Triathlon

According to Wikipedia, the first known swim/bike/run triathlon was held at Mission Bay, San Diego, California on September 25, 1974. It was invented by members of the San Diego Track Club, which sponsored the race. Only 46 participants competed in the race.

Last month, I completed my first triathlon in Singapore. It was sponsored by Tribob Singapore. Nearly 1,000 people entered, and 748 people finished. Technically, the race was classified as a “sprint” distance triathlon, which means it was half the distance of an Olympic triathlon.

The triathlon was the final of a three-race series. They gave me the bib number (374) for all three races:

Aquathlon
Swim: 750m
Run: 5km



Duathlon
Run: 3km
Bile: 15km
Run: 3km


Triathlon
Swim: 750m
Bike: 20km
Run: 5km


Total Combined Distance
Swim: 1.5K
Bike: 35K
Run: 16K

For people participating in all three races, their results are combined for a final overall score. My final position after all 3 races was 60th out of 229 finishers in my age category (men 40-49).

The thing about racing in Singapore is dealing with the heat and humidity. It is pretty much always 80 degrees in Singapore, day or night. And the humidity makes it feel about 5 to 10 degrees warmer still. Obviously this doesn’t much impact your swimming, but once you get out of the water and start biking or running, you really get hot.

A couple of our friends came out and met Deanna at the beach to cheer me on. I only got to see them for a couple of seconds each time I passed the race checkpoints. After the race, however, it was really great to have friends around to congratulate me and buy cold beers.

Sprint Duathlon

I completed the second race in the three-race Tribob sprint series. I finished pretty much in the middle of the pack at 281 out of the 620 finishers. According to the final results, my total time was 1:06:26 for the 3k Run - 15k bike - 3k run. Again, I spent too much time in the transitions, but I'm happy with my times.



I finished the first 3k run in 13:56, and then spent 3:06 in the transition to biking. I finished the 15k bike ride in 30:30, and then spent another 2:46 in the transition back to running. In the final 3k run, I took 16:06.

I learned it is much harder to go back to running after the bike. My time for the second run was much slower than the first. I have not trained on any two sports at the same time. They each use different muscle groups, so I think I might have to start doing some combination swimming, biking, and running to get used to switching between muscle groups in the same race.

Having completed the Aquathlon and now the Duathlon, the final race in the series is the Triathlon -- it is coming up soon, so I better get working.

Sprint Aquathlon

Since learning how to swim, I've been training to build up my speed and endurance so I can compete in a triathlon. To motivate me to stay on track, I signed up for the Singapore sprint series.

The Sprint Series consists of 3 races building up to a triathlon.

• Race 1 was an Aquathlon - a 750m Swim / 5km Run, at Tanjong Beach on Sentosa Island, which I just completed.
  
  
• Race 2 will be a Duathlon, a 3km Run / 15km Bike / 3km Run at Upper Seletar Reservoir on the 15th of March 2009.
  
  
• Race 3 will be the Triathlon, a 750m Swim / 20km Bike / 5km Run, at Changi Beach Park on 19th April 2009.

Before the 1st race, I was mostly worried about swimming because I'm still learning, and I've never had to swim in race conditions. On the other hand, I was not concerned at all about the run, because I know I can run a 5k without trouble. But during the race I swam faster than I expected. And unfortunately, I ran slower than I expected.

I used up a lot of my strength in the swim because people kept crashing into me. I was warned that you get tussled around quite a bit during the swim. But nobody really explained just how many arms and legs would be smashing down on me, pushing me under water or interrupting my stroke. And I never anticipated how much getting bumped disrupts my swimming. In the pool, I have OK timing with my strokes and breathing so I can maintain a steady pace. But in the race, every time I got hit, I lost my sense of timing. It made me swim faster, because I was constantly trying to pull away from whoever was hitting me. But it also made me swim spastically because I got hit from every direction.

I wasted a lot of strength trying to swim away. I finished the swim faster, but by the time I got to the run, I was worn out.

About half-way through the run, my stomach started feeling "hot," and I had to slow down and walk for a bit until it passed. I got better and continued the run, but I was a little disappointed that I had to walk in the middle of the 5k run.

I forgot to note my time when I came through the finish gate, but I think I finished the race in the middle of my age group. They haven't posted the race results online yet, so I'll update the blog when the race timings and standings are released.

Before the next race, I'll put a little more thought into staying calm during the swim. I think I'll also put more effort into my running. Once I get better, I want to move up from the "Sprint" distance to the "Olympic" distance. The Olympic distance is also known as the "international distance" or the "standard course." It will be double what I'm working on now, or 1.5mm swim / 40km bike / 10km run.

But I still have to finish the sprint series before I'm ready to move up to the next distance.

UPDATE:

The final results are out. My times:

750m Swim:	0:17:29
Transition:	0:02:22
5k Run:	0:26:50
Total Time:	0:46:43
Overall rank:	241 of 780
Rank in my category (male age 40-49):	53 of 143

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.