After having spent 1 week in Tokyo with no proper loading, no proper tapering, and LOADS of tiresome walking, today was 70.3 race. No doubt, it is not my A race. But it is still a race? Nope, not for Clearwater qualification, and definitely not for the podium. It is the sense of achievement that I am gunning for.
After having done AVIVA 70.3 and Desaru half ironman distance in 2009, somehow I got into the race with no butterflies in the stomach. Well, yes, I had LOADS of butterflies at IMWA, and kept asking myself why I was doing it? Not at this year's AVIVA. I think with no pressure on myself for a good time made it a more relaxed race.
Woke up at 5am to have a light brekky. Left for race site at about 6am. Had checked in the bike the day before and since the weather was cool, I did not release the air in the tyres. Tyres were fine. Did some final checks and all were fine. Did a short warm up swim and saw the pros start off. They were flying through! My my!
I swam a 43:56. Which I thought was nothing fantastic? I was hoping for a 40min swim and in fact, my buddy, Matt, said the same thing! Alright, I did not know the timing during the race so the disappointment only came in after I checked the results.
Bike was a stupendous 2:43:52! I did not expect to hit under 2:45? But I knew I was gaining new grounds during the ride itself. I was cruising 35-36kph for quite a fair bit of distance, some parts 40kph and downhills at 50+kph. Again I did not know my time until the race was over. My coach told me to get protection - not to draft - from groups who are of the same pace? So this was what I did. Everytime they went ahead, I picked up pace to stick with them. This is to maintain the motivation to keep the speed up. So the strategy worked real fine!
I got off the bike and my legs were not the usual running legs. And I knew I was off to not a good start. I tried to stick to my usual cadence and after a while I just stopped counting in my head because I was too tired to do so. The sun was scorching hot. But hey! I train in the heat so I should be able to sustain it? It did not turn out to be so, especially after a 90km bike? The body just does not function normally any more. At least, I was not running the way I was in 2009 AVIVA? So that must be a good sign. In the end, I clocked 2:16:16. It was a 3min improvement over last year but my bike was an almost 10min improvement and the swim was a 4min improvement.
The overall time of 5:49:53 was very satisfactory, despite it being 4min away from my target time. It is satisfactory by my standards. Perhaps not by others, but its not their race - it is mine! In my age group, I am ranked 92 out of 297, including the female athletes. Among the men, I am ranked 78 out of 254. Of the 397 Singaporeans who took part, I was number 54. Not sure if the numbers include those who did not start in the race though. It is a HUGE improvement over 2009. And I am not quite sure if I will be able to improve much significantly more? The plateau seems to be nearing now. I can only train, wait and see.
Lesson learnt from today? Bring a damn cloth to wipe feet at T1! This is probably one of the 1st few lessons a triathlete learns? But it sure took me a couple of races to sink this into my numb skull!
Alright, it is time to rest and relax now. Routine will start again in a day's time...
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