If you think my New Record for getting from school to my apartment is impressive, my performance at the race this weekend was even more impressive. For how bad it was. I have done this distance in exactly 2 hours previously, at a South African Championship event where I came, tra la la, 6th overall in my age group. That was on a very average bike, with no special wheels or gadgets, just legs doing the work. I ran the 10km in 37 minutes. That was then, and a lot has changed.
Last year I won the Tongyeong race, and was thinking about revisiting Tongyeong explicitly to defend the 'title' during the run up to Ironman. Obviously having trained in the summer and coming over to Korea's spring fresh and strong would give me a great platform to build a powerful start to the season. It was not to be, as I fell ill at least twice, and possibly worse, felt extremely depressed over the first few weeks, which was something I didn't really expect.
And Now The Race:
Crappy sleep, but that's to be expected, and it's a miracle I got any sleep really.
I had one of the best starts I've ever had in triathlon. Was a leap ahead of the whole field (I'd started my watch about 30 seconds earlier, on a whim) and once I dived over the first wave was well ahead in the water. Good feeling. My lead lasted about 50 metres. No, probably half that.
The lack of conditioning began to tell then, and I felt myself wheezing, and struggling to put single armlengths into the water. I felt like a crab, arms to tired to even straighten them out, my form felt and probably looked awful. I glanced at my heart rate around the second buoy at about 10 minutes and it 160, about my threshold in the water. But I was surrounded by Koreans in the water. The horror! It's the first time I did a triathlon here and was in the middle of all that splashing. The same amount in front of me as behind. I did the swim in about 30 minutes (best time is under 20 minutes!), getting a little bit of rhythm towards the end (didn't even warm up for the swim as I figured it would tire me out too much!)
Cycle: Oh woe. My Zipps probably prevented me from really crawling along, especially on the testers up the bridge, which we had to scale 10 times over the 5 lap circuit. I am not only fat, but very unfit. I thought I may have some residual strength left from the Ironman, but the two back to back illnesses completely wiped that out, and all there is now is a much heavier load to lug all over the place. I averaged 30km/h for 40km and was irritated to see guys passing me. Was I taking it easy. My heart rate was on 156 most of the cycle, which is fair, not all out effort, but just about right since my legs were pretty tired to start off with, more tired than my lungs, but not by much. I'm not sure if I did 6 laps, because I seemed to come nowhere in the cycle. But it seems reasonable I did 5 in about 1hour 20 minutes. (I've done a sub 1 hour before)
Run: I thought I'd really come undone here, but I guess those runs to the bus really paid off!!! I plodded along, feeling pretty pooped but determined not to walk (yes, was feeling like I wanted to walk a lot) until after 5km I began to feel dizzy. Tough to call, as it was bliksems hot, but I think it was a touch of heatstroke. Felt a bit dizzy and could feel the sun burning me (but didn't think it was sunburn) so stopped at a hose and just showered for half a minute. Walked an odd 100metres and could feel I wasn't 100%. At the next Aid Station I banned water, and drank Amino Up (kind've orange Isotonic drink like Game) and two bean paste bars, grabbed some sponges and water and walked on. Pete saw me walking and urged me on. I walked on until I saw an American lady and said, "Keep going." Once she went by, I said to myself, "Get going yourself," and from then on ran the rest of the way, and the dizziness disappeared. May have been a lack of glucose because by then I'd been in the race for 2h30 or more, and I'd allocated just enough energy for about that time (in terms of breakfast, and eats and drinks before hand).
My HRM stopped on route, so I don't know exactly what my time was. A guy I met who works for Tescoes in Korea, John, said his time was 2:59, and Ee Sung Hee came in just before me, and she did a 2:57 or something. That means, horror, I might well have gone over 3 hours. That's about an hour slower than my best time.
2004
Last year I did a 2:10, with a 1:01:51 cycle (36.2km/h which is a fair to middling time, especially because the course was flat and only 37km long. I've gone under 1 hour over full 40km courses), and a 44 minute run. My swim last year was abouty 23 minutes, about 7 minutes slower this year. Oooooch.
HR Average last year 158 (fairly low)
This year: 156 but the muscles couldn't have taken me a heck of a lot faster and it wouldn't have made much of a difference to go much faster.
I started training in March last year, and got into a good pattern and did 2 races before this one. This year, no training from March onwards. It makes a difference.
So the race was not my best. It's accurate to say probably my worst triathlon ever. I felt a bit down for a bit, a bit depressed and disappointed,but there is a great high that triathlon gives you. You have this total body fatigue, you've swum in the water of a place, run and cycled through its streets (just about naked), and you and some other guys have played with your expensive toys and challenged yourselves together. That's fun.
Respect
Before the race, I leafed through the race booklet and saw they had listed my friend...er...a guy called Bernard's time. He won the 30 year age group last year in 2:01:30 (a bit of a suspiciously rounded off time though), and his NZ countryman (who I shadowed until about 1km on the run) won his age group in 2:03:34. Neither of these times seemed particularly impressive to me last year. This was because the course is fairly fast, I suppose, and I was arrogant after winning in Tongyeong to be a bit dismissive of races after that, deciding not to even taper for Sorak but to save that for Cheolwon. I didn't mind doing 'not so well' in Sorak if I could do well in Cheolwon. I was in 2nd, fairly far ahead of the guys 3rd etc, but they all passed me by about 3km of the run and that wasn't a great result. I'd love a top 3 in Cheolwon, and believe I can do it. Not this year though. Perhaps Cheolwon is a race I might especially fly to Korea to do if I find myself in July at stellar fitness again.
The point is that after the race, when I saw how hard I had to work and still went over 3 hours, I realised how much training does help, and how strong I was last year, in all three events. I'd like to have, and earn that respect again.
SLIP slops
When I arrived back after this whole weekend was done, at about 1am, and dead tired, the area in front of the doors was a puddle of water. I was wearing my slip slops, and walking with my bags slung over my shoulder to wear the driver had left my bike, out of the rain. I waved him goodbye, then stepped onto the marble floor and whooop. My legs went higher than my ears and I landed like a sack of potaotes. It was so sudden that I lay on the ground and just packed out laughing.
My mission from here is to get fit fast for Cheolwon (4 weeks away), and it's more than double all the distances I did yesterday (except for the swim): 2km swim, 90km bike, 21km run.
Psst. This is a secret. Ssssh. Don't tell anyone. I'm going to see if I can win the Ulgin race in September to make up for this one. Ssssh.
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