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Today was THE day. The day that I had been waking up at ungodly hours to cycle and run so long that it was past lunch when I finished. The race that Speedie had been bought for.

I had sent the following plan to Chunnie so that she knew where I was at each hour of the day. I also printed a copy to give to Team Hall (my sister Marisa and my Mom) so they could cheer me on in person. If you do the math, I had estimated 50min for the 1.9km swim, 3hours for the 90.1km bike and 2 hours for the 21.1km run.

0415 wake up
0515 leave for transition
0530 arrive at transition
0630 race briefing in transition area for athletes

0700 PRO start
0725 Ian starts the race!
0750 Completes lap 1 of 2 (swim)
0815 Completes lap 2 of 2 (swim) and transition to bike
0915 Completes lap 1 of 3 (bike)
1015 Completes lap 2 of 3 (bike)
1115 Completes lap 3 of 3 (bike) and transition to run
1155 Completes lap 1 of 3 (run)
1235 Completes lap 2 of 3 (run)
1315 FINISH


Pre-Race
During my last big race, The Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2007, I had quite a bit of trouble sleeping because I was nervous. But this time, although the race was on my mind, I actually managed to sleep through the night… Pretty surprising! When my alarm went at 415 I was genuinely surprised although, unlike training days I bounded out of bed. It was time to get ready for the big day!

I had my breakfast and went to “clear the plumbing” before getting my race gear on. I said that all in one sentence but it definitely didn’t happen like that, i really took my time toasting bread to eat, drinking some isotonic drink and everything. It all went relatively smoothly until i got out of the lift at the bottom of the block when I realized that I needed to go to the toilet again. I rushed back on up to the apartment and then back down again, thankfully I still had plenty of time.

My mom drove me over to the race even though it was only 1km down the road because well… I wanted to save every ounce of energy. She let me down at the race site and I went straight to pump up Speedie’s tires. I then walked back to meet my mom with the car and gave her the big pump so she could leave it in the car. After that, I headed to get my race number printed on me. That was my second hiccup of the morning because I saw a huuuuuge long line that went for some 200m with people waiting. I got into line and nervously checked my watch as we inched forward. Luckily there was STILL enough time for me to have a good warmup before the start. I even managed to catch up with Team Hall for a pre-race photo:

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

The Swim
My main goal during the swim was just to stay calm and stroke cleanly like I have been doing during training. I wasn’t going to win any prizes in the swim, that’s for sure (I’m not chunnie). I started pretty far back and on the outer edge of the first turn. When the siren went off I jogged slowly into the water, adjusting my watch as I went and then gently got into the water and started off on my Half-Ironman journey.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

Just after the first turn bouy (pronounced booo-eeey ) I was happily swimming along when i got a nice whack on my head at the top of my left cheek. It knocked my goggles out of place and made me make an emergency stop to adjust. I would later find out it gave me nice red-spot on my cheek! Whatever the case, I knew that this was just part of the sport so I didn’t let it get to me, in fact I think I may have done the same thing to somebody else – by accident!

The way the course was set up, you swam 150m out then turned left to go 350m straight before making two turns and coming back in a rectangular shape. The corners were marked by what I thought were huge big bouys but the funny thing was that when I was swimming I looked up to try and find one of them but really couldn’t see them.. there were so small in the distance that they were scarcely visible! So what I had to do was to follow the general direction of the people and hope we all weren’t heading off to indonesia.

At the end of the first lap, you have to get out of the water and run a short while on the beach before diving into the water again. That’s pretty much exactly what I did, with results well… less than stellar. I dived in so hard that my goggles got water in them. My initial reaction was to go and adjust them but then… I had just ran by a crowd of people and jumped in… I thought I would look like a dork
if I immediately stopped and took the water out of them. So instead, i suffered till I was further out and then did the deed.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

The final score for the swim was:
49:32 – 57th (out of 114) in Men 25-29

Transition 1

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

It was quite a long jog up the beach and into transition but it was okay, I didn’t feel out of breath from the swim so that was good. When I reached my spot in transition and was about to put on my cycling shoes I realized that I had forgotten to open the velcro straps before the race. I was slightly irritated with myself for that because it meant losing about 2 precious seconds… PER SHOE!

Time in T1:
2:37

The Bike
I got on the bike and as soon as started I took a gel. My plan was to take one at every turnaround point meaning 6 in total and about 220 calories per hour (from gel) adding whatever other calories I could muster from sports drinks.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

I started off smoothly on the east coast park service road which is one of my regular training routes. The thing was, this time I had to cycle up the Benjamin Sheares Bridge!! By my estimation the uphill section is about 300m and thats about 300m more hill than I had done in all my training combined. To make matters worse, you had to do the bridge twice on EACH lap. for a total of 6 times up the thing! Trust me, it was NOT fun going up it. My speed dropped from 30km/h to like 15km/h as I quickly went flying down the gears to try and keep the pedals rotating without killing my legs. The fun part however, was going more than 50km/h on the downhill part… So i guess the effort of going up one side has perks on the other

All along the route I saw people stopped on the side fixing flat tires and I actually even saw (and heard) somebody right next to me get one in a loud bang. I was pretty paranoid about this because I’m still not very confident of changing my tires. So I spent quite a bit of effort watching for little stones on the road and trying to stay on the cleaner portions.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

At the end of the first lap, as I was about to reach the turnaround point, there were hundreds of people lining the edge of the course cheering us on. THIS is what made event special, I really felt important with everybody watching, it gave me quite a buzz. Right at the turnaround point I heard my name being yelled! It was Team Hall… My Mom and My Sister! They were yelling for me and taking pictures it really felt good…. I almost got choked up as I left for the second lap, not sure why but it was little emotional. I guess because I had been training for this for quite a while and it was nice to see people supporting you. My mind also went to Chunnie and wondered if she was watching my results on the Ironman website because I had confirmed that the split times were going to be available there during the race!

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

On the 3rd lap of the bike, the wind really started picking up on one section of the route. Most of the route is on raised expressways which is really exposed to the wind. Initially I looked at my speedometer and thought oh man! I must be really tired because my speed is dropping right down! I was worried since I still had the run to come but then I realized it was the wind! I was actually relieved because there really wasn’t much I could do except hammer along at the slower speed. But then when I started heading in the opposite direction I was flying along with a lot less effort! Lovely.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

The route was so hot that I drank about 5 bottles of sports drink (mix of powerbar endurance formula that I started with and 100Plus that I picked up from the aid station). The all-expressway route was not shaded at all and the heat just radiated back on to us. I suppose that’s exactly what I wanted… I wanted the race to be HARD. I’m sadistic, what can I say? Oh yes… about the aid station on the bike, I had a slight issue the first time through because I actually dropped the bottle that the volunteer handed to me and almost crashed… Luckily I regained my balance and got another bottle from a volunteer further along.

Despite having some cramps on the uphills during the last lap, I managed to get back into transition within my 3 hour goal:
2:57:07 – 60th (out of 114) in Men 25-29

Transition 2

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

I had a very speedy transition, no problems with getting the cycling shoes off and the running shoes on:
0:58 (14th fastest time overall, even faster than 2 of the pros!)

The Run
The initial part of the run I got almost instant cramps in my thighs! All those hills apparently had gotten to me. I just trudged along, although slower than I had intended. I took another gel at the first aid station and a bunch of water and 100Plus. My idea was to have more electrolytes to try and get rid of the cramps. Because I needed to get a bunch to drink and also to rest the cramps, I walked through each of the aid stations.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

My goal for the run was to run 2 hours which means about a 6min/km pace, gone were my hopes to run faster than that given the way my legs felt! I was encouraged when I saw my split times after the first few Ks. I had actually been running closer to 5.30min/km… Even while feeling pretty bad! Great!! After a while, the cramps actually did subside and I could even enjoy the run! I wasn’t pushing myself too hard but I was enjoying the crowds and also just being able to run on my good-ole-training-route on ECP. I was, in general going by people, but not nearly as many as I had when I was doing OSIM. During that race I felt awesome so I guessed that I was running pretty much as fast as I felt.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

Twice on each lap I was lucky enough to get cheered on by my support crew which felt good, but not as good as the ice cold sponges they handed out at the aid stations! Those were really wonderful given the strong sun that was beating down on me. Sadly though, the sponges started to run out after one lap so I was left to just pour cups of water on my head, some of which weren’t even cold.

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

Finally, I was on my last lap. One more lap of 7km and I would be done. The cramps had come back so I quickly gobbled down another gel, but at this point it wasn’t just cramps that were bothering me. I was tired now and the heat was getting to me. At one point, I was counting my steps trying to occupy my mind as I just struggled to get from aid station to aid station. The end of the aid stations came too quickly as it meant I had to re-start running. At one particular point I was even thinking to myself if I was going to overheat, which promptly made me slow down a little which only made the run to the next aid station even longer!

As I passed the support crew for the final time before the finish, my mom yelled to me that she wanted to see me raise my arms as I finished. But she didn’t have to. I knew I was going to do that from a loooong time ago. I struggled on, made the final turnaround and began heading back on the final K to the finish. About 500m before the finish, I zipped up my top and put my sunglasses on my visor. You have to look good for the finishing photo!!

Soon enough, I could see the finish… I was wearing a smile on my face, I could see the finishing chute… I proudly went passed the fork in the road where you would continue for another lap and headed towards the blue carpet of the finish. I made sure that there was nobody in front of me by putting on a little bit of speed to go buy the person in front, I then headed onto the carpet. I smiled as I looked through the finish, I raised my arms in celebration and bounded through the finishing line as the announcer said my name. It felt GREAT!

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

From Aviva Ironman 70.3 Singapore 2008

My time for the run:
2:04:00 – 32nd (out of 114) in Men 25-29

My TOTAL time:
5:54:15 – 37th (out of 114) in Men 25-29

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