Race Day (25 July 2010)
The morning schedule was as such:
5am: Hotel breakfast starts
6am - 7am: Body marking
715am: Close of transition area
730am: First wave flag off
6am - My alarm went off at 5am and was immediately silenced. We did not wake up until 6am. I had brought my own instant oat breakfast, and thought that I would skip the hotel spread. Alas, no bowl or spoon! Mild panic.... We got dressed, and decided to bring down everything to the transition area first.
6:15am - Arrived at transition area. Placed my bike on the rack and did my body marking.
6:30am - Went to the hotel restaurant and happily found cereals, wholemeal bread, and peanut butter. :)) Reminded self that it was a 3h-plus race, do NOT over-eat.
6:50am - Back to transition area to retrieve my goggles, swim-cap and set my gear for the race.
7:00am - Toilet.
7:15am - In the sea, testing out my new goggles. Tension ok. Good, ready to go!
Uncle Chan flagged off the participants in waves. The men in different age categories. Then all the ladies, together with the veteran males. The horn sounded and off we went.
Swim - The water was very calm this year, unlike last year's choppy state. This was like the first time I took part in 2008. I reminded myself to pull properly and have closed palms. Some swimmers took a 'shorter' turn and did not go around the big buoy marking. It was significantly shorter, and that would have given them 1-2 min lead. I had more integrity than that, and went around the buoys on my left. I took 21min to reach the u-turn buoy. Again, some swimmers just cut through in front of the buoy. Argh... Ignoring them, I did what I was supposed to and continued. Along the way I kept colliding with a few swimmers, and tried to draft others. Then I gave up, and overtook them. I soon caught up with the tail-end of the male swimmers in the wave before us. People were unsure if they should finish within the 2 rows of buoys, or outside. Whatever, as long as we reached the Finish sign on the beach. Siew Ling was out of the water the same time. Well done! It was her first OD, and she was worried about the swim. Swim time: 39min. Woohoo! Similar to my pool time! :)
Bike - The run from the beach to the transition area took some time, and putting on my shoes, helmet etc took me a total of 5min. No good... I mounted my bike and gave chase. The weather was holding up tremendously well. Overcast with no sun nor rain, and mild tail winds that pushed me upslopes. The cycling route was a nice one with long rolling slopes, long enough for one to build momentum for the next upslope. I went on my small chain ring most of the time, except for zooming downslope. I made the mistake of using my water bottle instead of the aero bottle, which meant that I had to slow down a little each time I wanted to drink, breaking the momentum. :( It felt so different mentally, cycling 40km vs 180km! It was a blast to see the speedometer counting to 40km so quickly, 10 down, another 10, u-turn, another 10, finishing. Bike time: 1:23h.
Run - T2 took me 2 min. The weather was still cool and nice that I decided to forego my water bottle. I took a pack of powergel with me from the bike, and ran off. I felt some cramps in my left quad, and had to go conservatively. Small shuffles, high cadence. I took half of my powergel. All the way for the first 5km. I saw many friends along the way, but all of them were in the opposite direction. The guys were on their way back, having been flagged off early. So many hi!s, good job, hi-fives. The running route had 2 slopes per 5km, and was in the 'away-direction' from the cycling route. It was much better than running in the open highway as we did in 2008. I shuffled my way to the u-turn. 25/26min. I took the remaining powergel, then attempted to open up my strides & run tall on the return stretch. Passed a few friends, and carried on. Left quad was almost cramping now, but I could not stop. My watch read 2:40plus. Perhaps I could aim for a close-to sub-3h? I ran on. Near the finishing chute, I tried to sprint but could only manage wider strides. Run time: 50/51min. (According to Melvin, the distance was only abt 9.23km, not 10km.)
Timings:
Swim: 39min
T1: 5min
Bike: 1:23h
T2: 2min
Run: 51min
Total: 3:01/02 (plus all the seconds +++)
Official Timing:
0:40:55, 1:23:57, 0:54:08, Total 03:01:59h.
Hmmm.... I wonder where the transition timings go?
Great improvement over previous years of 3:30 and 3:14h. But! That extra 1-2min to a sub-3! Ooops!
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