Tuesday 30 April 2013

Subic Bay ASTC Triathlon Asian Championships

Since coming back from Palembang, I had a good few weeks to put in a bit of solid training before the Asian Championships came up. It was a great timing to have Radka Vodičková stop by for a few days in KL (before heading off to Vietnam and San Diego). Definitely a quality few days of training for me.
Not long after, it was packing time and off to Subic Bay. We would've preferred flying some nights earlier, but Friday morning flight seemed much better than a Thursday night flight (plus it arrived on Friday midnight anyway).

It was definitely a very rushed and tiring day. Delayed flight and time costing immigration meant arriving late for kit check - rushing through the bike set up - quick lunch - bike test - little swim - shower - briefing - dinner - water/food shopping - change of rooms due to broken aircond - race kit packing - sleep. (Try not to sing through that with the "Friday" song..)
So our original structured day plan was trashed..
Come to think of it that was one hell of a day!!

We were up very early (most of us would consider it as midnight) at 3am for a little bit of food and dropping off our shoes and T2 equipment at our allocated spots along a massive stretch. T1 and T2 areas were 10km apart.

Had a good warm up spin to Dungaree Beach swim start, and a bigger swim warm up this time (to avoid Geelong all over again!). I definitely felt a little drained from all the travelling and stress from the rush, with literally no time to settle in. Felt good though so that's alright.

49 Junior Elites on the start list. That's a record breaker for me! Unfortunately for me I had to take the inner start, knowing I would have everyone swimming into me. Lacked a strong start in the first 100m of the swim, meaning I was absolutely battered with 40 or so guys squeezing in.

It was a full-on war, people swimming over me, pushing me into the lane ropes, pulling, kicking and one-eyeing the swim after a kick leaked water into my left goggle. By the time it had settled, I was in a
smaller group of 5 about 50sec down the leaders, somewhere in the 20th placings. I would say my start dictated my race outcome. Not a bad swim, but could've been better.. Though a 9:30 swim is definitely reassuring especially after Geelong!

Onto the bike, there wasn't much of sitting around with all of us sharing the load throughout the 10km +8km rough, sandy loop, shorter than the usual 20km (the 200m long stretch to transition makes up for it though!). Legs felt strong from the start to the end so I put in a bit of work as well to keep to pace going. A large pack tried to chase us down but we managed to hold them off all the way to the end. Nearly lost my group twice. Once riding through a large patch of sand, and another after missing the U-Turn point. Other than that the we stayed together the whole way, picking up some other bikers we caught up to. Putting in those Watts was sure to do some damage on the run. At this point I knew I didn't have the legs to run with most of these guys, but I did what I could, saving as much as I can before the dismount.

Immediately off the bike the group took off to leave me solo, running at a more reasonable and manageable pace. A stitch came on early and never went away, but I kept the pace going the first lap, and gritted my teeth as I pushed harder, speeding up on the second lap and managed to narrow the gap to my group but not enough to finish with them. Probably the smartest thing I did, knowing I would have blown up if I went off too fast too early, proven when I caught back and also overtook some competitors in the end to finish in 21st positioning.

Mixed feelings with this race. Glad that my race went pretty well, but not what I had expected in the field and ranking.. To know that a better starting could of potentially made a significant difference to my placing. Initially really disappointed with how it went until the results and splits came out, which proved otherwise. Something to learn from, but never to dwell on!
No thanks to Matt Denby, Leon Knight and Benjamin Ross Proud for distracting me with endless Candy Crush requests.. (Just kidding, but NO I don't want to play!)

So now I'm back in KL and ready to take on a good solid block of training, entering myself into some good races here in KL. I know what's missing now after a great experience in the competitive field, where the gaps need filling and to continue building blocks. Glad to be back home after a fast paced weekend! Looking forward to the Malakoff Duathlon Series this May and some more ITU racing after!

Once again huge thanks to Team MET sponsors, Rudy Project, CEEPO, K-Swiss for their wonderful support as always.


Wednesday 3 April 2013

South Sumatra ITU Triathlon "Premium" Asian Cup

First off, before I begin going into any detail with my race report, here's a bit of feedback on the event; This race (which I did not expect much of) was about a hundred feet below my expectations. To be fair, it was a truly, utterly and disappointingly terrible organisation. Don't take me for wrong, the Triathlon Association of Indonesia did and wonderful job with their support, with very attractive prize money and actually running the event. It's not an easy job handling athlete's from around the world and getting traffic control. The crowd of supporters on the streets during the event was unexpectedly pleasant (school boys and girls were all spread out all over as if instructed!) and they greeted us gracefully with well organised transport, accommodation and food.

The race organisation was hell.

I'm talking unclear briefing schedules, confusing and non-informative race briefings, on-the-day changes in race routes (without official announcement, or any at all!), not well briefed volunteers (can't blame them, they did the best they could), water stations, spare wheels not delivered to wheel stops, route hazards gone unnoticed, and some others which I'll go into detail later.
Basically, the organisers didn't know what they were doing (well not all, some of them were actually doing a great job at trying to hold all of this together. Kudos to them).

It was very disappointing, especially to be considered ITU standard...

I'm really sorry for such harsh words to begin with, but it wasn't something that be gone ignored.


On the day we arrived at Palembang airport, we had a fairly slow immigration but immediately after, we were greeted with warmth and had a speedy procedure with the luggages and quickly up on the event bus to Jakabaring Sports City, the venue of SEA Games.
Upon arrival, we had our rooms sorted fairly quickly and dinner had already been prepared before hand. Cold spaghetti and chicken weren't exactly the first class selections, but we all got by (was still edible!).

Our MET team headed to the registration lounge the afternoon after, and had ourselves registered and race kits checked before the race briefing commenced. When our trisuits were displayed to the official in charge of ITU uniform check, we were all "given a final warning" as our logo placements weren't ITU legal. Specifically, the area below name and country code. We were told only a total of ONE sponsor logo was allowed in the space "according to the rules". I then proceeded to talk back to him saying that wasn't true, as I had just read the ITU rules few days ago, and plenty of times. Steve was there to back me up.
Despite that, the official held his ground until it was when I urged him to re-read the rules (right infront of him!) that he fell silent and let us proceed.
Not very good image already...

Into the briefing room we went, where we were "briefed". There was a lot of jumping about in category distances and laps. Changes in schedules were properly addressed. Heck I could barely understand what the man was trying to say! It seemed he wasn't sure about the usage of a Powerpoint, jumping about screens, and ending up using a completely different map (kids route) to inform us of our 2x5km run loop. There was no information on the direction of entry and exit of the T1 or T2. I felt sorry for the age groupers and duathlete's, as they were all told the briefing was at the same time as the Elite briefing, but not a single word of their routes and rules were told. It was only after the briefing, that the age groupers were told that their briefing was before ours! And that the duathlete's briefing was after.

So that was a fairly useless briefing.

On Saturday morning, the duathletes raced. There were three from Malaysia: Shahrom, Krisha & Hafiz. It was great to watch them race and show some support.
This is where it gets odd..
At the blow of the whistle, the Elites were sent off for their first 10km run (starting from an awkward "imaginary line"), and within 12min or so the leaders were back, lead into a dog leg (that was only ment for the final lap) and led out back the the transition already! Lucky enough they realised it and turned back to continue their second loop. Of course, everyone else got confused and did the dog leg loop as well. After a while, the leaders returned from their second and final loop, where they were then sent for their THIRD loop. There was a huge confusion between all the athletes as well as the crowds who knew that the initial route was ment to be only 2 loops. You could see the huge frustration in all their faces. They ended up doing 12-13km.
Aside from that, there weren't any other issues and the race went on smoothly.
Shahrom finished with a shiny silver placing while Hafiz finish 7th and Krishna finished 8th. Congrats to them! (Note Hafiz was by far the youngest, and was his very first Elite Duathlon international race)


The races ended quickly and we had finished our jog and swim, so we headed back to our dorms and rested up.
Not that I had anything against it, but the dorm seriously looked like a jail. It rained heavily so there were groups running loops on the top floor and guys spinning on turbos, which added to the feeling! Absolutely nothing to do with no shops or cafe's or anything nearby. On the bright side, we got plenty of rest and saved much money! (Although some of us were starting to go a little insane from the boredom..)

Day 3: Elite and Junior Elite Triathlon

You don't want to be belly flopping at this height!
The race was pretty early (would've been 6am if it had not been delayed by half an hour) and so we were up and about with our usual morning routines. Got out to the race site, set our bikes up, and hopped on a bus that took us all the the swim start. On the way an official stood up and asked all of us Elites "So, is 15-20min warm up enough? Shall we start at 6:30 if it is OK with you guys?". Very reassuring knowing the organisers have a planned schedule...
We got to te pontoon and just before we were about to dive in for a warm up, another official came up and told us athletes about a change in the run route, that an additional section was added so it's be more accurate to 10km. Of course, a load of athletes had a go at him for saying last minute with no official announcement.. So at this point we were seriously doubting the organisation of this race.
Either ways, we all lined up after the warm up, and the horn blasted, and we dived off the high pontoon.
Within the first 300m I could see the groups had already begun to rearrange itself, with the top swimming taking off. I knew I would have much of a chance keeping with them, knowing my current fitness and decided to stick as close as I could to 2 Australians who were swimming at a pace much more manageable for me. Some of you may have seen the video of what happened in our swim. Fot those who haven't, basically, after swimming out and back, we were supposed to turn right at an orange buoy that would lead us straight to the transition. The leaders were swimming towards it when a canoe completely blocked the path, redirecting them to continue straight on. 2 at the front went off, while the others still made the turn after the canoe. These 2 guys had gone from leading to not even near the pack. About a minute after, me and the 2 Australians got the the buoy, where we were also misdirected. I presume that the guys saw 2 other guys far infront, and thinking that was the correct way (and with the canoe blocking) the also went on straight. I stuck behind them.
It was ridiculous. We'd gone from a minute down to 3min down all because of the official's misdirections. I knew something was wrong when we were still swimming straight, with the exit visible to my right, but I knew it would be better to stick to them anyway (better someone to work with than solo!).
Video Clip of our swim here:
<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?video_id=548884081823322" width="568" height="320" frameborder="0"></iframe>

So after a long swim we were out of the water, and I had a good transition, exiting second. I tried chasing the person infront, but he was too far infront and stronger than me so I held back and waited a little for Ben Hammond (who was behind me) before working our way through the wet bike course together.
I felt pretty flat the entire way, but still did my best to share the work out between us. He worked much more than I did, but I did what I could to at least keep the pace up even if it ment shorter intervals. He didn't seem to mind the ratio of the work (better than no one to work with) and so we kept on.
That was, until I had a flat just before finished our second loop of 3... I had in mind that I was only 200m from the wheel station so if i could change it, I'd still had plenty of time till the pack behind me caught up, and we could work together.
Finally changing my wheels after 6mins of havoc
I got to the fountain, where an official shout at me to go to the fountain. Nothing there. Then the other side. nothing again. I was then directed to cycle down another 100m to a yellow tent that was the official wheel station. It was empty. Out of frustration I screamed at the guy demanding for why wheels, to which he responded with a "oops" in his face. I waited about 2min before he came running back running 2 sets of wheels and asked me what country I was from. How could he have not seen my trisuit spelling MAS in a bold white font.. He had brought 2 completely different country wheel sets and at this point I was screaming (I was losing way too much time). Barry and his group past by. That was my backup group and my only chance of getting back into the race. I decided to cycle back to where ever it is they had left the wheels and search for myself. Turns out it was placed behind a guardhouse, in the Penalty Box area and no one had bothered to transport it to the wheel station. I quickly got my rear wheel change and got back on. At this point I had lost so much time that the Elite Womens were just 500m behind me. I'd lost motivation and interest in this race (yep, they passed me) and all I cared about was finishing the race. Again, not the volunteers fault. He did his best to help.

Upon getting off the bike, I steadily jogged my way through the 10km loop in 45min. I was very disappointed  Not with myself. If anything I am real proud to have finished my first Elite Opens standard distance, swimming well, and crossing the line despite all that bullshit.
I was disappointed with how the race had been organised. How much of a fail it was. It was honestly terrible, and our local events were definitely held much better than this was.
Darn it, they even left the plastic coverings on the water bottles in the water stations.
It's incredibly frustrating when you know you were doing so well, but when something goes so terribly wrong and it has nothing to do with you, and in fact the lack of effort of others to keep the race together. (Flat tires happen. Nothing can be done).

I was getting worried that my wheels would never return back to my (By now trust was more of a fantasy). Luckily I did getting back, with Melody Tan handing them back to us personally. Huge thanks to her. She was one of them who actually put her whole head into doing what she can and holding it together. Huge thanks to those who did what they could. It must've been extremely hard taking all these problems in.

I still finished the race, so that's a win.

Race sum up: Real chuffed with how I raced. Real disappointed with how the event was held.

Back into training now, putting a few good blocks in before taking off for my next and pretty important race is Subic Bay ASTC Triathlon Asian Championships, just 4 weeks from now. It's been great being able to travel and race more (majorly because of the support we are getting from the sponsors of our team MET). So huge thanks to them! Definitely a great big thanks to my new recent sponsor as well, Rudy Project Malaysia.
Team with our new fab trisuits


Butt shot 



Monday 1 April 2013

The road goes on...

Hey everyone,

I just want to thank you all who have been reading my posts and keeping up to date. it has been a great pleasure and I truly appreciate your support. It has been wonderful.

After what has happened in the past few weeks, it's made me think harder about what I want to do in the future, and made me plan it differently.

I've made up my mind, and decided that I will be taking a different path down the road.
It has been a great experience, training, travelling, making new friends and learning so much. It was the best I could have ever asked for.
Having not studied for so long now, I think I need to resume my educational side, catch up on what I had missed, and go on to strive for a bigger and brighter future.
The support has been great, and I want to thank all the supporters and sponsors that have guided me all the way and brought me up to where I stand now.

This sport has widened my eyes and I've seen so much, though there is still a whole lot more that I have yet to explore.

I will try my best to continue keeping this blog up with what I am doing and what not.

Once again and for the final time, huge thanks to everyone!





>>>>>>>>


(Read more below)



.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
April Fools!

No way Imma be quitting this sport. I love it with my soul!
Working on my South Sumatra race report which I'll be posting up shortly.

Maybe a rating? :-)