Tuesday, July 24, 2007

PD International Triathlon 2007, July 22

It was a raining day on Saturday for the PD Triathlon Sprint event which Don Khor secured a second placing and had some revenges on his rivals. The Elite Triathlon race was postponed to Sunday morning ahead of age groups waves start due to downpour as well.

We were unhappy with the organizing committee of putting the briefing before the dinner which dragged the dinner to start at 7.45pm. This year PD Triathlon registration fee shot up to as high as RM90 which according to the committee will ensure better race management and better dinner meal as well. However, we were very dissapointed with the foods served on carboloading dinner. The food is really tasteless and not much choices, for a RM30 voucher it was really not worth the money. We had 1 round of food taken as dinner and opted to go for extra dinner at our own cost near PD town. Luckily I have a good dinner out there, I can slept with full stomach.

I woke up at 6.15am on Sunday morning, had final check on my bike setup and all the neccesary that need to bring to the starting line. Heading to the transition area and had my body mark done. Felt great with the day as I did my PB here last year and looking forward to do the same this time.

The swim course had been changed and I would say this is better as the were less turns and make the swim faster. I had a very good start in the swim leg. The water temperature was cold and warm at different spots but this was no effect on me. I emerged from the shore after 27minutes and heading right to the T1 and still feel fresh. I didn't clip my bike shoes on the pedal as I think this would not make me faster in much time.

Started the ride alone and quickly refilled myself with a gel and water while waiting for other cyclist to come near me. After the first round-about, a caucasian from middle-age group approaching. I buckled up myself and put on higher gear to draft behind him. For him, this make no harm to him and he just ignore me. After the first traffic-light turn which saw a small slope, he attacked and I just focus to work harder to not letting him slipped off. Managed to draft him after the first hill. There were many slopes along the bike course and I eventually lost him after the 3rd slopes as he was attacking at each hill. Right after being dropped by the mat salleh, another local rider approaching me and I drafted him as hard as possible for roughly 10km. I overtook some elite rider along the way and managed to see the first group 2-3km before the u-turn. I've drafted more than 5 different group of riders and saw a few bike accident along the bike course, finished the bike course in my PB bike split of 1h14min. My target was to checked out from the T2 within 2 hour and I knew I was right on track when I started my run. My legs responsed very well after the tense riding and I'm very happy to be able to feel it after the ride.
For the last 2 years, I can see Ah Sui and Carmen entering the T2 when I was on my run, but this year, I can only see Don Khor which meant that I'm ahead of Ah Sui and Carmen this year. I try to pace myself along the 10km and were overtook by many runners especially the relay team runner whose legs still fresh. I knew that I still can improve my overall timing by running faster.
I felt my thighs started to have the sensation of cramp and slow down on the last 4km run. After the 5km u-turn, I'm still ahead of Chee, Ah Sui and Carmen but I knew Chee will be the first one to catch me and he did it at the 6km mark after the petronas. I just don't want to hamper my run to try to push hard following him. Actually I know I can run a little but faster but I just keep low to myself as my target is to make my PB timing faster than last year. Along the 10km run, I saw a lot of friends who were in front of me were tailing behind me, what a surprise.
I finished the race in 2H41minutes with pride and this is my new Triathlon Personal Best time ever. I'm happy with this and big thanks to Ah Kong, my cycling partner who had been riding with me for the past 1 month and I think my improvement in cycling really help me in my trithlon.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Final Preparations for PD International Triathlon 2007
It's has been the fourth continuous weekends that I did my long ride in preparations for the PD Race 2007. I knew that if I need to have another PB this time, bike fits is playing the major role here.
I started with 43km in the first weekend training for bike fits, follow by 89km ride to Ulu Langat from Cheras, 87km ride the same path but via Ampang Hill on the way back and yesterday took all my courage to join Chin Woo TriTeam to ride to Titi from Cheras with the distance convered 137km in total!
Frankly speaking, I purposely put in lots of hill works into my training programs. Especially yesterday ride to Titi, hill works contributed around 30% of the whole ride, ~40km hill climbs.
Ah Kong was with me during my 3 long rides. He was my mentor and taught me a lots on technique of cycling especially in hill climbing. I feel more confidence now with hill climbs compare to last year. I seldom feel cramps even after yesterday long rides and the main factors are because of the cycling techniques that I applied and the bike pisitions of mine.
I'm ready for this weekend PD race and hope that I'll have another good race ahead :)