Well, was quite an experience…

Last september, when i was confirmed that i would be staying in Malaysia on a business trip for more than 4 months, I packed my sport gears, including my road bike, thinking that at least i won’t get bored during eves and weekends at the hotel/resort.

I also had in mind the famous & popular Phuket triathlon in Thailand, only 1h30min flight from the Johor Bahru, the city i stay…

Surfing the net, i found a run in singapore (just across the border, 1h30min from the hotel) and i thought that it would be a great tune up race as it is scheduled 1 month before the Phuket triathlon.. i went to singapore on saturday, one day before the race, stayed at a hotel nearby the starting line…on sunday 26 oct (race day) got dressed up for the race at 6am when i realized that i forgot my pair of socks…now it is probably an unecessary item for you but believe me, because of the tropical weather and the profile of the race (12km on road-1km in the sand-2km on pathway) this is the worse to do! I also realized that i forgot my HR monitor…but in fact, this item is totally irrelevant here…with a temperature over 350 everyday and a humidity at about 70%, the HR reaches the roof just by doing streches!

Anyway…here i am, in the middle of the crowd made of 10,000 participants…if you don’t know about singapore, it is the safier place in the world and people are “afraid” of doing anything, say…”unusual”…example?: you chew a gum, you get fined…your dog is unleached, you get fined…you call a cab in the street a bit loudy, you get fined!! consequently, everybody is quite and well educated when the race starts.. after 1km into the race i already swet like i’ve never did before in my life..somehow the locals seem totally comfortable..go figure..at 2km, the pathway becomes very narrow wihch cause lots of slow down..hard to keep a good and study pace…now that i think about it, it was better this way otherwise i wouldn’t be able to finish at the pace i started….

anyhow, i was able to regroup at mid-point of the race and started to feel much better..i then decided to raise my pace a little bit when the road finally got wider….it has been about 10mins since the blisters bothered but i hang on well…comes the sandy section of the run after 12km…hard to describe my pain as the sand get into my shoes….don’t have time to appreciate the nice beach we are running on…..2km to go and we get back to the wide open road we have started the race on…facing the sun, no breeze at all, temperature just hits me like a hammer..an aussie beside me is suffering like crazy..i ask him:”Are you ok?” he goes: “temperature is ridiculous! don’t know if i’ll be able to finish, mate!”..”no worry my friend, we’re almost there” i replied…i can now see the finish line..was able to sprint a bit and stopped my timer at 1h23mins, about 10mins more than my usual time for this distance!!

I can’t evaluate my performance…i guess it’s hard for me to say whether or not it is that bad especially under such conditions and running without socks…

Two things for sure, though: 1) race was great and people quite civilized (they make sure to put their garbage in the bin while they’re running!), and 2) i’ve learned my lesson and you can be sure that socks will be the 1st i’ll pack for the Phuket tri.!

Talk to you later, guys, after the Phuket triathlon on december 3rd