OSIM Singapore Triathlon 2006

I headed off to Singapore on Saturday 1st July with Shilpa and the Twins on board. Boys seemed pretty cool and pretty much slept all the way to Singapore.

Saturday night we had a lovely meal at Clarke Quay and then headed back to watch England break our hearts in the world cup again. After extra time and penalties my heart rate was about max and I felt drained - needless to say sleep took a long time coming.

Made my way down to East Coast Park nice and early Sunday morning and checked in for the race. There were 3,500 competitors in total and 180 in my category – blimey! I've been pretty exhausted since my Marathon Des Sables (ultra marathon through the Sahara Desert) in April and have only been feeling a little more normal for the last few days - therefore expectations were running very low albeit spirits were high - no feeling of pressure I guess.

Come 11am the gun went and my age-group wave started. The swim course was two laps of 750 metres and it was very very choppy. I didn't mind the conditions and slugged through it feeling pretty comfortable all of the way (even when a guy doing breast stroke kicked my goggles so hard they almost inverted and sucked my eyeballs out).

With that over I was on the bike (where I feel most comfortable) and blasted around 4 laps of the flat bike course. This year it was super windy and I got blown around a lot as I was using a disk wheel. Loads of accidents to avoid but felt like I'd put together a decent ride (a fraction over an hour for 40k). By the time I got back there was only one bike in my age-group already racked up so I knew I was 2nd at that point.

Then came the run and it was getting pretty dam hot, felt bloated and legs felt weak but I was determined to push as hard as I could and kept looking out for no. 4115 who I guessed was "IP" from Macau who normally beats me by a good 5 to 10 minutes. After about 7.5k I knew it was unlikely that I'd catch him as he was nowhere to be seen at the turnarounds. I pushed on nonetheless and with 100m to the finish he seemed to appear from nowhere amongst the other runners about 20m ahead of me. I quietly got on his shoulder and then with 50m to go sprinted for the finish and beat him by 5 seconds. With all the wave starts I don't think he realised that I was in his category (I guess he'll know next time). Managed the 10k run in 41:40, which was not bad but I feel like there's more in there still!

So there you have it my first age-group Olympic distance victory and by the looks of the other results my time was 5th overall out of all the age-group competitors. Won a dodgy trophy, a handheld massager (I have three of these things now), a tennis bag (don't play tennis), and a years gold class subscription to California Fitness (in Singapore - useless!).

Took Shilpa and the boys for a nice walk down the river the next day and had a huge lunch at Brewerkz (highly recommended) then fed the little fellas and headed back to KL. Sadly the little tykes were pretty unhappy about the drive back and it wasn't a great deal of fun but we made it in the end.