Remorseless Nuttiness

The hills! they're alive! ALIVE!!

 

I always wanted to try the Bintan Triathlon, because I'm very fond of Bintan - yes yes so it's a tourist trap specifically designed to trap Singaporeans and Singapore- based expats, but when you want a fuss-free beach break Bintan is only an hour away by ferry, and the fomer Mana-mana was cheap & served a decent breakfast buffet (it's now slightly more expensive as 'Nirwana Beach Club'). There are shuttle buses to cheap massages (cheap for Singaporeans, I mean) and good food; there are friendly, slighty-flirty watersports boys (which is exactly who you want 'em right? :), there are actually quite decent numbers of pretty fish to look for and a calm, beautifully blue sea to paddle about in. Many a time has Bintan saved my sanity. I've been waiting to get fit enough to do an Olympic Distance so I can do the Bintan tri (I think it's a waste of money to travel for a Sprint) and this year I figured, why not?

 

I thought I booked early, but in fact by the time I tried to book accomodations for myself and Sam, both Nirwana Beach Club and Niwana Gardens were fully booked! So I just decided to make it easy and went with the organiser's package deal at Angsana. Angsana is EXORBITANTLY expensive - everything is priced in USD (Nirwana prices in SGD) but our logistics were smoothly taken care of. When you're travelling with a bike that costs two month's salary, you want her safe, believe me, and the Angsana folks were efficient and organised with the bazillion precious babys they were transporting around, covering each bike individually in tarpaulins; the staff even seemed to have been trained (or have simply been doing this awhile) to handle them the 'right' way - i.e carry/wheel them at the right places so they don't smack into one another. And a good thing too because some of those bikes? I swear they cost my entire YEAR'S salary. A good 30-40% of the guys were mounted on those streamlined Cervelos, complete with tri bars and disc wheels and those fancy teardrop shaped Giro helmets and god knows what kinda fancy shoes and pedals. There were CHILDREN with Zipp wheels. There was a wee little boy on a wee little Felt. The people who do Bintan are very, very rich...

 

OD started at 2.10pm and the Angsana shuttle transported both our bikes and ourselves to race site. After a bit of mingling we set up at transition and admired bicycles for a while. I admit a Conalgo is a rather flashy bike already, but she has no real bells and whistles apart from carbon Look pedals. This was the FIRST reason I was glad I brought her.

 

Swim start was seperated into just two waves, male and female/relay. The water was warm, calm and very blue and clear. Definitely easier to swim in than East Coast, but, well, in a word? JELLYFISH. Oh my god the JELLYFISH. Now if you're a fast swimmer, or at least within the pack, you're less likely to be hit by jellyfish - they avoid all the mad thrashing about, because they're delicate little things. Which is why jellyfish tend to sting only the FIRST few swimmers and the LAST few. Now I'm usually quite blithely ignorant in the water, partly cos I can't see so clearly. But I have done lasik and I now have 6/6 eyesight, and Bintan's water is REALLY clear. I saw THREE different species of jellyfish, all drifting gently within arm's length from me. Each time I shrieked and jerked sideways in the water. At one point there was a GIGANTIC pink jellyfish I nearly smacked into with my hand. I screamed, leapt sideways, and yelled at the poor breaststroker in front of me (breaststrokes only see ahead, of course, not side to side) "SWIM! SWIM!! JELLYFISH!!". The poor girl panicked and grabbed the nearest kayak at the buoy, and wouldn't go on. Well I didn't SEE her go on. I really hope she did eventually... :p When I approached that side again on the inside lap (the swim course was set up in a single loop, outside then inside the lane rope) I was extremely wary. By that time that giant pink jellyfish was nearly at the surface - I'd seen quite a number of the horrible things further in or further down, but this one was so close that when I screamed "JELLYFISH" a second time and leapt sideways, the guy in the kayak looked down and said, "Oh, so big, lucky you can see" and beat the water gently with his oar to, er, discourage it. He only had to look down. He didn't stick his head in the water. It was THAT BLOODY BIG.

 

Sam later said that with her fuzzier eyesight she thought the pink jellyfish were anchors meant to hold the lane rope in place. I WISH I'd been that oblivious. I must have wasted a good five minutes screaming and leaping sideways at almost every angle of the lane rope... on the good side, those jellyfish made me swim damn fast. I've hardly ever overtaken anyone on the swim. In this race, at the last few hundred metres, I overtook three people. Get out of the water! get out of the damn water!!

 

The bike leg was, er, amusing for spectators. The race director did say it would be, in the race briefing, because the bike mount line is UPHILL. They didn't mean a slight incline, either. They meant UP a HILL. I set all my gears for a hill - I set them TOO low, so that when I tried to mount, two things happened. First, cos it was a hill, I didn't slide my seat in low enough and it caught in my tri shorts. second, the gears were set too low for me to get enough weight in my pedals to push off (I've never mounted uphill before) and the whole bike (which, you remember, is now some 50% lighter than my old one) tipped me gently sideways. I hopped, I swore, and finally I PUSHED the bike up to the crest of that damn hill (fortunately a small one), mounted on TOP of the hill, then let her scoot downhill a bit before clipping the other foot in.

 

The bike leg, at the briefing, was described as 'undulating'. Now since Port Dickson I've learned that race directors often understate the bike leg. Port Dickson was described as 'mostly flat, some hills' which was a lie, a dirty lie - it was mostly hills and some flat, is what it was. With 'undulating' I was expecting sheer murder, and I was so not wrong. There was hill after hill after hill, rising up before you like the earth god had shook up his sheets and forgot to make the bed. And it was 60, 70% UPHILL. It's hard to have a course which has more uphills than downhills - generally they're evenly matched, ya? but this one managed it. The uphills were INSANE. Everyone was playing with their gearshifts like they were saxophone keys. clik-clik-clik-clik. clak-clak-clak-clak. chink-chink-chunk. clik-clik-clik. Some hills were at an angle so steep there were cars struggling up beside us. The derailleurs were working overtime; I don't think I've ever had to crank my big front wheel gear up and down as many times in less than two hours than I did on Saturday. And the HUMPS. The speed humps are INSANE. They're so high that the few mountain bikes on the course (generally the kid's event had lots of mountain bikes and BMXs) actually FLEW through the air a couple of feet before landing, as if they were doing stunt biking. The road bikes and racers slammed their riders violently in their naughty bits unless we all stood nearly upright on the bikes. Several people lost control and crashed. Being at the tail end of the crowd, as usual, I saw four people wheeling their bikes back at a anxious jog. One had split his cleats; two had their chains off; one had obviously crashed like hell, wheels misaligned and everything. In the kid's race the next day we actually saw a poor little girl crash face first into the ground as her pretty, entirely non-sporty bike failed to clear a hump. The hills, the hills are alive and are in a foul mood...

 

It was on the bike leg that a minor mishap turned into a major hiccup for me. I had two bottles, one filled with dilute Pocari and one with water. I lost the Pocari trying to re-cage it when my bike took a bump I hadn't noticed (I THINK it was a pothole, I'm not sure) - it flew out of my hand and I had to grab the handlebar to steady myself. I actually stopped to pick up the biden, because it was 3plus pm and blazing noon, and I dehydrate like a sponge even in morning races; just as I was unclipping, a bus came along and rolled right over my bottle with a merry KAPOW sound. I groaned. I continued on the rest of the murderous hills on only water. The water wouldn't stay without electrolytes and I evaporated rapidly.

 

By the time I hit the run I was starting a familiar dehydration headache. I sucked down water, I ate a bar, and continued onto the run. Normally I can do a full run for 10km even at an OD, but I settled for an 8run/2walk pace which normally keeps me at a speed slightly higher than 8kmh. Alas, no matter how much pocari I threw into me I could NOT go faster than a shuffle. By the second loop I was giddy and cramping. I sucked down my last Hammer Gel with water, kept up my spirits by waving to all the supporters, race marshals and Doctor Low the jaunty medical director in his golf buggy, and kept going. The spectators at Bintan, I gotta say, are wonderful - the route winds through Mana Mana and Mayang Sari and people out on their balconies applauded everyone going past. The yoga teacher, complete with mat, jogged along with me for 50m. Folks at Nirwana hung out of the swimming pool and made 'whoohoo!!' noises.

 

I made it to the end at, I think, about 3:50 - haven't checked the time yet. It's still a big improvement over my first OD, which was 4:02; my main target was to see a 3, not a 4, in the first number, so I'm still quite pleased. I'm also VERY pleased at how my Babydom performed on those evil hills - she made it easy for me climb, and had enough gears to allow me to push hard even on the downhills (on poor ol Preshus I had to just cruise downhill - she only had 8 gears and she was heavy as lead downhill, pedalling would just be free-spinning) so I was going significantly faster even on a course liable to give me an asthma attack. Alas for the fallen Pocari bottle; my run time was 1:15, nearly 1:20 I think. If I hadn't dehydrated and cramped I probably woulda run better.

 

On a side note, one of the endpackers with me - probably the last finisher - was a plump young lady. I'd noticed her earlier in the swim (she's quite a decent swimmer); I passed her on the bike, and I was completing my second loop of the run while she was on the first, and tried to encourage her as she walked. She DID finish, in around 4:30; I was still there in the transition area, groaning with my feet in the air, when she came through at last. I don't know her name but if anybody knows her, tell her Good Going cos she reminded me so much of myself struggling through my first-ever race! It's tough when you're heavy; she clearly had the stamina, merely lacked the speed, like I did (still do); and hell, she finished didn't she? That's what the sport is really about - not the shiny Cervelos but people like her who make it on sheer willpower. $100,000 worth of gear will do nothing for you if you don't have willpower like hers.

 

Sam was at the finish waiting for me - she did it in 3:30, which is excellent considering she was on her older bike, not her new fancy one. It was a good race experience overall - I coulda done without the jellyfish! but the bike leg was a challenge worth conquering, and the run was fun despite my doing it at near-collapse!

 

We went back to Angsana, ate cup noodles with Feli (Angsana is insanely expensive, did I mention? and we were too lazy to go out), and the next day had a huge, huge breakfast at the buffet. We popped back to Nirwana for a massage, seeing bits of the kid's tri on the way. My, but there are some expensive child athletes. There was a rather obnoxious child with us in the bus, talking about her 15 bikes (FIFTEEN??) and how she hates it when the bike and run course are together cos she hates navigating around runners. I'd hate to know her parents, dear lord. It was swelteringly hot; we went to Pasar Oleh-Oleh for a cheaper lunch and some vague shopping, then melted gently for a while before getting back. The ferry was late by nearly 30min :p so by the time I got home it was past midnight. Sigh. And the holiday's over.

 

Oh, and I'm waiting for my medal impatiently, cos they ran out and have to mail em.

 

Overall I'm quite pleased with the Bintan tri! I could've done better tho. Let's see what happens at OSIM in August.

 

 

Today I spoke at the first ever Inaugural Graphics Novel Initiative launch. So this takes some explanation.. I've been a writer since I was 15, and I've been working as a comics scriptwriter specifically since I was, er, 22 I think. This is how I met and started working with a number of ppl, most notably Jerome Hinds, who started ACAS - the Association of Comic Artistes of Singapore. There are only 2 comic writers and I'm one of them, and the more active one (er, in more ways than one I suppose) cos the other guy has a more high-flying day job.

 

Today was the launch of a contest to submit graphic novel and comic concepts for publication, and I spoke about writing for comics. I gotta say it was pretty interesting! I've always been a bit comicky geeky and my first full time job was establishing the comics section of Kino, but I never imagined I'd one day be on stage, in whatever little bitty capacity, talking ABOUT comics. What was most interesting, I think, was that Johnny Lau (Mr Kiasu) and Sonny Lieu (Malinky Robot, Liquid City) were there to speak as well. As far and away the most successful of local comic artists (and there are, what, 5 relatively famous ones? Morgan Chua, Chew, Edmund Wee Tian Beng... and that's all you'd really come up with, apart from Jerome who hasn't quite turned a profit yet!) they had a lot to say, Sonny in an earnest aw-shucks manner, and Johnny with a certain pai-kia 'listen to big brother' air. They were both excellent and gave excellent advice, but what stayed with me most was how hard they both worked, how thick a skin they were forced to develop, and how persistent they both knew how to be!

 

It's an unforgiving industry... I think one of the reasons I got into the fitness line is because it's literally the only thing in the world that gives back guaranteed rewards for the effort you put in. Eat right, lose weight. Pump heavy, gain muscle. Keep going, cross the finish line. There's nothing else on earth that's guaranteed, except the fact that your body will respond in the ways you want it to, if you only choose to trigger those responses. That's how anorexics come about, after all! It's usually cos of that sense of lack of control - but the one thing you have an 80, 90% chance of controlling effectively is your own body.

 

I hope ACAS gets off the ground and makes Jerome some money soon - the poor bloke's worked like a demon all these years for it, and made his enemies like we all do when we're trying to push hard for something. Plus in many ways it gives kids a hope in hell of making some money out of being able to draw.

for some reason i'm feeling melancholeeeee. maybe it's the 'orrible weather. I've been blue all week :( sigh. maybe cos me best bud is away and I'm working extra hours cos my colleague's ill? hmm.

 

I gotta say, triathlon is a bit of a lonely sport - most endurance athletics are, cos they're mainly done solo, and whatever is driving you is always in your own mind. What I've always wanted to was to have a significant other standing at the end of my finish line waiting for me and so far it's been bleah. I've not dated a single guy who was willing to make that effort. In fact I've not dated a single guy who even remembered I was racing til I told them I was done. Now I don't expect the whole world to wave banners at me - generally even with my closest frens I'm quite happy to tell them AFTERWARDS that I've raced and done well, and get the congrats then - but I always did hope I'd find someone who would love me enough to crawl out of bed early and stand at that finish line with a camera... sigh.

 

ACtually (watch me philosophise), everyone is alone in his own head, always. You live your whole life alone cos nobody can ever be inside your skull. Yet sometimes you find people who seem to ALMOST be like you, to whom you suddenly feel hey, I can let down my guard with this person. I can trust this person. He or she will never deliberately hurt me or make me feel bad.

 

Now, I have the bestest pals in the world and only a few - I'd count about 3! - give me that feeling, that idea that no matter what, if I need a shoulder, they'd turn up to be leaned on. The sad thing is, again, I've never dated a guy who gave me that feeling!

 

The last guy I dated fairly seriously made me FEEL as if he would be there for me... and, my own mistake, I judged him too quickly and trusted him too quickly, and a mere 6 weeks later I realised I was wrong. He was 'just not that into me', as that (in)famous book says. He had lots of excuses of course - Oh all guys don't reply emails. Oh, all guys don't listen. Oh, all guys don't remember birthdays and your favourite food. And of course he's not wrong. But you know what? There are plenty of guys who make the damn effort to try. And that's how we chicks know we're liked, right? Cos we know and appreciate it's harder for them - even embarassing - to buy a box of chocolates and a bunch of roses and say, Happy Valentine's Day. But those who love you enough do it anyway.

 

I actually know the moment when I realised, hey, this guy is not my friend. We went cycling together and I was ahead of him (because, for god's sake, I'm a blooming competititve cyclist aren't I - I haven't cycled slowly for 10 years and you gotta tell me to slow down if you want a slow ride) and he started yelling at me for leaving him behind. Now I'm not talking a little exasperation - if he'd said 'slow down, I can't keep up - it's not a race!' I would be slightly annoyed but ok. But all the nasty sarcastic personal attacks "What's wrong with you? Did you think it was a race? I just want a nice slow relaxing ride! Can we do that? That's not too much to ask?" and when I asked "But why DIDN'T you ask? The last time we cycled you went way ahead of me and I never complained!" he simply went on, "We're not trying to race! Stop speeding up! What's wrong with you?"

 

At that moment the trusting little girl in me - and we all have one, don't we? - was slapped in the face. She ran away into her proverbial mummy's arms, and was never able to quite recover her old joy in being around and near this person, for fear of being slapped again. Cos you see, I thought I had found a friend - possibly to be the dearest friend I was ever to have on earth - and in that moment he disappeared, he proved himself to never have existed. Basically - he died, deader than my poor, literally dead ex boyfriend.

 

There was one episode of Mad About You, when Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser leave their baby to go to bed alone for the first time. They put the baby in the crib - she cries, of course - and leave the room, standing by the door. They're not allowed to go in and comfort her - the baby cries til she's exhausted, and finally goes to sleep. and Helen Hunt says, "We've just taught her we're not always going to be there for her when she wants us."

 

If we are lucky - and I am lucky - we will actually find someone who WILL be there, if they CAN be there, when we want them. In that moment I knew - this guy is not one of them. I kept trying to prove myself wrong (because, don't get me wrong, he was a lovely, funny, caring, generous man in many other respects); and in the end, he dumped me, and proved me right anyway.

 

Sigh. Spiel over. ok la. feeling slightly better. I go eat a donut.

So I've got me... a new bike!!

 

I'm still quite fond of my poor ol Preshus, but she's crashed 7 times - twice off vehicular traffic! - and in any case she's rather too big for me. She's survived 3 years of races and clocked around 5000km on her 8 gears and two (now mighty worn) tires. She survived 70.3 just barely! and it's time to upgrade...

 

I've been shopping around vaguely for a while. I'm limited by where I live - I don't want to patronise a bike shop that's too far from me, cos I don't have a car to tote the bike around in if I need servicing. The shops near me are Tay Junction, Treknology, Bike Junction and Bikehaus where I got the Look pedals. They are ALL extremely expensive stores. Bike Junction and Bikehaus were the most reasonably priced and they did have the right sizes, but nothing appealed to me that was in my budget (a maximum of 3K, including the pedal system which was already $500). I've been recommended several brands which do small-frame chick bikes, but the name that turned up most - Orbea - is damn hard to track down!

 

Nevertheless, my intention yesterday was to get a HELMET, actually. Sam said there was a kind of sale (well, kinda) in Rodalink in Jln Jurong Kechil and yesterday I popped into see if I could get a new HELMET. A group of white-and-black bikes were winking at me as I walked in - all Colnago Arte series bikes - mostly 50cm and smaller top-tubes, which are my correct frame size (my Preshus Schwinn is actually 55cm! so I had to chop the handlebar stem down...). I went upstairs and picked a HELMET. Then I gave in and asked to try a pretty, pretty white Colnago which appeared roughly my size (42cm - they don't get very much smaller than that alas). 8.5kg mixed alu and carbon, with a gleaming beautiful 10-speed gear set (nothing special but much more special than the Schwinn's la). Even tho it was such a tiny bike the seat post was still too high for me. Najib - the extremely helpful manager, who was also a roaring good salesman, I tell u -  said if I really get it they can always saw it down.

 

They stuck it on a trainer for me and after much adjusting here and there I found a comfy(ish) position (taking into account the seat post needed to be cut) and I tell you, I was in love with the flipping incredibly expensive liddle thing. OMG. It was light, so light! (well dude the Schwinn's frame alone is 10kg). And pritty! And when I said I'm seriously considering it, Sam started bargaining for me (man, she's good ne). Give her lights! How about some bottle cages? Oh and change the seat lah, girls shouldn't use white bike seats. Use the Aliante Fi'zik! Good seat! Throw in some bottles. What about extra tubes? Oh and since she's getting the helmet how about a discount...? And hey... Najib grinned and threw it all into the package.

 

So all in. The tag price as $2,900 (never pay the tag price - I know THAT much). With helmet, extras, etc - $2,858. It's an INSANE amount for a bike for a relatively low end triathlete, plus she's BRIGHT WHITE and incredibly flashy. But I;m sure now I will be doing at least 70.3s for a long time, and at least 1 Ironman. I decided, you know what, you've come a long way. Everything else you have is stingyass cheap. You're the only damn triathlete with only ONE triathlon suit. C'mon. You deserve a good bike! And like Sam said - now you have a poser bike. To prove you're not a poser, you gotta learn to bike damn well. DESERVE THE FLASHY BIKE!

 

Also... 8.5kg is a lot easier to travel around the world with than 15.

 

Today I biked to work on my Schwinn, feeling nostalgic as we trundled along together. After work I took her into Rodalink and had the Looks swapped onto the Colnago (whom I will now refer to as Baby Dominatrix, or Babydom) and reattached my old toe-cage pedals onto the Schwinn. Najib sawed down the seat post by (after some trial and error during which I demonstrated in the parking lot just how horribly clumsy I am on a new bike) a full 3inches cos, hell, I'm that damn short. He also tilted the handlebar back and taught me how to use the gearshifts (if you remember, one of the issues on the Schwinn was that her gear shifts were on the lower tube of the frame - she's THAT old a bike, yes). After much tinkering and tonkering (Najib also taught me that I could adjust the tension on my Look pedals - typically enough I have high-end pedals but forget all the functions I paid for) and scooting about in the parking lot (fortunately without repeating my skid-and-crash act from the first time I got the Looks), I was confident enough to bike home. I left Preshus with Najib to be delivered back home tomorrow. I'll probably either sell her very cheap, or dismantle her and hang on to her parts as spares. I'll probably hang onto her a while longer tho. I'm a sentimental type and she's been through a lot with me... snif. I wipe a tear.

 

I rode Babydom home. OMG.

 

First of all - her gears? they change like silk. There's no clik-clik-clik sound (and mind you I was already impressed that the Schwinn did not go CLOK CLOK CLOK like my old Merida mountain bike). The only reason I knew the gears even shifted was when the weight of the pedals changed.

 

Secondly, she's light as a feather - at least to me! She manuevers like a dream. I can get on and off her at any angle without worrying she'll tip me backwards or forwards depending on the incline. She goes up inclines I used to pant on without needing me to even click downgear. I tried taking a steep hill to check the lowest gear - I didn't even breathe hard. OMG. And changing gears is, of course, much easier now.

 

Because she's that light, my seat could be set higher. I can move her easily beneath me and adjust positions. I feel more like a cyclist now and less like ah pek going market. Also the butchered handlebar stem on the Schwinn has made me forget how responsive a properly set-up bike is meant to be, even a road bike.

 

I'm not yet accustomed to gripping the handles by the brake levers (I used to keep my hands somewhere between my gearshift levers in the center and the brakes on the bullhorn) and for now I tend to let me shoulders roll too far forward, mostly cos I'm leaning too hard! But I'll get used to it, and anyway the handles can always be tilted even further back if I need it. Other than that... well, I've found my match!

 

Keeping in mind this is still actually a road bike and not a tri-bike or (technically) a race bike, I wonder what a fully set-up tri bike feels like? ..but I don't think I'll try for that. Even on Babydom I would guess my top speed to be around, what 32kmh? There are people who can go that fast on a hybrid. Let's not embarass ourselves. koff.

 

Bintan will probably be Babydom's first race. Let's see how she does! (And, er, Sam needs to teach me how to change a tube. These wheels are only 1.5in across - literally half the width of Preshus' wheels...)

... was FANTASTIC.

 

Blow by blow account! This was the most, er, professional, I suppose you could call it, race I've yet been to, i.e. there are NO 'first time' triathletes at a 70.3. Nobody joins 70.3 'just for fun' or 'just to keep so-and-so company' or 'last minute bored nothing to do' etc. 70.3 is helluva long race and even if you're 'keeping wifey company' you have to be fit enough to survive even the training. Race briefing was fully two days earlier, at a carbo load dinner on friday 20 March, where the 'Voice of Ironman' Graeme wotsit (I never remember his surname) ran us thru the usual stuff. One slightly nerve-wracking surprise, the bike cut-off time was revised from 5:30hr from wave start to 5:00 only. 5hrs from wave start, for me, is cutting it damn close, considering my target swim time was 1:10 and bike time 3:45. but in for a penny in for a pound...

 

It was a goodish dinner and I got to meet lots more triathletes than I ever did at any other race - the knowledge that everyone else around you will be suffering alongside you for anything between 5 to 8 hours tends to get folk real friendly. For a smallish race - 1,200 ppl - there were a huge number of international athletes, rouhgly 600.

 

I booked into Roxy Mercure hotel just to minimise the race morning rush - I hate the dash to race start during first-time races, cos you're not sure what to expect. Sam and I checked in on the same day we checked our bikes overnight into transition, Saturday 21 March. We had huge fun carb-loading - at least i did - on the most high-calorie foods we could find. We (sort of) turned in early and were up at 5am to eat and crap and so on, and got to race start by 6 for race markings, etc. My race morning breakfast was an extremely calorie-dense muesli bar (Colman's organic bars - 250cal per bar) and a bottle of full-fat milk. Oh, and 500ml of water of course. And 250ml of iced Milo. I'm one of those ppl that function extremely well on Milo. some ppl just crash.

 

The sky was very threatening at first, but cleared by race start - hurrah! All the ladies were off in the same wave (there were about 150 women to over a thousand guys!). Sea was calm, minimal currents. I did ok at first - my first lap timed at 30min - but then the guys' waves caught up with me by the 2nd lap and a stray jellyfish disoriented me, bah. I was out of the water at 1:15. dismal, dismal - but considering this used to be my 1km time, 1:15 for 1.9km for me is nearly a 100% improvement... thanks Crystal!!

 

Out of water, into T1. Took a bite of muesli bar - extremely chewy, heh. I wore a tri top this time and stuffed the pockets with my opened bar and two Gu gels. My transitions are usually slowish - if I rush I just forget something. I walked to bike out even. The bike course ran from ECP to the West Coast Highway and back. I've heard about the thumbtacks being strewn on the road - being way behind I was unaffected, but I DID wonder why there were so many punctured ppl fuming by the road! My target speed was 25kmh which is cutting it close, as I've said, but I didn't do half badly in meeting it. I've become steady enough on my bike to eat on it while pedalling, so I was able to scoff my bar down in quarters while controlling the bike with one hand - a couple bites at the start of every lap (3 laps altogether), and a squirt of gel at the U-turn with some water. At the start of the third lap I took a new biden from the aid station. I now know why they ask you to put in two bottle cages. I was dead nervous I would drop my biden and be waterless for 30km.

 

To my vast astonishment I overtook two people - one on a mountain bike and one on a hybrid! good lord. So not a good idea for a half ironman... even the road bikes struggle at this distance..

 

Anyway I made, by the skin of my teeth, the cut off time - to complete the 2nd loop by 11am. I took the turn into the third loop at 11:02! When I finished all 3 loops I entered T2 at 5:10 after wave start - just barely making into the 'mercy' allowance...

 

T2 I stripped down to my tri suit again, stuffed the second gel down the back of my top, and sucked down 125ml of Milo while I trotted to run out. I used a 8min run / 2min walk strategy and it worked fantastic - I managed to keep a pace of 8.5kmh at the runs. Kept drinking at every station, squeezed icy sponges down every bit of me, finished the last gel in squirts at the U-turn again. The run is the most fun part of a triathlon I think - spectators cheering you on, other struggling endpackers giving you high-fives! Plus now I could see all the people I knew coming round (you can't quite see ppl on bikes, espeically if they're fast!) and I could wave and yell at them. Sam was nearly out of breath but she was well ahead of me still...! I did best in the run, as always: 2:45hr for 21.1km after already having banged meself about for 5 previous hours is pretty decent, and I finally managed to overtake some people... I was THAT lonely on the bike course all by my lonesome on the last loop!

 

feli and adan were waiting at the finish line, and so were some of the people I met at the carbo dinner - richard, michael from australia, etc etc... that last turn into the final 20m to the finish line is going to be a moment I'll remember forever, much like the first finish line I crossed in 1999's Standard Chartered 10km. From 10km to 112km in 10 years...! Feli even got it on video, heh...

 

final time: 7:55:01, including transitions (of which there were 9min, plus another 5min loo break I took on the run!). My target was sub 8hrs... so I made it!!

 

Those are the two medals I worked the hardest for - 70.3 in 2009, and 10km in 1999. And I love the pals who have been with me, especially feli who got me to the start line, and Sam who gets me to the finish! sob... I love you guys... waill....

 

but it's not over, I promise. soon one of these blogs will read... MY FIRST IRONMAN...