Well, silly as this may sound, the Singapore Biathlon over the past Saturday was a good encouragement for me. Considering that i haven't been fully prepared, i maintained a good pace and did a decent time of 1:19 (hand-time). That alone betters my previous year's time of 1:22. And i definitely felt like i could do faster.
[Too bad i can't have the rematch with the best friend as he is currently celebrating his birthday in Japan. What?!]
Why i can do better? I woke up at 8.20am. My flag-off was 9am. So i got up, brushed teeth, pulled on my suit and with only my transition bag, house keys, handphone and wallet, i cabbed down to only reach the registration counter at 9 sharp.
"Hi, i'm mike cheong. I'll like to register for my race." The very second after i said that...
*Porhhhhhhh* ..goes the airhorn. !!#%^!@#%
The guy at the registration counter just stared blankly at me with disbelief.
But thankfully, the civillian lady at the other counter had the brains to register me for a later wave at 9.30am. By the time they did all the logistics, i had 10 minutes to get my body marked, setup transition area and report to start line for briefing, etc.
So in all modesty, i didn't do a proper warm up, i ended up breastroking the first 300m swim because i have to navigate past slower swimmers, before i got to my proper pace.
I moderated my pace slowly, especially during the transition so i lasted very well for the 10km run. Yes, no way am i ever going to beat overall champion Mr. Mok (he clocked 55minutes. WHAT!) but i'm happy with my own result.
So that's 2 events down, 1 more biggie this Sunday. The Aviva Ironman 70.3 Triathlon is here. I haven't had this feeling in a really long time, probably the first OSIM triathlon back in 2008. I've progressed through various endurance races until i got rather comfortable with the distance and focused on doing PBs (improving timing).
But the Ironman this Sunday is a totally different animal. Yes, it is all about completion, so i should just take my time and do it safely. WRONG.
Only a noob like me would have missed the fact that there is a time stipulation of 8:30. If you fail to complete the thing within 8.5hours, you're out. CRAP. That is brutal. And as you know, i'm not totally prepared for this race, or at least i haven't been clocking enough mileage to sustain 8 hours of racing and torturing practically every single muscle group in the body (yes, that includes the brain...mental endurance). So how?
We shall see..
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