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THE SHORT VERSION

Swim: 39:35, Bike: 2:39:28, Run: 2:06:08, Total: 5:30:17
A PB by almost 25 minutes and 10th in my age-group.

THE LONG VERSION

Lead-up To The Race
The lead-up to this race really started the moment I injured my knee when building up for AVIVA (Singapore 70.3) back in February. In my disappointment at missing that race I was immediately on the lookout for a half-ironman to do this year. The Philippines 70.3 race seemed to be timed perfectly and was in the wakeboarding park of Camsur Watersports Complex (CWC). It was somewhere I had wanted to go to wakeboard anyway (and I knew my cablin’ buddies did too). So that’s why it popped up on the schedule and Danny and Revant jumped on board to cable and cheer too. It was looking to be an awesome holiday!

Just a couple days after my last long workout before the race and as my taper started, I started feeling under the weather. It was a bit strange because I didn’t feel totally sick but I knew something was up. I initially didn’t think much of it because with two full weeks to the race I thought I could kick it in time to still do the race without a problem. After a few days, I did get slightly better but I never recovered fully. I then (probably much later than I should have) went to see a doctor with just more than a week to go till race day. He put me on antibiotics and I thought my race was over. I rested more and took the drugs and luckily I started feeling better but was on strict orders to watch how I felt during the race (if I did indeed insist on being crazy and do it).

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

Well, needless to say, since I’m writing this, I did do the race. I also had to figure out how to pack Bennie (my bike) into a bike box and transport ALL THE CRAP that’s needed to do a race to CWC.

Race Morning
We had booked the accommodation for the race slightly late so we couldn’t get any of the “good” places which were actually on-site at CWC, instead we had to stay in Naga City in the CBD Plaza Hotel. The hotel itself was pretty basic but clean and it has a mall opposite with plenty of options for cheap good food. The minor irritation is that we had to take shuttle busses to the race site which with traffic and small roads could take up to 30min. For race morning there were two buses 4:15am and 5:15am of which I thought that the 4:15am bus just sounded insane given what time I would have to wake up to actually be dressed, fed and ready to go so I decided on the 5:15am bus even though it would probably give me only 45min at the race site to do everything before the start. I’m the super-kiasu type which usually likes to get to the race really early so I tried to relax and not worry about it.

So the morning of the race it took a little longer to get ready than anticipated and we only got on the bus right at 5:15am which wasn’t ideal since all the seats were already taken. I had a moment of horror when I thought I would have to stand up for the whole ride (every ounce of energy matters). But then my brilliant wife identified a suitable step that we could commandeer and utilize as a seat. So we sat on the floor for the ride which actually was only 15min since there was no traffic at all. Good stuff!

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

When I got to the race site I knew I had to get body marked and then set up transition and then go warm-up. I basically ran off the bus and went to do all this, abandoning the support crew – Sorry!! I was really stressed and was so focused on doing those things, I bumped into Shem in transition and when he wished me good luck I basically didn’t even see him at first and he told me to relax. Actually despite me being stressed out about it, both body-marking and setting up transition went really smoothly. And I even got to line up for body marking behind ex-Ironman World Champ Michellie Jones, no special treatment for her it seems!

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

After finishing all the stuff I wanted to do, I realized that I had ditched my support crew but they were waiting for me on the way to the swim start and it was nice to see them. I got a kiss from the wife and good luck wishes from the guys. It was nice to have people looking out for you

I didn’t actually have time for a run and some stretching like I usually do but since it was such a long race I guess this was less important than say for a sprint or olympic. I did get in a short swim but that’s about all. I stood on the grass and watched as the pros started their race.

The Swim
I was actually a little worried about the swim because firstly they had said it was a mass start (800+ people) and secondly I swam some of the course the previous day and it seemed insanely long! Luckily for me one of my worries went away because they introduced I think 3 different waves so that meant it wasn’t going to be SUCH a big melee of people. I was in the mens 18-34 wave and we started just two minutes after the pros.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

I took up a place on the outside of the first turn and a couple rows back. When we started there was the usual bumping and kicking but really nothing too terrible which was good. The water was actually nice to swim in being fresh water and visibility was about 20cm past the end of my hand stretched out. That meant I could actually see people’s feet as I drafted them. And boy, I did plenty of drafting. I wasn’t out to win anything on the swim so whenever anybody went by me or I saw somebody swimming at the same speed as me, I pulled up and went behind them. I swam the majority of the first lake (1400m) that way. I was really taking it pretty easy, not wanting to waste any energy. Once I did get out of the first lake (Lago Del Ray) I did a time-check and I saw 25min, about 5min faster than I had thought I would do, great!! I jogged slowly over to the cable park lake being careful not to slip on the wet concrete. Giving Danny and Revant a high-five along the way

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

The cable park lake was much more mirky, all I saw was brown when I jumped in. The reduced visibility and the fact everybody had spread out meant that I didn’t have anybody to pull me along in this lake and that’s probably why this lake was a little slower than I had wanted it to be, but still I ended up with a PB in the half-ironman swim by about TEN MINUTES! Another thing interesting about this swim is that there were no sharp turns instead it was a horse-shoe-shaped swim which is not something I had done before.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

Swim Time: 39:35 – 16th (out of 46) in Men 25-29

Transition One
My first experience with transition bags for both T1 and T2 and it went relatively smoothly. I really didn’t like the fact that I had to put my helmet and sunglasses in a bag that would be thrown around by volunteers before the race. Chunnie gave me the idea to put my sunglasses in a case and just use a rubber-band to keep it shut instead of the zipper it comes with so that it would be faster to get them out and this worked like a charm.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

I had an awesome spot in transition, my bike was about 20m from the bike-out and that was about 200m from the start of a long transition so I must’ve saved quite a bit of time not having to wheel my bike that far and just jogging along. Oh and also they gave us these really cool racks that you fit your wheel into, none of this hanging your saddle on a shaky old bar, this was the big-time!

T1 Time: 3:00

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

The Bike
The support on the bike was INCREDIBLE. Seriously amazing. I felt like I was riding in the Tour de France. There were people lining the streets, children cheering, “go, go, Ironman go!” It was a real experience. In towns of course there were lots of people but the thing is, even in the areas between there were just people sitting out by the road cheering us on. Sometimes the road was even narrowed because of all the people crowding the sides. Also, the beauty of the single out-and-back route meant that for the first 15km I think I only saw two other competitors, I was really out there on my own, well, me and the crowds cheering that is.

One side note about the bike course and probably my only complaint about the race is that the roads are very bumpy. There are long sections of concrete with cracks that have been patched making it very bumpy. You could improve the ride marginally by swerving from side to side to catch short patches of asphalt although it’s a pretty bumpy ride no matter what you do. In fact it was so bumpy at one point, just when I was eating one of my energy bars I lost my grip and it went flying. Darnit!! I had carefully calculated my nutrition and brought just enough along, donating some of it to the road just wasn’t on the plan! Alas, there was nothing I could do so I just tried to relax and spread my next bar over a longer period and got some gatorade at the next aid station.

Although the bike course is billed as “flat”, I really wouldn’t call it that. I mean I come from Singapore where the little pimple of a couple flyovers are considered category 1 climbs. There were definitely long stretches of “false flat”. In particular I noticed that in the 10K leading up to the turnaround I was speeding along at 40+ km/h without putting much effort in, so obviously I knew that on the way back it wasn’t fatigue causing me to drop down below 30km/h for a significant period.

After the turnaround I started noticing that kids along the way would start yelling, “water bottle!” It then occurred to me that they knew that the competitors would throw their bottles once they were empty. So just for fun I made sure to always throw my bottles towards some kids whenever I needed to get rid of one. Once I threw it up in the air and I could see a group of them all jumping up trying to catch the freebie… heh heh, good fun!

As the day wore on and I got hotter, I was using water from the aid stations to spray on myself, but the villagers along the way were also helping. They brought out pales of water and if you gestured, they would pour water on you as you went by, again kind of like le Tour. It was something really small but I think really important to keep the body temperature down.

For most of the ride I felt pretty comfortable, probably only the last 10K I kept looking at my speedo, wondering when it would end. I think it was probably in part fatigue but also by then the sun was really really blazing, and I would feel that again in the run.

Bike Time: 2:39:28 – 22nd (out of 46) in Men 25-29

Transition Two
I came into T2 feeling quite good, I took off my shoes while still on the bike to save a couple seconds and did a running dismount. I’m happy to do this on the way off but not nearly well practiced enough to attempt a flying mount. I racked my bike, got my shoes on and was off, no drama at all, no cramps, I felt great!

T2 Time: 2:07

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

The Run
I came storming out of T2, caught a glimpse of the support crew and that spurred me on even more. I as smiling, giving thumbs up and shooting out onto the half-marathon. I looked down at my watch and was shocked to see I was going at 3:30 min/km which is faster than my 5K pace. WHOOooooaaaa cowboy I told myself. So I brought it back down to something more manageable, somewhere I felt I could maintain it comfortably. I trudged along at that pace and tried my best to ignore all the other runners, I didn’t want to get too competitive and try passing people and running faster than I should. I was only racing myself so I kept to my pace, although it was still good enough to continually pick people off, which I enjoyed immensely.

Did I already mention the heat? Well, it was HOT! I actually like it hot. I train in Singapore where its hot, so why shouldn’t I like it hot on race day? To deal with the heat though, the organizers had either intentionally or accidentally provided some magic. They were handing out ice-cold mineral water in bottles rather than the usual paper cups. This meant that I could grab a bottle, drink a bit, pour a bit on my head to cool down and then hold on to it. I ran with the bottle drinking and pouring every so often until the next aid station. It was BRILLIANT!

The crowd support didn’t stop on the bike leg, the locals were out to cheer us on along the run route too! The narrow run route went through other villages and there were people cheering and kids high-fiving which was really fun. What wasn’t fun was the short but steep hills along the way. The hills were so steep that you actually had trouble slowing down when running down them. I didn’t know whether I should just go with the flow and run down really fast or resist it and jog down slowly. In any case, going up only involved one speed: slow.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

After 10K of the run and the end of the first lap I came up on the support crew who were cheering and shouting. I stopped to give the wife a kiss and high-fives from the guys spurred me on again and pretty much just like the last time my pace shot up for a second but I managed to reel it back in again. It was really interesting; I really felt pretty darned good so far. I didn’t need to walk like I had when I did AVIVA previously and I still felt strong. That strong feeling was something that I held onto until probably the 13K mark when I noticed my pace dropping. I could feel it dropping but the strange thing is, I still felt pretty strong and still no cramps and no need to walk. I wasn’t that perturbed by it so I just kept trudging along at the slower pace.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

When I was about 4K from the finish I started to do calculations in my head, I had felt so good on the first lap of the run I had dreams of finishing in 5:20 but with my calculations I now saw that coming in under 5:30 should be relatively easy. I tried to pick up the pace a little bit just to be sure and as I finished the second lap and headed onto the finishing stretch of 1K I thought I had it in the bag. I actually slowed up a bit in the final few hundred metres to let some people get ahead of me so I would have a clear run to the finish. Perhaps I should’ve just run it in properly because as I got to the clock, I saw that I was going to miss it by just a few seconds… Oops.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

Still, 5:30 is an amazing time and 5 minutes faster than my goal that I set (originally for AVIVA), 25 minutes better than my previous time and I’m still ecstatic about it. I crossed the finish line, I think I high-fived Danny along the way but it was all a blur I know I felt great. I got a medal and a towel thrown over me which actually felt pretty good. A great race and with a loving wife and friends to meet me at the end, can’t ask for more.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines

Run Time: 2:06:08 – 8th (out of 46) in Men 25-29

Overall Time: 5:30:17 – 10th (out of 46) in Men 25-29

Oh but I can! There was some wakeboarding afterwards too.

From Ironman 70.3 Philippines