Pre-race

• 2am international flight from Perth with 3 kids (11,7 and .7) and two sets of Grandparents….what we do to pursue our goals!!

• Arrived in Singapore to a monsoonal downpour – imagined what that would bring in terms of the expected humidity when (if?) the sun came out. Something to look forward to…

• Settled in to accommodation; much welcomed nights sleep

• Unpacked the bike that thankfully arrived in one piece; bag beaten and bruised

• Mapped course to the race site, headed off onto the early morning Singapore roads; had been warned of the less than tolerant drivers over here along with the lack of general awareness of cyclists on the road but experience on this morning along with the other rides done subsequently, Singapore drivers are nothing but polite, accommodating and generally accepting of a lone cyclist on their roads.

• …brief altercation with a “nose stuck out of the intersection” motorscooter rider; turned into a humourous exchange at the next set of lights where in broken English he indicates that all I needed to do was pedal a bit faster and we would have been fine! Heckled by a local!!

• weather had changed to the more expected Singaporean humidity but welcome cloud cover kept the direct heat at bay; still enough to create a volume of sweat on the brow and body when stationary!

• Several wrong turns and dodgey road choices but finally found my way to the race site.

• Swim course familiarization – headed into the relatively still water for a lap of the course; strong current soon became evident with each sighting of the next buoy every 8 – 10 strokes yielding no felt improvement in forwards movement; began to wonder what this was going to look like on race day; you never really want to spend any more time in the water than you have to in these events and the idea of expending more energy than is completely necessary brings no joy.

• Stingers! Nothing quite like the Busselton variety, but enough to be annoying and cause welting, itchy skin.

• Registration and race briefing completed and all set to go; bike checked in and back home for rest & final race prep.

Race Day

5:45am – Transition set up; met a couple of the other competitors; one being from Kensington, Perth! Nearly 1600 entrants from 63 countries and I’m next to a bloke who lives in the suburb across the road.

7:55am – Race start. Into the water with 217 other 40-44 male competitors, all looking to find the most direct line to the buoy. The first part of the swim in these events is always a bit of a bun fight, and no exceptions here. Arms, shoulders, feet, heads – all looking for space in a confined and difficult environment. As expected, the current took its toll and I exited the first of the 2 laps in 17 minutes; I really missed the buoyancy of a wetsuit. Upon re-entering the water, I realized that there was going to be another challenge ahead; navigating all the slower swimmers from the earlier wave starts. In fact, it appeared that the favoured swim stroke of these folk was breaststroke! For the entire second lap I swam around and over dozens and dozens of VERY slow swimmers which is something I’ve never experienced or was prepared for. So, the current, no wetsuit and obstacle course led to a less than stellar swim of 39:31mins. The bike was going to need to be REALLY good if I was going to crack the 5hr mark.

8:40am – Into transition and out onto the bike. After taking in a few mouthwash sips of water and settling down the heart rate, it became obvious that I hadn’t passed all the people I needed to in the water. Again, dozens and dozens of slower competitors in earlier waves were all over the road. It felt like the first 30km lap that I was yelling “passing” or “bike back” which while in someway motivating (always good to be passing other riders), it was also inhibiting getting into a proper rhythm.

The roads were fabulous (except for the nasty jutter bars they have to slow drivers down every so often). All were either fully or semi closed with lots of long flat stretches to tap out a solid speed on. The main challenge in these races to try and hit a sweet spot where you’re extracting the exact amount of power out of your legs to deliver a credible ride time without risking being able to then back it up with a decent half marathon that follows.

The first lap down, I felt comfortable on the bars and commenced my nutrition strategy. Peanut butter and jam on white bread – breakfast of champions!! Never have been able to stomach gels or bars; go with what works I say. I could feel that the heat was starting to take it’s toll a bit and I made a conscious effort to keep up the fluids. One bummer was that the mix of the electrolyte drink given to us on the course was distinctly different to the standard mix available pre-race. This made me worry a bit having had stomach “issues” in previous races due to excess electrolyte/sugar consumption. I was keen not to find myself doing the port-a-loo hop on the run course as in previous races so made a deliberate decision not to take on board too much. Water would have to suffice.

The second lap was better with less obstacles in the way and there were a few other pace makers around that always helps to keep you honest. By the third lap I could really start to feel the pain and fatigue kicking in and needed to take a couple of rests off the tri-bars to relieve the lower back pressure. The headwind and heat had really picked up too so the final trip out to the turnaround point began to feel like an eternity. I knew that all I needed to do was get to that point and the home trip back would be a ‘relatively’ cruisy 38-40km/h run; I just needed to gather the senses enough to grind the rhythm that little bit further.

The trip back in proved to be good in that pulling 40 is always motivational but a tail wind also allows for the mental preparation to begin for the run (torture?) ahead.

11:10am – I came into transition feeling ‘OK’ and after the quick change into shoes and cap, set off on two feet. This is where the Singapore heat and humidity really made itself known. There was a real false sense on security at 37km/h; at 12km/h not so much! It took a while to settle into a rhythm and then reality set in when I came across the first distance marker – 1km!? Surely not! And the worst of it was they also had the sign reading 2^nd Lap 8km; 3^rd Lap 15km…did I really have THAT far to go! Why am I doing this again? What a JOKE!! This is nuts! I’m stopping….this sh*t is for f**wits; voluntarily sign up for this hogs*it?! F*ck that….you pack of wan**rs setting this stupid f*cking course…no f*cking way….I guess you could say my state of mind had diminished somewhat by this point – not uncommon in a race like this. Part of the deal is that you need to be mentally tough as well as physically trained, so you get through it.

So, after a quick mental re-calibration, I decided that I’d aim to knock over the first 10kms at a respectable pace and then re-set expectations after that. The aid stations were also spaced nicely at about 1.5km’s apart so this meant that there were plenty of opportunities to set mini goals in between.

I plodded along to the 2^nd aid station which was the first of them that had the cooled sponges – what a treat! Ice cold water over the head in the humidity is a Godsend….until you realize that your shoes are now sodden and you have another 18km’s to go – bring on the blisters!

By 10k’s I was feeling OK; the whole family was on the sideline near the finish so that added to the motivation to keep trucking away at it. The atmosphere was actually pretty electric with the music playing and tight 3 lap competitor filled course. You get a sense that you’re never too far away from things and having familiar landmarks to focus on certainly helps to draw you through the painful parts.

By the start of the 3^rd lap, I really started to fade; my feet felt like they’d been soaking in buckets of water for weeks and I started to get cold (!!!!); thoughts of hypothermia or dehydration started to go through my mind as the headache commenced (“Why?” again you ask??)…my stomach was also starting to make its familiar recommendations that it was time to stop for a while too….

At the 18km mark I I’d pretty much passed the “ultimate” time barrier that I’d set of myself (sub 5hr) and had moved into re-set on that front; 5:15 would have been great but sub 5:30 more realistic. I took a couple of spells with a fast walk to try and settle things down and work out how to get through the shakes/headaches/stomach cramps along the way.

The final run home is always awesome and this one didn’t disappoint. A great long finish chute with loads of support along the barricades. I crossed over in 5:23:23 in 30^th position for 40-44 males (217 starters). Happy with the hit out and the end result albeit not quite on the time I’d ultimately hoped for.

So, in the wash-up, considering I started in the last wave of racers, there were near on 1300 people in front of me. Given I finished 197^th overall, that means I passed over 1100 people throughout the race. I knew there was a lot, but that’s a REAL lot!

This event is EXTREMELY well organized and set up; runs like a well oiled machine (just like Singapore really). Would I do it again? – absolutely. Will I? Probably not – my next 70.3 will be somewhere else…maybe St. Croix or Italy…perhaps Antwerp…possibly even Pays d’Aix in Provence – who knows!??

See you out there.