Singapore Sprint Series - Race 3: Triathlon - TriathlonSprint

Don't know how to answer that question about drafting. Umm.....the faster swimmers had all been seeded in the Elite wave, so I was first in my wave. By quite a bit. Always thought this would be a dream come true, but in retrospect, I think I might have swum faster with the elites kicking me in the head. At least there would have been an adrenaline rush and people to push me. Kind of eery out there by myself, in water so opaque I couldn't see my fingers (really!)

Maybe ask for elite seeding? But the whole idea of me requesting "elite" status in anything involving a bike was just too much! Maybe next year--it is based on performance in the series and I hadn't done the other races; wasn't sure they'd give me wild-card seeding based just on my biathlon performance, and my swim coach thought it would be better for me to try a swim without getting beat up at the start.

Umm....there needs to be a category for finding your bike. I was dizzy(physically and probably mentally) and somehow my mental map of transition became transposed 180 degrees. Hard to explain but this has happened with cars in parking lots. It seemed to take an eternity to find my bike. Then I ended up running into the back of the wave that started ten minutes before me (I actually swam on top of one of them at the end of the swim). They (BOP master's guys) were all walking and I had to "persuade" them to let me run through. Ugh!

Arrive in time to "walk through" each transition; give extra time to the swim/bike one as I often am dizzy and light-headed when starting it.

I have never raced a tri with my new road bike before so didn't really know what to expect. Was amazed to see my kph often hitting 32-33; in training I can't sustain 30 kph for more than 5 minutes. Mostly due to road surface. Overall average pace about 30 kph due to turns and four rumble strips per lap. But really had no conception of "how hard is hard". I was breathing a bit hard and felt my legs were really working but felt really fresh on run, so maybe not working it enough. Think I need to develop the strength to ride in a higher gear as cadence (checked it a few times) was pretty high.

At the time I thought I was going quite hard, but I really had a lot left for the run, so maybe not. I erred too much on the other side in my first two tris and had (for me) pretty weak runs, so maybe overcompensated (see run section).

Very long distance between dismount line and run start (at least 200m) plus crowded, narrow chute to transition with bike. No way to go any faster without killing large numbers of men (considered it).

Can't think of anything, unless we're talking about the flying dismount. But I lost little time in getting off and running, even in bike shoes I am faster than most people. I did my utmost, esp. after my horrible T1.

OMG. From the first step, I felt really, unaccountably GOOD! No idea why. Legs a little tight from the bike, but the "dead" feeling went away within yards and I just felt really energetic and happy. Nobody else seemed to, and that made me feel even better. Just got totally zoned into my run, passed everyone in sight, tied for best overall time for women; actually only 37 seconds slower than the winning guy. (Though other guys had faster times.) As I have yet to break 20 minutes for the 5000 flat out, very happy with my time. Plus this included one final spaceout. Missed the finish. Seriously. It was around a blind curve, and I followed someone straight ahead. He turned out to be running a friend in and had left the course. He told me to go back and finish. Oh shit! Another ten seconds or so lost. No brain. But this is the first time in maybe twenty years that I have really gotten into that zone--it is dangerous at times but it's the place I've gone for my best running.

Except for check out the finish line in advance, and not run in wet sunglasses in the rain, nothing!

Walked around. Some stretches. Jogged back about 400 meters to jog in with a friend. Then cycled an easy 20 km back to the city center. That was a really good idea as I wasn't sore the next day at all.


The usual--spaciness, manifested as crap T1 and missing the finish line. Don't know if it's lack of sleep, not enough caffeine,getting there late, ADHD, or combination thereof. Maybe a runner thing--it's a less complicated sport than tri and I learned from a young age to just relax into pain and space out, so I screw up details like finding my bike, where's the finish line, etc. Live and learn!


Good. Just confused. My results after the race said I was third in my AG and I got on the podium and got the 3rd place award, but then the online results say I was 4th. Hope I don't have someone's award. Maybe some problem with the online results?? Overall the race was fun and well-organized. But slick of them to slip in an extra 5 km of biking! If it was an extra 5 km of running, I would have placed better!