Ainan Triathlon Festival

Japanese triathlons are pricey.  Japanese Triathlons are sold out months in advance.
They are totally worth it!

 Ainan was a hella long drive, but this race was for JTU (Japan Triathlon Union) points so I knew it would have a big field and be quite popular.

So, after a 5 hour drive I arrived in Ehime Province, in the small town of Ainan.

  

 

The town of Ainan is small and totally surrounded with trees, mountains and clear blue water.

Arrived Friday night for the Saturday afternoon race.  A bit odd with a 1pm start time, but given the rural location it was a good idea. Saturday morning I drove to the race site - YIKES -Turns out bike course has a mountain in it!  Roadside pylons showed when I was driving on the course... and I was on top of a mountain at the time.

Looking down from top of the course down toward where we will be swimming

both lanes blocked off for us, take the full lane!

Next was the usual routine of morning registration and race tattoo application, always so formal and organized here.  Huge teams of volunteers helping with everything.

 
Race briefing in a big hall and included even a sign language translator, video demos and intros of all the various JTU referees who'd be on the course.

Race started at 1pm - so it made for a very civilized morning routine.  After the briefing there's lots of time to do transition set up, wetsuit donning, etc...

As seems the norm here, a mandatory 50m swim warm up about 20 min before the start.  They don't let you can pick up your timing chip until you've completed your swim warm up!  It's a great idea and it relaxes everyone a bit.

15 minutes before the start we gather on a giant boat ramp and listen to some speeches etc at the lengthy start ceremony.  The... Otter (? ).. town mascot then weaves out to awkwardly wave and give us  inspiration.  The otter beast then needed help to get away from the edge of the pier and almost wiped out a few times, but sadly, he didn't.

SWIM
2 Laps 1500m
It's a deep water start, and the water is fishbowl clear!  Could see the bottom of the ocean 20 feet down.   What a treat.

Men’s 40 to 49 is massive as usual, couple hundred guys.  We were the second wave to start, but the largest start wave of the day.

We swim out to start bouy and countdown -  GO!  A horn blasts and our heat takes off. 

Jellyfish snowstorm!  Never swum in a jellyfish white-out like that.  It gave the sensation like you were drafting too close and always hitting people, but you were hitting jellyfish.  Seemed to be a non stinging variety, so no peeing on friends needed here.  The big heats were separated by only a couple minutes, so soon we started banging into the heat in front of us and I was fighting with other swimmers in addition to jellyfish.

At about 600m I got passed by someone with my same cap color:  So I jumped on those feet!  Suddenly going fast was easy! 

The super clear water meant there was another surprise lurking below - at random intervals we saw divers 20 feet down below watching us.  There was quite a few of them hidden out there.

Followed whole rest of 1500 drafting.  Nice!  Best feeling swim in ages. 24:59.. so it seems logical to round down to 24 even.

Long jog to the long long transition area - it's fully lengthwise in design. 

BIKE
4 Laps for 40km
Most people brought road bikes.. weird.  Then I rode the first of the laps.  Now I get it!  This is the first triathlon course I've been on where you could be legit fast on a road bike.  3km long hill that ranges between 5 and 9%, then a very short flat section, then about 4km of a crazy curvy descent with hairpins and very narrow roads.

Not many areas to get down to the drops on the course.

First lap I was passed by 2 guys: 1 road bike and one beam bike guy.

As the laps ticked by... I gradually reeled in beam bike guy, but never saw the roadie again.  Confirming my thought that it's actually possible to race well here with a just a road bike.

By the second lap there are tons of people on the course, so lots of hollering “on your left” which nobody here understands, which is lucky because now that I think about it... I was usually on their right.

By the last 2 laps the sun and heat hit in earnest. And by the run start, it was intense.

Run 3 loops for 10km
Started the run feeling not bad, then after about 400m the course heads up another long steep hill! Crap!  Pace goals were thrown out the window, just aimed for not walking.  Sky high heart rate.

Passed by a quick little guy on the first hill, so figured I might not do all that well...

...But in the 400m tunnel at the hills' top - I caught him back, then dropped him on descent, so all good!

Loved the volunteers - they wear signs around there neck to declare if their trays are water or sports drink, looks hokey but was so helpful in the fog of heat and pain.

Last lap it was survival mode, and trying not to be too pessimistic in the heat and hills.  My goal on the hill by that point was just to not walk it.

Course full of people by now, it's tough to tell who is catching you, who you might be catching, or if they are on a different lap.

Finally in the finish chute - glance around and seems to be no sprint needed, so it's a nice coast to the line.

Second triathlon in Japan and again - they hold a ribbon for me to run through - so cool!
I know I’m not actually first!  I had no idea of my actual placing!  But a ribbon still seems awesome for some reason.

Post race
 So we hurry off for a nice onsen on a nearby hotel rooftop, and figure we’ll find out later tonight how it worked out.  Hang out on the rooftop with my new buddy Atsushi whom was parked beside me at the race.  Other than the nice onsen on the roof - hotel is sorta from Japanese version of "The Shining" so I took a few pics of it's weird highlights.

Yes! more taxidermy at hotels!

a faded giant pooh sat beside a badly stained wall.  Why not.

It's part cow, part monster.  Why not.

Awards Party - over the top as usual!

After a brief stop at my ryokan to drop off the bike and kit, we headed over to the nearby hotel for a all you can eat and drink awards feast! Sweet!

When we walk in we get checked off on a list, the girls checking me are suddenly excited and say I get a special badge, I’ve won my AG!  Thus, I must assemble with other winners in hallway outside before ceremony starts.

Great awards presentation- so generous of the organizers.
Big gifts and some (apparently) really fancy and expensive fish are the prize.  My friends Atsushi and Aiyana tell me the fish is a really awesome prize, which is helpful since I really wouldn't have known.

 

More pix, more drinks, more food follows.

Got a nice selfie with the epic announcer lady; she went full volume on the mic all day ..and all evening! Her real job must be as a shock jock radio personality to pull that day off so effortlessly.

small red arrow is me!

I thought Yokohama was a 'one off' amazing race, but this one makes 2 in a row.  Thousands of volunteers, professionally organized, 3 deep in all categories racing, and a super hard, but beautiful course.  Gotta like triathlons in Japan.
http://ainantriathlon.jp/result2019/

Yokohama ITU Triathlon

First triathlon in over 3 years?!  Felt like a newbie!

PRE RACE - the day before

Yokohama turned out to be a beautiful city.  It was our first visit here and felt very different than nearby Tokyo.  Trees and greenery everywhere, and right beside the ocean, a little like Vancouver.  If you get a chance to visit, it's a great place to see.  Race venue was on the waterfront, in a great park filled with flowers everywhere and grassy areas for expo and food stalls and stages.

The ITU setup was amazing: blue carpet, music, stages, overhead gantry and fencing.  Quite an incredible production.  I've done AG worlds before, but this seemed amped up a bit even from that, perhaps because we're in Japan.

Watching pros the day before was inspiring, and slightly mind blowing.   1500m Swim times in the 18 minute range and 10k running in the 30 minute range - it's stunning in person.  The final 10k was super exciting: Schoeman, Gomez, Bicsak and Lius off the front and running in a group of 4.  Alex Yee - coming from a chase pack, moving like a train through the field and gaining a little every lap.  In the end - he got within about 20 seconds of the leaders, but couldn't close it.  But he runs like Kipchoge - looking effortless at ~2:55 pace.

Pro women were great but a little less thrilling - total American dominance in that field.  Japan's Yuka Takahashi did well and was in a race for 3rd place.. but got gapped in the last few hundred meters.  Bummer for the home crowd.


One highlight - Ai Ueda had pulled out of the bike after hurting her hand (crash?) and before she could disappear I squeezed through all the Japanese and told her I'm so glad to meet her and I'm a huge fan.  Even after just dropping out - she was smiling ear to ear as usual.  Such a nice person, and a monster triathlete.
---

My pre-race meeing later that day was mandatory - as usual, but they repeated it every hour or 2 and had a few sessions set for English speakers, so no problems with that.  Attendance is checked off at the end - don't skip this one!

Some Basics we learned:
2x 750m swim leg in Tokyo Bay (loop includes dock section and then jump back in for second loop)
6x loops for 39.5km bike
2.5 loops for the 10km run

Mens 40 to 49 was the biggest group, as usual.  450 guys.  So they ran us as 3 heats of 150 guys, 5 min between heats.

Most of the run and bike are downtown, so fencing and people line most of the course - that really inspires and makes suffering more enjoyable (for me!).

Transition was massive, 2000 bikes?  The run from swim finish to the transition area is about 700m, but once inside it's a few hundred more meters owing to it's huge size.

RACE Morning

Morning of the race - total newbie - I forgot sunscreen and wetsuit lube (it helps for speedy wetsuit removal) and footwear for after leaving transition (We got kicked out over an hour before our start, due to para triathlon starting around 7:15).  Arg... it's blazing sun.. my wetsuit is brutal to get out of unless lubed like crazy, and barefeet only for the next hour... Oh well! 

So we hang out and watch the early heats go.. kill some time until I start to see the pink swim caps all gathering in the first staging area.  Finally - off to the races!

We start from the ITU race dock, all blue carpet and heartbeat sounds and everything.  Cool!

Walking down the docks, some Japanese women ITU athletes are there to high five us (sadly, my close personal friend Ai Ueada wasn't there).  Despite there being hundreds of us jammed in, everyone seemed nervous happy, and good vibes all around.

There is a mandatory 100m swim warm up before we go the to start blocks.  The hundreds of guys in mens 40 - 49 all line up and then in 2s and 3s leap off the backside of the dock to do a marked 100m triangle to ensure we are safely comfortable in the ocean, watched a a bunch of course marshals. Then we climb out and start lining up for the start.  Great idea!  I really appreciated the warm up.  Interesting - the warm up was mandatory!

I stayed near the front of the hundreds of us massed on the dock.  Sitting with my feet in the brownish water, some foam had collected near the dock around my ankles.  I joked about it with a Caucasian guy beside me - but it turned out he didn't know much English.  I always assume every not Japanese person here speaks perfect English, but of course, not everyone does.  Small world me.

Eventually he understood me pointing at water and saying "Guinness Beer" and we had a laugh

RACE Start

With a min to the start the first 150 guys got in, a deepwater start for us.  I stayed in the front row, but it's only designed for about 70 starters so we went a couple rows deep.   They gave a few last speeches, and then drumbeat, and finally - the gun!

First 10m were great ... then I was in the washing machine getting clubbed and rammed from all sides.  I have don't have a sprint to save my life, so the fast starter guys drive me nuts.  Lots of bad course lines in the mix.  I hat sighted on some buildings that were easy to see, but the swerv-y paths of my fellow swimmers kept me from swimming in a straight line.

It was my first Olympic length tri in maybe a decade, so 1500m felt LONG.  It was 2 loops and half way through the first loop I thought, crap - this is going to take frigging forever.  Hard to tell how hard I was going - perception felt all messed up. A wavey ocean with zero visibility ocean and wearing a wetsuit felt 100% unlike pool swimming.  Not surprising perhaps, but being a newb again I was surprised.

Finally outta the water - Yay!  Dumb swimming is over!!

LONG wetsuit run to transition for bike.  Near wipe out reminded me of the trip hazard of running with wetsuit half off.

Bike started quietly at first - heats were separated by 5 minutes - so only me and the roughly 10 guys of my heat who swam quicker were on the course, initially.

Tons of corners and hairpins, but it felt good for me as staying low in the TT position was difficult.  Passed 1 or 2 guys in the first laps, but then suddenly the masses started to hit the bike course and it became an obstacle course.  From then on I couldn't see who was in my heat versus the dozens of other heats, so no idea if I was gaining on anyone fast guys front of me.

One nice disc wheel benefit is the cool "whum whum whum" ...  sound it makes when you put some power down.  So when passing, most riders would hear me coming up and move over politely.  One guy actually broke his form so he could watch me pass, and yelled "cool!" as I came by.  I've not had that before in a race! - so he got a thumbs up and smile in return.

Finally knew I was getting close to the end happily pulled off onto the transition area.  Not many bikes had come back yet and nobody was immediately behind or in front of me... so maybe I passed a few more guys from my heat?  I seemed to be in no -mans land with respect to other racers.

Sato yelled to me as I ran out of transition - I had gained on the bike and now was "only" 3 minutes behind the next guy in front of me.  Ug!  That sounded like an impossibility.  So, just go for a hard tempo and see how it goes!

Finally a turnaround - saw leader - he was miles in front of me, and running like the wind.  OK - power to you, won't catch you.  Later saw another guy, also well in front of me, but he didn't look like a super fast runner?.. So, keep suffering and see if I can move up one spot...

It was roasting hot sun, but the aid stations were AMAZING.  Almost every km had a station with water and Aqarius sports drink, and 2 of the aid stations had 2 or 3 guys and girls manning hoses - You smile at them and  - they spray you with a hose!  LOVED the hose dudes.

Supportive people watching and lots of random high always help, finally turned corner for last km or so.  With the finish line in sight I saw the chap I had been gaining on.  Another Km maybe would have caught him? (No problem, we later laughed about it and shook hands after the finish line).  Though I knew I wasn't first, I still got a royal finish line treatment: blue tape held up, me on the big screen and a short interview with the announcer!  She struggled to ask me how race went in English and I smiled and effused how great it was, how great the people were and what a pretty venue it was. But she was most excited about me speaking Japanese to her and went on about that instead.

Once out of finish area met Sato and she told me I was third in my heat (awesome!), but since we were the first of 3 heats of 150 for the age group, I still had no idea where I would eventually place in the scheme of things.  Would have to wait till all races finished to find out - mid afternoon for that...

POST Race finale

So hung out a venue party for a few hours, had a burger, watched taiko drumming and dancing and singing girls (very normal here in Japan!), in addition to watching the tons of people still racing on all sides around us.  

Finally 2 pm - HUZZAH!  It's our mega group is further broken down into 5 year age blocks, and I'm second in the 45 to 49 group.  SWEET!

The awards routine is off the hook fancy.  VIP waiting area, dudes with clipboards and headpiece mics running are running about organizing everything.  Had a great chat with First and Third place guys.  Both are monster swimmers, first place guy once was national team and a pro.  Very cool, hope to see them again.

Finally we get called up, it's crazy formal with kimono girls and crowds of photogs and big screens showing pics of us.  Giant podium on a giant stage, facing a large grandstand that is (amazingly) mostly full of people!  Medals look positively Olympic in appearance.  Stepping down and leaving the stage area we each get handed a sponsor bag full of random swag as well.  Taken together, I couldn't stop grinning for hours.

Triathlons in Japan are pricey and hard to get into.  This race even more so than most.
Despite that -will try to do it again next year!

Late September to early October 2017 - the last 3 weeks of J adventure

Video edition this time!

https://youtu.be/h4IXmEfc2jU

Matt

Let's try living in Japan for a while! week 1...

It was a crazy long trip here, burdened as I was with mega luggage (and a bike) - this is the nature of a one way plane ticket.  After the interminable 12 hour plane ride, it was a 3 hour bus ride, and then a 1 hour car ride.  Nice sunset while trundling along the country side.

 

I've been here almost a week now and we are getting ... slightly..? more settled into the routine here.

We still don't have a place to call our own and are living at Sato's parents house, which is a little awkward at times.  Imagine living as an adult with your own parents, and that's about right.

I've been for a couple short runs here, but everyday is super busy with trying to organize and get started with our lives here.  Priorities include: getting our own place, getting Ame in school, getting our cell phones functional, getting health insurance, getting a car, getting the tons of other stuff needed for daily living.... etc...  Japan is awesome in it's bureaucracy so that slows everything considerably.






Some progress has been made: after viewing dozens of properties, we've finally now put in a rental application for a new Mansion!  So, you might assume, things are about to get pretty luxuriant, pretty fast!

This is maybe where I should mention that "mansion" in Japan does not mean the same thing as everywhere else, here it means: "condo".  Ah well.  It is a nice 3  bedroom space and in a good location fairly close to downtown but not too far from Sato's parents house (for childcare assistance!).  Additional bonuses include a good public elementary school and a short walk to Mosburger and a ton of other restaurants.

Here are some shots of the view from inside, and of some of the interior.  As per normal Japan rentals: no curtains, no major or minor appliances, no furniture, no kitchen cabinetry... It's a bit crazy, made a bit more crazy by the fact there is not any form of craigslist here!  Everyone just buys new for the most part.  Ug.

  

front view

back window view

chez fieldwalker, in Japan

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Food here has been the treat it's always been.  We've been going a bit crazy trying all our old haunts for very good and fairly inexpensive food.

Trying to limit ourselves to one meal out per day!

this was amazingly good.

Mos time!

eating some weird mochi things

Ame hasn't had a day of school yet and is in desperate need of getting going with that.  Just lots of bureaucracy involved and we are slowing wading through it.  Hopefully she starts day after tomorrow, with Monday tomorrow being a holiday.

Today, Sunday, we've had a typhoon hit.  I don't think they get names here though, just numbers.  So by tomorrow I'll know what Hurricane/ typhoon  # '185' goes.  Just quite windy right now.

One other bit of news was the party for Sato's Grandfather.  He turned 100 about 6 months ago. Anyway, the mayor of his little town finally came by as part of his officialdom and we had a little green tea party together.   Grampa had already received his prizes from prime minister Shinzo Abe and the prefectural minister so the major was the last guy to chime in with some accolades.  The mayor made a point of requesting we all move away from Himeji and into his little town and declared I could instantly have a language teacher job if I so desired.  We said we'd think about it to get him off our backs!

at Sato's grandpa's house

"Kuromitsu" (means 'black syrup') the neighbors dog

some swag for getting to 100

a tired little bus hiding in the bamboo forest

nice car for one person

Hurricane #185 hitting us tonight

big dude I almost stepped on while jogging

Holy cow - weather is currently going beserk outside.  Raining, blowing and lightning like I've never heard.  So this is what a hurricane sounds like!  Hopefully house stands in the morning!!

grampa and the gang

more of grandpa's swag for getting to 100+

OK, we are still here the next morning.  We survived the hurricane, in fact everything seems about the same as it did yesterday.  This is not Houston Texas.

One other important note: the internet here sucks.  We loose connectivity, with daily regularity.  I was going to publish this last night but we lost internet before I could post.  Blerg!   We are hoping once we get into our own apartment that we will be more connected, till then communication with us will be Spartan.

Catching (and releasing) dragonflys!

One more bonus update from today: we bought a car!  High rollers that we are: it's a Toyota Vitz!  We were planning on getting a yellow plate (660cc motor) but there wasn't really any cost savings with it, so we just went with a fairly normal car.  While a Vitz is small for Canada, it's larger than 50% of cars in Japan since it's much bigger than a yellow plate Kei car.   So we are sort of road hogs in the massive 1.3 litre engine Limousine we drive.

NEW (for us) Car!