Desaru Triathlon 2009: A better timing

Outta the swim leg...





Back from the cycling leg...

Running the last few km.

Kevin Siah, Ben Swee, Roger, Keat Seong, me...

This was a race that was not really on my books. I had booked Putrajaya Half IM, but with it bumping to Oct, I guess I would be bored to death without doing another tri.

Desaru is really really far. Travelling on road is at least 6 hours drive covering 400km of road. Raymond and I joked on how far we thought it would take to drive, but have no qualms riding the same distance.

Race day came. I wasn't nervous. I was just thinking of doing this the best I could. And this year the race started earlier at 9am. Thank goodness for that, as last year 10am had us cycling in very very hot wheather. As usual swim is pretty choppy, as we crested, and crashed up and down on the waves. Accidentally, I had gulped a few sips of sea water. My swim wasn't that strong. I just tried to maintain a good cadence of strokes and keeping the heart rate low.

When I reached the beach to go for the 2nd loop, I disbelievingly looked at my time of 15 minutes! Usually it's 20. The 2nd loop was far better with less swimmers. And I had the swim in 31 minutes. Note that everyone did better on a shorter distance swim. How short is anybody's guess.

As for the bike, I had a better transition than PD. Quickly got off to speed off for the 3 loops of ride. Now, the only flat part is the road just before the main one. The main road is not exactly flat. It's rolling hills all the way, and looking back, a Tri bike is not exactly advantageous.

The first loop was done below 1 hour. There's some parts of the ride which I can't help but stayed or draft behind the rider. It's not that I wanted to draft but I wanted to stay in front. After some time, I guess I'll just ride alone not to draft. But I do noticed pelotons going up and down. Yeap..drafting.

The 2nd loop, I was then going slower. I think Emma caught on me while going a long uphill. She was definitely using higher gears. Then Keat Seong went blazing up with his cervelo.

I didn't really push on the bike, but was just happy to make it below sub 3 (2:50) on the bike.

Then it was off to run the dreaded 21km. Last year I was mentally exhausted on the run. This year I could run more. Managed to bumped into Keat Seong and Kevin Siah who was at the lead. But somehow Kevin was walking?? He later mentioned he had cramps. Then managed to pass Keat Seong after 5km or so.

Now what's hard running after 90km of bike is not really the distance. It's the head, humidity and sometimes lack of wind. This year it was a bit cloudy, so it was pretty ok. You'll really need to be strong mentally just to complete the run. I find myself walking some parts of it, partly because I was getting bored pushing. I would rather enjoy the race.

Running was more fun when bumping into friends along the way.

On the 2nd loop, I was really low on nutrition. I had just half a gel on the bike and forgotten to take one on the run. Luckily Yee Hua came with some milo. Then I had 2 bananas. Well, that had me going..The last turn back, I turned on a faster pace. In fact it was the fastest part of the run. The faster the better to end this suffering.

Back in 5:21. The run was 1:55.

Thanks to all Lydia and Bernard for the photos and support. Without you guys, the race will be boring. And congrats to all the first timers in the long distance. It's certainly a battle well fought to the finish.