Final 70.3 challenge before the ultimate upsize to full Ironman

 

Signed up for this yesterday when registration opened and *BOOMZ* all slots were grabbed up within 3 hours.

Typically I will race a fixed distance for a minimum of 3 times to gain enough experience before deciding to upgrade to the next longer distance.

So this will be my third and last 70.3 test before I deem myself ready to move up to a full Ironman race. 

Doesn't mean that I'll not do 70.3 in the future anymore though. Taiwan still remains as an unfinished challenge without completing the swim. I feel that the timing of Taiwan 70.3 is in the wrong season, so the weather is unstable and the odds of swim cancellation again is on the high side. Will need to check this year's edition to see if it will be worth the trouble to do Taiwan 70.3 again.

My #2 baby will be 6 months old by then.

Not sure if it will be a good idea to bring #2 along for the race, or just leave her in SG and bring Ryan along.

Good to get a defined sporting goal to work towards again.

I'll probably clock another couple of ODs next year before Cebu 70.3

Full Ironman will most probably happen in 2016

Race Report TriFactor OD 7 Sept 2014

Went into this race without heavy preparations nor expectations, since I was just looking to complete the race as a check for my fitness levels and to experiment with some of the newer stuff that I had learnt.

Of course there is always a comparison against my past timings on the same course, but beating that timing wasn’t top priority.

Pre race

Just my usual food the day before race, and my usual McD Fillet O Fish meal when I drove to the venue.

Used a bigger gym bag to carry all my race equipment rather than the smaller water proof bag which I had problems trying to fit everything in. Good decision.

Bike checked-in around 45 min before race, and remembered a tip from Winston on putting the bike shoes on the bike. Didn’t bring along any rubber bands, so I made do with a piece of plastic bag. Made sure that the knot is just strong enough to hold the shoes in place without dragging across the floor when I ran out of T1 bare footed, and loose enough for it to break loose automatically after I start pedaling.

Swim

Took it easy at the start and swam to the side rather than in the midst of the washing machine, as I wanted to test if the TI method will be really useful in the open water.

Swam the 1^st round mostly with the TI method, except for a couple of times when other swimmers came too close for comfort and I had to accelerate ahead to get out of the mess.

2^nd round was more of a 50-50 mix between TI and my old hard pedaling style.

Took me around 42 mins to complete 1.5km swim. About 5 mins more than what I’d have clocked with just the old hard pedaling. However, it was refreshing to get out of the water still feeling fresh in the legs.

T1

Lane markings was much better this time. With the lanes and numbers clearly marked out so there is no chance of missing my bike.

Nothing unusual this time, just that I noticed that I’m the only one who chose to wear my bike shoes on after mounting, rather than wearing the shoes first then running out with the bike.

Bike

Made a mistake in the settings after I had just replaced the battery for the bike computer the previous night. Wheel size was wrongly set, so it wasn’t before long then I realized that the bike computer was showing speeds that was definitely off the scale. So I had to ignore it and just refer to my watch.

Didn’t really thought much on how to pace the bike leg, so I just went at a pace that I was comfortable with. Hands on aero bars most of the time. Managed to clock around 31km/h on average, which given the winding race course, I should be reaching around 33km/h most of the time. Not too bad.

My quads only started to tire towards the end of the bike session, and I knew that it will affect my run..

T2

Dismounted shoeless. Ran in to transition, mounted my bike, ate a salt stick and ran out with just 1 packet of gel.

Run

Pace during the first 2km was still ok, but as cramps gradually set in on my right quad, my pace slowed to 7.48 min/km.

I had expected this to happen, and was going to experiment my school of thought that it might be possible to run off the cramps, so I persisted in slow jog without stopping (less @ water points) to see if this theory will work.

The cramps in my right quads persisted for quite some time before it gradually started to fade away at around the 6km mark when the left quads start to act up as well. Persisted with the slow jog and I gradually got faster and eventually ended the run without any cramps

Conclusion

Racing with my new Garmin Forerunner 910-XT gave me new insights into my swim leg which was not available on my old Polar RCX5.

Since I had split my swims into 100% TI method for the 1^st lap, and 50-50 for the 2^nd lap, it was possible for me to compare the swim data and see which was more efficient.

Barring the poor sighting in this swim (mostly my fault as I was too lazy to sight properly even though I could do it easily), the data was pretty evident that I had did pretty well in Lap 1 compared to lap 2.

The tips that I had picked up during the 1 hour session with TI and my subsequent 30 min of self training actually resulted in a much easier swim at roughly the same timing that I would have clocked with my old style. I can only imagine that I’ll get much faster and better when I’m able to fully absorb and integrate the TI method.

Played relatively safe on the bike this time. Wanted to lower the handle bars a bit before the race but eventually decided against doing so since I didn’t have the time to test it in training. Always stick to the mantra – Don’t try new things in a race!

The rubber band tip on tying the pedals and shoes is useful. I'll implement this properly for my next race.

Since I don’t have any more Tri races for the year, I’ll have all the time to optimize my bike.

Run timing wasn’t exactly stellar this time but it didn’t matter since that wasn’t my objective. However the an important breakthrough on outpowering the level 4 cramps (w/o using salt sticks) that I always experience in long D runs was worth it.

Lactic acid would have built up over the bike leg, and manifested in the 2^nd km of my run. Didn’t want to take the extra salt stick as it may build up my reliance on this placebo, so I persisted with the theory that if I run slow enough, my muscles will be able to flush away the built up lactic acid much more quickly than it will build up over a slow run. Pretty much similar to doing a recovery run on the day following race day. It worked!

Took quite a fair bit of will power and patience to do it though.

It will have been much easier to just adopt the same walk-run method that I had been doing in the SCMS for the last 10+ years, but I’d just walk away from this race without taking away anything.

On the same course, my timing for the last few years. Definitely much improved over the poor race last year, but I reckon that with proper prep, it should be easy for me to breach the 3 hour mark.

2012:     3:15:35

2013:     3:31:46

2014:     3:06:00

Bike distance is wrong... should be 36km instead

I perform better when there is no pressure to do so.
Best for me to do future races in a "I don't really care attitude"...

IPPT Gold again!

It gets more difficult as I get older, but I still managed to score IPPT Gold again to prove that it was not a flash in the pan last year!

Halted all cycling and swimming training to focus on speed runs in the last few weeks.
It ain't easy, facing one of my deep-set fears about the discomfort in speed training.

Even though I managed to do a sub-10 and beat the 10:14 timing by a good margin, I still feel that my fitness is still not fully calibrated for short burst runs like this.
It's the mental strength that saw me through rather than physical fitness.

Kept running these phrases in my head when I did the run:
"Tonight we dine in hell"
"There is no tomorrow"
My ironman pride was at stake, so I had to make sure that I score Gold in one sitting.

Perhaps I should keep speed training as a part of my maintenance training rather than just focusing purely on endurance training when training for 70.3, so that I'll be better prepared when my next IPPT window opens.

This IPPT Gold will be my golden ticket to the next 70.3 challenge!
Which one should it be?....

Score IPPT Gold if I want to do another 70.3 this year

This will be a challenge for myself.
I still have one month to clear my IPPT for this window.

If I manage to score IPPT Gold again, I'll go for another 70.3 within the year
If I can't get my Gold, no 70.3 for me.

A Half-Ironman should be scoring Gold for IPPT!

Training for IPPT

When I was much younger, IPPT was an annual $400 affair without much fuss.
I was young, fit, and much lighter at around 62kg then.
I'm now much older, at 70kg

Though the requirements for IPPT was gradually reduced as one gets older, the dynamics of the body aging and fitness decling faster than the IPPT standards meant that it will get tougher to score gold as one ages.

There was a period when my fitness had dropped below the Gold standards for a good few years

I always had the assumption that I was fit and could finish full marathons, so it is a taken that I should score Gold for my IPPTs.
Well, this did work all the way till 2009, and was eventually broken in 2010.

When I met my first Silver, I was in a state of denial.
"Perhaps it's just a bad day. I can still finish 42km runs"

My 2nd Silver in 2011 was due to me putting on too much weight, and I could not finish the 9th chin up for the Gold standard. Subsequently didn't put in too much effort to clock <10:14 br="" nbsp="">

The 3rd Silver in 2012 was a rude wake up call.
My 2.4km run is now officially non-Gold standard after 3 tries in 3 years.
"A bad day in office" is no longer a valid reason for not scoring Gold anymore.

2013 was a good year.
I started challenging for the half Ironman in late 2012, and had to take the IPPT during my ICT. Did surprisingly well and managed to clock 9:47 for the run, and regained the Gold standard.

Now, the window for clearing my IPPT for 2014 is almost over, and I have to face the challenge of trying for  the $400 in Gold.

Facing my fears
I had always avoided facing my fears for training specifically for the 2.4km IPPT run.
Speedwork training run has always extremely uncomfortable.
Doing the Long Slow Distance (LSD) run is a much easier training in comparison, and incidentally, I always chose to do the LSD for most of my trainings to avoid doing Speedwork.
This, in fact, is me running away from the reality that I needed to do Speedwork to properly train for a Gold 2.4km run.
The way that I trained in the past, is to keep clocking LSD runs, and pray hard that I can accidentally do a Gold 2.4km run during the test.

WRONG METHODOLOGY!!!

Training for specific requirements means a proper training has to be adopted.

Training for 2.4km by using the training plan for a 42km race is not the correct way to prepare.

This is especially pronounced as I got older, and it gets tougher to translate one class of physical fitness into another class.

Drawing on confidence

Things changed for me when I started participating in Triathlons.

It gave me a different challenge and impetus to change my overly simplistic training methods which I had been using for years for marathon trainings, which is just simply "No pain No gain, run more gain more"

This may have been working for me in my younger years, but my physique changes as I age so and I have to adapt.

What gave me really good confidence was from my swim.

Before I started doing Tris, I could barely swim 100m in freestyle without busting my lungs, so swimming was the discipline which I feared the most then.

Taking on my fears, putting in the efforts, has enabled me to improve my swim tremendously, to the point that today I'm equally confident in my swim and run.

If I can do it for my swim, where freestyle sprints are still lung bursting but already accepted as a norm in my trainings, I should be able do it for my sprint runs as well. 

The mantra of "No pain No gain, run more gain more" still holds true, but now I will have to add a "Train smart Train right" to complete the mantra.

I have managed to clock a 10:07 in my own 2.4km test run this week, so putting in more sessions should place me in good stead to score Gold again this year.

Unexpected gain in today's leisure swim

Did a swim at Tampines SAFRA with Weicheng today to push him for a bit of recovery physio from his broken toe injury.

On swimming alongside with him, then I started to appreciate how much I have improved in my swim from the point when I first started doing triathlons.

I used to struggle quite a fair bit to keep up with his speed, and had to use more strokes to complete a lap.
When I moved on to OD, my speed was about the same as his, but it will have to be a sustained effort to keep up.

Only after moving to 70.3, then my swim really improved tremendously as I learnt more through lots of read up, and actively honed my technique on top of my endurance.

It was now with relative ease that I'm able to glide past Weicheng today without much effort, and he could tell the huge advancement I made in my swim technique over the last 2 years.

I had tried to practice breathing on my left-hand side during the front crawl in many of my solo swim sessions in the past, but usually gave up after 2 laps of drinking chlorinated water.
Since today was supposed to be a leisure swim with him, there was no stress to hit any specific timing or mileage, so I spent more time learning how to operating on the left side since this will slow me down and I can swim next to WC rather than going too fast alone.

First 2 laps were horrible as usual, drank a bit of pool water.
With some fine adjustments, the improved slightly in the 3rd lap.
4th lap was getting better.
5th lap, I was able to overtake WC
6th lap, I was getting more comfortable with left side.

It was really an unexpected gain today to be able to properly swim on the left hand side.
I'll need to incorporate this into my future solo swims to properly develop my technique and allow for balanced muscle development on both sides.

This will probably lead to another small gain in my technique in time to come.
I have unexpectedly benefited from today's swim when my only objective was just helping my friend.
Good karma.
Happy!

Ironman 70.3 Putrajaya Race Report

Finally managed to finish a complete 70.3 race (Taiwan wasn't a complete race since the swim was replaced by run)

It was extremely hot, probably around 34 degrees at its peak, and with minimal vegetation cover and no cloud cover.
It made me appreciate how the rain helped during TW 703
Every part of the race was better than my earlier benchmark except for the run, but I'm contented with the results given the extremely hot conditions.
Learnt some new tricks during this trip


Day - 2
Reached Putrajaya 2 days earlier to avoid the same rush during the TW 703. It was more relaxing to just stay around and explore the place a little bit, spend some time going through the merchandise at the expo (which were damned $$$) and generally lazing around.

Day - 1
Joined the morning trial swim organized by the 703 organizers. Good to have a feel of the water before the race. The water was murky with zero visibility with some dead leaves floating at dead corners. Good thing was that the water was warm with no undercurrents, plenty of buildings around for easy sighting, and it is not salty!
Went for bike racking around 4pm (1 hour to TA closure), then back to the mall for dinner.
Poor choice of dinner location at Dome cafe, with extremely slow service and poor availability of pasta that we needed.
Another group of Ang Mohs even brought their own pasta and sauce and passed it to the kitchen to cook when the kitchen ran out of it. One of them even volunteered to cook in the kitchen when the pasta took too long to be served.
Amazingly I managed to clear my bowels 4x in one day. Not Diarrhea. Maybe my body automatically cleanses itself in preparation for important races without deliberate changes in my diet.
Went to sleep around 10pm


RACE DAY

H-2
Woke up at 0445 for breakfast
Surprised that the hotel breakfast started at 5, so I skipped my own prepared bread/bananas/Milo for a proper breakfast
2 x hardboiled eggs, 4 x sliced bread as the minimum intake.
Skipped powerbar to avoid stomach upset, but on hindsight, I should have ate the powerbar since I had already broken in.
Slathered on the sunscreen.
Cleared the bowels 1 last time.

H-1
Arrived at TA 45 mins before closure to allow ample time for setup

Swim
Deep water start with close to 60 pax.
Not a good idea to go into the water too early and get surrounded by other people. Wasting energy and quite dangerous when there isn't ample space to tread water and start kicking each other.
Surprisingly the swim off was pretty smooth. Not that much of jostling like what we have in SG races. And I managed to kick into a comfortable pace that I stuck with for the whole race.

Completed the swim at 49.04
Not too bad.

T1
Managed to keep my composure and ran to my bike without any hiccups.
Helmet on, gloves on, shades on, shoes on.
Clocked 3.44
Good

Bike
Waited till I was on the bike before I turned on the GPS, which meant I could have missed a few hundred metres to a few km on the GPS but it doesn't really matter too much. Data is just data and I mostly use it for post analysis. Immediate data which was more important was on the bike computer.
Oh wait, I forgot to reset the computer before the race, so the Distance travelled could be wrong...
Oh well, just read the speedometer and go by feel.
First 2km into the ride and I started to feel my quads. Not a good thing.
I probably went too aggressive on my kicks during the swim and my quads were a bit fatigued.
Took the gels and salt and started to feel better to start pedaling at my normal speeds.
The course was more hilly than expected and my climbs were gradually reduced to turtle speeds as my quads tired through the 2nd lap. Had to rely on my superior handing skills to catch up on the speed on the downhills. The numerous spin training sessions I had imposed on myself in the aero position helped, and my handling in the aero position on the descents improved greatly. No more wobbling and top speed increased to around 50kmh with less energy expended. Still, my quads were tired so I had to rely more on strategy than endurance to finish the bike leg and not completely screw up my run later.


Clocked 3.25.40
Not too bad

T2
Dismounted the bike on bare foot and ran into TA.
Not sure if it was a good idea but the tarmac was blazing hot so it was really a fast run to the rack and a quick jump into the running shoes without sitting down.
Clocked 3.24
Good

Run
Immediately after I ran out of TA, I started to feel my quads again, and could only manage to do an extremely slow jog pace at around 8.30min/km while I took gels and salts to sort out the quads. Pressed on with slow pace and gradually started to pick up a bit of speed after a few more km.
It was getting really hot and cramps were about to set in.
I realized that my cramps will not go away if I continued with my usual mid foot strike and that will draw power from my quads. Decided to ditch the mid foot and ran with heel strikes (since my shoes was able to support it) to place the stress more on the calves than the quads. It worked nicely!
My quads were tiring and showing signs of impending muscle cramps (shutdowns) early in the run.
Experience and a good understanding of how my body will react was essential, as I had to adjust my running form to achieve the fastest possible pace that I could manage, while keeping the quads working marginally below before the muscle shutdown level.
It worked nicely and I managed to run continuously (less ~100m walk at every water station) till around 14km where the water station ran out of water and it was getting too hot to run without water to cool off. I was getting a bit dizzy when I ran without the water.
Decided that it was not worthwhile to risk a heat stroke on the run so I reverted back to brisk walking for the rest of the run.
Subsequent water stations were stocked with water but the shut down had occurred once I started walking.
Salt stick consumption is to be capped at 8 pcs per day, and I couldn't remember how many I had took so I just dropped the idea of taking the salt stick to clear the cramp and restart the run. Better to finish safe.

Clocked 2.43.40
Bad by my usual running standards, but I'll not risk health for results, so ultimately this is still acceptable.

Timing Breakdown:
Swim: 49:04
T1: 3:44
Bike: 3:25:40
T2: 3:24
Run: 2:43:40
Total Chip Time: 7:05:32

Post Race
Steamboat dinner coupled with a power packed fruit slushie for good recovery.
Stayed for 1 more night before driving back to SG on Monday morning.
Take it easy. Remember that it is a holiday trip for the family too.


The Good

1. Bring along bike covers and masking tapes to cover the bike for overnight racking in case of rain (which in our case, it really rained)
2. Use unique landmarks or lamp posts to recall where my bike is racked instead of relying on number checks during Transitions which may get confusing
3. Extra plastic bags and packing bike and run gears into 2 separate packs. Gear will remain dry in case of rain, and I'll not miss any gear during transition
4. Wore slippers to TA and kept it inside for immediate wear on bike check out
5. Sighting at around every 10 strokes to ensure correct direction. Maintained focus on correct technique to minimize drag (always missed this in previous races). Sighting improved along the swim and buoy turns executed smoothly with double one sided strokes.
6. Running cap is a live-saver. Must bring it for every 70.3 race. Saw many runners with visors putting a towel under their visors to avoid the heat. They might as well get a proper cap
7. Disposable water bottle is a live-saver. Must bring it for every 70.3 race.

The Bad

1. Safety issues for deep water start. Be the last to enter and move to the side/rear for safety
2. Numbness during bike leg - the saddle must be changed
3. Trusting the water stations. Throwing the water bottle away after taking confidence in the water points to have sufficient supply after lap 1 is stupid. I could have ran the full 21km and clocked at least 10 minutes faster if I had enough water to continue the run.

Perhaps

• Skip the long Q at the loo before the race. Just pee in the water :p
• Keep a Stage 3 power bar with Dear for immediate post race recovery meal. Maybe keep it in the fridge-to-go to prevent it from melting.

New Tricks

• Rack the bike on the gear shifters rather than on the saddle. Better stability in case of strong winds toppling the bikes.
• Bring along our own pasta and sauce and cook in hotel for carbo-loading dinner. (and order room service dinner for supporters) - learnt from the Ang Mohs at the dinner place!

Doing relatively ok in training so far

Runs have been relatively easy since I did the 42k last month so I didn't really have to clock a lot of distance for this race, just a simple maintenance routine run once every few days is good enough

Clocked my long swim earlier this week. 2km in about 46 minutes.
Comparing that to my prep for Tw 70.3 which I clocked around 50 mins, it is a good improvement.

Been spending a lot more time on the bike trainer compared to my preparations for the TW 70.3
Setting up the training system into a much more easily accessible configuration really contributed to me spending more time on the trainer.
Now I even manage to read while I spin on the trainer. Good use of time
And added an extra simple weights training after the spin session since I will have warmed up and sweating like hell by the end of the spin session. Really killing 2 birds with 1 stone since I had always been too lazy to maintain a proper weights routine as I had never liked to finish exercise sessions with my shirt still dry. It just feels weird to me.

Comparing this to my previous concern about carrying the trainer out to the corridor to train and then back into the apartment again after use, and a 100% clean up on the bike after every single session, which made me lazy for spin sessions.
I guess being "lazy" in another way by forgoing the 100% clean up on the bike really helped :p


Invested in a stationary swimming gear which I could use for long swim training sessions in small hotel pools when I go on business trips. No more excuses to skip training sessions when I travel.
Apart from swims, I've started to clock at least 30 min spin sessions in the hotel gyms so that I can refine my technique and build up better cycling endurance.


Going by my current condition, my targets for the KL 70.3 will be:

Benchmark (I shouldn't be slower than this)
Swim - 50 mins
T1 - 5 mins
Bike - 3h 30 mins
T2 - 5 mins
Run - 2h 30mins
Total: 7 hours

Stretch Goal
Swim - 48 mins
T1 - 4 mins
Bike - 3h 20 mins
T2 - 3 mins
Run - 2h 15mins
Total: 6h 30 min

I'll be very happy if I can come near to this, but this is really a long shot with my current level. I can hit the targets for each leg in separate sessions but stringing them together in 1 sitting is a different story, that's the beauty of Triathlons!