Taiwan Half Ironman Race report

Finally completed the long awaited 70.3 race in Taiwan last weekend.
Results weren't ideal, but given the circumstances, I will consider it to be quite decent.
Learnt quite a few stuff along the way.

Pre-race Day
Arrived at the resort at around 2.15pm. Picked up the race pack, rental bike and started to setup everything for a orientation ride. Took me longer than expected, and had to go for the race brief at 4pm which lasted till 4.40pm.
Continued to adjust the bike as seat post was slightly low. Went out for the test ride and rush cycled to the TA as dusk fell by 5.15pm.

Bad mistake 1: Arriving too late and not assigning enough time for bike setup. Bike fit was really bad. The bike was too long and I had to lean far too forward for my comfort, and I chose to go for the orientation ride instead of getting the correct bike fit as I did not have enough time to refit the bike before it was too dark to ride.

Bad mistake 2: Rented bike tyre thread was close to bare. Means it could be dangerous/ slippery for high speed and turns.

Bad mistake 3: Arriving too late and not assigning enough time to bring Ryan and Dear out for proper meals. They had to take the same food as me at the welcome dinner which was crappy for them. Supporters deserve better treatment!

Race Day
H-3
Woke up at 2.50am for the breakfast at 3am. Breakfast was on the light side. Could have done a bit more with some extra bread and cereals.

H-2
Took the shuttle bus to TA and it started to rain heavily. Good decision to wear slippers to the TA as usual, otherwise the running shoes will be wet before the race.

H-1
Officials announced cancellation of swim and replaced it with 6km run. Started to setup everything.
Good tip which I eventually found useful: Tape the energy gels to the bike. Makes it easy to tear off for consumption with one hand while still riding. Don't have to fumble through the bags.

Race Starts. Run 1
Started behind the mid pack and had to spend quite a bit of time overtaking the rest. Perhaps I should have started in front of mid pack instead. Lots of water puddles and mad runners stomping on them, splashing water around. Had to be careful to avoid those.
Went a bit faster than planned but managed to ease back on the pace at 4km to avoid letting the HR go too high before the Bike leg.

T1
Realised that I should had run with my bike gloves on so that I don't have to spend the extra 30s to put them on at T1. My crappy bike shoes took a bit longer to wear but paying the 20sec price for being cheapo instead of another $150 for new shoes? I'll choose to be cheapo.

Bike
Started off nice and slow with a gradual long climb out of TA area. Managed to maintain a good speed and kept up with most people, even overtaking some. 1st climb up Mt Guan was ok. Cautious on the downhill ride and turns due to the bare tyre threads, wet roads and strong cross winds. Maintained the refueling strategy of 1 salt stick at every hour+50min mark, and 1 gel at every hour mark. Fared pretty decent for the 1st loop for 46km. Things started to go bad as I started to tire at 50km and could not maintain speeds at 28-30kmh. Had to take risks and went up to 60kmh at steep downhill rides to take maximum advantage of the terrain. Good thing my handling skills was ok. But long flat roads really sapped the energy out of me as my speed dropped to around 21-23kmh. Managed to go back up to around 26kmh on the final 20km. Cramps came in and went off after I continued with the salt stick. It actually worked pretty well!

T2
Had been feeling a bit of pain in the left knee during the ride, but after hopping off the bike, then I realised that it could be more than just a simple discomfort that I could shrug off easily. Took my time to refuel a bit at the TA. HR was at an ok level since I wasn't exerting too much for the final bike stretch. Muscles were ok, no cramps.
Another good decision: Extra socks to change into in case of wet socks after the bike. Extra towel for wiping the face instead of just 1 for the feet after swim.

Run 2
Walked out from TA and tried to start jogging then my left knee started to snatch up. Sharp pain on the inside of the knee whenever I tried to lift my left knee to jog. Tried to restart jogging numerous times but the sharp pain wouldn't go away. After walking to the 3km mark, then I concluded that the pain will be there throughout Run 2 and I had to find a faster way to complete the remaining distance instead of hoping to restart jogging again. Started to call on my 11 years of StanChart marathon fast walk experience and put up a relatively decent fast walk speed.
The pace initially hovered around 9min/km, which was too slow and I will finish the race at around 8 hr mark. No good.
Change of strategy again. Walk as fast as possible. Skip hop jog a little until the knee hurts and walk it off again. Couldn't sustain this for beyond 10km.
Change of strategy again. Increase walking pace. Managed to increase the average speed up to 8.15min/km.
So I just maintained the faster walking speed through, with a little skip hop jog whenever it is feasible on a downslope.
At one point I checked my pace reached 6.50min/km, which was pretty incredible.
Finally finished the 21km walk within 2:58. Pretty respectable timing for a walk!
And I managed to walk faster than some of the slower joggers!

Timing Breakdown:
Run1: 32:46
T1: 3:26
Bike: 3:31:51
T2: 4:26
Run2: 2:58:02
Total Chip Time: 7:10:32

The GOOD

1. Pre race preparations: Extra socks, extra shoes, extra race clothes, slippers.
2. Refueling strategy: In general, the gel + salt stick worked pretty well. No major cramps like what I used to experience in 42km or ODs.
3. Improvisation: Fast walk was good
4. Early race pace control: Good to not go all out too early. Be patient and maintain transport mode speed when it doesn't pay to go all out
5. Bike handling. Hitting a high of 60km/h! It gets scary after that though, but I'm still pretty confident of my bike handling skills so it turns out that downhill rides became my strong advantage.

The BAD

1. Bike Fit: Extremely horrible. It is probably the biggest cause of a poor bike leg timing. Caused my back to snatch up by the 40km mark, and I had to keep on taking breaks to stretch my back through the ride. Winston noticed this when he passed me on the 2nd climb at Mt Guan. This probably caused me much speed and stamina. Even as I type this, my back is still aching. Next time if I have to choose proper Bike fit or Orientation ride on rented bike, Bike Fit is the way to go.
2. Not setting aside enough preparation time. I should arrive much earlier next time for long events like this. 2 hours is NOT enough to setup everything nicely and bring the family out for dinner.
3. Race Expo. I missed out on buying any merchandise at this expo as I arrived too late on pre race day, and didn't have enough time to go through the booths after the race as I had to pick up the gears quickly and bring my poor starving family out for proper meals. MUST allocate time for race expo next time.
4. Orientation ride. Should have done it much earlier so that any issues could have been identified and ironed out before race day. Also to test the road conditions to find out where are the tricky/ dangerous parts of the route so that appropriate safety counter-measures can be applied.
5. Bike stamina. Enough said. I got to improve my bike stamina and speed if I want to improve my timing by any measure
6. Race day breakfast. Bring my own food...
7. Old injury on left knee. Probably overloaded my left knee with bad posture during the bike that caused the sharp pain. This never happened before on my practice rides. Need to figure out what is the exact cause and rectify my cycling form to prevent this from happening again.

So what's next???
Hmmmmmmmmm