Swim expo asia 2014 Race Report

Had been looking forward to this event ever since I had joined ny swim class, sort of like taking this as a graduation swim.

Signed up for all 5 events, which was a combination of 3.8k, 1.9k, 1.5k, 750m and 400m open water swims. All to be completed back to back.

The prep swim done a couple of weeks ago gave me much confidence that this will be a walk in the park. Especially after seemingly having ironed out the possible issues of swimming in a wetsuit, where the #1 enemy is chafing

My preparation for race day, as usual, a McD Fish Fillet meal in the morning with iced milo to wash it down, while I drive to the race venue. Thunderstorms roared and heavy rain and wind caused a 1.5hrs delay to the start of the first 3.8km swim.

By the time it was clear to race, the sea became more choppy. I stuck with my wetsuit and tempo trainer, and went at a pace of 1.20 sec per stroke.

Bad mistake.

Confluence of a series of factors caused me to abandon the 3.8km when I was into the 5th (out of 6) laps. First 3 laps of 600m went fairly ok, but the choppy waves really started taking its toil on me on the 4th lap as I started to feel seasick. The feeling of wanting to throw up did not subside as I continued swimming at a slower pace, ignoring the tempo that I had set on the trainer. The tempo was probably set a bit too fast, so my breathing and heart rate was on the high side on lap #4. The constricting wetsuit made the nausea feeling worse as I couldn't control my heart rate and breathing even after coming to a standstill on my swim (though the waves made sure it was an uncomfortable pause in my swim).

Sensing that it will be futile to continue with my swim, I decided to abandon the race and signaled for the lifeguards to pull me out of the water. 1st thing after getting onto the boat is to unzip my wetsuit, and I immediately felt much better. Though I did throw up my breakfast in the toilet 20 mins after getting on shore.

Managed to complete the remaining 4 events without much issues (without the wetsuit), though the seasickness got to me for the 1.9km and 1.5km swim as I threw up again after these 2 events.



This is the first time that I have a DNF in any form of race.
It is a milestone decision, but I believe I made the right call.
Getting to know my limitations better and not stretching all the way till physical failure, will pave a safer and longer lasting path for my future sporting endeavours.
I'm still proud that I still managed to soldier on despite puking after each swim for the 1st three events.

Still managed to pick up some new knowledge from this swim.

1) Never try new stuff in a race - taking this mantra further, it should be "never try a mixture of too many new stuff in a race"
Just learnt to use the tempo trainer not too long ago. Shouldn't have deployed it on a wetsuit swim without fully getting used to the wetsuit
Hyper ventilating in the wetsuit. Even though I didn't really hyper ventilate this time, but being unable to slow down the breathing to suppress my urge to puke when seasick, it can be reasonably superposed to imply that will have a similar effect if I really hyperventilate.

2) Managing the choppy waves.
Dave Cameroon mentioned about slicing through the waves instead of trying to ride the waves. It worked pretty well except for the other part, that I still need to breathe.
Slicing thru the waves works on the side when I wasn't breathing, but on the side when breathing is required, I had to ride higher on the wave to catch my breath (and sight), which equals to riding the wave.
I had to ride higher or I risk taking in seawater (which I took too much during the swim that is also the cause of the nausea).
My coach mentioned that we should breathe less in choppy waves.
After experimenting in the 750m and 400m when I did a sequence of 2 stroke, sight, 4 strokes, 2 strokes, 4 strokes. It worked.

3) Tempo trainer.
Getting too aggressive on the tempo without fully understanding the wetsuit effect is another big No No.
Putting the tempo trainer in the swim cap and having it press against my temples for more than 1 hour causes extra pain. Another big No No

Skip the tempo trainer for the next race. Just use it purely for training.
Race on feel instead.

Conclusion:
I'm fully convinced that my stamina & technique is definitely able to last me through the entire 8.35km challenge. Just that I'm not well prepared enough and poor prep decisions costed me the 3.8km swim. Not completing a race is not something to fret about, but completing a race without learning anything will be a disaster. I had learnt much from this race, which will better help me handle my future races, especially a 3.8km swim for Full Ironman, even if it will be in choppy conditions. DNF here is better than DNF or struggling through a Full IM race.

Looking forward to the next race - StanChart 42km.
Very little time to train now...

A wut? incident happened at the pool today

Had a wut? moment at the swimming pool today.
(WTF wouldn't be appropriate to describe it)

Hadn't done any workout the whole of last week due to biz travel, and only managed to do a short run on Sunday morning, so I needed a quick session at the pool for a small workout and a refresher on what I had learnt during the 6km swim 2 weeks ago.

Was playing around with the new tempo trainer that I had bought.
It works by beeping at defined time intervals, so that I can synchronize my strokes to a fixed timing.
Another way to look at it is that it is sort of like a speed control device since my swim speed will be pretty much limited by how fast the tempo is set.

The pool was pretty crowded, so I had to do a bit of dodging while I swam, and slowly increase the speed of the tempo to test for my breaking point, so I stopped at the end of every lap to tune the tempo trainer.

During one of my laps I realized that there was a lot of splashing on my left, and a swimmer just frantically overtook me at a very high stroke rate.
Minding my own business, I just continued to the tempo that I had set and ignored the swimmer.

At one of my breaks when I stopped to adjust my tempo trainer, the same swimmer talked to me.
He was an old man, probably about 60 years old, telling me "Continue swimming and don't stop. Train your stamina! If you stop at the end of every lap your stamina will not improve"

I was like "WUT?"

And the old man went on to tell me that he trains a lot on his stamina, and does 30 laps continuously before ending with a butterfly lap as a gauge of his stamina, and how his strokes were slow and steady, and asked me if I'm training for any specific event, and said that I should swim non-stop to build on my stamina. And also told me to stick to my lane and not dodge other swimmers so that I can stake my claim on the lane. (Hello, I'm the late comer who is joining others that were already using the lane. It is just basic courtesy that I should dodge them if collision is imminent. If it was someone joining my lane, then its a different story)

At first I thought he was going to get technical, so I just told him that I'm on a tempo trainer (pointed to my tempo trainer) and am working on my Stroke per length then he immediately went "Huh? I don't understand"

Tried explaining the details to him but he couldn't understand anything.
Told him that I just did a 6km swim 2 weeks ago and I'm preparing for a 8km swim this weekend, and had clocked a few ironmans, so I have specific training goals.
Then he just went quiet.

I hate to come off as snobbish fart in telling him my endurance training stuff, but this was really too WUT?

I saw him barely overtake me on one of my laps with extremely high stroke rate and lots of water thrashing, while I'm following a strict cadence rate with minimal splashes. It was akin to overtaking me on his 100m sprint while I'm doing a 10km run.

If his technique was good, I'd have noticed it before he approached me.

Generally I don't offer unsolicited training advice to strangers unless they approach and ask me nicely.
But to offer unsolicited training advice when one does not even know his stuff well, is just plain rude.


Saw this youtube video a couple of days ago, and realize that I'm guilty of unknowingly spewing some of the crap stuff that triathletes say, especially those doing ironman and 70.3
To those whom are in the sport, the lingo seems normal.
But to those who have no idea what is Ironman/Triathlon, it definitely comes off as snobbish.

Gotta to watch my manners next time when I talk about the sport to non-Tri folks

33 years old soon

Turning 33 tomorrow.
Time really flies.

It seemed like only yesterday when I was just a small boy playing with toy soldiers at home, or the secondary school kid whom was totally devoted to NPCC, or the young recruit whom was trying very hard to excel in BMT.

It had always seemed that the transition from one phase to the other phase had always taken some time to get used, but none had made more permanent lasting changes to me than becoming a father.

Taking on the responsibility of taking care of my parents, spouse and children.
Mark of getting mature.

Nonetheless, it always feels good to reminisce about the past.
That explains why I'm extremely attached to old chinese songs that remind me of the good old days when I was much younger.
 Listening to this will always magically transport me back to the carefree days.

And damned, 林志颖 is much older than me, 7 years to be exact, but he still looks like he is 21 years old today, whereas I'm looking like I'm 38 years old when I'm only 33.