Kenchan26: April 2014

First of all I wanted to say thank you for all the volunteers who have stayed in the heat of the day to support all atlethes. Especially the girls who stayed in the middle of the street during the bike leg to help with the traffic, your all awesome.

On to my race blog, this Ironman 70.3 is my first half Ironman race. The race was last April 13, 2014 and it is situated in the Hot and Humid wheather of Putrajaya Malaysia, it was a good experience for me I think all races will be much easier hahaha.

Anyway the race starts with a deep water age group wave start. This was a very good move on the side of the event organizer as a lot of the triathlethes are noobs just like me, it gives me the confidence to swim my own pace without worrying that a lot of people will swim over me. Our wave started an hour after the first wave. I got kicked once on the side of my leg and after i think 1.5 km of swimming my leg started cramping I called a support boat and grab onto it. The crew ask me if I wanted to the get a medic, but if I did i will definitely get disqualified so I told him no and that I can still swim. So after resting for a minute or two I started swimming again only using my arms and one good leg so that I wont irritate my cramping leg. I finish the swim at 55 mins plus and started to run walk towards T1.

On the bike transition I have taken my sweet time to put on my tri shirt (as I have swam without it) my arm warmers, gloves, helmet, socks and shoes, and walked towards the bike mounting area. After a few meters I shifted gears and boink my chain got off my chainrings I had to stop and fix it and test if all gears are working properly after that off i started to pedal. The course was really nice it was a two loop course with 3 aid station positioned at the correct place to give atlethes support and a long the way a lot of young girls and guys are giving additional instructions on where to turn aside from the big sign boards that where located in the streets. On my second loop I saw a lot of atleathes fixing their flat tyres and started worrying about mine. I started to feel that my tubular rear tyre was somehow peeling away from the wheel and so I stopped and check on it, it wasn't I think what I am feeling is that the sidewinds was blowing into it and giving me the feeling that it was moving away from me.

After 3hrs and 25mins I finished the bike leg I went into transition finding a friend who just got in as well. I put on my running shoes and my race bib and before I can run to the exit me and my friend took a selfie picture hahaha and off we go walking out of the transition area and started jogging to take a feel of my legs. On the first few kilometers I feel quite good but after kilometer 5 the heat and humidity started to take its toll on me and the cramping I felt on the swim came back to me eventhough i gave my best effort to stay hydrated and take in nutrition. I began a run walk prosession, I kept thinking to my self I have trained to run not to walk and so on the 16th kilometer mark I started to run my pace and finish my run walk 21km in 3hrs 15mins with an overall time of 7 hrs 48mins which is below my expected time of 8 hrs and I'm very happy about it. Surviving the swim, the bike and the run without any major body or bike problem.

Again a million thanks to all the volunteers who supported all of us racing the Ironman 70.3 Putrajaya.

Thank you to my family who have supported me during my training and racing in this event. I love you all.