PD Sprint Triathlon 2013

PD Sprint Triathlon 2013

Date   :  6^th July2013

Venue:  Avillion Admiral Cove, Port Dickson, Seremban

The following is a brief write-up of my first ever participation in a triathlon.

Introduction

It has been a spell of two years since my first attempt in a “triathlon” event.   The first attempt was a “Hoohathlon” event.

“Who-what!?” you might ask.  Well it was an event organised by HooHa Asia in Putrajaya in 2011. The Hoohathlon was a bridging mini triathlon meant to give participants a feel of how a triathlon would feel like.  I must say it whetted my appetite and so in mid-2012, Boon and I told ourselves that we had to take part in a triathlon the following year.  We had missed the triathlon of 2012. We were talking about taking part in the PD triathlon 2012 and when I checked the website. To our dismay, I found out that we had just missed the PD triathlon event of 2012. So we told ourselves that we would take part in 2013. We told ourselves that at least now we would have a year to prepare for it.  We made sure we kept an eye out for the following year's call for registration.

We managed to register for it. Cycling buddy Edward also joined us when we told him that we were taking part in the event.  Little did we know; he signed up for the Triathlon relay event also. (very ambitious of him)

Ha.ha.ha..

We took part in the sprint event and not the actual full triathlon event. The following were the distances we had to complete :-

SWIM  - 750m;

CYCLE  - 20km;

RUN    - 5km

Due to the long distance between our house and Boon’s, he did his own training near his home, while I did my training with Edward.  We trained twice in Bandar Tun Razak as there was a swimming pool next to the Bandar Tun Razak park.  This was an ideal area as we would first cycle on the roads surrounding the park in the early morning hours.  We would park our cars in the swimming pool car park.  After our ride, we would keep our bikes in our cars, run around the lake in the park and timed our run to complete at about 9:30 am where into the pool we would go for our swimming training.  There were also the two times where we would cycle around TTDI Kiara and then swim in the pool in Edward’s club.  Based on my timings during my training, I was confident that I would be able to complete the event below 2 hours comfortably.  I made a mistake and thought that the cycling leg was only 10km.

When I found out the actual distance to cycle was double that distance about 2 weeks before the event, I began to worry and knew that it was going to be tough to complete the event within 2 hours. Alas it was too late to increase the training distance.
So with the motto: "To COMPLETE  and not to compete", there was no turning back.

The Carbo dinner (night before event day)

The sprint event was held on a Saturday morning and the carbo-dinner and briefing was held on Friday nite.  Boon took a day off and arrived at the Avillion Admiral Cove hotel early.  Edward and I went to work as usual on Friday and drove to PD after work.  I arrived late as there was a jam out of KL. Hoping to avoid the Friday evening traffic jam, I took the smaller roads through Seremban town instead of the highway.  In short I was late but there was plenty of food for all.  There were other participants later than me.  I must say the food was a plenty.  We were wondering what a “carbo-dinner” was.  Once there we found out the meaning of carbo-dinner.… It was a free for all BUFFET DINNER!!  Dig-In!!  Mr Chan aka Uncle Chan, the organiser also gave a pre-race briefing to all of the attendees.

Boon brought his son along to PD. He left early after dinner as he had to get dinner for his son. Edward and I stayed behind to listen to the talk. We went back to the hotel immediately after the talk and tried to sleep early.  We were staying in the Methodist Resort Centre which was about a 15 minutes drive to Avillion Admiral Cove hotel.  We rented a two bedroom apartment.  Boon took the master bedroom with a queen size bed to share with his son.  Ed and I took the second room which had two single beds.  Boon wanted to get to Avillion extra early the next morning so as not to miss out on finding a car park spot near the transition area. 

Event Day (6^th July 2013)

Group photo - pumped up with excitement

I did not sleep well that night.  I kept waking up (about 3 times) which is not normal for me.  Anyway when 5:30 am came, we got up.  We made ourselves hot drinks of milo and cereal.  The apartment was new but it had no utensils. So we had to drink from paper cups which Edward brought.  Boon and son were the first to leave for the event.  Ed and I had to stay back to answer the call of nature.

one more photo before the start

There was still plenty of time when Ed and I arrived at the hotel.  As with the rest of the participants we busied ourselves with our preparations: going for body painting, placing our bicycles into the allotted spot in the transition are, getting our running shoes ready, last minute bike checks,etc.  

With our "body paint"

Body painting is not in the literal sense.  I was expecting to be painted with a paint spray can/gun.  All they did was just use rubber stamps to imprint our participant numbers on our arms.

Swimming Leg

Participants (in their lilac caps) -all ready at the starting line

From the transition area which was basically the outdoor car park of Avillion, all the participants were eager and walked to the beach in anticipation for the first leg i.e. swim 750 m. We could see the markers and the buoys indicating the swim route.  Several of the participants dipped themselves into the sea and started their warm up swim.  We also followed them. The water was cold. Once in the water I had to force myself to swim to warm up the body.  Ed who had trepidations of the swimming leg should have felt a sense of relief as there was a rope marking the entire route.  He was worried that there was nothing to hang onto just in case one had to stop and rest along the route .  We also swam out and tested the rope.

The swim leg of the event started on time at 7:30 am. Uncle Chan was at the beach to kick-off the event. He again gave us a late minute briefing before he flagged us off with his air-horn.

Group photo at start line

The three of us made sure we were not positioned in the front of the pack of swimmers. We were advised earlier to be careful of kicking legs that might knock the wind out of us. So we opted to be start towards the end of the swimmers.  Boon gave a loud “Hoo-Haa!”, when Uncle Chan blasted his horn to start the event.

Throughout our preparations we were worried that we might loose our directions when we were swimming the front crawl. We could not swim the front crawl with our heads up and out of the water. So it was either to swim the slower breast-stroke or swim the faster front crawl “blind”.  Boon opted for the breast stroke while Ed and I opted for a combination of breast stroke and front crawl.  So in the end both Ed and I were very inefficient as we were not swimming in straight lines as everytime we swam the front crawl we would deviate from course.  
(Mental Note: learn to swim front crawl with head out of water)

Boon - first out of the water

The swim route was a straight line out to sea followed by a route parallel to the beach and another straight line heading back to shore.  After the swim, I was feeling pumped up and feeling fine as I ran up out of the beach towards the transition area.  The row of showers to douse the swimmers were not comforting as the water spewing out from the shower rose was brownish.

Cycling Leg

Out of the sea and onto the transition area I went to gear up for the cycling leg.  I brought a spare cycling water bottle to wash the sand from my legs before putting on my socks and running shoes.  So it was off to the cycling circuit. Boon was nowhere to be seen.  I noted that his bike was not at its place, so he must be on the road cycling. Ed was just behind me.  I noted that he was swimming off course as we were on the return leg to shore.  Luckily I decided to go breast stroke towards the end and I was able to re-adjust my heading to swim towards the right location of the beach.

I borrowed a road bike from my nephew. I borrowed it a week before the event and I had not tested it yet. My nephew said that the bike was in a rideable condition.  When I took possession of it I noted that the front tyre was a little worn but my nephew said that it was still okay.  I thought Port Dickson was a flat area but as we cycled inland there was a slight uphill climb as the scenic route went through the oil palm plantations. The cycling route made a U-turn and the other half of the route was basically using the same route only in reverse.  It was there that Boon shouted out to me.  He had made it to the mid-way point and was making his way back to the hotel.  I jokingly shouted back to Boon saying that he was heading in the wrong direction.  Surprisingly I did not see Ed.  He had caught up with me early on and zoomed on ahead up the scenic route.

one down.. two to go

 

On the return leg towards the last three kilometres or so, as I made a left turn at the road junction heading to the hotel, my bike went through a sandy patch. That was when I realised that I had spring a leak in my front tyre.
(Mental Note: should change tyres when they are looking suspect)

DANG!! Shall I stop and try to replace the tube or not?  I had brought with me a spare tube but I knew it would take me a while to change the tube as I had not tried changing the rubber tube of the road bike.  I had done a tube change on my MTB and it took me about half an hour to pry the rubber tyre out of the tyre rim. There I was, approximately three kilometres from the transition area/hotel. Based on the half hour to change the MTB tube, I decided it was better not to change the tube. I was hoping that the leak will hold out all the way to the transition area/hotel.  As the metres rolled slowly by, I could feel the front tyre losing its air pressure until the handle bar started jarring my hands. Thankfully the final stretch was on a downhill incline. I was hoping the momentum of the bike would carry me home. The bike was running on rim power as I cycled the road leading up the hotel entrance to the transition area. I had to make a right turn to the transition area.  It was there where my front bike rim almost slipped as I turned the corner.  My bike wobbled for a while and Mr Chan saw it as he was standing beside the road. He came forward and asked if I was all right. Without looking at him (I was concentrating on keeping my bike steady),  I shouted back, ” Tyre puncture….tyre punctured!”

Phew!! Made it to the transition area with a fully deflated front tyre.  I had no time to inspect the tyre and rim.  I hung the bike up and grabbed some bananas to eat as I headed to the last leg.

Running Leg

This was my weakest event. I was and never will be a long distance runner. I never had the endurance to run long distance. I suppose one would say its only 5 km, what’s the fuss? Anyway I was not able to start out  running as I was gobbling a few bananas.  I hobbled along the road leading out towards the PD Royal Yacht Club. The running leg included a short stretch of run on the beach.  Now this was the most difficult of the route as running on sand with running shoes gave no traction.

Photo of Ed at finish line

I must confess, I half ran and half walked this last leg.  Heck! I even stopped to help a participating couple to take some shots with their mobile phone. They were busy enjoying the moment together and I thought I would offer to help them take a picture or two together instead of each taking pictures of each other.  The route beside the sea was scenic as there was a stretch that went uphill where you had quite a good view of the sea. (Mental Note: don't get distracted by "lovey-dovey" couples?)

The organisers had strategically placed a support group to give us the last push to complete the event.  I remembered a man on a wheelchair cheering us , “Keep going, Almost there!!”  I also remembered a young lady giving these words of encouragement, ”Pretty lady just in front of you.. go and chase her!”  Now, did that perk me up? Hahaha..

I ran passed the pretty lady and headed to the final stretch past the finish line.
(Mental Note: need to remind organisers to sponsor more pretty ladies; and guys too![for the female participants] )

Finished
When I reached the finish line, I collected my finisher medal. Both Boon and Ed had finished earlier and were waiting for me. While talking to them and walking out of the area, I forgot that I had to return the timing chip which I wore on my ankle. The lady in charge stopped me and reminded me. There was a PD triathlon towel soaked in cold water which was a welcome relief.  I had a free Isotonic drink and there were plenty of cut watermelons.

Group Photo- on completion

Luckily the weather on that day was cloudy and not too hot. It drizzled slightly for short while as I was doing the running leg. As usual the most important item to do was to take a group finisher photo.

We decided to head back to the hotel to check out and to take our shower. Boon and son left for KL immediately after  that.  Both Ed and I drove back to Avillion, hoping to see if we could still catch the lucky draw. By the time we reached and parked our cars in the hotel, all was quiet and everyone of the sprint participants had gone back.  At the hotel lobby the sponsors' booth were still open and there were still some activity. I suppose they were open for tomorrow's main event.  We 'lepak' for a while in the hotel enjoying the use of the free Wi-Fi.

When we wanted to drive to PD town for some food, we were stuck and could not drive out of the hotel as the road right in front of the hotel was cordoned off for the youngsters event.  The junior triathlon event had started.  We stood by watching the youngsters compete and were really amused at the competitiveness of some of the kids' parents.  They were really shouting and urging their kids to hurry up.

After lunch in PD town, I bid Ed farewell and wished him good-luck in the following day's Relay Team Triathlon Event.

First leg done and onto the transition area

Finish line

To run or to walk? That is the question?

 

course outline- not to scale

cycling route map

Results:-
Overall time: 02:04:51
Swim : 00:27:10    Cycle : 00:55:10    Run   : 00:42:25





Footnote : double click on the photos for a larger zoomed-in view