This must be my toughest race till date.
A different kind of Ironman race.
More hardcore than Ironman...
Pretty eventful trip as well (Shitty Silkair service)
Friday (Race -2 Days)
Got Dad to ferry us to the airport early in the morning at 6.30am.
Had a good workout trying to fit the bike case into his van but still made it nonetheless.
Flight was at 9am - shifted from a much more comfortable timing of my original booking at 2.20pm.
No thanks to a very helpful Silkair canceling the direct flights to Cebu, and we had to take a transit at Davao. (though this was announced sometime ago, but it was still shit from Silkair)
Ryan and Rainie were on good behaviour so the flight was pretty manageable.
For her first flight, Rainie is definitely much easier to handle than Ryan.
Silkair Shit #1: Out of 3 of my checked in luggage with Priority tags, 2 failed to appear at the luggage carousel at Cebu airport. Turns out that more than 15 pax were affected and there was a crowd at the lost luggage office in Cebu Airport. Silkair probably reloaded the luggage into the return flight. What made it worse, is that the missing luggage were the important baby stuff. And this meant that we had to survive without all the baby necessities until the luggage was returned to us, earliest by the next Silkair flight to Cebu (next day). CRAP... other passengers had missing bike cases. lucky for them that the race was not on the next day.
Long story short, the luggage was subsequently sent to our hotel at around 8pm (we touched down at 2.35pm). Silkair probably unloaded the luggage at Davao and got Cebu Air to fly them back to Cebu again.
Saturday (Race -1 Day)
Ahhhh. A full good day of time to prepare properly for the race.
Got Dear to take care of the kids while I was planning to go for the ride out session. Turns out that my rear derailleur was out of alignment when I tried to cycle. Had to send the bike to the mechanic for a quick fix. Missed the ride out.
Chose to go for the swim-out instead. The water conditions was absolutely stunning and fantastic.
Just like what I had been told - literally swim with the fishes.
There wasn't much undercurrent too.
It will be a good swim tomorrow.
Met up with the TI interviewee, and treated him to lunch together with my family, especially since he made a special trip from Manila to Cebu just to meet me.
Spent more time with him, going through his objectives and intentions for engaging TI, as well as filming his swim live.
Ended him interview by teaching him some drills and pointers to improve his swim.
Brought the family to the Race expo after finishing the race brief - the range of merchandise was not as good as PJ, and it was simply too crowded to be able to find or buy anything in comfort. Ended up settling for a simple set of printed tees for the family.
This time, our dinner was much better prepared. Brought along our own cooker and pasta, so we did our own carbo loading in the comfort of our hotel room. Think this is a pretty neat arrangement, that we totally avoid any surprises/ shocks on the dinner before the race (Thanks to the bad experience at PJ)
Sunday (Race Day)
Had a good night of rest from around 9.30pm till 3am.
Couldn't force any shit out of the system even after 30 minutes on the throne.
Gave up and went for breakfast.
Shangri-la arrangement is much better than what we had at Taiwan or PJ. It was a full breakfast buffet that started early for the athletes.
The beach was filled with athletes warming up for the swim, and the atmosphere was electric!
The sea was lined with rows and rows of boats just outside of the swim course, with plenty of supporters drumming. Plenty of spectators and supporters lined the coast line to watch the swim.
SWIM
It was a self-seeding rolling start system.
I originally chose the 36-40min group, but somehow went into the 31-35 min group.
Just as well, since I can probably catch some draft, so maybe I could be faster.
The beach head was pretty rocky, and there was no way to do any dolphin dives to get into the deeper end. Dolphin kicks worked very well here since the water was too shallow to go into a full freestyle.
Once I was out in the water, it was just a matter of focusing on controlling my breathing to avoid panting - which I did pretty well.
This was still the first time that I'm putting what I had learnt from TI it into good use in an Open Water Swim race. To my surprise, I started to overtake lots of people very easily.
My stroke length has increased considerably and I was then literally overtaking people in slow motion. Plenty of time for me to observe swimmers in front of me and plan what is my next move to overtake them. It was pretty fun to be bossing around in the water!
Gained some useful lessons from this swim:
Blocking - learnt how to inculcate blocks against kicks (from both freestyle and breast stroke) into my usual strokes, so I'm protected and don't have to pedal extra hard for overtaking attempts
Sighting - Only practiced it on Monday, and put it into real effective use within the same week.
Drafting - Still something that I need to work on. Managed to draft a few people but overtook them too quickly, instead of latching to them for a longer distance.
Breath Control - Very conscious effort on controlling the exhalation. Ended the swim course without losing my breath!
Managed to finish the swim feeling fresh, with a nice timing of 43.33
Not too shabby, and it feels good to put my skills to the real test!
T1
This is my first time coming into T1 with plenty of bikes still on the rack!
My swim had always been average or slower in the past, so it was pretty refreshing to be one of the first few to emerge from the swim.
Ditched the flying mount and went for normal wearing of socks and cycling shoes before pushing the bike out for mounting - so that my feet will be clear of debris for the long ride.
Bike
Feels really good to be able to get out of T1 that early.
The streets were lined with throngs of cheering spectators and supporters, with only a few participants before or after me, so the feeling was exceptionally special, that people were cheering for me as if I'm a pro athelete. Hahahahhaha
Was hitting around 30+ km/h for the first 5km, and was planning to head into a "right turn" in the aero position, but as I approached the bend, the layout of the spectators didn't look quite right and I began to suspect that the bend was more acute than what the "right turn" signage said, and I started to jam on my brakes, skidding twice in the process, but still managed to regain my composure, just before crashing into the crowd.
Then I realize that this "right turn" was more of like a "U-turn".
Can't trust the signages anymore.
As I rode along, and picked up a bottle of water at the first water station, there were plenty of spectators shouting "bottle, bottle!", asking the atheletes to throw the empty bottles to them, presumably that they will be able to exchange the bottles for some money.
As I emptied one of the bottles, I saw a couple of outstretched hands asking for bottles infront.
Without slowing down, I just rode on and attempted to hand the empty bottle to the asking hand.
Little did I expect, that the adult spectator just grabbed both the bottle and my right hand, causing me to lose balance and fall on my left hand side.
Bike crash at 12km
And a pretty nasty one at that.
As I recovered onto my feet, I started to feel the burn on my left scapula and hips, and the medics rushed over.
The tip of my aerobar had broken off, the base bar and gears shifters were out of alignment, front brake calipers were out of position as well.
The medics immediately whipped out their first aid box, and started to wash and apply the antiseptic onto my wounds.
It was damned painful but I didn't even harbour the thoughts of surrendering the race just like that.
Got the medics to bandage my left elbow, so that I can get into the aero position again with my left elbow on the elbow pad.
The ambulance came along within minutes, but I just chose to continue with the race.
As I got on to the bike again, the crowd broke into rapturous cheers.
Laborious remaining 78km on the bike
It was 2 laps of to-and-fro on Mandaue City, and the strength of the wind could be felt. Headwind going in and tail wind coming out. So my speed varied between 30+ to low 20s.
Didn't maintain nutrition discipline for my salt stick and both quads started to cramp up as I exited Mandaue City and started the climb onto the bridge. It was a tricky affair, as the climb speed had to be just fast enough to avoid falling off the bike, and slow enough to avoid both quads locking down at the same time, which will cause me to fall off the bike again. And I couldn't disengage my feet from the pedal clips lest I trigger another wave of cramps.
Finally managed to make it to the apex of the bridge, took my salt stick and started the descend, which is always my forte. Just too bad that the pseudo-U-turn was at the bottom of the bridge so I couldn't take advantage of the downhill ride.
T2
Remembering my previous race, I chose not to do the flying dismount for fear of the searing heat from the asphault. Did a more conservative normal dismount and walked the bike in.
Took my time to sort out myself. Popped another gel and salt stick, swapped my wet socks for a fresh pair of dry socks to go with the running shoes.
The only problem was that I had been holding back my pee halfway through the bike, and had to go to the toilet in T2.
The pot-a-loo was just inside the transition, so I just popped in, and endured the pain of pulling the trisuit over the wounds, did my business, and ran out of the loo towards the nearest marshall to get help to pull my trisuit over my wounds (PAIN) to zip up.
This T2 is definitely the longest ever Transition I had ever done
Run
Joyce caught me when I was running out of T2, and I just quickly flashed my wounds to her. (Note: next time I can just tell her my latest projection of how long I'll take to finish the run)
The cramps came back fairly quickly and I was then walking mostly throughout the entire run.
The route was pretty interesting though, traversing through the rural village with the locals all out in force, lining up the streets, watching the athletes go by.
Water points and aid stations were plentiful and very near to each other, with iced water, gatorade, coke all available in large quantities.
The crowd and logistics support is definitely the best that I had ever experienced in all of my races.
Tried to re-ignite my run a many times but couldn't sustain for a long period before the cramps settled in again, so ended up with a walk-jog strategy to finish the race.
There was a long stretch of unsheltered area at the far end of the run route, and the sun was pretty strong, to the point that the direct rays were actually hurting on the bare skin.
I had to keep dousing my wounds whenever I could get any iced water (PAIN PAIN and kept exposing the wounds to the blazing sun (PAIN PAIN PAIN) especially when I couldn't apply any more sunblock to it.
Finally managed to limp pass the finish line in 2.58
Pretty awful timing, but at least I still managed to endure the PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN till the end.
Summary
Swim - 43.33
T1 - 3.33
Bike - 3.30.46
T2 - 6.51
Run - 2.58.08
Total - 7.22.51
The Good
- Getting local advice was useful. I caught up with 2 locals whom had done the race last year, and got some useful advice about the swim from them. Perhaps I can try to do the same for my future races as well. Knowing the race course better and the general behaviour of the participants definitely helps.
- The quiet 45 minutes of sitting on the beach alone was useful? in helping me to cultivate the urge to poo just before the swim starts.
- The new running cap with extra cloth at the back was extremely useful in keeping the back of my neck away from the blazing sun. Must bring for the next race
- Brought along rubber bands to set up my bike for flying mount. Even though I abandoned this strategy, it is still useful to bring them along for races as back up
- Swim was awesome.
- Pasta dinner in our hotel room for carbo-loading was good! Much more manageable and less stressful than starting the race early by competing with the other athletes for a dinner spot.
- Fresh socks for the run leg is useful!
The Bad
- Bike crash: I was too naive to forget about the cardinal rule of cycling - no physical contact. Next time just throw the bottle. Scratches on the bottles is infinitely better than scratches on me and my bike!
- Nutrition discipline - need to be more stringent about this. Can't afford to miss the timing for the gels and salt sticks!
- Maybe I should change my Oakley shades - been feeling that it's too tight for me, causing headaches along the way. It has been like this for the last few races.
Silkair Shit #2
The ground staff couldn't find Rainie's ticket when we were checking in at the Cebu airport. Took probably around 30 minutes before they finally managed to find the ticket to allow us to check in. Seriously what's wrong with Silkair....
(side not
: also my bad not to have brought along Rainie's hardcopy receipts as I thought I had the softcopies in my gmail, which was not to be. Always bring back ups!)
