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.
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.
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!
No comments:
Post a Comment