Second! Glad I did not come in first.
Two years ago Jay and I decided to do the Olympic distance triathlon (1,500m swim/40km bike/10km run) on the sub-tropical island of Ishigaki, after hearing a glowing report about it from Stuart. But bad luck and incompetence (mainly) caused us to miss the entry deadline by a measly one hour. No amount of begging would make the organizers change their mind and allow our late entries, so we missed out on going. And we skipped it last year to focus on training for Iron Man Japan (IMJ) that was held in May. But due to IMJ’s change of date to this year to June, the mid-April race date of Ishigaki worked in perfectly with our training plans for this year’s IMJ. With my main focus being on doing well at IMJ, I designated Ishigaki to be only a “C” race; only for training and to get used to my new hi-tech triathlon bike. I trained though all of last week and right up to the day before Sunday’s race and did not taper at all. In the back of my mind was a top 100 finish, but I was not overly concerned with a main aim of having fun. This year’s race had 806 individual age groupers, plus 200 teams of three, meaning it is a big race with 1200 people in total.
To my great surprise, the race went very well for me. Came 2nd in my age group - the over 40's males (they only did 10 year AGs). The winner was a local who is 41 and beat me by nearly 7 minutes. I would have easily won the 45 to 49's, if they used that system like most other triathlons do. Did not push too hard in the swim as it was my very first wetsuit swim of the year. It was raining heavily during the bike, and when I saw one guy go down hard on the slippery road right behind me at the 3km mark, I decided on a safety first approach and dropped my speed right down. I think this would have cost me about 5 or 6 minutes here, but I still managed to pass more riders than who passed me. The bike course had many rolling hills and it was my first time over hills on my new bike, so I did not use the gears effectively. It was a great learning experience. But I did a solid run of 43:26 and passed about 10 or 12 and was only passed by two team runners. I even passed some teams. I was the 23rd male (27th overall) so it was a solid result for me that shows that I am on the right track for IMJ. The picture shows me at the finish (I just can't make the photo bigger), where I was surprised that there were so few finishers there!
2:24:26 (27th overall) : Swim 25:28 (57) Bike 1:15:32 (65) Run 43:26 (24) 23rd male.
I enjoyed the whole Ishigaki experience and would recommend this race to others. The island is quiet and beautiful (as Gareth has also pointed out) and I also enjoyed a relaxing long ride and some sightseeing with Motozo and Kanako on Monday, as well as a hard training ride on empty roads by myself on Tuesday. An other bonus was that the triathlon also had professional races for men and women as part of the ITU circuit, which I enjoyed watching after my race was done. Thanks to Mo and Kanako-san for a nice weekend. And Jay? Well due to a business trip, he hard to pull out of the race.
And why was I happy to come only 2nd? Well the winner got a 5km bag of salt! I would have had to carry it home with me.
Last Week's Training (Week 5)
Swim: 4:15 hours or 8,800 m (4 swims - 4,000m + 3,000m + 300m warm up and 1,500m race)
Bike: 7:30 hours
Run: 5:15 hours or 65km
Total: 17 hours
And I am going to IM Hawaii at Kona for sure!!! I was very lucky to win a spot via this year's lottery and I still can't believe it!!!. So the pressure to qualify is now off, but I am still aiming for a PB at IMJ, by going sub 11 hours.
This is a whole new ball game for me, and as Adam York pointed out, it could be a life defining experience. Time to amp up my training even more.
posted by Keren_m @ 4:36 PM
3 Comments:
Let me be the first to congratulate you on the race and going to Kona. That's where the champions compete, you'll fit right in.
Since I can't be first, then let me be the second to congratulate you, firstly on a great race at Ishigaki, and especially on this sensational news of you getting entry to Kona. I suppose you probably actually feel a tiny tinge of disappointment that you haven't had to do it the hard way by qualifying, so you'll just have to register a qualifying time now at IJ. Gambatte.
Thanks chaps! I am still grinning from ear to ear. Was in a cafe in Ishigaki when I checked the website and my yell of "you bloody bewdy" raised a few eye brows.
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