Well I have decided to turn this into a 2 part blog. The first part will be about the race and the second part I will write about my travels and fun in Singapore. But first off, thanks to everyone for all the birthday wishes and good luck leading up to the race. Getting older is never fun, but especially the years that you have to age group up. This is the first time I have had to experience this and well instead of racing in a "small" young age group there were 98 people entered in my age group. The biggest AG field I have had to compete against. The one disadvantage I will struggle with throughout these next couple of years is I am "young" in the age group and some of the guys will have been at the sport for quite some time by the time they are in there late 20's. All this means is I will have to train harder and of course smarter, so with that being said I stepped up 2011 with some changes which I have already mentioned. Having a coach was the biggest change, and looking below at the race report I hope that you can see the big difference in the swim, bike, and a small change on the run.
Swim- This past winter has been a big change for me. I have been swimming quite a bit and showed up hoping for a good swim "time". I knew it would be a little skewed and slower than expected due to the fact that it was a non wetsuit swim. I made sure and prepared for the non-wetsuit swim and hooked up with Kiwami USA and had an Amphibian speed suit made, I need all the help I can get when it comes to swimming. I had a good start and found some clean water. There were a couple waves that started ahead of us but there was a 5min gap. About 600 meters into the swim is when I hit the first part of bad traffic and had to start swimming through people. It was a 2 loop course and I came out of the first looped and looked down and saw 18:30 on my watch, man was that a heart breaker. I felt like I was exerting a lot of energy and swimming "strong", but the time was reflecting that. I went out for the second loop and it was really congested. I was climbing, crawling and just trying to flat out avoid people. For some reason it must have been a different race for a lot of people because I missed the message that it was the 1.9K breast stroke world championships. I feared getting kicked the whole time and really started getting concerned about taking a low blow and being in a lot of pain. I swam cautiously for the last 1/4 of the swim and tried to avoid people at all cost. Ended up coming out of the water and my watch said 38:XX.
Official time- 39:17-69th Overall Amateur/9th Age Group
Bike- The off season also had a strong focus on the bike. I knew it was going to be flat and feared there would be a lot of drafting going on. Being at Clearwater in 2009 I knew if I was surrounded by others drafting I would join in, luckily I was never caught by a pack or approached a big pack. I am proud to say that I rode a clean race and was never behind anybody by 7 meters for longer than 20 seconds, those are the drafting rules. YES, I did slingshot A LOT of people but that is legal. I would often wave as the groups of people going in the opposite direction went by in there packs of 10-30 riders. It pissed me off to see it, but I knew ahead of time it was going to happen. I passed a few 4-5 persons group on the last lap and asked them to get a little closer to each other because there was only 1 meter and that at ½ a meter you get a better draft. They just looked at me like I was crazy for riding solo. I thought that is how triathlon was suppose to be ;) So moral of the story is my bike strength has came a long ways since November 2009. I rode faster than I did in Clearwater by 27 seconds, but I rode solo this time instead of in a pack. I felt strong and confident on the bike and really watched my watts and nutrition. I believe those were two key factors too why I ended up with the fastest bike split in my age group, yep 1st out of 99 :).
Official Time- 2:16:05-24th Overall Amateur/1st Age Group
Run- And the one thing I have just tried to maintain over the winter and not put a big focus on. Well it is the one thing that bit me in the behind. Because I didn’t concentrate on it? NO, because I was unprepared for the heat and it got to me. I still had the fastest HIM run split to date and was still happy with how I ran. The one thing I was depending on was to get some cola within the first couple K as advertised but couldn’t find any at the stops. Luckily for the first 10K sponges were abundant and I was able to get my body temp down. The last 10K however sponges started running out and it was a battle with the heat. I sucked it up for the last 7K and just focused on putting one foot in front of the other and getting to the finish line. Around 5K in the run the guy that took second in my age group ran by me. He thought he was a wise fella and asked me how old I was (the ages weren’t on our calf like normal) and I told him I was 25. He said “good” I am 30, I was happy because he was really moving. Not even 10 seconds later Whit Raymond, the announcer, say “There goes Preddy, he will be on the podium today in the 25-29 AG, he is a fast 25 year old”. That got me pretty heated, I mean great tactics on his part but shit lying straight to my face about how old you are? Funny thing is I was starting to run him down towards the end and I didn’t even know it, he finished 25 seconds up on me. So in finish chute there he was waiting for me and said congrats and good race. I chuckled and said thanks and then in a jokingly way “Yeah good race you 25 year old ASS HOLE, can’t believe you lied to me. Well played my friend”. No hard feelings he just taught me a new trick ;)
Official Time- 1:35:44- 24th Overall Amateur/6th Age Group
I was really happy with the outcome of the race and couldn’t of asked for anything to go better. Other than the heat, but I believe I perform well in the heat so I can’t complain about it too much. The guys that came up from Australia and who were from Singapore definitely had an upper hand as they have had the heat to train in, as where I had only seen one weekend over 50 since November. I can’t thank everyone enough who has supported me throughout this journey. From family to friends to training partners, it has been one heck of a journey and I can’t wait for this upward slope that it is on to continue upwards.
Official recap below of all race times:
S- 39:17-69th Overall Amateur/9th Age Group
B- 2:16:05-24th Overall Amateur/1st Age Group
R- 1:35:44-24th Overall Amateur/6th Age Group
Total- 4:34:49-19th Overall Amateur out of approx 1500/3rd Age Group out of 98
The bike all race ready!
Transition area setup and ready to go.
Very cool shot, don't know why I was the center of attention but it was titled "Start Stopwatch" on Flickr.
Wish I could say the Kiwami Amphibian made me "fast" but it sure did put me further up in my AG out of the water than I expected!
Under the Amphibian I had the Kiwami Konami. Great one piece for a hot day, Kiwami did an amazing job on the custom work on both suits!
Out on the bike........
I guess i was feeling good at this point......
A little more painful at this point.
And its over.........
I think I should of finished 2nd, would of had a cute girl to share 2nd with ;) The first place guy didn't show up, and that is "Preddy" all dressed up.
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