Today was race day for the Subic Bay 70.3. As I often do after races I will write a quick first impressions post now and then a more detailed race report later on in the week.
I often say I will make it quick, but I don't usually manage it. However, this time around it is late and I am a bit tired so I will try and make this on the brief side.
So first thing first, how did I go? I managed to get around the course in 4 hours 20 minutes. That was good enough to make me the fastest age grouper and also 6th male over all. I am particularly happy with that last result, since it is my first top 10 finish. Big milestone for me.
The race was a tough one. To be honest that wasn't exactly a surprise. We all knew that this course was going to be hot and hilly. That would have made it tough enough, but on top of that it ended up being quite a windy day, which made the ride tougher and the run horrible. It short it was a brutal day. Toughest race I have ever done? Not sure, I have had some hard days before. This was certainly up there for toughness though.
In terms of the various legs, they were a bit of a mixed bag. The swim was fine. Nothing really to write home about with that one. I was third age grouper out of the water. I started on some toes but couldn't hold them. In the end I lost about a minute there.
The ride was a good leg. Tough but good. I picked up the age groupers that had got out of the water in front of me fairly quickly. Then on the outward leg, into the wind, I managed to team up with one of the pros (Christoph Schlagbauer I think) and that helped me get to the far turn in reasonable time. Once we turned, the wind got behind us and the speeds picked up significantly. The tail wind was a good thing because on the way home I started to struggle. Around the 60km mark or so I brought the intensity back a notch to something I knew I could sustain and kept that up back to T2.
The run was a battle from kilometer one. Right from the start I ignored the pace and just concentrated on heart rate. Even focusing on heart rate as I was, my average for the run was 10 beats per minute higher than I was aiming at. Needless to say the pace was not great. It was enough, and got me there in the end, but it wasn't pretty. On the return 10km, into the wind, there were sections where it really was 'take one more step, and one more, and one more'. Just plain hard work.
Over all the race went pretty smoothly. A few hiccoughs here and there. Some of the interactions with traffic on the bike were a little hairy. Probably the biggest issue in the race was the aid stations on the bike, which really were not good enough. Your choices at the bike aid stations were either Gatorade or water. That in itself is not unusual, except that the water came in these little 375ml bottles with screw tops (basically the sort of thing that you buy from the shop). For one, these bottles were too small for a race which everybody knew would be hot, and of course a bottle that small doesn't sit in a bottle cage. So really you were stuck grabbing these tiny bottles, opening them with your teeth, drinking it all and then throwing the bottle. In a race where everybody was counting on getting proper water bottles it was a massive disruption to people's race plan. To be honest I am baffled as to how the organisers thought they would be acceptable.
The aid station woes continued on the run, where the only two choices were gatorade and water, despite us being told that cola would be available at the briefing. If you don't race on coke then it isn't really a problem. But if you use it, like I do, finding out at the 2km mark that it isn't available is a real pain. In the end I switched to Gatorade since I didn't really have a choice and my stomach has been struggling ever since. In the end your body can only take so much sports drink. To be honest my issue isn't that it wasn't available, but more that we were told it would be and then it wasn't.
Not big issues really though, and ones that are easy to fix. Beyond those minor issues it has been a good race. The organisers, volunteers and locals bring a lot of passion and excitement to the race and that gives the race a real nice feel.
Would I do it again? Ask me in a couple of days.
Speaking of a couple of days. I will be travelling all of tomorrow and so won't be online. I should be back up and posting on Tuesday though.
Time for bed.
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