Aquathlon

Completed the Aquathlon today with a satisfactory timing of 45:15.
A rather significant improvement to last year's 51:20

Swim: 18:27 (750m)
T1:   2:12
Run: 24:35 (5km)


Did a pretty relaxed swim, focusing more on gliding through the water instead of bashing through with hurried strokes. Maintained at a "1 breath to hyperventilation stage" speed which worked quite alright.
Quite happy to be able to overtake a few guys with a higher stroke turnover just by simply gliding pass them. Gotta focus more on improving stroke efficiency in the water rather than just pure stamina/strength.
My sighting skills have improved significantly compared to last year.
Still not too keen to jostle too much with other swimmers but perhaps I can try to move to the mid of the pack during the start to avoid being blocked by other slower swimmers.

Transition was ok as usual but could still probably improve with faster shoe slip-on.
Maybe I should try running without socks? Bare foot is still no no at this stage..

Managed to do a negative split again for the run :)
Ran a consistent 5min/km pace for the 1st 2km.
Slowed down a bit till 3km at about 5:20min/km to stabilize the heartrate.
Walked for about 5 secs to finish off a drink at about 3km.
Managed to kick into a higher gear for the last 2km at probably about 4.40min/km.
Still had enough in the tank to sprint for the last 200m to the end point.
Took a gamble on 5km run being too short for conserving energy, so I went all out with gun blazing and it paid off.

The tempo runs that I had been doing for the last month has shown results.
I ought to do more tempo runs during the ramp up phase rather than just focus purely on LSD runs to build stamina all the time.
Need to find a good balance.

Going back to reservist tomorrow!
Maybe I'll need to take the ippt in camp this time.
Maybe I'll regain my Gold again...