I planned to take the City Duathlon as a relaxed recovery event, it being a week after Sundown. It was a fabulous weather, slightly overcast, no sun, no rain, very cooling for a race. There were many familiar faces. The Athlete's Circle clan was there - Adrian, Fiona, Ben. So were a number of Tampines Safra folks - the usual suspect, Helen, Sam and a couple of known faces. The race was delayed so we sat around and waited. I was still sleepy.
The DJ called for my wave to form up, and there was enough time for a toilet break. Alas they suddenly decided to flag off in less than a minute. Darn, and I started late. The Start line was not clear but luckily a couple of guys in the next wave gave me directions. Lah-lah-lah, and I thought I was going to have a relaxed race. As it turned out, I was not the only late one, and definitely not the last. Soon, the guys in the last wave had caught up the 10min flag-off buffer and were sprinting ahead to finish their 10km run. Adrian overtook me from behind near the finishing point. I finished my 10km run in about 1h, went to the bike transition area and took my time to change my shoes. JD called out as he was rolled his bike past me. The Bike Out area was a mud pool, before long everyone's shoes and socks were soaked in mud.
The cycling route was narrow with many bends and sharp u-turns. The fast ones, especially the guys, were constantly hollering at everyone else to keep left while they zoomed past. Then there were the amateurs who did not keep leftmost within the double yellow lines, but rode slowly in about one-third of the lane. It was an accident prone route. There was a bad crash near MSP, and the cyclist was lying flat on the grass waiting for 1st-aid. On my second round, an ambulance was parked there, further narrowing the lane and forcing cyclists to slow down. On my fourth round, there was a massive jam at the u-turn point where some cyclists were trying to filter out of the route, some continuing with the ride and everyone shouting. Someone behind me shouted for them to keep moving and not stop. I unclipped and waited at the side curb for the flow to ease off a little before u-turning. Majority of the guys had already exited the route hence traffic was a little lighter. Then I witnessed a crash in front of me. A cyclist zoomed up from behind and almost entangled with another bike ahead of me. They shouted at each other, wobbled on their bikes, and one of them flew across the road into oncoming cyclists. Thankfullly the road was rather empty and no one else fell down. Unfortunately the guy who caused the accident zoomed away. After completing my 5th loop, the marshals told us to "exit on the 5th" - which was vague and not instructive at all. My speedometer showed only 20plus km, much less than the intended 40km. I was not sure and was about to start on another loop when someone shouted 20km exit. So I crossed into the oncoming lane (not many bikes now), and exited the bike segment. When I reached the Bike transition area, we asked the marshals on the distance. Chin KK, who was there taking photos, told me to just proceed and not waste time arguing.
For the 1st time in a duathlon race, I had no cramps on the 2nd run. Haha, I guess the cycling was too short to cause cramps. I ran, rather happily, even with a smile on my face. The weather was excellent today, and it was an enjoyable cool run. Even had energy to encourage other runners to 'keep going'. A very far cry from last week's ultra-marathon when everyone was quiet and kept to ourselves. I saw Alber at the last stretch along Esplanade, he was only a few hundred metres behind me. I tried to pick up speed a little on the homerun, confident that he could catch up eventually. He did, and we crossed the finishing line together. Nice race, pity the cycling.
Saw Jane, Yihui, and Joanne at the race too. Jane took part, Yihui was cheering and Joanne on road duty. JD, Alber and I waited for Sumiko. Saw her bike still in the transition area but not her. Hmm. After a while she turned up, fuming furious at being disqualified after the marshals wrongly flagged some runners into the transition area instead of u-turn for another 5km during the first run. In the end, many of the front pack runners (ie. potential prize winners) of our wave got DQs. The race organization seemed very messed up today. We waited for a long time for Eddie to return, and busied ourselves taking photos. Oh well, it was meant to be a leisure race afterall. :)
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