Q11.What was your pacing strategy for the race? How well did you execute the strategy? (List your mile/lap splits, if applicable) What do your splits show about your execution? A11. I guess since we are on the subject of pacing, I will use this to cover the race as it unfolded (without repeating too much of what I've already listed)
SWIM: Pacing strategy was to start off easy, just focus on getting comfortable and finding a nice rhythm for the first 500m leading up to the first turn-around buoy on this counter-clockwise trapezoidal swim course. I struggled finding a good rhythm even though I started off conservatively in the middle of the pack to the far right. Problems I encountered initially were that I wasn't able to find a pair of good legs to draft off of and seemed to constantly be veering off course. I was sighting every 10-12 on this first stretch (as I'd practiced at Barton). In retrospect since this was the initial stretch and it wasn't quite a straight line, I feel like I needed to have sighted more often (like maybe every 6-7). Also, if I'd actually stayed in the "middle of the pack" as I started, I could have much better luck finding those legs to draft off. I need to be able to get over the phobia of being surrounded by mass of bodies and need to stop "breaking away" to the side just so I can find my "clear water". Also reminder that I need to do drills that force me to be able to "bi-laterally" breathe. I got away with Galveston since counter-clockwise courses work well for folks like me who breathe on the left side. Sooner than later, I am going to have to deal with a clockwise course where for whatever reason (chop/glare coming from the left, splashing idiot swimmer on the left or whatever), I am going to have to rely on breathing on the "other" side. It took me ~ a 3 min pace on this 500m stretch costing me 15 mins. Not happy! Got to the turn-around point, regrouped and got into a nice strong rhythm since I decided to sight more often (every 6-8 strokes). Plus this was a dead straight stretch of 1000m. I held a good 2 min pace for this stretch and even occasionally found a pair of legs to draft off of. Only problem on this stretch was that my wetsuit started chaffing my neck (I realized later how bad really that chafe was). I tried to drown (no pun intended....haha!) that burning pain on my neck which flared up *every* time I brought my head up to sight and just tried to focus on the job....job being to get to the next turn-around buoy. Get to the next turn around buoy and a quick glance on my tiny sport watch (strapped to my lil' index finger), I realized that I would have to really pick it up from here if I wanted to hit my time goal and that's exactly what I did....pick it up! I even found this guy from two waves behind me (based on the color of his cap) going at a what seemed like a 1:45ish pace and I hung on the side of him for the longest time. Turns out that my last 500m split was done in 7:30 which meant I'd blasted it through and through at a 1:30 pace. Woooha!! I was psyched getting out of the water and looking at my watch showing a 42:30!! This was *exactly* where I'd envisioned I'd be on the optimistic side. On the pessimistic side, I'd budgeted 45-50min as the higher cut-off should something horribly go wrong (water in the goggles, kick in the face, on the head, cramps, completely get off-course...all of which for the record I HAVE experienced at one point or another in an OWS!!!).
T1: Out of the water, a quick smile and a wave at a frantically "Go Amit!" screaming Rad (made for a good FB profile pic) and off I went into transition area. Oh, did I mention that Wetsuit stripper volunteers ROCK!! Quick rinse off under the fresh water showers to get all of the salt off my body. Into the transition and found my bike (had clear landmarks in my head) within seconds. Drop contents of hand to ground, Helmet ON, Socks ON (had no choice on this one with my feet still bleeding from the pre-swim warm-up fiasco where I cut my feet up on Oyster Shells), Shoes ON (Yes, yes, I did not leave them clipped in...loooong story why but in short shoe straps with no stoppers do not make for very good candidates for "flying mount". I *think* I've fixed that issue with the use of some Electrical tape post-race) and off I go. Total time: 2:30. That was a min a half faster than I'd budgeted :)
BIKE: Pace strategy for the bike was to stay in Zone 2 (60-70% of Max HR) for the first fourth of the leg i.e. miles 1-14. In legs 2 and 3 (miles 15-42), I was going to try and stay in Zone 3 (70-80%) the whole time and in the last leg (miles 43-56), I was going to try and see if I can push myself into Zone 4 and stay around or just under 85%. Speed goal was 17-18 mph, holding a nice even 90+ cadence the whole way (since the course was supposed to be mostly flat). That was "the plan". Now on to what "actually" happened :) I made way riding on 83rd St towards the Sea Wall where I'd planned to go into the aero position since it was a straight stretch from there on. One quick glance at my Garmin at about mile 3 and I knew I was in trouble since my HR was showing 87%. That was NOT where it was supposed to be that early into the Bike ride!! I guess, I'd forgotten how high your HR spikes when you come out of a strong swim finish and hauling ass through T1. I pulled back from the 18.5mph that I was averaging to a more comfortable pace like 17 giving time for my HR to come down which it did. After Mile 10, I was still not where I wanted to be but MUCH better than when I'd started. HR was still in the high 70s creeping into the 80s. Enter Leg2, I stayed more and more in the aero position and started to pick up the pace (avg pace around 18mph) while I still continued to struggle with my HR being higher than where I wanted it to be. At this point, it was in the low 80s while I was hoping to keep it in the mid 70s. The cross wind had really picked up by then (or at least I started "noticing" it more as I started fatiguing a little as well). Then came the kicker....my lower back started sending me signals that my time to stay in aero comfortably was short-lived. Doh! No surprise but I was hoping that somehow on race day, it would be "different". I have been battling my lower left back pains, I guess ever since I've owned this Cervello and started to ride in the aero position. Have had Master Bike Fitter Zane (from J&A) refit me now like three times in the past few months but no matter what I do, I can't seem to overcome it. NOTE: "Need" to get to the bottom of what needs to be done to stay aero for longer periods of time since competitively this is where I am getting killed by my age-groupers!! At mile 28 (Yey! Half way there), I started to feel a little tail wind and decided to take full advantage of it and starting pushing myself harder and started seeing consistent 3 min/mi splits i.e. 20mph speeds. I managed to even post several 20mph mile splits while not being in the aero position. Roughly around Mile 40, started to struggle again with the back and some heavy cross winds. By then, I'd put enough fast miles to get me to a 19mph average and so now I thought "If only I could hold this pace, that would be sweet" since that would put so much extra time into my back-pocket for the Run that I could "jog" it and still make my goal of breaking 6 hrs!! Yeah right, what lay ahead me on the Run was another story :) Total time spent with my ass glued to the bike: 3 hrs even. That would be 18.6mph avg which was MUCH better than I was anticipating.
T2: Speedy T2 @ at 1:26 and I was off and running just glad to be out of that damn aero position and get a chance to give my glutes and back a stretch!!
RUN: Aah! The Run!!!! This is what it all comes down to in a Tri....the ultimate test of physical and most importantly mental preparation. On this leg, the race so did not go as I expected. First two miles I posted 9:30 min/miles which were right on target of what I was hoping to pace the entire way. Ha! My stomach and feet had different plans though. Mile 3 split was at 10:30 and I started to realize that something was not going right. So I walked the water station at Mile 3. I realized that my foot that was cut up from those darn Oyster Shells was starting to throb with an annoying burning pain (the pain could be categorized as being in between a "discomfort" and an "acute pain"). Secondly and most importantly my stomach was not feeling well....at all! I felt very bloated and as though I had "knots" in my stomach. The line "Gut in a Rut!!!" echoed through my mind for the remainder of the Run. I continued to shuffle through miles 4,5,6 (it was a 4x5K loop course), so the incentive every 5K was that I get to see Rad and her big sign(s), one that said "Go Amit....I love you!!" and another one that my Tri buddies Cha and Sha had gotten Rad to make for me that said "Go Coach A!!". Seeing those signs every 5K helped a lot!! What else helped was the camaraderie on the Run course between the thirty or so (Yup! you read that right...."Thirty") T3'ers. It was amazing and it carried me through miles 7-13. I have no shame in admitting that I walked almost every water stop starting Mile 7, did the "shuffle" and dug deep to get myself through what seemed like a "burning hell" by then as humidity had gone through the roof and the winds were going loco!! There was this one time I had to chase my visor down as the wind blew it away! I regularly posted 11-12 min miles in the second half of the Run but thanks to some decent splits for the first 6, I still managed to wrap the Run up at a respectable 10:45 pace (Total Time: 2:20 for Run).
Q12.What decisions did you make before or during the race which helped your performance? A12. Decide to change plans to wear socks for the bike after the Oyster Shell fiasco was a good choice during the race. Altering the hydration and nutrition plan during the run to give a sensitive upset stomach some rest was what caused me to finish the race.
Q13. What decisions did you make before or during the race which did NOT help your performance? A13. Pass out on an uncomfortable couch tucked behind Rad 48 hrs prior to the race while watching TV. Stiff necks do not do well in Open Water Swims and aero position on Bike rides :( Being a little careless during my warm-up swim with them Oyster shells definitely did not help. Also, I suspect that I should have listened to my gut instincts and not consume any solids and stuck with Gels and fluids. Not sure if that hurt but is definitely suspect.
Q14. Anything else about the race, positive or negative which you feel is important? A14. I wish now in retrospect that I was able to ward many of those negative thoughts that plagued me during the Run. I faced adversities on the Swim and Bike as well but was more successful overcoming those with a stronger optimistic mind in those phases. Need to continue to work on mental toughness if my dreams of going 2x this distance in the next year are to take fruit.
Special props to Baris and Gina for hosting us and being there in person to support me on race day, Sha and Didi for their phone calls to Rad asking for status update, Amy @ T3 for being such a wonderful training bud, all the T3 (and non-T3) folks who cheered me on the course with their smiles and kind uplifting words, to all of the Coaches @ T3 (Chrissie, Mo and Logan), the numerous folks who wished me best of luck and cheered me on via emails, TXT and FB messages and last but not the least to my ROCK...Radhu for being so understanding and putting up with me and all of my crazy training hours since the beginning of this year. Suffice to say that those tears that flowed down the cheeks of competitor #48 as he ran through the finish line and slouched his head down on the nearest table were NOT from physical exhaustion but more a salute to all of this wonderful support and this incredible opportunity that he has been given to accomplish something so spectacular. Wait till you see him run past the finish line of a Full IM next year!!! Have the Kleenex ready ;)
The popularity of "race reports" is very evident and omnipresent on the internet. More and more athletes are doing it. Perhaps it's because we all seem to love the storytelling which goes with our adventures, especially in longer races - where so many things happen, the toughest part is remembering them all for the report! I am not sure if like most of my athlete friends, I want to write my report about the funny instances, the pain and discomfort (at times) and the lows and extreme highs of my performance OR focus more on an "objective" assessment of my race, performance, strategy, nutrition, pace and even confidence or motivation. While the former is more enjoyable for others to read, the latter (if done properly) I think can be used as a very effective tool to assess, again "objectively" how my performance matched my expectations. That or I can strive to find a middle path between the two :) If you want _just_ the race drama, you can probably skip straight to #11 and save yourself some time :)
So what is a "Half Iron" distance Triathlon aka IM 70.3, you ask? It's basically a long distance triathlon that requires one to cover (you guessed it), 70.3 miles. That's 112 km for you metric buffs :) The breakdown at a high-level is that it involves a 1.2 mi Swim followed by a 56 mi Bike Ride and a 13.1 mi Run at the end. Need to know more than just that high-level info, Wiki does a good job (as always): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/70.3
To find a way to "objectify" my race report, a quick search on Google for "HOWTO race report" yielded this "Race Report and Evaluation Chart" that I am gonna cheat and use to draft my first ever race report and if I like it, make it my permanent template for race report blogs. So here goes...
Race Report and Evaluation Chart:
Event: Lone Star Half Iron Date: 4/5/09 Distance: 70.3 miles Result: Overall Time - 6:07:08 Results Website: http://results.active.com/pages/page.jsp?eventLinkageID=73772 (In case you haven't already noticed, I maintain a "very" detailed history of all of my races with links to its results websites on the right hand side panel of my blog page, so this is sort of redundant)
Q1.On a scale of 1 to 10, (1 = poor, 10 = exceptional), how would you rate this performance? Why did you rank it as such? A1. 8.5 Why: That's because I performed stronger than I expected i.e. STRONG for the first 60/70.3 miles and then things started to go down-hill very quickly. Based on that, I guess I have to give myself a 6/7.3 which extrapolates to translate to (NERD ALERT!!) 8.5/10. Also my overall time goal (not prev advertised to keep the pressure off) was to break 6 hrs on my first try so 8.5/10 reflects the 7 extra minutes I took doing the "shuffle" on the Run to get to the finish line :)
Q2. What was your travel itinerary to the event? Did this affect your performance (positively or negatively)? A2. I traveled 2.5 hrs (from Austin) to Houston on Fri night, crashed the night at a friend's (Thanks for putting us up Baris and Gina!!), then traveled to Galveston from there on Sat afternoon (1 hr drive). I don’t think the travel affected my performance since it only allowed me more "down time" to strategize my race/pace/nutrition plan while my lovely fiancée was behind the wheel the whole time. Same thing on the return, the travel actually offered an excellent opportunity to "reflect" upon many of the things that are now about to be documented in the race report. It did add some level of stress leading up to the day we had to leave since everything had to be packed and ready to go by Thu night but in a way any incentive for a procrastinator (when it comes to packing) like me to get my butt moving is a good thing. Besides when we hit the road, a surreal sense of calmness hit me that at this point, a feeling of "I was done". Now just needed to hang tight, not do anything too irrational (like getting drunk or tripping and falling on my face!) and I was going to have the race of my life!!
The T3 periodization training plan called for a short 30 min bike ride on Sat for which I was contemplating taking my indoor trainer along. I changed my mind seeing the amount of "stuff" we packed and decided to switch out to a 30 min Run instead. That short Run on Sat AM went GREAT!! I ran up and down Richmond Ave at an aerobic pace and even got a chance to test out ALL of the race attire and most importantly the Garmin one last time in the "race day multi-sport setting mode" (which I should have practiced in more in retrospect). I even ended up actually making a small tweaks in the data fields for display. My final settings were as follows: Main Screen 1: Split 3 ways to show Lap Pace, Lap Distance and Lap Hr Main Screen 2: HR Zone (I found this to be redundant and useless, so this needs to go next time!!) Bike Screen: Split 4 ways to show HR (as a % of Max HR), Avg Speed, Cadence and Speed Run Screen: Split 3 ways to show HR (as a % of Max HR), Avg Pace and Pace
Some other general settings that I found worked for me are "Auto Lap = ON" (by distance of 1mi), "Display Scroll = Off" and "Auto Multisport = ON". NOTE: I cannot wait to get my hands on the new Garmin 310XT which I think will fill ALL the missing voids of the current 305 (that will require a whole new blog dedicated to it) :)
Q3. How were stress levels in your life in the days before the race? A3. I would say 4 on a scale of 10. Besides some anxiety in lieu of the travel like I mentioned previously, there was some bit of stress from some of the wedding planning and some other misc personal issues. Not so much from work (Thanks to a Boss who understands my passion for this sport, so cuts me some slack with flex time and a good work-life balance), so that was great! Some other attributors towards those four points of stress on the days leading up to the race were things like waiting on the new T3 Tri Top to arrive (and wondering how it will fit), new and ever evolving Garmin settings, bad weather (cold, wet and windy) and last but not the least the lack of a SOLID well tested fueling and hydration game plan. It's fair to say I totally "winged" practicing the fueling and hydration component of the race in my training and is absolutely the BIGGEST lesson learnt for me. I will rant more about this in the specific question on this subject below but I need to remember to sit down with a RD like Meredith (Jess hurry up and graduate!!) and figure this part as out as it exponentially becomes important when graduating to the IM level where you are out there for 17 hours (I will probably need all 17!!).
Q4. How were your sleeping patterns in the days before the race? A4. Pretty good. Thanks to the bad weather, I didn't feel guilty "sleeping in" almost the last 3-4 days leading up to the race. I think that helped. Of course the night before the race, I only managed to squeeze in 6 hrs which I think is typical and is what makes sleeping in a full 8 hrs (or even 9-10) two days before the race key.
Q5. How were your eating habits in the days before the race? A5. Followed the conventional wisdom fueling plan of "carbo-loading" several days leading up to the race (read: Rad was cranking out my fav Chicken/Turkey Balls with whole wheat Pasta in marinara sauce all week) :) Attended a Nutrition 101 seminar this past week at WF where the Speaker slammed "carbo-loading" as an over-rated, outdated and inappropriate fueling method to follow pre-race. Currently researching to see better alternatives and also the "right way" to carbo-load. Whole fruits and vegetables (besides Pasta, Rice, Bread and Potatoes) are also Carb I hear ;) Potion control is also something I need to look into since in the past I have always used "carbo-loading" as an excuse to binge on food the week leading up to an endurance event, especially the right the night before. Finally, next time I find myself in a small town like Galveston night before the race and there are only so many choices of venues for carbo-loading (stereotypes always drive us towards Italian cuisine), I need to remember to "take out"... the "dine in" costed us 2.5 hrs!!!
Q6. What were the weather conditions for the race? What specific preparations did you make for these conditions? (Hydration, clothing, etc.) Were these preparations adequate? A6. Race day was cool and windy at Swim start and got to become very humid and "extremely" windy by the time I started the Run. For the swim, since I am much better with the "rotation" now, I feel like I was prepared for the moderate chop that I encountered in the Bayou (Note to self: I don't think I am still ready for IMFL like tides, so CdA or AZ might still be my best bets for 2010 IM race of choice). Of course there was not even a contention of wetsuit vs. no wetsuit. My rationale has always been, "If legal, I'm wearing it!!". The water was 65 degrees on race day, so yeeeeaaaah, defn wet-suit. Plus the bad rap it gets because of the time you waste in T1 getting it off wasn't in question here since awesome Race Director - Keith Jordan had arranged for wet-suit strippers (the only kind of "Strippers" I encounter anymore in life! :P). At some point (Vineman Half in 2010 maybe), I think I am going to have to invest in a full-sleeve but for now the cut-sleeve works GREAT for me! In prep for the humidity, I had a spare Running Tee, Running Hat, a small hand towel and some sweat-resistant Sunscreen in my "special needs" bag that I could access on my Run four times (once per loop). As for the winds, even though the forecast called for winds ranging from 6-30 mph, there's pretty much nothing (that I know of) that one could do to tackle the winds on race day. That being said, there's a lot one can do to "prepare" for it in terms of training. Spring in Austin this year has had some crazy windy weekends where I've had to do my long runs and rides, so even though I was cursing myself for having picked a Spring Half that involved me to train through this unpredictable Austin Spring weather, I think all the winds helped me become strong and get ready for this very windy race day.
Q7. What was your warm-up routine for the race? Was it effective? If not, what would have been more effective? A7. I rarely run or bike as a warm-up routine before a Tri. Just never done it and I guess that's because I've always had the itch to get in and out of transition as quickly as possible and get into the open water for a nice warm-up (read: OWS has always been my "fear factor" leg amongst the three disciplines. Getting much better at it going into my third "full" Tri season). I typically get out there on the course and swim at an 80% effort for a short period of time. That "period" of time actually depends on length of the swim course...longer the swim, shorter the warm-up...makes sense?? :) I try and do it as close as possible to my wave start, so my heart rate is already cranking when the gun goes off! This time around since I was the first wave, I lucked out in that the wait (which I loathe) between finishing warm-up and starting my swim was less than 20 mins in all. In those 20mins, I tried and incorporate some of the techniques shared by Tri legend Dave Scott (you can look those up on active.com's video section) instead of the usual nervous "chatter" that I am used to. Oh and did I mention, I cut my feet up on Oyster Shells during this "warm-up" swim. This was going to come back to haunt me later on, on the Run.
Q8. What were you thinking about on the start line? Did this help or hurt your performance? A8. At the start line, I was feeling unusually optimistic and happy that it was FINALLY gonna happen for me!! This event that I had put in countless (actually I know exactly how many, thanks to the T3 periodization plan :)) number of hours of training into was finally gonna be put to test. Also, having my baby by my side at Swim start always does wonders for me (hint hint Rad) ;) Also, on the advice of my boss John (also an avid up and coming Tri/Du/Run athlete), I took a few mins to tap into the positive energy that one can draw from having a "visualization" of the perfect race in your head. I must have played out that whole sequence 2-3 times. Who said water-cooler conversations at work are a waste of time ;)
Q9. On a scale of 1 to 10, (1 = poor, 10 = exceptional), what was your motivation level for this race? Why did you rank it as such? A9. Definitely a 10. The result of this race was going to determine how pragmatic it was going to be to chase those 2010 IM dreams. I'd told myself if I can do the Half in 12 weeks of training, I am sure I can do the Full in twice that amount of time. Of course that being said, I am not naive enough to know that going from a Half to a Full is not exactly a 2x jump but more like a 4x in terms of pain endurance and how much deeper one has to dig to get past that finish line!!!
Q10.What was your hydration/nutrition plan for the race? How well did you execute the plan? Could the plan be improved? How? A10. As I'd mentioned in #3, I kinda winged the whole nutrition/hydration component of racing up until now. Grab a few Gu's and good to go!! Umm, so yeeeeeaaaah that doesn't work for anything you do that's going to take over 2 hrs of your time. The pundits say that your body only stores enough glycogen in your muscles to last you for approx 2 hrs. So with a slow poke like me who takes 6 out of the 8.5 hrs offered to finish the race, I should have made this my number one priority to figure out. I didn't. I focused more on the technique, speed and cardiovascular endurance during my 12 weeks of training while nutrition and hydration took a backseat. So the last couple of weeks leading up to for Galveston, I started to frantically research this topic and noticed quickly there are just as many nutrition/hydration "strategies" for a 70.3 race as there are websites :( Quickly got overwhelmed by all the mumbo-jumbo of Calories, Carb/Sugars, Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Amino Acids, Protein, Caffeine yada yada yada!! They say the best way is to "just try it out and see what works for you". That would have been a good plan should I have actually started paying attention to it when the training season started as opposed to a couple of weeks before the race! I'll spare the various permutations and combinations I frantically tried over those last couple of few weeks leading up to the race but will just share what my "final" plan came to be:
Breakfast: Like recommended, I ate a breakfast at the Hotel a full 3 hrs (Yup! That would be at 5am) before the race start. Don't know the exact calories but should be around the recommended 300 Cals (Bagels+Jelly, Yoghurt, Juice, Coffee). Not to self that it's great to stay in these hotels in the vicinity of the race venue that start breakfast as early as 4:30am. Pre-Swim: 1xPowerBar Gel + 12 Oz of water consumed 15 mins before Swim start Bike: Alternate between Cliff Bar (pre-cut into three pieces and placed in my Bentoo box) and Power Bar Gel every 30 mins, accompanied with 2-3 Ozs of water. At the half way point in between each fuel, so again every 30 mins, 2-4 Oz of Electrolyte. I prepared my 2xElo bottles with two MotorTab tablets per 20Oz bottle. Run: Power Bar Gel every 30 mins with water and water every 15 mins by itself.
Executed almost all to near perfection, only I started the Run and about 2 miles into the Run felt like really bloated and knotted up in my gut. Decreased the frequency of Gel to the point that I only took two in the near 2.5 hrs I was out on the Run course. Not sure if that helped or hurt. Couldn't hold that nasty Gatorade Endurance they offered on the Run course, so stuck with water and ice. I even took a bile break on the Run course (like they advise you to) thinking that might help alleviate some of the discomfort my gut (and bladder) were going through on the Run. Also, on the bike, I only managed to get through 1 and 1/4 of the bottles which I think was a blessing since I was already feeling bloated from all of the various sugars in my stomach that I think having consumed two full bottles would have made me even more miserable. My unverified conspiracy theory after having talked to tens of my buddies who also raced Galveston was that we may have all been doomed from the start with all of that salt water sitting jostling around in our bellies from that Swim. No way to verify that though :P
So after years of brooding on the subject of "To blog or not to blog...", I am finally giving in!! :) I have let one too many many memorable moments, accomplishments and memoirs in my life get away without documenting them or getting them on film. Moments such as that day a few months ago when I got on bended knee in the waters of Cayman Islands asking this wonderful woman I deeply love for her companionship for the rest of my life. Moments such as the ones I experienced a year and a half ago when I signed that last piece of paper and was handed the keys to "my" first house. Memorable moments such as the ones when I first held my niece in my arms, moments when she first kissed me or uttered the words "Mamoo".
Lost also were those several moments of euphoria and "high's" I experienced while crossing the finish line of my several "first" milestones like my first ever Half Marathon, first ever Marathon, first Sprint distance Tri, first Olympic distance Tri, first Century ride, first ever 2K open water swim etc etc. Lost also were "race reports" that were in my head but never got documented. Isn't there a saying that goes "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"?? If not, I just made it up ;) Regret losing those race reports from the past several years that I have been racing, races where I faltered, races where I performed so-so, races where I kicked butt and PR'd....Yes, yes, I have been some what of a "PR machine" lately!! (can you picture me saying this while blowing a Trumpet??;)) Either goes to show that I have hit several "strides of nirvana" and am therefore improving fast and furiously or simply the fact that I sucked in the past and set the initial bars very low :) In that long list of PRs are my Sub 7 min/mi 5K (Livestrong '08), Sub 7:30 min/mi 10K (IBM '08), Sub 8:30 min/mi 1/2M (3M '09), Sub 1:30 Sprint Tri (Longhorn '07), Sub 2:45 OlyTri (Stonebridge '08) etc. One reason (besides procrastinating) for having stayed away from blogging so far is that I was afraid that it would get addictive, ahem, kinda like what happened to me a few months ago with that thing called "Facebook" (also referred to me know as the "biggest time suck of all"!!). For making me a Facebook slave, I will always blame Rad whose persistent reminders of how "anti-cool" and "anti-hip" I was since I did not have an identity in the cyberspace of FB is what got me started down that path :P Along those lines, just so I have a finger to point to if months from now this whole "blogging" thing is hogging a lot of my time, I want to go on the record and state that I am getting started down this path based on the continued persistence from these two gals who are both from Singapore, avid Fund Raisers/Triathletes/Runners/Bloggers (I think in that order), have their names differ in only one character and have their names both rhyme with "Kenya". I think I have given away enough...you know who you are :P Bottom line: Every journey has a beginning and my "blogging journey" (a little late) starts here with this introductory blog to be followed shortly by my first ever Half Iron distance Triathlon race report (WARNING: I am not a "man of few words", so expect a very verbose race report especially since I have 6+ hrs of race drama to document :) ) Stay tuned...
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