MetaSprint Sprint Tri

MetaSprint Sprint Triathlon

Swim: 21:12

T1: 2:49

Cycle: 42:37

T2: 1:47

Run: 29:18

Total Time: 1:37:46

Final Category Position: 185/323

Considering the lack of training for the last month, the results from this race ain’t too bad (though I know I could do much better if proper conditioning was done)

Swim

Less than ideal start. Took the outside line and tried to swim a shorter route but somehow got sucked outwards instead and took a longer time to reach the 1^st buoy. Numerous tussles with froggers left and right, and had to take numerous double strokes to quickly overtake them for safety.

T1:

Messed up here. Couldn’t find my bike when I first ran in, and wasted around 30s looking. Too many white bikes and with the racks not numbered, it was too easy to miss my bike. Ended up spotting my bike by the number tag rather than recognizing the bike itself.

Ideas: Tie a bright coloured cloth or flag to the bike rack to make recognition easier for races with unnumbered racks.

Cycle:

Was pretty cautious on the bike leg ever since Roy reminded me not to overstress on the bike and reserve for the run, which is my strongest leg. Was targeting to maintain at around 30km/h, but ended up hovering between 28 – 31km/h. Not too bad. Tried the low gear fast cadence strategy at the end of the cycle to reduce HR and increase blood flow to calves. Worked!

T2:

Again had problems trying to find my spot.

Though not as bad as T1.

Run:

Started slowly at about 6:15min/km. Wanted to give my HR some time to stabilize first before ramping up the speed. Following the –ve split strategy, the first 2.5km should not be any faster than 6min/km. It was quite hot though, and I swear that splashing the cold water on my face alone lowered by HR by 3 beats.

Held back a bit more till the 3km mark then I started to let the legs loose and opened up the strides to go faster. Speed went from 5:40min/km to 5:20min/km.

Still had the extra energy left at the final 500m to go from 5:00min/km with a final all out full energy sprint. Good run but I think I can make it better by going slightly faster for the 1^st half.

Conclusion:

I’m happy with the run. By now it is quite obvious that speed calibration and strategy correction before any race is important. The last 21km run was screwed up as I relied on the 42km pace and strategy, which I ended the run much slower than my abilities with too much energy left in the tank after the run.

Though I didn’t do any calibration runs before this Tri, my previous races for 5km were quite on target and I just had to follow the same strategy which worked nicely.

There were some time during the swim when my mind drifted off, and it seems that I didn’t move that quickly in the water during that period. It seems to happen every time I day dreamed and didn’t do sighting. Next time I should try starting mid-pack. Perhaps with more front crawlers around there will be less need to do sighting and easier to draft as well.

Using the hamstrings for the bike this time has probably helped me to save my quads and calves for the run. Gotta practice more and clock more cycling mileage. Time to invest in a proper trainer.

Taking a break from racing and focus on training now.

Next event: TriFactor OD Tri on 18 August.

2013 2XU compression run report

Did the 2XU 21km run on Sunday morning.
Timing wasn't really good at around 2:10, but then again I had not clocked any LSD for some time already, and was off proper training for the last few weeks, so I can't expect much out of this run anyway.

And through this run, some questions that I thought I had solved previously popped up again.

Ups:
1) Did the run in my Tri suit. Needed to clock some mileage and get used to running in the Tri-suit. Found that the first half of the run was unusally hot even though it was still dark, and I had to keep pouring water on myself to cool down. It was only after daybreak then it started to feel cooler. Conclusion: The Tri-suit only works against temperature when it is wet and in well ventilated conditions. The first half was too crowded with people and that pretty much limited the airflow. The 2nd half was much cooler after the crowd had spaced out, even though the sun was already up. Gotta try a few training LSDs to confirm this.

Downs:
1) Did not check my gear properly before going for the run. GPS unit went flat at 6.8km mark, and I couldn't tell my pace after that. Had to rely just on feel and HR. Perhaps I had been too reliant on my gear, and the hotter than usual tri suit pretty much threw my feel and HR off balance.

2) Too obsessed with keeping my HR below 170, which was a benchmark I used for the full marathon. It might have been too conservative and caused me to hold back too much in the 1st half.

3) Sore muscles. This is strange. It wasn't really a tough race nor did I go all out. My calves are still sore till today. Usual 21km in training doesn't feel as bad

Points to Ponder:
1) Using the high cadence short stride should have given me a pretty decent pace and no/little impact to the knees. Somehow this time I had draggy feet and it doesn't seem to work for me. My knees were a bit sore at the end as well. Perhaps I didn't execute the technique properly after a long training hiatus. Need to clock more LSD

2) Never ever underestimate B or C races again by not training for it. Especially for the next 3 Tris in line.

Graded my races

Just categorized my upcoming races into different grades last night to remind myself on the objectives for each event.

Originally graded the upcoming 2XU 21km run at "B", but having just visited the doctor this morning for a sore throat and slight infection, I may want to downgrade it to a "C" to play safe if I don't recover properly by Friday.

For a "B" 21km run, I should complete in less than 2 hours
For a "C" 21km, I should probably target around 2:15 hours. Spending any longer time on the route will be an unnecessary strain.

Been reading up a bit on how to structure my training program for the TwHIM.
Seems like a significant amount of time has to be devoted, as expected anyway.
Managed to find a few videos on how to improve swimming and biking techniques that seemed useful. I'll probably try them in my next workout.

Biking is my weakest sport out of the 3 disciplines, and it also takes up the big chunk of timing for a triathlon.
Gotta spend more time improving my bike endurance.

Duathalon yesterday

It was my "C" race since I have a "B" 21km run coming up this Sunday, so it was more of like a training event for me.

Though, did not do too well in the Duathlon yesterday based on my Perceived Effort Rate (PER).
Review of the race:

Ups:
1) Both Run1 and Run2 were significantly faster than last year. Comparison as below:
Run1 2012: 16:27
Run1 2013: 14:32

Run2 2012: 21:54
Run2 2013: 18:38


Downs:
1) Slower bike than last year. Though it isn't a direct comparison since the distance is slightly longer this year with more U turns that brought down the average speed significantly, still I can feel that I'm not pushing as hard as I could. A comparison on the average speed will be a better comparison:

Bike Average Speed 2012: 29.9km/h
Bike Average Speed 2013: 27.7km/h

2) T2 could have been faster if I had used cage pedals instead of clip pedals. This would have saved me maybe more than 1 minute since I had struggled a bit to put the bike shoes on and off the ride. Changing out of and into the running shoes took a bit of time as well. Nonetheless not a big issue since I thought it will have been more troublesome to change the clips to cage instead. Good improvised transition by not taking out the socks.

Evaluation:
1) Got sucked into the situation at the start of Run1 when everyone around me ran off quickly. Didn't really want to start off that quickly but it wasn't too big a problem for me to go at that pace for a short race. Need to take note not to stray too much off my planned pace for longer races.
2) Did not push as hard on the bike this time round compared to last year. This is a "C" race. No need to chiong.
3) Performed below average due to the overly high Heart Rate for Run2. Need to better manage the T2 transition from Bike to Run better in higher priority races. More brick training needed.

In all, I didn't train or plan for this race properly since it was the lowest priority, and I just went out like a noob without any proper prep and let my instincts take over. However there still there are some take away lessons from this race so it's still not too shabby.

Now with my #1 top priority "A" race for the Taiwan HIM, all other races are not that important now, and they will act as building blocks for the TwHIM.

My poor baby

Ryan couldn't sleep properly for the whole of last night, and kept waking up every 30min to 1 hour after we put him back to sleep.
Think this is probably the start of his teething phase, which will be difficult for him probably for the whole of this week.
He went into a slight fever in the morning, and fever again when we brought him back home at night.

It's really heart breaking to see my precious baby feeling so uncomfortable and looking so moody.
Really hope that he will recover quickly and show me his cheeky sunshine smile once again



Just do it!

Finally registered after Dear gave me the go ahead to join the ironman taiwan race.
Just as how Mayday's song goes:

有些事現在不做 一輩子都不會做了

要乘着年轻时，抛热泪洒热血
现在不做，以后一定后悔

I'm prone to crazy impulses.
This is another one.
Hahahaha

Traveling for the last 2 weeks

It had been a busy start to the month, traveling for 2 full weeks before settling down this week without the need to go around at least for 2 weeks, i hope.

So far the work for this month has been pretty satisfactory, but still could be better.
There is still some way to go to meet my quota for the year, but at least the possibility of ending the FY on a high is still there. Just gotta try harder and smarter.

Ryan is getting more and more fun.
He is putting up lots of weird and funny expressions from time to time, and he looks absolutely super cute when he is at it. There is never any boring moments with Ryan around.
Right now only the feeding part is still challenging, but it is a real blessing to have Ryan in my life.
I guess I may miss Ryan's garbled mumblings after he learns how to talk, but nonetheless this is a learning journey for both me and dear, and we will enjoy every single phase of Ryan growing up.
There are so many things that I want to teach Ryan as he grows up!


Bro is going to shift back to SG at the end of the month.
I had just read my old entry not too long ago about Bro leaving for the US then.
Time has really passed so quickly.
Growing old...


Was discussing with dear earlier in the day on the possibility of me joining the ironmantaiwan race, which will entail a huge load of logistics to be sorted out.
The registration will open in 11 hours time... Still considering whether to join or not.

We finally meet again, IPPT Gold!

After scoring only silver for the last 2 years, regaining the gold standard this year was a especially sweet
Of course the extra $200 incentive helps a lot.

Ever since 2011, it has always been a mental obstacle for me to last the pace for the full 2.4km
Somehow I was like cheating myself, trying to fool myself into thinking that my fitness was still ok even though I had put on a lot of weight and not exercising as much as I used to.
For every 2.4km training run, I'll always only do the first 1.2km or 1.6km at the target pace.
The problem was that I did not push myself to finish the full 2.4km in every training run, always comforting myself that the remaining 800m to 1200m will take care of itself, especially since I used to be able to chiong for the last 200m which will pull back the timing.

How wrong I was!!

What doesn't happen in training, will have a very low likelihood of happening in actual races.
Adrenaline can only do so much. Stress and Fear will have a very negative impact, as evident in my SCSM2009 race.
Racing gives me adrenaline as I don't set a hard target that I need to beat.
I get far more stressed from trying to meet the IPPT Gold standard so that I can take the $400 incentive.

A series of events has changed the way I train and brought the confidence back.

It started from the second wind in SCMS2012 as a moment of realization.
From the second wind in SCMS2012, it gave me my first ever negative split in the MegaTri in Jan13.
The negative split in MegaTri gave me another negative split for the Aquathlon at a much faster pace.
Aquathlon gave me the confidence that my stamina is now ready to tackle ippt and bring the gold back.

Of course, the deliberate tweaking of my training runs to incorporate negative splits has helped tremendously in regaining my confidence in blazing through the 2.4km at full speed.

Next up will be the Duathlon, which may be a problem for me as I don't have much time to train on the bike from now till 2 weeks before the race.

OMG....

Taiwan Ironman-70.3

This is sooooo OMG

Was searching for the Bintan Half Iron Man race then I realized that it was on 31 August, when I'd most probably be in USA again for training, so I probably won't be able to join it even if I wanted to.

Then I came across this gem......

Taiwan Kenting

2 November 2013

70.3 - Half Iron Man

It will be epic if I could join this... 

I can even give up StanChart Marathon for this

But the chances of joining this race is close to 0.

1st, It is a grave sin to go TW without vacationing. It is not possible to do vacationing before or after 70.3 since it will probably put me in bed for a few days after the event. It is also not feasible to lug the bike around TW.  (unless it is a bike-around taiwan holiday; this is even more ridiculous even though I'd absolutely love to do it if I have a chance, but it is not possible to combine this with a race of this magnitude)

2nd, annual leave is precious. It should be spent with family rather than burning calories and rubber. Bringing family out for a vacation is ok. Leaving family at home while I'm out enjoying myself alone - NOT OK.

3rd, $$$$$

4th, Triathlon is just a hobby. I shouldn't be overly investing too much time, energy and money into it. There are other more important things in life that I have to take care of, and are more deserving of my resources and attention.

Too bad *shrugs*

Andy Lau's song comes into mind: 

我和我追逐的梦，擦肩而过，永远也不能重逢。

我和我追逐的梦，已在错过，只留下我，独自寂寞。却不敢回首

(this is overly dramatic though)

Damned. I should go karaoke again soon.