I Qualified for the Singapore Biathlon

I just completed my swim trials, and I passed! That means I'm qualified for the Singapore Biathlon on Saturday the 7th of March, 2009.

I'm especially excited because I just started learning how to swim after we moved into our condo here in Singapore.

Its the first time I've had regular access to a swimming pool. And I'm not confident in my swimming. So I've been worried about being able to qualify.

The Singapore Biathlon is a 1.5km open water swim followed by a 10km run. To qualify, they make you complete the full 1.5km swimming distance in under 40 minutes. Judging my own swimming progress, I thought I had about 50/50 chance to qualify. I qualified with a time of 32:28, which is much faster than I expected.

The reason I was doubtful was because I never really timed myself before. The reason I never timed myself is because I didn't own a water-resistant watch.

Actually that's not quite true. I bought a cheap plastic watch that claimed to be water resistant. And it was. Once.

Fortunately, my wife surprised me this week with an officially-licensed Ironman(R) Triathlon watch that is water resistant to a depth of 200 meters. Thats deep. Even on our Big Scuba Weekend in Borneo, I've never been deeper than 26 meters. You need special equipment, training, decompression stops, and special blends of oxygen and nitrogen to get close to 200 meters deep.

This all makes the warning on the watch kind of funny: "Watch is not a diver watch and should not be used for diving." How else do you get to 200 meters if not by diving?

Back to the topic, there is one thing I regret about signing up for this biathlon. When I was registering for the race, I blindly registered for the men's open category. No big deal. But it didn't occur to me that I'm old. I qualify for the men's "veteran" category for age 40 and up.

This was the first time I've been officially classified in a "senior" category for anything. The Singaporeans are pretty strict. Once you register in one category, they won't let you switch. Its against the rules.

Its not going to make me swim any faster or slower, but I think I'd rather to see my results posted against the other struggling 40-somethings rather than all the sprightly members of Gen-X, Y, and Z.

Nike Human Race 10k

I joined a bazillion other people and ran the Nike "Human Race" 10k this weekend.

First thing you notice is Nike did some clever marketing for the race. Instead of providing a bib number in advance and a separate race shirt after the race, they provided the race shirt in advance, with the bib number ironed on (or maybe screen printed on, I can’t tell the difference).

So instead having people running in different shirts, with different colors and different logos, everyone in the race wore the exact same red Nike shirt. This created a giant Nike mobile marketing team, a sea of red Nike logos threading through Singapore's downtown and tourist areas.

The last organized race I ran in Singapore was the JP Morgan Chase 5.6k in April 2008, For that 5.6k, I finished in 42 minutes and 35 seconds, which was a pace of about 7 1/2 minutes per kilometer.

For the Nike 10k, I finished in 70 minutes and 18 seconds, or a pace of about 7 minutes per kilometer, giving me an improvement of 30-second per kilometer.

I was also happy about finishing several minutes faster than the Singapore average of 74 minutes and 24 seconds.

My finishing acheivement took on a different meaning on the subway home after the race. There was a young guy on the platform, also wearing his red Nike race shirt. Naturally, I asked him how he did, and he said he ran in 44 minutes. I said that was a great time, and told him how I did. He said my time was a great time too.

I figured he was just being polite, but when I started to compare his time to mine, he added, "yea... but how OLD are you?"