(Off) Season’s Greetings

With the last triathlon race already done a few weeks ago, it’s unofficially the start of the off season. Actually for me my season already ended even before that with my last triathlon at Alabang last October and the New Balance 25K run in November. What surer sign of off-season than my bulging belly!

Looking back, it was a great year for local triathlon, as well as the running and cycling scenes. We had a full calendar of races this year, with even some conflicting events that you had to make a choice whether to run this marathon or race that triathlon or do both back-to-back! For sure, the bar in race organization has been raised high this year, especially with an army of bloggers eager to raise hell or praise to high heavens as the case may be.

Yes, blogging indeed has helped fuel the popularity of the local endurance sports scene, inspiring first-timers and beginners and motivating long-time enthusiasts. In my case, I blogged my way to  2 Olympic triathlons, 2 sprint triathlons, 1 Half-ironman, several long distance running races (15K to 25K), not to mention a long distance road bike race. Not bad for a desk-bound corporate serf

If this year is any indicator, next year promises to be even more exciting, with perhaps the biggest event to look forward to being the first Ironman 70.3 race in the Philippines planned sometime in August. Season’s Greetings to everyone and a race-filled and healthy year ahead of us.

When the going gets TUF

It was another interesting weekend for endurance athletes with twin events happening: the opening of The Bike Boutique shop at Subic and the New Balance 25K power race at Clark.

First stop was Subic on Saturday afternoon. I picked up Jerome and his son Joshua at Marikina Riverbanks and proceeded to the North expressway, hoping to catch the talk by legendary tri coach Brett Sutton, which was part of the activities for TBB’s Subic branch opening at the Grand Season Hotel. Too bad we only caught the last 30 minutes of his 3-hour talk, but it was well worth it. We could see everyone hanging on to his every word. It was an intimate gathering, maybe around 30 people, with the Team TBB pros, the national team triathletes, and the age-groupers.

We got a load of acronyms from the coach. First he told us to be TUF, or hold our Technique Under Fatigue.  This basically means to train such that we maintain our rhythm or cadence even after fatigue sets in.

In the presence of greatness: Josh, Coach Brett, myself, Jerome, Rebecca

He also told us to mind the 3Ms – Medium, Moderate, Mad. These are the three training efforts, which roughly translate to Comfortable (Medium), Uncomfortably Uncomfortable (Moderate), Uncomfortable (Mad). Basically train at higher than Medium, preferably at Moderate, and once in a while go Mad.

We were fortunate enough to get invited to the dinner, which took care of our carbo loading requirements for the next day’s race. Going by looks, we were positively obese next to the pros! We had the chance to chat with Rebecca Preston. We had no idea who she was at first but luckily a quick browse of a Triathlon magazine lying around at the hotel lobby revealed she was no. 5 at Kona last year, and we heard from the talk that she was most recently Powerman Malaysia 2008 Female Champion (Monica Torres came in 3rd).  

The TBB shop, just at the front of the hotel, has a well-selected array of items for sale, at a reasonable price, judging by the cost of the Rocket Science race belt (350 pesos compared to 500 in Cartimar), which Jerome immediately snapped up.

Look ma, no more tapes

This is probably a breakthrough in the local biking scene as for the first time, an international biking shop opened here. According to Melvin the store manager/national triathlon team coach, the prices are the same as in Singapore. What we saw was just a fraction of what they intend to sell, so we should be seeing a wide and fresh array of bike equipment and accessories, adequately stocked. If it’s not there, items can be shipped in very quickly from Singapore, coupled with the fact that it has Duty-Free status in Subic. We saw compression socks, Gu holders, Park tools, Adamo saddles, etc. As we left, we saw Caloy having his brand-new Cervelo P2C being serviced by Team TBB’s  mechanic, flown in from Malaysia.

It was already 9pm, so we went off to Clark to check in Jerome’s favorite hotel, for the next day’s 25K New Balance race. We dozed off as soon as we got to the hotel. The next morning, we left early enough for the race site on to get our timing chips, chat with some racers, and get herded to the starting line. The race started just before 6am. It was a fun race as there were a lot of runners. We started as a noisy crowd of runners up to the first couple of kilometers, slowly transforming into a silent gritty run.

Fashion-wise I saw not a few people wearing compression socks, mostly tri people, so next year seems to be the breakthrough year for compressions socks. I guess we have to get used to the retro Back to the 80’s look with knee-high socks

 

Father and son savoring their medals

Remembering Brett’s talk, I was trying to be TUF all the way, but after the 12.5K turn-around, I ended up being Totally and Utterly Fatigued, and had to slow down, even walking at some point. I was aiming for a sub-3 run, but ended up doing 3:06. Still trying to burn off those Belgian fries! I felt pretty good at the end, except that I had to endure 3 hours of painful chafing from the rough New Balance jersey. It was a fun race seeing all the people, kudos to extribe for a well-organized race.

Back to Beholding Blond Belgian Bombshells on Bicycles

I’m back in Leuven, Belgium for a couple of weeks, and this means Belgian beer, waffles and fries! Well, more on this on a next blog update. Since this is a triathlon blog, I have to stick to something triathlon-related

Fortunately, other than being known as the headquarters of Inbev (the beer company that bought Anheuser Busch), Leuven happens to be where Rutger Beke lives, the Belgian who placed 3rd at the recent Ironman Kona in Hawaii. Hmmm, I wouldn’t have guessed it but this cold place might actually be a nice place to train. If only if I had a wetsuit (I don’t) and brought my running shoes (I didn’t). Which brings me to the next best thing to do, that is, to observe the bike habits of the local inhabitants here, specifically the blond bombshell types. 

For these women, riding a bike on the way to work or school is the most ordinary thing, and this what makes it really fascinating. You can see them riding, always fashionably dressed, without helmets of course (not fashionable), sometimes talking on the phone, always with a handbag.

Well these scenes probably won’t happen in Manila, but this should encourage people everywhere to take up biking. In fact, I like to say that my previous set of of similar photos have inspired not a few women acquaintances in Manila to take up biking, if only within their village or subdivision. Well, here’s hoping for more Mesmerizing Manila Maidens on the Move

 

Ironman Weekend

The Ford Ironman Championships in Kona, Hawaii happened last Saturday, with our very own Ani de Leon competing and finishing with a time of 12:07:18. She’s the first Filipino to qualify and to finish the Ironman race.

Craig Alexander, last year’s second-placer, finished first in the men’s division, while Chrissie Wellington, was first in the women’s group. We can take pride in Chrissie Wellington because she has been training with team TBB right here in the heat and humidity of Subic.

I did my own teeny-weeny Ironman version by running the 21K race in the Adidas King of the Road Race last Saturday, and joining the sprint triathlon in Alabang the next day.

The KOTR race is something of a must-run for me, perhaps because it’s one of the few local long-distance running races. It’s a pity that it had to be scheduled one week after White Rock, and the day before Alabang Tri. I was just really recovering the whole week, not doing any swim, bike or run at all. Well in any case I just decided last minute that Friday to run, upon prodding (just a little) by Jerome.

I tried to be there early for the race, but a long line at the parking caused me to be late. By the time I arrived at the starting line, the clock was already counting 8 minutes since. I hurried to catch up, and was briefly joined by another late-comer, Fiona of Polo Tri, who promptly ran past me.

I managed to catch up with some runners upon reaching Buendia. Further on, I got a good glimpse of the runners already heading back from the turn-around, with a lot of familiar tri-faces leading the way.

At the water stations, they were handing out 100Plus drinks by the bottle, which seemed a waste as people would just take a sip and throw it away. Good thing I was with my fuel belt, and didn’t feel the need to take one. It was a lifesaver too as the 21K aid stations ran out of water (again!). 

Somewhere after the heritage park turnaround, I caught up with Jerome, who was pausing to take his favorite Cobra drink From there we ran together until the finish. My time – about 2:30 (after subtracting 8 minutes from the official clock . 

Feeling sore and tired at the finish line, I told Jerome straightaway that no way are we joining next day’s triathlon. It’s funny how everything changes after feeling recovered. Several hours and couple of text messages later, it was a go for the tri.

Alabang Tri is another must-run for me, because of its proximity and also because it’s like a tri-homage to the place where I started tri-ing.

We had time that morning for some pre-race briefing, with Coach Rick Reyes making sure we understood the Ocho-ocho bike route.Fewer athletes this time, perhaps because of the schedule, but a lot of first-timers.

Anyway I felt like I was going through the motions of the swim, bike and run. I did feel kind of tired and slow, but had just enough energy to complete the race. Can’t really complain with my time of 2:27

Congratulations to all the winners, especially to fellow TRIplet Levy Ang, another podium finish!

 

Watch Ani’s finish here (link from Ria V): 

Alabang sprint tri results here.

White Rock Triathlon 2008

Last Saturday Oct 4, I became a half-ironman Participating at the White Rock Long Distance Triathlon at Subic, I managed to finish the 2km swim-91km bike-20k run race in 7 hours, 28 min.

The Prep

The Finish Line

Butch, Anthony and myself arrived at White Rock Resort at around 2pm Friday to register and pick up our racing packets. We also checked in our bikes, had them inspected by Bike Boutique mechanics (yahoo, nandito na cervelo!), and parked them at the bike racks.

 

Our racing packets contained our racing numbers (my number: 82) and transition bags. The thing about this triathlon is that the transition bags should be checked in before 9pm of Friday. This means that everything must be inside the bags, no last minute additions. We went back briefly to our hotel to sort out our stuff in the bags.

What went into my bike transition bag: helmet, gloves, shades, cycling shoes, socks, race belt with number. What went into my run transition bag: running cap, 9 packets of Gu, running shoes. We were also allowed to deposit special needs items, which could be picked up at the bike and run turn-around stations.

Nutrition Plan

This being a long distance race, nutrition plays a very important part. The plan was to take Gu gels every 30 minutes through the bike and run, and to finish half-a-liter of Powerade every 20km in the bike. During my long bricks, I noticed that I would bonk in the middle of my run, especially on a hot day, even though I was hydrated all throughout. Reading through stuff in the internet, I concluded that this was because of lack of sodium (or salt). 

Looking around for some salty food in the grocery, I discovered anchovies, which packed 6g of sodium per can, enough for 4 small sandwiches. This was to be my salt source. Just to be sure, I also got several salt packets from Jollibee. These went into my special needs bag.

Pre-race

We went back to White Rock to deposit our bags and to attend the pre-race briefing. It was a festive atmosphere as there were more than a hundred triathletes on hand.

Number 82

Afterwards, we went out for our carbo-loading dinner at Jollibee, which for me consisted of 2 orders of Spaghetti and one hamburger. Going back to our hotel, I tried sleeping at 10pm, still thinking about the stuff in my transition bags, and some last minute items. 

I was able to doze off, and woke up at 3am, forcing myself to eat some cold Jollibee spaghetti take-out. Knowing that this would be my last meal for the next 8 hours helped put the stuff down my throat. I also ate a peanut butter sandwhich. I made some more anchovy sandwiches to pack in my bike.

 

Bike prep

We went to White Rock at 5am for body-marking. This was also the time to prep our bikes, pouring drinks in the water bottles, taping gu gels on the bike frame, putting stuff in my bike bento box. And then off to the waters for some warm-up.

 

The swim

The swim portion started promptly at 6:45am. There was only one wave, and so there were 120 bodies splashing at the waters, like fish going out of the net. Of course, I positioned myself at the back. It was a 3-loop swim. I felt good (but slow) all throughout the swim. At the end of my 2nd loop, several swimmers had already finished their swim, and were exiting. I trudged on and finally emerged from the water after 1 hour 5 minutes, 2nd to the last! At least I was in good company as there was still a female swimmer right behind me. I could hear the announcer saying, “Swimmer no 82 is out of the water, and that concludes the swim portion of this event”. Wow, at least I finished the swim without any special difficulty

 

The Bike

Off to the bike transition area, on the way I picked up my T1 bag. The nice thing also here is that there is a covered changing area, where you can sit down while putting on your bike gear (hard to put on socks while standing  up hehe).

As I pulled out my bike out to the mounting area, I could hear the announcer again saying, “Biker no 82 is out, now all the bikes are out”! I then had the distinct(?) honor of having the motorcycle siren right behind me for a couple of kilometers, indicating the tail end of the bikes.

The first 20 kilometers passed through towns with jeepneys and pedestrians. I managed to weave my way through, in the process passing a couple of triathletes. The first aid station was at 20 km, I quickly had my bottle refilled and went on.

It was a smooth ride from then on, very few vehicles, and passing through farmland, with good quality roads. I would say this was one of the best biking routes I’ve been on. It was also fun because it was the first time I was using an aerobar, and boy was I glad I had one. Just being in the aero position added maybe 1kph to my speed, I could see it in my cyclometer. Also the aerodrink was fantastic, no need to fumble through the bottle cages underneath. Plus of course, I felt snug in the aero position, feeling like a mean machine hehe.

I tried to relax on the bike, remembering to take my gels every half hour. I was doing small ring all throughout, trying to maintain a 30 kph average (it turned out to be more like 28 kph). I reached the bike turn around, had my refill, and gobbled my anchovy sandwich. The saltiness relieved the taste of Gu and powerade.

On the way back I met several riders still making their way on the opposite direction, but afterwards it was a lonely ride. The only incident was when my sandwich fell from the bento box as I was grabbing my Gu. Oh no, the sandwhich I had carefully prepared falling off just like that.

The Run

I reached white rock with a bike time of around 3:20, total time of 4:25. Right on schedule. I changed to running shoes, put on some sunblock, and emerged for the run right smack at the 4:30 marker. I was figuring to do the run in 3 hours, just enough time before the cutoff, with 30 min to spare. By this time, it was 11:15 am, almost high noon on a searing hot, cloudless sunny day. In fact, my cyclometer registered 40 degrees Celsius, hotter than a high fever! 

On the way out, I met the first few athletes making their way to the finish, and I was just starting my run! The run consisted of going 6K from white rock to the SBMA gate, passing through the dreaded Heartbreak hills, then a total of 8k around the treeless sbma area. By then I was starting to cramp, but somehow it would disappear after gulping my Gu. At some point I also felt like throwing up, and this is where I just walked and took it easy. I managed to reach the run turn around at the 1:25 mark of my run, again still on time for my planned 3-hour run.

Again I gobbled up my anchovy sandwich, ate some bananas and sliced oranges, and just sat down a few minutes and chatted with fellow triathletes, generally asking ourselves why the hell we’re doing this

I felt refreshed after that brief respite. I managed to run/trot up to the gate. Going up the hill, I generally walked, but still mindful of the time. I sort of sped up on the last 2.5 km where I had to hurry if I wanted to finish just under 7:30. I finally made it with a time of 7:28:53

 

It was a most satisfying feeling at the end of the race. It took me around half-an-hour to recover, but I generally felt good. Looking forward to the next half-ironman. Ironman Camsur 70.3 perhaps?

Congratulations to the winners, and all the finishers, especially the first timers (Yoohoo, we made it!)

PS Just got my time splits:

[Swim 1:06:17] [T1 0:02:34] [Bike 3:16:20] [T2 0:04:09] [Run 2:59:33] [Total 7:28:53.2]

 

Photos from Reva.

Race results here.

Ricky Ledesma’s usual detailed and fascinating account here.

Anthony Yu’s video:

Tri party weekend

Ani and Doray on-stage during the program

Triathletes had a full weekend starting with Friday’s send off for Ani de Leon in mag.net in Bonifacio High Street, and yesterday’s Animo Sprint Tri in Ayala Alabang.

Ani’s send off was a nice gathering of triathletes. Highlights of the event were the raffle prizes (grand prize was a free trip to Hawaii, one-year membership at Fitness First, gift certificates from David’s Salon and Rudy Project) and rock numbers from triathletes, starting off with Jon-jon Rufino, punctuated by Edward Ifurong, and reaching decibel proportions with Ige Lopez. The program was hosted by Rey Agapay and Ria Vallesteros.

The Animo Tri turned out to be another tri-party as triathletes showed up in droves to join the events. It was a full morning starting with the Super Tri Kids, the Mini-Sprint and the Sprint Event.

 

Waiting for our wave to start, Jerome and myself

I was in the very last wave of the Sprint event, which was flagged off close to 8am already. I was feeling hunger pangs already having eaten my pre-race meal several hours ago. There was the usual chaotic start at the pool with a lot of kicking. Several laps into the swim, there was still a lot of bumping. This only meant that I was still in the main pack! However I sort of ran out of gas towards the end as the main pack went ahead. Time out of the water: 26min.

 

A familiar outcome for me: last wave, last swimmer out, all the bikes gone! Anyway I spent about 4 minutes in transition, before pedaling into the bike route. I had a vague idea about the bike route being an figure-of-8-loop circuit. I decided I would just follow the marshalls’ directions. 

It turns out that everyone else had the same idea, except that the marshalls weren’t prepared for this. In the end, each one had their own interpretation of the ocho-ocho loop. I did 3 small loops before doing  3 big loops. Some did 4 small and 2-and-a-half big. Another did 8 small, one big. In the end, everyone had different kilometer readings. Mine was 29.7, I know Marga did 36, still others had 26 or so. No wonder the organizers had to defer the awarding as they figure out this problem.

The run was pretty straight-forward: one 6.5 km loop around the Country Club. I still found it rather difficult as I struggled to a 45 minute finish. Overall time was about 2:20, just a little bit faster than J.Lo

The bike confusion notwithstanding, it was a fun event seeing all the triathletes, both beginners and veterans. I met several doing their first triathlon: Marga of course, Jamie “The Bullrunner”, and Mel Guerrero. Congrats to all of you!

Lots of photos here from Kingdelrosario

Totally Immersed

For the last 3 Saturdays, I’ve been attending Total Immersion classes at the Makati Shangrila pool. I must say that TI is a totally refreshing way of learning how to swim.

I had learned to swim via the brute force method of kicking-while-flailing-arms-and-struggling-to-breathe-while-gulping-water-and-half-drowning. One whole lap would take an eternity and doing another one didn’t seem quite a good idea. Along the way, I had tried to tweak my swim by going through the different swimming schools of thought: kick or not to kick, two-beat or four-beat,breathe on one side or alternate breathing, cartwheel stroke or s-stroke.

Of course part of the journey was getting the requisite swim equipment: paddles (even the oversized one), pullbouys, and kickboards. The result so far is a 28-min 1K swim, just about average, but something that can stand improvement.

It turns out that there is a better way to learn to swim as TI illustrates. TI emphasizes balance and relaxation on water, and using the core to propel oneself. TI actually discourages the use of pullbuoys and kickboards because this makes you out-of-balance in the water.

Going through the TI drills, I was so amazed to have traversed the length of the pool even without using the arms and without the usual breathing struggle! If I had gone through TI at the start, I surely would have spared myself those unpleasant moments at the pool.

The basic TI drill is the what they call skating or swimming on one’s side. The propulsion comes from swimming from one side to the other. Of course, this is hard to imagine just reading; you’ll have to see it here:

 

The basic TI course consists of 8 one-hour sessions. If you’re on a tight budget like me, you can actually also sign up initially for 4 sessions, then continue when you’re able.

Of course, I still have to see how much faster it can make my swim go. I haven’t really seen the results yet, but so far I’m hopeful it will.

Road to Kona

Got this invite from the tri mailing list. It’s a send-off party for Ani de Leon, who’s going to the Ironman Championships in Kona in October, the Holy Grail of triathlons.

She’s the first Filipino to qualify for Kona by topping her age group in Ironman Langkawi. This is quite a feat as they only get the top finishers (or top 3) in each of the age groups in the 26 or so qualifying Ironman races around the world.

The first time I learned about triathlon was when I read about the Hawaii Ironman in a Reader’s Digest article when I was a kid. I couldn’t possibly imagine how it was possible to do such a grueling activity. Somehow through the years it was always at the back of my mind, such that when I first heard about the local triathlons being organized I jumped in at the first opportunity.

Several sprint and standard triathlons later, I have a better appreciation for the Ironman distance: it really is quite unattainable for me! Not that it’s beyond reach, but for now what fits on my mind is the half Ironman distance and I’m quite happy just to be able to do it.

For now, I’ll be rooting for Ani as she carries all our aspirations of being an Ironman in Kona