oakley pd duathlon

the so many things that could go wrong, probably did go wrong for me at my pd duathlon race. 

1. we headed to mcd, for myself to get my fix of hot milo and for the cousins to get their breakfast. i had my standard routine breakfast, my banana flavoured moolabar. the hot milo, took 10 minutes to serve up, and the cousin's brekkiewrap took even longer. so we were pretty late to the racestart to set up our bikes and transition. 

2. i'm quite useless when it comes to setting up bikes. i have zero knowledge. i only know how to ride the bike, not that i'm that good at it anyways. so my uncle had to do the setting up for me. by the time we were done setting up 4 bikes (myself, my uncle, my cousin sister and her boyfriend), it was 630 already. 650am was the call to the starting line. so technically, we had 20 minutes to get ourselves from the carpark to the racestart, check in our bikes, set up our transition area, for me - i needed to go shit, warmup, and get our butts to the starting line. hmm, didn't look too optimistic about getting everything done. 

3. i forgot my helmet - thankfully uncle noticed so got it out of the car. 

4. i went to check in my bike and set up my transition area as quick as i could. so much so i forgot to take note of my bike row, later on causing me to run into the wrong row. aihs. 

5. after that i ran to look for the toilet - which was pretty damn far away. i've mentioned before, not being able to shit before a race majorly stresses me out. so, thankfully i managed to unload before the race. 

6. i didn't manage to warmup, because once i was done shitting, it was already 650. 

7. but that was also when i realized i left my timing chip in the car. i had to run all the way to the car, grab my timing chip, and run back to the start line, with really minutes to spare before flagoff. phew. 

8. my quads cramped up for the first time in my life. 300m from the finishing line on the 2nd leg of my run, my quads cramped up. i was in 2nd position at that point, unfortunately, i wasn't able to hold on to the lead and came in 4th. 

9. oh and i didn't win the lucky draw. 

but looking at the bright side, so many things did go right for me hehe. 

1. i came in 1st after the first leg of the run. i knew i was weak at cycling, well, because i never cycle, i cycle once in a rainbow moon (not even blue moon). i don't cycle - cycling is just something i need to do to get to the run leg. so i knew i had to put in a substantial gap during the run leg. the next girl caught up to me at the 10km point of the bike, which of course was not to my surprise. i would be surprised if noone caught up. 2 other girls passed me on the bike leg. but i think i still did pretty well. during the 2nd run leg, my first kilometre was a 5min10s pace before moving to an under 5 minute pace. i completely forgot how heavy legs could feel when running after a bike sesh. but all in all, i think i did pretty well. i didn't train for this, so i can't complain about the results. our coach always tells us, when other people win, its just because you didn't train hard enough, they did, which is super true in this case. my training effort for this duathlon would probably be at 5 percent. 

2. my cousins and uncle completed their first duathlon. i'm mad proud of them. i'm sure they had the time of their life 

3. when i was cramping up, it was comforting that alot of people actually did stop to help. it was my first time cramping, and not in the calves but my quads. i was screaming in pain.  after a few minutes of being stationary, i limped, hopped, then set back into running back to the finishing line. 

4. our saturday night down in pd was crazy fun. roadtrips are always fun. espicially with the cousins.

5. we raced for 2 hours, but ate for more than 2 hours lol. 

6. i bumped into many old friends. it was good to catch up with them during the race pack collection and welcome dinner. 

many thanks my cousins and uncle for really, just everything, from helping me with set up, to stopping to help me with my cramps. to my friends who always more confident in me than i am in myself, thanks for all the kind encouraging and supporting words, texts and messages. got a last minute surprise visit from coach since he ended up volunteering for the event. thanks for his last minute help during my super havoc sunday morning. more importantly, thanks moolabar for never failing me as my pre-race breakfast. and also, salomon for my super-shoes. 

next year again? maybe. 

Port Dickson Powerbar Duathlon 2014

i signed up for the pd duathlon on the last day of registration - a product of much hesitation. well mainly because i had viper challenge the day before this event, so i kinda questioned whether i'd be too tired. i don't know wad got over me, but i did sign up in the end. although i only signed up for the sprint version (run 5km, cycle 30km, run 5km). 

my very first duathlon, well cycling event as well. i was super nervous  - mostly because i had no biking experience-and i really mean zero. the most i had cycled was for 10km around my housing area, then i got bored. so yes nervous and scared perfectly described my feelings towards this duathlon. 

my alarm rang at 330am today. in my mind, all i could think was - i'm having a bad headache from viper. i am super deprived of sleep. my body is super-duper tired from viper, why the heck am i awake at this hour again. i seriously questioned my sanity. but i pulled myself together, got dressed, packed my stuffs, and hopped onto the car. 

mucho gracias to my uncle (he is 19) who offered to drive me down to portdickson in the early hours. i hopped on the car, fell asleep, and awakened in pd. we got there about 5 ish. he helped me fix the bike up (thankfully he came along). 

i really was like a lost puppy. i had no idea how to rack the bike. i had no idea how transition worked, luckily daryl helped me with the racking and taught me how to. oh and did i mention i wore the helmet the wrong way. if he did not point that out when i tried the helmet on, well i would have a dangerous biking experience. so we racked the bike. then i placed a bottle of water, a small towel, my cycling pants and a big towel in my transition basket. 

so i just raced like a blur kid. before i knew it, it was flagoff. the 5km run was a breeze for me since i am afterall a runner - not the best runner, but still a runner. then came transition. the initial plan was to use the towel to wrap around my waist, like a sarong, to change into my cycling pants. a friend of mine said this to me 'don't crazy, wait you cause lots of accidents'. so at transition, i thought it might be a little crazy so i just pulled my cycling pants over my running pants. i unracked the bike, and ran towards the mounting line. and off i went to cycle. 

the bike course was super duper hilly. it was definitely difficult for me. i paddled and huffed and puffed. i thought to myself, hmm i'm doing such a great job and i'm pretty tired i must have covered quite a distance already, then i stared down at the speedometre and saw i only travelled 3.95km out of the 30km. that was barely 20 per cent. that was when i went damn. i went slowly and steadily up and down the hills. but having a massive amount of people pass me on the bike course was pretty demotivating - really really demotivating. i felt like i was super crap at the bike course. but then again, it was something expected, afterall i have no training, no experience, what did i expect. but there were moments when i had funny thoughts like 'you wait, i'll pass you on the run course' when people passed me on the bike course. i was so glad when biking was done. 

after getting off the bike, i felt my legs go jelly. it took me some time to get into the running mode. but i managed to pass a number of people on the run course, as vowed haha. i managed to complete the course in 2 hours and 24 minutes. i was gunning for a 2h 30 minutes time. my ideal time would have been 2 h 15 minutes. just have to train harder next time. 

all in all - a great experience. no regrets. much thanks to my support team=)