Malakoff Powerman Asian Duathlon Championships 2013 - My Half Powered Race

I have always wanted to join the Powerman, trust me, u can find me my name in the participant list of 2011 and 2012 and yet you won't find my name in the result sheet. I missed both years somehow, Sprint event.

For 2013 I got so fed up that I never get to race and always waste the registration, I decided to just register for long and block the calender, nothing is going to stop me this time.

As I had months of injury, just to get back to running has taken my time for training, I totally neglected the bike training, I look back the history of my cycling, I only did 10 times of cycling on my bike since 2011, and the longest distance covered were both the OCBC cycling in 2012 and 2013, both less than 50 KM. So now, 11 km run, 64 km cycling and another 11 km run, can I survive?

Before the race, I just want to complete the race safe and injury free, within the 5:30 hrs cut off time. After 2 times of recent cycling practice, I did some forecast calculations and adjust my plan to:

Run 1 - 1:00, T1 - 0:04, Bike - 2:35, T2 - 0:06, Run 2 - 1:15, total 5:00 hrs, should be good enough for a virgin duathlon long distance.

Come the race day, met many strong runners, cyclists, ironman and triathletes, I felt motivated abit, in my mind I was thinking: I am going to suffer anyway, why not just give my best for the 1st leg and rest enough for the rest of the cycling and run 2?

Weather was good in the morning, I gave my best for the 11 km in run 1 and completed in 48 mins+ entering the bike zone. I saved the run time and only re-start the watch upon exiting the bike zone, not sure how much time was spent in transition, I am pretty I took my time to change and had a 2nd surge to prepare for cycling, I know I probably can't drink much during cycling (not trained for that yet!). 

So off I went from the bike zone and started my longest ride ever in my life. It wasn't so bad in the 1st 20 km as I still have some energy left, typically I can last 1.5-2 hrs in race without any refueling depending on the effort put in, I gave alot in Run 1 but the 2nd surge and some drinks at transition should replenish some. After 20km I practically start feeling the soreness kick in but still managed to maintain the pace on flat, uphill become slower and slower, but the timing still good, I was on track for 30 km/hr and completed 1st loop of 32 km in about 1:03 hrs.

Turning into 2nd loop, my shoulders start to complain and I started to jealous those cyclists with aero-bar to rest their body weight and go smooth on downhills. More and more people overtook me (it wasn't so bad in 1st loop coz I still get to overtake Sprint event's cyclists...), and it was like every km I will be overtaken by 3-4 cyclists... It was really demotivating, and going uphill has become extremely hard, I had to use the smallest gear to struggle up, almost wanted to came down from the bike and run instead.

As I was losing pace and losing time, I was still glad that I was still on track for 2:30 hrs, thanks to 1st loop time saved and I started to adjust myself to slow down for water station, took my time to finish at least half bottle of the isotonic before I pedal again. I consumed both packs of the 2nd surge on bike to make sure I at least have some energy restored, not much but hope the caffeine can help a little too. Prevention of soreness and cramp became priority, I do not want to suffer cramp on the bike or in Run 2.

Eventually I came back to end the 2nd loop at the total time of 2:12 hrs crossing the timing mat, I had to slow down very carefully and gently came down from the bike, I was worried that the legs can't take it and jelly feet will make me fall from the bike. All was good and no cramp, I took my time to walk the bike back to my lot. I told myself, so far so good, so far so good, but that was already more than 3 hrs into a race, I had not taken anything solid so far apart from the 3 gels and some isotonic. As I was trying to park the bike back into rak, I felt abit wobbling and legs shaking. I told myself to calm down, sat down to change into running shoes and slowly put my running gears on, drank as much electrolytes drink as I can from the bottle on my bike, stretch awhile before I started my slow jog out of the bike zone.

I rejoined the Run , but missed the banana station on my way out (what was I thinking at that time?). Saw K1 on the road side and he came to join me to pace me. I told him (what did I tell him exactly?) I am hitting wall (something like this), the legs can't take big strike, I decided to just maintain the strike and pace until I am used to my condition, may be another 2-3 km down the road.

I can see all the runners in front of me not that fast as well, at least they were not pulling away from me but just at the constant distance. I told myself, pay back time my friend, pay back time, I will keep up later, just need to let the legs recover from the cycling session. After the uphill beyond 3 km, I started to regain some running form and push on a little to complete the 1st loop in 33 mins, distance was 5.9 km coz I started my watch at bike zone exit.

2nd loop of running had become much easier, though going up on elevation, I got to overtake more and more people. Right knee gave problem at final 2 km that I had to stop to rub it for awhile before strive on to continue to overtake more people and speed to finish the race. Total run time for this leg: 1:03 hrs.

Total race time excluding transitions time = 4:03 hrs+, based on preliminary result, my T1 and T2 total at about 6 mins, that made my total race time at 4:09. On target ? yes. Ranking #43, quite a surprise for rookie. :) http://www.powerman.com.my/v14/results/2013/Pman13_prelim_winnners.htm