Background:
A lot of friends asked me this question: when and why did you start doing an Endurance race like Ironman? First off, I didn’t even know what the Ironman race is about until late 2015 after finishing my first openwater swim at the Swim Expo Asia event held at Changi Beach in Nov 2015. The moment of crossing the finish line was so precious and fully memorable that money can’t buy, sound cliché but that’s truly what I felt. Since then, I was seeking info about swimming buddies / group in Singapore who share the same passion of openwater swim. Not long after, I came across and swim openwater together in Sentosa with a group called Newbie Triathlete. Yes, the name can tell you that they are not just openwater swimmers but also the triathletes. Besides, the name is deceiving too for they are not newbies at all – perhaps they were many years ago 🙂 . Most of them are the experienced endurance athletes with countless Ironman finishes. A few of them have even qualified for the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, the pilgrimage destination of every Ironman triathletes.
From then on, I became familiar about the Ironman race from every conversation I had with each of them. In short, Ironman is a race that covers 3.8 km of swim, 180 km bike and 42.1 km run in one shot.
A shorter version is called Ironman 70.3 or half-Ironman race since the distance covered in each disciplines are half than that of the Ironman race. Ironman 70.3 race covers 1.9 km of swim, 90 km bike and 21.1km run in one shot. Ironman is a test of physical toughness and mental strength that seems totally impossible at first because I didn’t even have a road bike 🙂
As an aspiring triathlete, I would need one essential gear such as a proper road bike, not necessarily a fancy or high-end one. I bought my very first road bike in Dec 2015. It is a pre-owned Canyon AL speedmax TT bike that falls on low-middle end category of road bike with aluminum frame that I have been proudly riding until now.
Driven more by curiosity than readiness and with no experience even in shorter distance triathlon race like sprint or Olympic distance triathlon, I signed up for the maiden Ironman 70.3 race Putrajaya in Malaysia in April 2016. I completed the race in 7:25:13.
The 2016 IM70.3 Putrajaya Malaysia taught me many valuable lessons. In Aug 2016, I completed IM70.3 Bintan Indonesia in 6:41:38, which is 43 minutes improvement from IM70.3 Putrajaya within 4 months window.
Post IM70.3 Bintan, I had a chance to learn from the fellow experience triathletes from various nationalities on how they improved their race performance by not only training hard – which I also have been doing thus far – but also training smart based on scientific approach. I tried to adopt this new training approach during the 3 months preparation leading to my next race IM70.3 Western Sydney in Nov 27, 2016. It turned out to work quite well. I managed to complete this race in 5:41:42, which is 60 minutes improvement from IM70.3 Bintan within 3 months window.
Above all, what matters more to me are the colorful and amazing journey that I have been going through as an Ironman triathlete. It offers a whole new lifestyle for being a part of something larger than ourselves as we push beyond our boundaries and go the distance during the training and racing.
They are right about this: Ironman is a statement of excellence, passion and commitment.
Will I continue this journey?
Well, I have at least two Ironman 70.3 races and one Ironman race in 2017 lined up and I’m still as fired up as the aspiring triathlete.
| I wore white cap with my experienced triathletes buddy and world c’shipTriathletes @ Tanjong Beach Sentosa (Credit: Davy Koh) |
| Our Ritual as Triathletes: Openwater Swim followed by 5K running: Tanjong – Siloso – Tanjong beach (Credit: Davy Koh) |
Holiday cum Training Week in Melbourne
The Ironman 70.3 Western Sydney was held on Nov 27 in Penrith which is about an hour or so west of central Sydney. We’ve decided to include this race together with the planned family holiday. The plan is to spend the first one week in Melbourne from Nov 17-24 and the second week in Sydney and Penrith before flying back to Singapore on Nov 30. The other triathletes I know usually have their race done not long after arriving at the destination. Nonetheless, I found our holiday plan suits my race performance quite well though.
We arrived at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport on Nov 17 noon and quickly reached our rented apartment @ Flinders St which is just across the Federation Square. Thanks to longer daytime during summer in Melbourne, I still managed to do the last few training in Melbourne early in the morning or late in the afternoon outside my family tourist hours. Beside the great weather, Melbourne has plenty of trail paths and parks as well decent bike courses to offer. In one week, I had three running sessions along various trail paths around Yarra River, Southbank, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Botanical Garden. Besides, I had a chance to ride around Melbourne CBD and some suburbs along the coastal route of Port Melbourne, St. Kilda, Brighton beach towards Beach Rd.
| My last 90 km bike training sessions prior to the race next week along Melbourne Coastal @ Brighton Beach Boxes |
| I had my last few running training sessions along Yarra River, South Bank, Melbourne prior to race next week |
| My last 90 km bike training sessions prior to the race next week along Melbourne Coastal @ oceanfront Parkdale Beach |
| My last 90 km bike training sessions prior to the race next week along Melbourne CBD @ Victoria Barrack |
| My last 90 km bike training sessions prior to the race next week along Melbourne CBD @ National Gallery |
Getting to the Race
The Ironman 70.3 Western Sydney was held on Nov 27 in Penrith which is about an hour or so west of central Sydney. It is located at the base of Blue Mountains which means there are a lot of impressive scenery very close to hand. The race venue is centered at Sydney International Regatta Center (SIRC) which is the Sydney Olympic rowing course.
We left Melbourne for Sydney airport on Thursday Nov 24, three days prior to the race day. We reached our lovely holiday house called Holiday Big4 at Emu Plains, Penrith by driving a rented car that we picked up from Sydney airport.
Without wasting too much time, the next morning I re-assembled my bike and ride towards the race venue and some race section of bike leg to get the feeling of how the race day will be like.
Saturday is the race bag collection, transition area tours, official swimming practice session as well as bike check-in day. They all took place in the SIRC. The race bag collection and bike check in went very smoothly. Due to very hot weather, I could not let my family wait for so long in the scorching hot day and decided to skip the transition area tour as well swimming practice session.
The cold morning (16C) turned into hot afternoon (34C) that day which made everyone wondered whether tomorrow morning will be wetsuit/non-wetsuit race. As water might become warmer, I became aware of the wetsuit race will be unlikely. Nonetheless, I decided to bring along the wetsuit into the transition area in case the water temperature is less than 24.5C.
| Prior to Bike Check-in 1 day before the race. This is where the swim will take place tomorrow. You could see Sydney Olympic Logo displayed at the bridge across the water. |
| Day-2 before the race. This is where the swim will take place on Sunday. You could see Sydney Olympic Logo displayed at the bridge across the water. |
Race Day
Swimming
The weather forecast for Sunday is 16C and slight shower in the morning with maximum temp is 25C at noon. The forecast turned into reality as drizzles started to pour in when I was waiting for my wave to start swimming. The rolling start swim started with Pro Athletes at 6.15 am. My group age is split into 2 groups based on last name, A-L wear green color cap and M-Z wear navy color cap. I’m blessed to be in the last age group to swim @ 7.22 am for there will be less swimmers swim over me while overtaking so I can maintain my swim rhythm peacefully :-).
The one-loop swim is the deep water start where the start line is right in front of the audiences. The swim course is pretty simple where the buoy is on the right side then a right turn after 800 m or so, and another right turn after 50m and another right turn all the way to the finish line.
The freshwater swim here is very challenging as my legs tend to keep sinking easily and requires more efforts to keep afloat if compared to saltwater/sea swim. Besides, I reckon this is the first time I swim in 25C cold water without wetsuit and somehow it does have impact to my uncovered calves when I was half-way through. Nonetheless, as an Ironman athlete, we are always used to embrace the suck. Hence, no excuse is acceptable. I started swimming from second row and managed to follow another swimmer’s leg in front of me until about 200m. This saved me some energy as I do not need to keep sighting in front when swimming. Then, I quickly realized he is the left sided sighting swimmer while the buoys are in our right side. He might be a bit off the course because of that and so did I as his follower :-). Then, I decided to stop following him and started sighting in front as well as the right side sighting as normal. I managed to reach the U-turn without too frequent kicking to conserve as much energy as possible for the bike and run leg ahead. After the U-turn, I recall some navy color cap swimmers from the next wave grabbing my legs when overtaking and I moved slightly to the side to avoid trouble and that worked fine. Not long after that, my uncovered calves eventually could not stand the cold water longer and I had cramps on my calves one at a time after the 1000m mark. I was grateful it didn’t take long and able to complete 1.9 km swimming in 46:28, and I was ranked 751 overall.
Though it is below my target of sub 40 minutes and not my best swim performance, but I was still happy with that because after coming out of water, I became even fresher and more fired up than before the swim start after seeing my wife and the kids standing near the water exit. My photos expression are all but smiling all the way while running into transition area and will soon turn into the beast in the next legs 🙂
Bike
The bike course profile is generally flat with quite a lot of technical turns and U-turns and rough roads after Brooks Ln which I think they are not really nice addition to the fantastic flat and smooth Castlereigh Rd.
I prepared additional cycling jersey to cover the trisuit and decided to put it on during T1 (transition from Swim to Bike). It cost me some seconds but worthy to keep my body warm throughout the bike leg. I took time to eat a banana and drink water and after 03:07 minutes spent there, off I went hitting the road. There are quite a number of turns in the first 5 km before reaching the Castlereigh Rd and they slowed us down a bit. Once exiting from those turns, I was able to reach the maximum speed along the smooth and flat Castlereigh Rd and could maintain ~38kph average in the next 10 km.
I started to overtake many cyclists from the previous waves as well as the same wave as me who were way in front after the swim exit. I recognized them by the tattoo sticker of letter K (our age group category) on their calf.
After enjoying the fantastic ride along the flat and smooth Castlereigh Rd, we then turn right into Brooks Ln and the roads there are pretty ROUGH with some potholes that slowed us down in some occasions. Besides, some technical turns and U-turns after Brooks Ln made me wonder why they rather not choosing all the straight and smooth roads until the end of Castlereigh Rd and beyond. That would allow us to put the best efforts on our legs rather than on our hands. But, we must live with it.
Despite the adversities, my ride avg speed was 34.18kph in the first split of 23.6 km.
Somehow I could ride faster on the way back to transition probably because it started after these ROUGH roads. My ride avg speed was 35.50kph towards the second split at 45.6 km mark.
The second loop started with the same number of turns and U-turns as well the ROUGH roads along Brooks Ln and beyond and my ride avg speed was 32.19 kph towards the third split at 66.7 km mark.
Similar to the first loop, I could ride faster again on the way back to T2 (transition from Bike to Run). My ride avg speed is 35.05kph towards T2 at 90 km mark.
In total, I spent 2:37:50 for 90 km cycling which means 34.21 kph average.
My bike timing moved up my overall ranking by 314 places from ranking 751 after the swim leg into ranking 437 after the bike leg.
The bike timing meets my target of sub 2:40:00 and I couldn’t be happier to achieve that when my body was still surprisingly fresh for the run leg.
| Patiently looking for Papa on the run course |
| The 14 km mark is really a defining moment to keep pushing on and avoid the shame of walk amidst the pain |
| The 14 km mark is really a defining moment to keep pushing on and avoid the shame of walk amidst the pain |
Finish Line
