Port Dickson Triathlon 2011 – race report

I was up by 4am last Sunday. Had 2 slices of left over pizza from Saturday’s dinner and soup. Left KL at 5am, and was in Port Dickson by 5.50am… Yeap, I didn’t realize before this that the travel time is so short. I was unusually calm (sampai awal punya pasal), which is a good thing. Went for body marking, and then looked for Kevin Chan – ordered goggles from him. He said goggles is with Sue.. so I was looking high and low for Sue and by the time I found her, I already asked Paul Lee if I could borrow his goggle.. lucky thing he got an extra.. Thanks Paul 🙂 Anyways, the transition area was more like a carnival by 7am.. reunion with tri-buddies, old buddies, friends’ baby twins, and somebody actually brought a cute puppy at the transition area. Caught up with Carmen, Lie Wei, Lesley etc. I was admiring Carmen’s K-Swiss tri-racer.. no need lace or even lock-lace…velcro terus ! Anyways.. target today was just to enjoy the race and do the best that I can. There’s not much I can share here in terms of training as I didn’t do much for the training — particularly busy the couple of months leading to PD, plus organizing a simple charity program also took a lot of time and energy. Less than a week to PD, I was down with a bad flu and fever.. Took Tuesday and Wednesday off.. [the whole department has yet to recover as I am typing this..]

As usual, wave start.. The tide was pretty low we had to run in the water before starting to swim. My swim was horrible.. Sighting was okay, so I didn’t really zigzag in the marina.. Came out from the water after 32mins.. The short stretch of run from the beach to T1, and out of T1 took me nearly 4mins though the actual T1 was a minute or less ! Actual swim time 32mins, T1 3 mins.

I have never felt a better bike than PD this year but I was still slow compared to the rest of my friends who did ..lemme see..below 1:10 ! I only manage a 1hr 19mins (in the official result) though my watch showed a time much lower than that..anyways… the bike felt superb..It’s not often that I get to catch a group during the bike, especially in ODs. But this year, despite the slow swim, dapat jugak catch group. Not that I am fast or anything. Mungkin dia orang yang slow. Kot. I was overtaking people, and uhmm, I didn’t realize there were a couple of times there was a train behind me. I have no problem with that just that next time no one person should be ‘doing the work’. No cramps, no muscle stiffness and I wasn’t complaining. Just happy the body feels so fresh.

T2 was brief. But this time ran out alone.. No Ishsal like last year as he was accompanying Zee for her first OD Tri !! Woot ! This year PD Tri jadi PD Xterra pulak.hahah.. the run out was ‘off-road’.. on sand, cross this wooden bridge plus a u turn which wasn’t quite there..hihi… and the turn off to the main road was way before Avillion .. I knew that the run was short. There was no water at the water stations… yupp…only the 1st and last water station ada air..humm.. Smart thing I brought my water bottle (which later I ‘hid’ in between the trees after 3km of running, or there about..) I saw some familiar faces passed on the other side before the u-turn before eventually over taking Kam, Lie Wei (Lie Wei so damn fast on her steel bike ! *respect* !!) Anyways, I crossed the finish line somewhere between 2hours 47mins to 2 hours 48mins.. I still have doubt for the bike and total time though..humm….I calculated and sense something is amiss *just got confirmation from Samantha Chan that the official Bike time posted is actually Bike time + T2. Whatever it is, I felt that I had a good race though I wasn’t physically and fully prepared. 2:47, 2:48 or not, I would not call it a PB as the run leg was under distance.

I must congratulate all PD first timers, whether you did the sprint and OD. It was certainly nice to the familiar and also new faces. I also got to know somebody ‘trained’ for 3 weeks. Highly not recommended especially if you are a beginner who wants to enjoy the race. I must agree with what a friend said on her FB, ‘Be realistic la. Go to race for fun you also need to train. No training == suffering’.. This is true especially when you go for more extreme distances. Start your positive and right training approach, habit and attitude from now. Be humble towards those who have really trained and prepared for an event even though they may cross the finish line after you. And be humble to the ‘veterans’ of the sports who have excelled in what they do. The likes of Razani Hussin, Don Khor, Sam Pritchard, if you know what I mean.These people are all amateur athletes. Just like you (if you are). They do sports because they love doing it. The do it voluntarily, just like you and I. Sports trains one to be discipline in all that they do, especially when training or racing,  and certainly not jumping around taking short cuts during training or ‘missing’ a loop during the bike leg and go on collecting the prize and cash *ehem* and later buat2 tak faham to return what is not theirs.

Enough of the mini-lecture. Frankly, I didn’t ‘feel’ the hype of updating my PD report as there wasn’t much (or some) that I can be proud of or share here — especially when I didn’t prepare well for this event. I would not recommend anybody to jump into doing OD without a proper preparation for it. But I did feel good during the race (especially on the bike!!).  Okay… I will sambung later… with pics.. tata and salam.