Sunday, October 9, 2011

HKTriA National Triathlon Championships

Morning
Today is the final wrapup of Triathlon in Hong Kong season. I've been working hard on the bike and somewhat on the run. So, at 4:00AM, I woke up and wanted to prepare myself for a hilly day. I ate oatmeal which is quite unusual nowadays. But, it certainly was needed since I decided to bike at 5:00AM from West Kowloon to Tai Mei Tuk where the race course was moved this year instead of Walt Disney.



Swim
I noticed once I got toward the water that the left buoy was not orange. I knew my sighting would be an issue today. Once we entered the 'chilled' waters (76F?), and headed toward the buoy, not a second later and bam: siren horns. I wasn't quite ready and so off we went. The first lap was overall pretty non-eventful. It was the second lap that I stupidly followed two guys who of all people were breast stroking to the 3rd buoy and not the 2nd. I realized quickly and headed back on course; but lost at least 50m. Then, thinking I was close to the buoy, I 'sighted' and found myself backtracking and swimming the opposite way to reach the second buoy. I had another mistake and followed a guy to the right of me and he was headed off to the first buoy and not the last. So, I had to re-align myself and finally made it to shore. I'm pretty sure I would have had shaved off 5 minutes from my swim-time. Oh well, I need to start sighting better and not rely on others.



Bike
The bike course is quite hilly and once you get out of transition; there is a big incline for about 300-400m. As I pushed hard and passed a cyclist, he asked me 'Do you know this a hilly course?" I guess he doesn't know that I've been training over here. The course is out and back 4 times. I started to lose track of the number of times I went around it and even became more concerned when my watch showed a shortage of distance. I actually thought I might have not completed a lap. However, it just appeared my watch had a malfunction.

Run
The run course is very flat for the first 2km and then a gentle incline and back down. We had to run it twice. I didn't pass as many runners as I thought. Is it possible that my cycling is getting better? Overall I was pretty happy with my time for such a hilly course!

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