8 May 2011- Yeosu South Korea-
Well with the race being on Mothers day and all and me being away from home I figured there was no need to stay around base. So instead of sitting in my room and being sad about not having all the great motherly figures that are in my life around and not getting to spend the day with my Mom, I packed up and headed South. One of my friends was suppose to go with me, but with it being mothers day he was put in a sticky situation and ended up staying home with the family. I don't blame him one bit, that is one thing that I value more than anything is FAMILY, they come before everything, well except my faith. So since I have started racing each race with a purpose, I raced this race for all the Moms out there, especially my mom, step mom, and grandmas!
The interesting thing about this race is that it was the first Olympic Distance race I did way back when in 2008. So I was looking forward to this race. I talked with coach about racing with it and we disagreed on it and he wanted me to get a big weekend in. So I convinced him to let me race it and we would still go big and just push right through it. So what did that mean? Well it meant a 20 mile run on Friday, and then getting up at 430am on Saturday to get in a 4 hour ride before heading down there. The somewhat crappy part about the early morning ride was that it ended up being somewhat miserable with rain and being wet, but luckily it was in the 60's. I even conned two buddies into joining me in the misery, so it ended up not being too bad. Came back from the ride and rushed to the train station to sit on the train for 5 hours.
I showed up to the train station and they told me the next train was "Sold Out", well luckily I knew what time it was leaving and bought a ticket for the next "available" train. The funny thing is I knew I was not going to be using a seat anyways since I had my bike. So I snuck on the early train and just hung out in the food cart. After about 2 hours a lady came by and asked me for my ticket, I showed her my ticket and she gave me the "O NOOOOOOO". Then the fun began, she informed me I was on the wrong train, and I played dumb American. Then she tells me you are in luck though it is headed to the same location. I ended up having to pay a "fee", but it was cheaper then what I originally would of payed to ride that train anyways. That train was faster than the next one by about 30 minutes, it had less stops. So in all actuality I save a couple dollars got there about 2 hours earlier and had somewhat of a stress free trip down there.
I met up with some friends from Seoul who had traveled in a big group down there. We all stayed at the same hotel and it was the exact same place I stayed in 2008, what a coincidence huh? This is the first time I have ever had problems with the Korean Tri Federation. I never pay in advance and always just pay at the race, well except for the one race last year where I was able to race AG Elite. They did away with that this year so I am not able to race for free anymore :( At registration it turned into a big ordeal that none of us had paid and kind of made pre-race day a little bit of a nightmare. I mean all in all it was my fault, but when I have been racing here since 2008 and have never had a problem it was a little strange.
Onto race morning I woke up and got a little bit of food down and as usual was able to take care of the pre race ritual. It is one thing I wake up every race morning fearing I won't be able to accomplish the pre race mission, but still haven't failed yet. Considering the past couple days of training I was feeling a little sluggish but figured once I got in the water I would wake right up and the body would start going.
Swim-
It was a 2 loop course that you never had to exit the water. So if you were a really bad swimmer you could of just exited on your first loop with a decent swim time of low 20's. I guess they trust the Koreans and us foreigners, its hard to believe since the bike courses are always a draft fest. Anyways the first loop I had some clear water and actually found some feet to draft off of for about 1/2 of the lap. The second loop was somewhat of a nightmare with a lot of people out on the course so it was more of a maze and just trying to find clear water. I came out of the water 4th in my AG, which wasn't bad at all. Luckily I had some friends spectating and they were able to give me some splits. I was down about 1m30s to "The Honey Badger" from the TDK aka Peter Tuhoy. The goal was to come out close to him so we could "work" together on the bike knowing that it is Korea and how you get in the draft or you just see the trains go right on by.
T1-
I should of just considered this as the additional mileage for the run, more to come on that. But the transition was probably close to a 1/2 mile trot, I took my splits from my garmin and adjusted them to there splits, since they didn't time T1 and T2, and it was 3:47 for T1.
Bike-
Well when you take 461 people onto a 4 loop bike course what else do you expect, a DRAFT FEST. I was pretty much solo for the first loop, I had passed a few of the people that came out of the water ahead of me, the 30-39 AG had a few people in our wave and there was a few of them that got out ahead of me. I hammered the first lap trying to catch Peter, and sure enough at the end of lap 1 we were together. We did some good work together but the 2 guys that were out of the water a little bit ahead of him were still up the road a bit on us. By the time lap 4 started Peter was getting a little tired, and he was riding a road bike with clip ons as well as a compact crank. The course and some rolling hills, so on the down hills he struggled to hang on. I knew I had to drop him or else he would come off the bike thinking he could run with me, and when you give him the thought he will somehow pull it off. He hasn't been running much and was just focusing on the TDK, but knowing him if he was with me he would of given it everything. So the other portion of the plan was to get away from him and create some separation headed into T2. Luckily I was able to get away and stay away.
T2- Not near as long as T1, but still a good jaunt out to the actual run course. I had a decent transition and the legs actually felt good.
Run-
Like I said surprisingly the legs felt good. I was told that the other 2 guys were 1:30 and 3 minutes up the road. I knew I had some work to do so I just kept focused and tried to reel the in. I pushed hard and just couldn't bridge the gap. I had some very solid miles though (well only 5 of them since the course was short) 6:17/6:22/6:04/6:06/5:43. I ended up crossing the line in what I though was 3rd, but of course in Korea some weird things happen. More to come on that.........
The biggest disappointment was that the bike and run courses were both short. The bike was about 5K short and the run was 2K short. The sad thing was I knew the bike was going to be short, but in 2008 the run was at least legit.
Here are my Overall placings and splits with Pros Included from the KTF. There were a total of 13 Pro Men that started the race!:
Swim-23:31/18th Overall/8th Amateur
Bike-54:55/4th Overall/2nd Amateur
Run-32:07/7th Overall/3rd Amateur
Total-1:50:31/7th Overall/2nd Amateur
My times adjusted w/ T1 and T2:
Swim-23:31
T1-3:47
Bike-51:08-24.5mph/avg (20.9 Miles)
T2- 1:36
Run-30:29-6:07min/mil avg (5 miles)
So the interesting thing was at awards they called me up as 1st Place in my AG. Then the official results came out a few days later and I was listed as 2nd. Then there was no results for Peter or the Korean guy that "won" the race in the Amateur Division. According to Peter the 2 guys that beat me have been down in Jeju training to become pros this year and that is why they were not put in the results at the race, but not sure why the one guy was in the "official" results, maybe he didn't make the cut to become a Pro, not sure how the Korean system works.
Overall though I am extremely happy with the results considering how hard I had trained that week coming into the race. Always looking at the big picture and staying focused for the #1 goal of the year, IM CHINA..................O wait if you hadn't heard IM CHINA WAS CANCELED! Luckily I was able to re arrange some things and I am coming home early 5 June-30 June, as opposed to 23 June -11 July. I will now be home before my first IM and will hurry back to Korea to do IM Korea on July 3rd. You may ask why I wasn't just doing IM Korea in the first place, well they didn't announce it till March 18th, my birthday. I had already had IM China planned and paid for so there was no turning back or switching plans as I was already committed financially. More to come on how all of the cancellations and financial burden this cost me in another blog, this one is already WAY to long!
Here are some pictures from the race weekend:
My little corner of the train. The Cervelo and a bunch of beer, can't really think of a better trade off........
What? I am really only 1m30s back on Peter? You sure that is right??????
1st Lap solo.....Imagine that riding solo in a tri ;)
Hammer down trying to catch Peter.......
Out on the run, the course got crowded on the second loop.....
An extra medal, cool trophy and of course the typical Korean Certificate(which I left in Mr. Yu's car :(, will get it back sooner than later). And then the bonus, 10lbs of Kimchi! Mr. Yu's wife was much appreciative of it, they wouldn't take gas money so Kimchi was a good trade off!
I was lucky enough to catch a ride back with my buddy Mr. Yu. We stopped and had eel, it actually was not bad at all. He told me it gives you lots of "stamina" and I am pretty sure he was referring to the stamina that is needed in bed and not in a triathlon.........Can't say I can tell you if it is true or not, what kind of girl would be interested in a guy that commits 20+ hours a week to training and all of his other time to a college degree?? ;)
