Ironman 70.3 Japan - Triathlon

The water was cold, even though the actual water temperature was 20C it felt freezing. Weirdly being the Shinmaiko Marine park, the water wasn't that clear at all.
The current is against you for the first half, but after the u-turn you get the current behind you which is nice.

Not start off in the front, i got kicked and grabbed by so many Japanese guys it just wasn't funny.

The T1 area is just full of problems.
No fresh water to rinse off the sea water.
You have to collect your T1 bag find somewhere to change (which there isn't) and place everything back into the T1 bag and return the bag before you go get your bike, they don't allow anything on the floor at the bike area.
It's fairly far to your bike and there's no matting on the floor, the stones were quite painful to step on.

I'm really not sure what i could do differently, maybe have a small bottle of water in my T1 bag to wash the salt off my crotch?

Now here was my biggest problem, the day before during bike check-in one of the Japanese triathlon official (the guys running the race) seemed to not like me for some reason and didn't want to allow me to rack my bike and give me my timing chip, and he couldn't even give a reason why. I had to officially complain to an Ironman official, before he would reluctantly allow me to rack my bike and give me my timing chip. Little did i know this was just the start of my problems.
After coming out of the swim and running over to grab my bike, i saw the same JTU official from the day before standing next to my row of bikes, watching me, smirking at me, i didn't think much of it and just grabbed my bike. After pushing my bike pass the mount line there was only 50M before you had to do a u-turn, i turned my handle bars and noticed my front wheel was still pointed forwards! My stem bolts were loose! I had to stop and grab my multi-tool, which was when i noticed one of my stem bolts was just plain missing and the other was so loose it was almost going to fall off! I tightened the single stem bolt and hoped it would hold. Around the corner i go and down onto the TT bars. Slip! both bars are loose and are pointing towards the ground now! WTF!? Immediately, the JTU official's smirk seemed to make since now. Stopped the bike again fix the TT bars, check every single bolt on my bike, every single bolt was loose (i tighten them in the morning and some key parts have threadlock on them).

Now onto the actual course, you had to do 2 and a half laps around the Lixil factory compound, which was full of potholes and and narrow no passing zones, seriously an adolescence boy would have smoother skin than the road conditions. I've been on CX courses which were less bumpy! And obviously no-one followed the no-passing zone signs, which i had a few near misses with some guys insisting they could pass me and get around the corner at full speed. JTU officials didn't seem to care either.

Coming out of the factory compound you have to go across some rather sketchy decisions JTU made to get you onto the main road, mainly some even narrower sections of plastic boards to get you over a few steps, then down a 200m section of pedestrian footpath.

Onto the main road is where things brightened up for me, the course almost fells like a city TT course with short straight sections 90 degree or u-turns, i really felt at home. Head down, brake hard, u-turn, pull the bike back up, stand up and accelerate hard back up to speed, then head back down in the aero position. Many guys didn't like the spaghetti course, but i enjoyed it.

Road surface still was not great, but at least acceptable.

I would probably beat the JTU official up next time.

T2 is in a completely different place to T1 so you had to just drop your bike off anywhere you see an official, then run to get your T2 bag. Again there is no area for you to change and you see people just all over the place just trying to quickly get changed. You have to return your T2 bag again before you leave the T2 area.

Unfortunately, this is were i twisted my knee dismounting the bike.

Be more careful on the dismount!

The run course is pretty nice, it takes you through the country side of Tokoname and around rice fields, before bringing you along the coast. if you were allowed to bring a phone on the race i would have stopped at some spots to take a photo.

Due to my knee becoming more and more swollen i was reduced to a limping walk. Along the coast the locals were extremely nice, cheering you on, asking about my knee, offering you some locals snacks.

I knew i was going to be tight on time before the official race cut-off, but i really didn't expect at the last 300m to have an ironman official come up to me and said i have 2 minutes left before cut off and i needed to run.

Biting down my on my teeth, i limped/ran across the finish line with seconds to spare. It was obvious officials had radio'd ahead that i needed medial attention as there were 2 doctors at the finish line waiting for me. Nice touch!

Not get inured!

Crossing the finishing line doctors rushed over and quickly grabbed me over to the medical tent.


A swollen knee the size of a ham!


I really wanted to like the race, but i really couldn't. The bike section is absolutely terrible. I would like to say that rouge JTU official didn't ruin my experience, but the fact is he is one of the main reasons i will not be entering the race again.

Most post race parties are an absolute joy, unfortunately, this party you got some mini sausages, some luke warm fried udon, some curry fish balls and 2 coupons for a canned drink (all the beer was very quickly gone).

I really wanted to like this race and the views were quite nice at times, i came to this race along with 90 other racers all from Hong Kong, but mainly because of the bike section, there wasn't a single person who said they would do the race again.

I really have to say this race's organisation is very un-Japanese like, there are so many little things that could have made the race so much better, but wasn't done.