Mega Tri Race Report

Well, technically it's just a race report on the swim leg since I did this as a relay with two other speedy girls. (Go Team Short Fart!)

I thought it was a good race - well organised and all. But really I was in it for all of half an hour and I was pretty much limited to the sea where I couldn't really have a conversation with any volunteer or race organiser, so what do I know!

I did like that it was at Changi Beach and not East Coast Park. I actually am getting tired of everything being at East Coast Park. I get that we're a small country, but it's so darn boring having every other race - triathlon or running - start there.

Anyway, I digress. I had packed all my stuff the night before, so when I woke up at 5.30am, I could hit the snooze button on the alarm and be in half-slumber for a while. I was out the door by 6.15am with my bike strapped onto the car. I figured parking was going to be a pain, so I had the bright plan of parking a ways down and cycling to the race start. Of course once I got there, I had to beg the guys at the bag drop to treat my bike as a bag and let me store it with them. And to their credit, they actually allowed me to do that!

It was one of those drizzly mornings, which meant the sea was getting choppier. As I was there a good hour before my wave, I had to kill a lot of time by wandering around the area. Had my banana, drank some water and then warmed up with 20 minutes to go.

The swim itself went pretty well. My swim coach (Coach Alain) told me to flank the swimmers instead of ending up right smack in the middle and getting a foot in my face, so I did. I think if I hadn't been sick and started training a lot earlier I would have felt better about the race, but as it turns out, it wasn't altogether a bad race. I was comfortable mostly, although panicked a bit half way (I only panicked because I couldn't see anyone in front of me for miles so I thought I was dead dead last). I want to work on the gliding technique Coach Alain taught me because I found that that helped sometimes. And obviously his 'four strokes between breaths' advice flew out the window pretty much 30 seconds into the swim. I kind of expected that.

When I finished off, I had to trudge through the shallow end of the beach and some guy overtook me (I maintain I swam faster still) and clocked in a split second better than me...dammit. I overtook him when he went he was strolling to the relay area with his cup of water (how weak!) and ran past him towards speedy Nat who was doing the bike leg to pass her the timing chip. Then, and only then, did I get my drink. I was pretty pooped by then, so I flaked out on the rest of my team by hopping on my bike, cycling back to the car and then driving home to sleep.



Results: 1km in 23:23mins

Turns out I actually did better than expected. I'd been steadily getting about 29-30 mins or so for my swims at the pool so I would have been satisfied finishing in 25 minutes. I'm not complaining about my time, but dang there are some fishes out there. The fastest swimmer in the relay category did 1k in 17:07 mins! That's insane!