Monday, October 19, 2015

PDIT 2015 - Swim Bike Run Repeated!

They say to do it once is a dream. To do it again, and again and again is reality.


Here I am again in the Port Dickson International Triathlon 2015 at the Admiral Marina Cove Resort hotel in the this beach town in Negeri Sembilan on 11 October 2015. Coming back to where I did my first triathlon event. Last year I was hit with a really bad food poisoning a day before the race and was suffering throughout the race. Very disappointing then after all that training.

BMC all set
This year, I trained hard but didn't put in as much time as I wanted in the pool due to the hazy weather. And with the haze, trainings were limited to indoors but never underestimate the work one can do on the stationary bicycle, treadmill, free weights and weight machines.

I had a simple goal. To break the 3 hours for the Olympics distance of 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run. Seems easy for strong runners but I crap at running. Nonetheless, I trained with this in mind and focused on my weakness.

The swim leg was good. Got in, everything in order but indeed I felt the lack of swim training compared to last year but arms and shoulders were ok, thanks to the weights work. Caught up with the earlier groups too. Pull strong and kick less and got out the water including T1 at 33:10. It's a good feeling when you see tons of bicycles at T1.

Cycling was nice and most importantly, had to make sure my bike works fine throughout. A good service before and testing all component to make sure it works. Of course, did a long ride before the event just to ensure all systems is a go. Never change something last minute! Completed the 40km in 1:18:18, slower than I expected but I had that in mind to save for the run.

Came the run and it was much better than I did before. Felt more comfortable. Started to cramp up in the beginning but that slowly went away and I could maintain my pace doing a 1:07:06

Started in group 5 mins after gun
And indeed I met my goal by 1.5 minutes. You see, common to most runners, we get bored after a while and the pace slows down. I saw my watch on the last 2 kms and I was coming close to 3 hours. Picked up the pace and mathematically counted that if I maintained 6+ min/km, I will reach my goal. And I came in at 2:58:34!

I was told that the run distance may have been shorter. Some recorded 10km, some 8.5km. But not forgetting that the back part of the run was on beach sand. Quite challenging but at least it did not have the mangrove run like what we had last year!

Already set my goal for PDIT next year. Doing both Sprint the day before and Olympics the next day.

Now, looking forward to the next race. A sprint duathalon event. Stay tuned.

Official race results can be found here.


**Picture taken by various photographers and all rights belong to them respectively.

Monday, October 05, 2015

I am on Strava. Are you?

Do you guys use some sports gps monitoring program?

I use Strava mainly for my runs and cycling and have it sync to my other programs like Endomondo, Garmin, Runkeeper, Training Peaks etc.

I personally like Strava for one of its feature - segments, where it keep tracks of a performance ladder to see where you rank for different segments of your route with other who have ridden on the route. It's a lot of fun and motivates you to work harder, whether to improve your personal best or to move up the ladder.

Come... follow me one Strava.

Follow me on Strava