ATC Subic Bay Asian Cup Triathlon
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Generally the idea is to finish a race and then attempt to write a race report in the immediate aftermath. I think submitting this, and thus fulfilling the requirements of my Masters (in International Relations) degree is na acceptable excuse for this race report being 10 days late. Even after finishing this off, the joy (and cathartic nature) of writing is still there; the proof-reading, not. Apologies in advance :-) |
It’s 9.30pm- around 28 degrees Celsius- four of us (plus our driver) have somehow crammed bike bags and bodies (something resembling the game ‘Twister’ on wheels) into a rickety old van and we are dodging and weaving our way through the streets of Manilla. To think that barely 48hrs ago I was sitting by the pool at training in an absolute ‘state’ as my application for a professional license was sitting there unanswered after nearly six weeks- how things can change, and quickly at that!
Travel- After some very last minute travel planning I was mercifully seated next to two small Fillipino grandmothers rather than the seedy obese man in a white singlet sitting directly behind me. After multiple delays (on account of a once in a generation storm in Sydney) we landed in Manilla at 8.30pm exhausted! But that was only just the start of our trip. We loaded into three vans and began the 160k trip to Subic Bay. Manilla is the most densely populated city in the world; and boy did we know it! We went 4k’s in the first hour. Road rules were considered a mere annoyance- driving was like a motorised version of the Hunger Games. 4.5hrs later we eventually arrived- 23.5hrs door to door. The relief of finally being able to sleep in a comfortable bed was short-lived, during the night my room had three calls, with the last at 5.45am (a wake-up call for ‘Rodger’)
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| Travelling with these nuffies ;-) part 1: Dylan looking like an unaccompanied primary school student |
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| Travelling with these nuffies ;-) part 2: Sascha and his compression socks |
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| The highly appetising dinner on our flight to Manilla |
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| We passed a flower market on our way to Subic- this is around 10pm |
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| Our bus/crew |
The Pool- There was one blight of this trip, that was the security guard of the pool. One nice thing about travel is that by and large things are cheaper than they are back in Australia. Gatorades in the Philippines were $1.50, 1L bottles were less than $3. Many of us would go to the local Japanese restaurant down the road and have two bowls of rice and chicken Teriyaki for less than $10. So you can imagine our surprise when we were told it would cost 220 pesos ($8) for one swim…especially since the prices advertised were 150 pesos. Clearly there was a ‘foreigner tax.’ Each day there would be the usual argument with the security guard about the exorbitant cost. To the point that on one day he threatened to call the police on ‘James’ and ‘Jackson’ (i.e. Sascha and I’s horridly thought of pseudonyms). The attended never provided change even though his wallet (where the money went….sus!!!) was stuffed with notes.
Pre-Race- The days leading up to the race was a blur of training followed by coffee, walks down to the ‘Harbour Point’ shopping centre and our afternoon naps (triathletes sleeping habits are similar to newborns). Riding in the Philippines is quite an ‘experience,’ although I never felt unsafe. Road rules (and especially adhering to ones own lane) might be mere guides for drivers, unlike Australia they were never aggressive towards us. One really cool aspect was that Subic Bay is a U.S. naval base, so we had transport planes flying (and landing) overhead and we saw some Marines parachute into the water.
My pre-races nerves were surprisingly pretty good, nearly every race I had done over the last two years had been geared to my pro-license, a result-oreintated outlook is not healthy/sustainable. This time I had nothing to lose and no expectations of certain results. Instead my expectations revolved around certain ‘processes,’ you can’t control the result, but you can control how you approach and execute a race; it is a much healthier mindset. The pre-race descended into a slight farce when we were told that for safety reasons we would not dive-starting off the pontoon as the water was barely waist height. That seemed appropriate—slight problem! It was a two lap swim and we would have to dive off the pontoon for the second lap! Also we were told there would be no swim warmup as would start as soon as the sun came up, so in effect we couldn't even do a practice dive to ascertain whether or not we’d break our necks by diving into the shallow water.
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| The splinters still in my foot two days later |
Race Morning- Our alarms were set for 3.20am, dangerously near the threshold between having an early morning and a late night. Because of the heat and humidity at Subic (the fastest run split last year was 34minutes) we would start at 5.30am, basically as soon as there was some slither of sunlight. The social/relaxed atmosphere of the last few days had gradually hardened, so by race morning breakfast was largely in silence. I stuck to my familiar dish of garlic rice before heading down into the race site.
Ignoring the yesterday’s race briefing the majority of the athletes went for a warmup swim, even though visibility was terrible. Just as I was about to exit the water I stood on something spikey, jumping out of the water it felt, and looked, as though I had ten splinters in my foot. My final minutes before we were assembled were spent madly clawing at my foot trying to rip these things out- I had only partial success.
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Apparently I was representing the great country of Uzbekistan
Swim- Being ranked last (39th) was a considerable disadvantage to what was already my weakest leg. The first buoy was a 45 degree turn to the left and it was directly in line with the person further to the left. I was furthest to the right (about 35m away from no.1) on a pontoon that angled backwards (to further rub salt into the wound). We edged our way into the water with our hands on the pontoon- the horn went off and the usual sea of arms and legs ensued. Immediately I tried to veer across to the left but by the first buoy I could already sea what would be the front pack off ahead, I was left to scrap away with some fellow backmarkers. At the end of the first lap my Signaporean mate (who provided me a nice draft for most of the swim) dived in feet first to start the second lap…I thought ‘stuff it’ I might as well risk a dive since I'm that far back :-)
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| You can see what an advantage it is to be to the left- I'm the furthest on the right |
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| Race start, closest to camera |
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| One guy was so terrified of the shallow water he went in feet first |
Bike- Onto the bike there were five of us, to my surprise when I took a turn I managed to drop the rest of my pack, for the next 5 or so K’s I rode solo, catching up and then dropping a few more riders. At the turnaround though I saw Omar Nour had put in a big effort to bridge his gap out of the water and towards me (he later told me he averaged 420w for the first 15ks, in fairness he’s a very tall guy). I decided to wait up and re-group into a bunch of 10 or so other athletes. In hindsight I rather regretted this, my strength is the bike, and the way the dynamics of the bike worked (the main group in front of us didn’t ride that hard) I could’ve bettered my eventual result if I took a gamble. The rest of the ride was quite disorderly, few people did their fair share of work, and some Uzbek athletes struggled to hold a straight line. The course was pretty flat (besides one small hill) but the uneven road and an occasional car veering onto the course still made it quite a nervous 40ks. I concentrated on downing both my bottles and two gels as I could already feel the heat and humidity building. We entered T2 1.20m down on the main pack and around 3+minutes on a front pack of 8, they had worked hard on the bike.
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| on the front |
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| I love this photo 'godspeed' |
Run- We all ran out of T2 at a solid clip, and to my relief my legs were feeling quite good. Fellow Aussie (and now a member of our squad up in Brisbane) Tim George took off in what was to be the second fastest run of the day while a group of three formed behind him: Me, a Taiwanese and Japanese guy. We worked well together for the first four K’s, even sharing our water bottles if one of us missed out on one. By now the temperature had passed 30 degrees with humidity in the 70s- it was pretty uncomfortable out there.
My run training had been very interrupted over the last three weeks, having missed a week of running with a very nasty blister and then having an illness right after that. To this end I had missed both of our key run sessions. By the 6k mark I started to fade- the ‘elastic’ broke and I was dropped by my running companions. A further K down the road I was also passed by local boy John ‘Rambo’ Chicano who would put in a big negative split for the run.
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| Early stages of the run |
Finish- I crossed the line in a 1.56:08hr in 20th position. For my first ITU race I was very pleased. It’s been a long journey to this day. In mid-December I was 73kgs (I raced at 66) had not swum/run in three months, and was quite comfortable with the fact that I had quit the sport- the turnaround couldn’t be greater. I jumped into the ice-baths with the others and downed more bottles of water/gatorade than I could count.
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| The Carina Leagues Triathlon Club (Bryce in the yellow raced the day before in the Junior Division) |
Other Points:
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Post-race evening run with John 'Rambo' Chicano- he pipped me at the line and also set a Filipino OD record for fastest ever time. |
- Never share an EXTRA large pizza with a girl- waiting nearly 90mins for one of these to come out, I downed this pizza before I realised that my stomach was about to explode. Didn’t eat again for another 24hrs I was that full.
- It was so nice to have Lucy and her family there to watch me, they woke up at 1.30am to make the drive to Subic. Lucy has basically been my second mum, being at the house since the day I was born. She's had to put up with a lot over the years, including when dad got a little excited and bought me real (instead of plastic) handcuffs for my 5th birthday, end result was that Lucy was handcuffed to the oven with me refusing to let her free. It was pure coincidence that she was on holiday back home at the same time I was racing, to have a friendly face there meant so much!
- The journey back to Manilla was even more hectic than our one there. Our driver (who had two thumbs) blasted some of the dirtiest ‘bangers’ music at full volume for the whole trip.
- My neighbour on the flight home watched movies for the whole trip..without headphones. I offered him mine to no avail.
- The Subic Bay nightlife definitely catered for U.S. sailors who've been on ships (away from females) for months.
- Three of us were stopped mid run by policeman- only to be asked if we were Marines and then to have our picture taken with said police officer.
- I think it says a lot about our squad, that even after spending a week living with each other, the first thing we do the next day (on our rest day) is grab coffee together.
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| When I say we rode near a U.. army base, I mean very near! |
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| This came in our athlete bags- now thats a great way to risk a doping ban |
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| This guy ate the whole meal with both his earphones in! |
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| Chaos at Manilla aiprort, this was the que to just get inside the airport |
