Powerman Asia Duathlon Championship Malaysia 2017

A few months ago, I signed up for the Powerman Asia Duathlon Championship Malaysia 2017 to be held in Putrajaya. My new-found friend, John Kok, had also signed up for the same race. John relocated from Lahad Datu to KK around the end of last year, and he has since been joining me for the weekend bike rides fairly regularly. 

I'm unfortunately not a very strong cyclist myself, but I shared the little knowledge that I know about cycling. John improved very quickly, but I thought he desperately needed to run a bit more. You see, running is almost everybody's weakness—I've noticed that most cyclists don't like to run. They may ride everyday—sometimes twice a day in the morning and evening—but they don't spend half the time running. It's a very curious reality.

Apart from the training, I have of course some tricks up my sleeves on techniques in running and cycling which I've been sharing with John. But training is not everything. There are of course many other factors involved in an actual race. 

Well, the Powerman classic category was held yesterday, and it comprised 10km run - 60km bike - 10km run. I had planned not to surge out too fast in the early stages of the race. I told John, it's better to play safe. With this in mind, we should aim to finish the first 10km in about 50 minutes. The same idea should apply in the bike leg. Having considered the undulating terrain of Putrajaya, I told John we should aim to finish the bike leg in about 1:50. I have of course ridden 60km here in KK before, which I could finish in about 1:40. I reckoned that 10 minutes slower in Putrajaya should be safe enough. The only part of the race that's difficult to estimate was the final 10km run, because our legs would have been very exhausted by then.

Now many people would know that sticking to the game plan is much harder to do than coming up with the plan in the first place. But I was determined. The funny thing was that from the thousands of participants in the  Powerman, and although John and I signed up for the race at different times, we ended up racking our bikes just next to each other during the race. Talk about coincidence! As we were making final checks on our bikes, John decided to take this photo.

John is a good 10 years younger than me and much fitter as you can see from this photo. I'm the older guy on the right, and a bit fat too. I'm not sure what I was doing, pretending to be an athlete. I suggested to John that we should race together for as long as we could. The flag off was a few minutes behind schedule, and as we were running, I kept looking back to find John hot on my heels. Not sure what he was thinking, but after the first loop, I told John I was beginning to feel a bit tired, and suggested that we should slow down just a bit. Thankfully, however, the distance was slightly less than 10km, and we were therefore able to achieve that 50 minutes target as planned.

We arrived at T1 together, and we had to run quite a long distance within a sea of bikes to reach our bikes. Then a quick action—shades on, helmet on, running shoes off, cycling shoes on, bib switched from the front to the back, bike off the rack. Just then I saw John was still seated on the ground, dealing with his shoes. He told me to go ahead. I reckoned that I spent less than a minute at transition, but of course it was eventually a little over 2 minutes including that long run from the entry to exit of the transition.

I was happy with my transition, and my focus shifted to the bike leg. I started slow at about 33kph to catch my breath. But it was short-lived; as soon as I made the corner, I started climbing a gradual slope. And of course as expected, there were so many other cyclists blocking the way which was quite frustrating. I realised that John would probably take his time in transition. After about 3 or 4 minutes, I settled in to my cruising speed. The ups and downs were not as bad as I had expected, but eventually everybody had to go through a long climb. It wasn't really a steep climb, but the distance was something to be reckoned with. 

Photo credit: Jack Ah Beh

When I finished the first loop of the bike leg, however, I noticed that I was a little too fast. Accordingly, I had to slow down a bit during the second leg to stick to the plan. It was towards the end of that first bike loop when I noticed Chris Kha Khrang as she zoomed past me. I first saw her a few years ago in Miri during the Miri Triathlon, and I remember spending some minutes trying to figure out how to pronounce her name. And I swear it wasn't the cleavage that caused me to notice her yesterday, although admittedly, that kind of body is probably what most women can only dream of. Heck, even men are dreaming of that body! Just for the record though, I did not drool!

Photo credit: Jack Ah Beh

As I was approaching the tail end of the bike leg, I could already feel my legs getting tired. The distance was not 60km after all. Actually it was just about 58.5km. So instead of my 1:50 target, I was able to finish in about 1:46.

Then another quick transition after pushing my bike a long way back to the rack. Again I took just a little over 2  minutes at T2. But then came the dreaded final 10km run. I couldn't run comfortably within the first few hundred metres. All the muscles in my legs were screaming for me to stop, but it's not like I haven't been in this situation before. As I was trotting down the road in misery, I noticed Chris Kha Khrang about 20 metres ahead of me. I could see that she was also in trouble. I wasn't sure if it was cramps or exhaustion. I saw her grab a huge bottle of water and then doused herself with it, and I saw it all in slow motion in my mind! Oh that wicked waistline that looked like it's no more than 15 inches...

But there was no time to daydream. After about 1km, I had to slow down to a walk. As many of the endurance athletes would already know, once you start walking, you're likely gonna keep walking till the end. But I fought hard to keep running, although I didn't get much success. I did however manage to alternate between running and walking. After the first loop of about 5km, I noticed that Chris was getting slower, and I eventually overtook her. I looked further back in the hope of finding John in the crowd, but he was nowhere to be seen. I just kept going and finally crossed the finish line, feeling so glad that the torture was over.

This was how I performed in the Powerman:

After crossing the finish line, I crossed the road to the other side to collect my finisher T-shirt, and then found a concrete block to sit on while watching the remaining participants run by. And then about 15 minutes later, I saw John finishing his race. He's a happy man, having finished about 25 minutes faster than he did last year. He took this photo of us, but this old man was just too weak to stand up for a pose.

Apart from the finisher T-shirt, I also get to bring home this medal. I will of course admire the medal for a few days before throwing it into the cupboard to find its place among the hundreds other medals there.

I'm feeling so exhausted. Gonna rest for a few days before resuming training, this time for the Borneo International Marathon (BIM). But thankfully, I'm not seeking a personal best for BIM; just aiming to run a slow 4.5 hrs with a friend.

In the mean time, I will just rest. Tonight I'm going to sleep like a baby, I'm sure, and I bet I'll be dreaming of that 15-inch waistline...

Sarawak International Triathlon 2015

Just a few years ago, I would never have imagined racing a triathlon. It seemed such a far-fetched thing for me. I've never been any good at swimming, and it doesn't seem like I will ever become any better than how I swim now. It's a long story, but I eventually did my first Sprint Triathlon in Miri anyway in late 2011 as reported here.

I then went back to Miri again the following year as reported here, with the intention of racing an Olympic Distance (OD), but the organiser changed it to a so-called "modified-distance triathlon", which was a little longer than the OD. After that, I made up my mind to never again return to Miri for the triathlon. I found the event wasn't well-organised. Even seemingly simple things like providing a proper shower for triathletes to pass through after the swim was just awful.

I had bad experiences—particularly in the bike legs—in both the Putrajaya 70.3 as well as the 113 Triathlon Bukit Merah in recent months, so I was desperate to find an event to redeem myself. But I would prefer to do at least a half Ironman distance. I could find no such distance within Malaysia before December, and I had to narrow down my choices to either the Port Dickson International Triathlon or the Sarawak International Triathlon, which were just a week apart. In the end, I decided to do Miri. Who knows, maybe I would do Port Dickson next year.

It turned out that there was quite a big group of us from Sabah doing the Miri triathlon, and it was quite exciting to see some of the big names in the sport fighting it out in Miri. Famous names in the sport such as Ahmadul Tahir and Stephanie Chok from Sabah were also in the fray. Not to forget big names from the west such as Richard Tang and Chris Ka Krang (even the names rhyme, don't they?), although I can't quite decide in the case of Chris Ka Krang, whether it's her excellence in sports that I admire or her wickedly sexy figure that most men can just spend the whole day drooling and fantasizing about. I had the pleasure of sitting at the same table as hers during dinner on Saturday night, but I had to refrain from staring for fear of being labelled a dirty old man!

Anyway, I joined the race this year for the sake of training, and wasn't really thinking about prizes, let alone fighting for the win, because after all I did not think that I had it in me to win even if I tried! I wasn't planning on very sophisticated transition technique; I merely took my time changing shoes etc at the transitions. I just wanted a decent finish to redeem my pride and gain back my confidence after disastrous races in Putrajaya and Bukit Merah this year.

Before I proceed with the report though, let's quickly deal with the customary "safety nets" first. I will just mention some of the more significant ones here. Stephanie Chok was of course tired from the Royal Belum Ironbound Challenge the week before (which her team won), so she wasn't having very high hopes for the race in Miri. Yet she decided to race Miri anyway "for training". Amelia, of course was still exhausted (probably still suffering from jetleg) from the long flight from Melbourne. Claire had a fever coming into this race, and Teo was exhausted—"gone case", according to him—having driven from KK to Miri up to over 12 hours the day before the race, Sandi did not really prepare for this race. I suppose if I had asked the rest of them, everyone would have some sort of safety net nicely prepared for the Sarawak International Triathlon! In other words, we had an exciting race of which everybody was totally unprepared for!

Apparently, there was a race briefing on Saturday evening, which I did not attend, though I was in time for dinner after that briefing was over. I was unaware that the swim leg had been cancelled due to rough sea and replaced with an approximate 2km run instead. I prepared for the swim as usual and made my way to the transition area to set up my bike. On the way there, however, I stumbled upon Sandi at the hotel lobby, and she informed me—with a disappointed face—about the cancellation of the swim leg. The supposed triathlon had become a duathlon. So anyway, there was nothing I could do about it.

After setting up our bikes, all of us walked to the sea shore where we were flagged off a few minutes after 8am. I felt somewhat sluggish, and took a bit of time to fire up my legs. I was amazed seeing the front pack running like this was just a 100-metre sprint event. I ran at perhaps a little under 5:30mins/km pace, and by the time I finished that 2km run, many of the bikes at the transition had disappeared. Teo had trained for a quick transition; as soon as he took off his running shoes and putting on his helmet, he was off to the bike mount line where he started cycling, putting on his bike shoes while in motion. I took my time at the transition, drinking some sport concoction, and changed from my running to bike shoes. All in all, perhaps 2 minutes behind Teo by the time I started cycling.

As I hit the main road, I started worrying about punctures. My rear tyre wasn't cooperative in Putrajaya and Bukit Merah, and by this race, I've developed a kind of phobia of punctures! After making the U-turn, I started to build up my speed. I knew that there's a steep hill to climb shortly later. I took my time climbing that hill, and once I went down the other side, I started getting into my rhythm, and building up my speed to about 36-37 kph. Although this was a drafting bike leg, I was too slow for the fast cyclists, and too fast for the slow cyclists, so I just kept going at my comfortable speed on my own. 

After making the final U-turn, on  my way back, I saw Amelia, Sandi, Claire, Aldillah, Symus and Mia on the opposite side of the raod. They were all spread quite well apart. As I was approaching the last few km of the bike leg, it started to pour; I mean really pour tigers and wolves! The wind was blowing, and thunder in the sky. Visibility became a little poor, and I had to slow down to about 32kph. Then I came to the massive traffic jam because there was a fallen cable post across the road. I slowly made my way in between the long stretch of vehicles until I passed the fallen post. Then a few more km before reaching the hill again. Climbing that hill, I was worried of the going down on the other side. As I was descending the hill, I hit my brakes, as I was a little scared of losing control of my bike in the wet condition. My bad experience in Bukit Merah a few weeks ago was still fresh in my mind. But eventually I arrived at T2 safely, and I could breathe a big sigh of relief.

I took my time once again at T2, and changed back to my running shoes. At the start of the final run leg I just maintained a slow pace to fire up my running muscles. But after a few hundred metres, I began to build up my pace to a comfortable 5:30mins/km. It was perhaps 4 or 5km into the run leg when I felt a little exhausted, so I slowed down my pace to about 5:45mins/km. By then the rain had stopped, though the roads were still wet. In the end I crossed the finish line in about 2:07. Actually, if the swim leg was in play, I had expected to finish between 2:30-2:45, but I guess I will only find out if I can really achieve that timing in Port Dickson next year.

One by one the rest of my friends crossed the finish line. Amelia, Sandi and the rest. Then the surprise—I'm not sure how, but I somehow got 4th in my category worth RM300 in cash. Of course it's never been about the cash prize, and it's not even close to covering the cost of the trip. But the thrill of winning cash felt a lot like a child winning a bag of candies. Come to think of it now, I bet I would have felt exactly the same had I won just RM30. I fancy that my 4th place finish probably had a lot to do with the small number of participants in my category, but I'm not complaining! Stephanie Chok was declared champion in her category, as was Amelia in her category. Ahmadul and Sandi both achieved podium finishes; and the rest from Sabah all did well to finish the race. Mia wasn't happy though, as the organiser ran out of finisher medals, and she was left with none!

The finisher medal has improved by leaps and bounds when compared to a few years ago, which is a good thing. Of the organisation of the race as a whole, however, I'd say there is a huge room for improvement still! Perhaps next year, I will finally join the Port Dickson International Triathlon, but I will only think about that after the Ironman race this December.