get it! 🙂 I salute my friend who I chatted with (in the image above) when he said that getting a new wheel set will give him more motivation to train. Why not ? All the best dear friend ! 🙂 What about you? What motivates you to train better and/or harder ?
missJewelz 
Motivation 1 : Train to complete an event
Motivation 2 : Train to finish happy and have fun ( trying to learn that )
For me is 90% ownself 8% luck & blessing 2%smile! Sometimes can be 50% blessing 50% ownself… 🙂
heyya Lynn, thanks for sharing ! 🙂
Regards, Juliana Ali.
Nasib baik takde profile picture. Btw, sapa mamat yg u chat with tuh. Mcm kenal je motto dia tuh, Ride Hard, Spend Harder. I like. 🙂
Jeli, I wonder too lah. mmg macam familiar. kan?
Regards, Juliana Ali.
Yeah spending does motivate one to strive harder. Just bought a Asics Nimbus few months ago. Pockets are bleeding but motivation has gone way up high for me.
Luck plays a big part in biking I think, just like apparels do in swimming. Just some thoughts from a rookie.
Anyway, love your blog MissJ. Inspire me a lot.
-Cath-
Hi Cath ! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on motivation ! 🙂 yeah, I agree with you. To a certain extent is does motivate me alright–to make it all worth ! i like this. keep it coming dear readers and fellow bloggers ! 🙂
Regards, Juliana Ali.
Let’s be honest, triathlon is 99% the gear, COOL RULES hahahaha. In all seriousness I totally agree with you “If you have the means, then why not. If not, do with what you have. Or work hard to get it!”. Having the right kit and cool kit is always motivating but in terms of performance has very little impact on the outcome of a race – training does! If having nice kit motivates you to train hard, smart and consistently then I guarantee you will succeed!
Success is 99.9% attitude, 0.1% equipment, 0% luck, 0% fate, 0% make believe supernatural forces
Attitude is 25% commitment, 25% consistency, 25% desire (maybe ego in my case haha) and 25% embracing the pain.
Thank you Simon ! 🙂 I like your success recipe/formula. And definitely make use the one for attitude.. (and pain is subjective?!). The most painful race for me was my first full marathon in Penang (while Ironman Langkawi is fun!)
Regards, Juliana Ali.
I agree that there are painful races and fun races BUT if you want to succeed i.e. PB, podium, step up to the next level. The you must EMBRACE the pain – in training as well as the race.
I have raced in terrible pain when I haven’t trained enough.
I have completed races with no pain at all after consistent training
However, I have never succeeded in a race without first having embraced huge amounts of pain and suffering in weeks/months of training and the successful race is always a painfest from start to finish.
Having said that many people would describe success as completing a race that they enjoyed immensely without any pain – and that I respect.
So once again I agree with you as success is also subjective!
My motivation is, for sure, to do better, go faster and beat my previous bests. But often times, that is not enough, especially when you’re in a slump and feel like you’re not going anywhere (which is what I’ve been going through these past few years). Times like this, a new purchase certainly helps. It’ll make you want to go out there and try it. Tak kisah lah whether it’s new wheels, or new shoes, or new saddle. It can even be something as boring as new bar tapes!
But then, the danger is this sort of motivation is short-lived. After a while, the novelty of the new purchase wears off. What do you do then? Buy some more? Or hope that the new purchase actually did help you go faster and you get motivated by that. Does this make any sense?
Bar tapes? righto.. *actually thinking of changing mine also* But again, simply ‘rewarding’ ourselves too frequently will diminish the initial reason for the reward – which it motivation itself. inner motivation is key..!
ride HARD and train SMART!
still reading your blog yo!
ehehe.. 🙂 sure, sure. danke !
Regards, Juliana Ali.
oh regarding Motivation!
I think Motivation plays a very important role in a triathlete’s life. and it a the most single important component whether in training and/or racing. i put it easily at the bottom of my training pyramid!
But what motivates!?!?!?! so many factors… a pair of nice carbon wheels will do it for me too…for a while!
I am more curios at what keeps Simon motivated!??
this guy has done it all(i think) and is still going strong after like what; more than 10years now?
What motivates you Simon to keep going at it?
Thank you for sharing Azhar 🙂 i don’t know what I will do without motivation. sama jugak macam niat. kalau buat something without any of these 2, its like doing nothing for nothing.. kosong jer..
and Simon ? he da man !!!
Good question, I could easily write a book on what keeps me motivates but I’ll try and give you a snap shot of a few things.
First of all GEAR DOES NOT MOTIVATE ME AT ALL. Don’t get me wrong I love my gear, I’m a gadget man, a kit man, I love the whole shaving the legs thing but these are all badges of triathletes in my mind they don’t motivate me one iota.
The two things that motivate me are: –
1. Fear
2. Success
The strongest one being fear, in 2000 I was 107kg, I have never been athletically talented and was always one of the chubby kids at school walking the 1500m rather than running it. On Jan 1st 2000 I decided to change and become slim (or if I failed then at least learn to be fat and happy). I’m still not slim but in the slimming process I became fit. One day I went to the Malakoff duathlon prize-giving at Shah Alam to show my support for the “real” athletes when they announced “3rd place – Simon Cross” – I was shocked and blown away. From that moment on point 2. Success became a driving force. I wanted to do better and better and for the last 10 years I’ve got faster EVERY year at all three disciplines and I intend to keep doing so for the foreseeable future. I have a huge ego so call it the desire for success or simply a big fat ego I’m driven to achieve.
Going back to the fear though, I greatly fear getting fat and unhappy again but I also fear having my success taken away from me by others that I have started beating getting better than me again – so I train harder and smarter every year (I’m probably a slow learner too so it makes yearly improvement easier haha).
Fear can be a tremendous debilitator or an unbeatable motivator. For me I use it to motivate. In an OD Triathlon I never enjoy the run purely as a run for two reasons 1. I am running so scared of faster runners catching me that I push myself close to blackout. 2. I’m pushing myself close to blackout – it’s as painful as you can imagine and not a lot of fun. Hahaha
Anyway I hope that this gives you some insight into what motivates me.
One last thought, triathlon is a sport like no other – every five years (or ten years in smaller races) the organisers celebrate your advancing years by putting you in a new age-group. They make you young again. I think that triathletes are probably the only 39 year olds who can’t wait to be 40 haha I LOVE IT!
i use litar terulung UPNM to get strong
i luv to be with my team because they are the best motivation i had + i have my family who always giv their full support to me..
;))
Terulung dapat 60km tuh. ada bukit besi. ada tasik. ada pool kumbah2..apa lg yg xde kan. so, gunakan masa kat upnm sebaik yg mungkin ye dek Paan. team tuh, mmg dah jd mcm tulang blkg kan. kalau diri dgn sendiri belum tentu boleh meletop mcm skrg. next Ironman atau desaru, akak pasti Paan akan cross finish line before akak. ok?! 🙂 all the best. kak Julie and kak Suzie support Paán jugak ! 🙂
i was just thinking about this. a friend goes crazy over gadgets and tools and thank god he is equally good in what he does. my motivation to work out is just pure gratitude. i am grateful that i am able to and i will never forget that.
Hi Nadia ! Nice to hear from you 🙂 🙂 gratitude — a long lasting drive in almost all that we do. all the best in everything kay dear. ada masa call la ! hihi.
It’s not about what bike you ride – It’s about what rider you are…
Man, thanks for sharing ! we’re on the same page, same line, at least for the discussion above..Take 2 same bikes, but different riders.. and you may get perhaps, different results.
or you can have a Giant TCR, vs a CerveloP2 (for instance la), and yet the heavy Giant can’t keep overtaking the P2. that’s what i realized masa race kat Powerman dulu. but if training tuh diasah dan rider tuh digilap, put him/her on any bikes, or better still, a BETTER bike, than sure lagi meletop.
but again, tak semua orang punya approach untuk race/cycling sama, dan kita tak boleh nak expect semua orang sama. huhu..betoi dak? but i like your quite or like.. it is about what rider you are !