Taiwan 70.3 Race Report

One of the reasons I chose Taiwan to race was because it is a new race I thought it may attract a weaker field which could work in my favour.  Turns out my sneaky plan was foiled as a few decent girls decided to show up (Michelle Wu - Japan 70.3 winner, Belinda Granger, multiple Ironman and 70.3 winner, Maki Nishiuchi - can't remember her results but she's good...) and so on.

They haven't posted any results up yet and my watch battery died so I have no times for anything yet but the general consensus is that it wasn't a very fast course.

SWIM
The swim was a mass beach start, the Pros got a couple of meters head start. Beach starts are not my friend - I should really practice them because I never know whether I should run or dolphin dive (usually ends badly) or what to do. Anyway it wasn't too bad but I was pretty quickly engulfed in the the AG men coming up from behind.
As much as I was a fan of wearing a wetsuit it really was a bit warm and I was cooking by about 10mins. I had a few groups to swim with for most of the way but encountered quite a few annoying breaststokers on the second lap which broke us up a bit.
There was quite a swell the further out we got and I swallowed quite a lot of water.
Not quite sure of my time but think it may have been around 35-36mins which is probably my worst ever. I really don't know what is up with my swimming, I blame Haydn and the Teps for abandoning me, I've been extra sucky since then.

BIKE
Bike started off well until around the 15km when I rode over a huge hole in the road (refer other blog about shocking state of the roads) and heard a bad noise and RooRoo kind of stopped on me. I stopped to investigate assuming it was a puncture but turned out to be my fronty aero bottle which runs pretty snug with the front wheel had dropped down a fraction with the jolt and was now resting on my front wheel. I had some issues with it leading up to IMWI and had patched up a little hole which had been covered with tape, this had pulled the tape off and water was now leaking out. Awesome. I hitched it up so it was clear again and carried on and just used the bottle on my frame. Caught a couple of the girls ahead of me and got passed by a few men but mostly rode on my own.
The wind was pretty bad. Like Kona strength. Seriously.
Mostly side/tail or side/head and very gusty, had a few scary moments and had to pick my times to take my hands off the handlebars.  The second lap was worse with a pretty full on headwind for a decent part of it.
Bike time was around 2hrs43 according to TapTap, will have to check the other girls times to see how it compares but it seems pretty slow to me. I think the guys were riding in the 2.20's so maybe that's not too bad.

RUN
My favourite part. Didn't feel like my favourite running out of transition and up a long hill.  In fact the first 3km were pretty much uphill. After that it was mostly flat with a nice downhill section.
We didn't escape the wind on the run, it was there too making forward progression a bit hard at times. I even lost my hat at one stage.
Took about 5km to start feeling good, then I felt awesome for about 6-7km then I felt average again. It was pretty hot - like high 20's, but I kept cool getting water and sponges from the aid stations so the heat wasn't really an issue.
I have no idea what my run time was - at times it felt like I was going for under 90mins, other times it was more like 120mins. I think the fastest girls time was only 1hr28 and the men were around 1hr23, so I expect I was around 1hr35 but who knows.

So overall ended up in 8th place which is my best placing at an international event, so maybe not too bad for a muppet like me, but will wait to see the times compared with the others before I make any vast, sweeping statements.

Post-race feast - lucky the breakfast buffet was still open when I finished. Nom nom

Followed by dessert

View while I was enjoying my meal

The performance of the day must go to Jamie Whyte for winning the sprint for 2nd from 4 x IMFrance winner Marcel Zamora and also to Kieran Doe for coming 4th.

Next up will be the Karapiro Half Ironman on November 13th.

Taiwan 70.3

Hello and welcome to Kenting, Taiwan!

So after 2 plane trips and a 2hr car trip we arrived at the Yoho Beach Resort at about 2am on Wednesday morning.  The pre-race email said to expect sunny weather 25-30 degrees. Wednesday was overcast, about 22deg and very windy, probably better for racing anyway (maybe not the wind...).

Artwork at the Yoho Beach Resort

Since then I have been for a few rides and runs on the course and swum in the pool at the resort.
Swimming in the pool has been interesting, its pretty big but a funny shape so I reckon I can get ~22m end to end.  One end was on a curved wall which made for some pretty interesting tumble turns but better than nothing I guess.
The roads are pretty bad - a far cry from the smooth roads of Wisconsin and Syracuse but riding the Karapiro Half course recently has prepared me for bad roads.  The bike course is pretty much flat except for a couple of little hills with a few obstacles in the form of road works, dogs and giant geese/ducks (think Jemima Puddleduck on steroids...).

Scenes from the bike course

More bike course

Ducks? Geese? Not too friendly whatever they were. I was worried they would develop a pack mentality on me...

Helpful signs so I knew I was going the right way

Getting my game face on

I see the sea

 

 The run just goes along the main road from the swim to the resort so will be a bit Syracuse-esque but is pretty much flat so should be good.

Local village on my run

We have just found out that the swim will be wetsuit legal YIPPEEEEEE!! The website had always said wetsuit legal but last week they dropped a bomb on me and said the water would be too warm and wetuits would be banned. However some cold currents (or maybe some creative temperature recording...?!) have brought the temperature down to a legal 24.2 to the dismay of the people in the race who can actually swim. Lucky I brought my trusty Blue Seventy MuppetSuit with me!!

Beach where the swim is. Note the grey hump over the hill - just the local Nuclear Power Plant. But its ok I read the sign which tells you what to do if the emergency siren goes off.

 

So RooRoo is all racked and ready to go. Lucky they have the fancy racks that your rear wheel goes into rather than the usual kind which we dislike so much - we would have been seriously flapping around with the wind down at transition when we checked in.

Hello RooRoo

So the race starts tomorrow at 11.30am NZ time for anyone who is interested and should be up on ironman.com.

I have just realized that the buffet breakfast here is open until 1pm and since the race finishes at the resort I should have plenty of time to get in for a post-race breakfast woohoo!!!

Big Jo training Oct 18 - Oct 24

SWIM

A bit slack in the extra swims department this week... But we did do a 2km TT at swimming on Wednesday which just reinforced how crap I am swimming at the moment. I'm too embarrassed to say my time but it was quicker than at Syracuse. Maybe I didn't count right and swam extra... But the most exciting news of the week was my new swim cap purchase (yes I actually paid money for a cap - unheard of!!) but it is so cool that it is worth it. Maybe it will make me swim faster? Or maybe it will make me just want to swim more. In fact I was so excited about wearing for the first time that I even dreamt about it.

Front. Excuse my nose.

Back. Jealous much?!

BIKE

Time: 12hrs50
Distance: 320km

Some good riding this week thanks to some nice weather. Did 4.5km as the longest ride with some uptempo work. My Serottica has an annoying clanking coming from the bottom bracket so have been riding RooRoo a bit more plus with all the races coming up RooRoo and I need to become more of a unit.

RUN

A much better week on the running front - got my calves sorted with a good massage and our dehydration theory work and I was toilet-free for my long run in the weekend.  A lot of people would probably prefer not to hear about my number two's issues but it has really been quite a problem and I know that I'm not the only who has these problems so I'm pretty happy to have to under control now.
My longest run was 2hrs which went well, I'm certainly getting more comfortable with running for longer.  It used to be anything over 90mins was a mission but not 2hrs isn't too much of a big deal.

Chilling out in my new chair with Murfy post-run. And yes I do realize I have a clubfoot and giant thighs. At least we can see how my ankle rolls so easily when this is my comfortable resting position.

At the moment I'm in Taiwan for the 70.3 this weekend so will update in a couple of days on whats been going on here.

Big Jo training Oct 11 - Oct 18

SWIM

Squad x 2
Non-squad x 2

~ 12.6km

Still plugging away at the swimming and am trying to make friends with my pull buoy and band to make me actually use my arms when I swim... One of the biggest problems I have with doing PB and band work (apart from swimming at snails pace), is that I get so cold that I end up freezing for the rest of the day even after spa-time and hot showers. But I found a solution to this the other day - I can swim in the kiddies pool which is only 20m but is heated to about 32degrees mmmmmmmm perfect. Its a lovely temperature for creeping up and down the pool. The length isn't ideal but I was struggling to find any motivation to go to the pool knowing I was going to freeze the whole time. I even tried wearing my Blue Seventy Point MuppetZero but my bare arms started to feel like ice blocks when I pulled them out of the water.  Oh the joys of being a Little Person...

BIKE

Time: 12hrs28
Distance: 319km

Back on the RooRoo this week for my longer rides, it was a happy reunion. My lack of a bigger daily commute is going to bring my weekly totals down a bit I think, but I guess most of that is considered junk miles. I do love adding my weekly mileage up though (well actually letting WKO do it for me...).
Longest ride this week was a bit over 4hrs in some pretty poo weather, but at least its warmed up a bit and get rained on doesn't result in hypothermia.
Biggest news of the week is my super styley BMW kit that my dear friend Neilio hooked up for me. I've never have a complete set of matching kit (arm warmers, knee warmers, vest, etc) so its pretty exciting and it looks AWESOME!!

How cool am I

Neilio is so good to me, he knows that I'm always the last person to get any cool gear because Jo-sized stuff is too hard to deal with so he made sure that I had this gear before anyone else. Thanks Neilio!!

RUN

I haven't been keeping track of time and distance but assume it was around 40-50km. My calves have really been suffering since Syracuse and my masseuse is in Kona so I resigned to wearing compression socks for my long run. This ended in disaster with multiple toilet stops and a rolled ankle and faceplant onto a gravel path (we blame the compression socks for all of this...).  My fall resulted in a few grazes and bruises but I was able to continue for another 90mins so nothing major. As for the toilet issues, a catch up with my friend Mikki who is a nutritionist may have pinned it down to dehydration so heres hoping I can get that under control before I defile every bush in the Eastern Suburbs...

Slackarse update

My poor little blog has been a bit neglected over the last couple of weeks, although I did spend a bit of time sexing it up - looks better now I think.
So we arrived back in NZ to some pretty cold, windy and wet weather and took a week or so to get over some sickness and get back into proper training. I also started two new jobs in three different locations so needed to work out how I could fit everything in.
I was inspired by my backing up at Syracuse so now have a pretty full-on race schedule for the next few months with a couple of races overseas and almost all of the long distance tri's in NZ over summer. I think it will either make me or break me. Having more regular (and better paid) work will definitely help with the cost of travel and obviously one of the main points of doing this is to try and be like a real Pro and win money at races - imagine that!!

I have added a couple of extra swims in to my week to try and address my embarrassing swim at Syracuse and have changed the structure of my biking around a little bit.  Now that my work hours have changed I will be able to do the O'Hagan's 5km run as my speedwork which will be good to give me a gauge on how things are going in that department.  The last two weeks I've done about 12hrs per week of riding so will build that up a wee bit more with longer Sunday rides and long runs will creep back up to the 2hr+ mark.  I definitely need to do something a bit different because my build up to IMWI was good but didn't produce an outstanding race on the day. So a few little changes here and there and a bit more race experience and hopefully I should be good to go...

My googles will live to fight another day with a slight makeover

I was inspired watching the Kona coverage in the weekend (a race that damaged me physically and mentally...) and am looking forward to a good season ahead.  Belinda Harper from NZ had an absolutely amazing race - 1st AG female overall, breaking the AG record in the process and beating many of the Pro's. And at the Commonwealth Games watching Nikki Hamblin getting silver in the 1500m and 800m - seeing her come from 8th place to 2nd in the 800m in the last 200m shows how you should never, ever give up.  It looked pretty painful but would have been well worth the pain.

Madison was beautiful but nothing beats NZ on a nice day

 

 

 

So I'm eager and inspired, now just need to get my A into G... Stay tuned!!