Niijima Triathlon

I competed in the Niijima Olympic Distance triathlon this weekend and did well - finishing 39th out of 170 finishers in a time of 2:28:15:

SWIM - 26:28 (93rd place)- I swam smoothly o

nce I got into a rhythm halfway through the first of the two swim laps. Swimming is the area I have been working on the most, and I had hoped to see more improvement since last year.  But it is hard to gauge swim performance (outside the controlled environment of the pool), and I struggled a bit in the open water and never really found anyone to draft comfortably behind.  I had dreams of keeping up with Motozo, but he was over a minute ahead. The cold water was a bit of a shock and may have slowed me a bit at the start by contributing to my need to initially breath on every stroke.  I suffered through 10-seconds of pure anguish upon plunging into the ocean at the start, and feeling cold water seep down my back into my wetsuit.  Yet I much, much, much, much prefer the tens of seconds of hardship at the start of the race versus the 40+ minutes of pure hell of running on a hot day (and sweating for an hour or more on the bike).  It was a bit of a challenge though getting out of wetsuit because my hands were a little numb and I was in the usual post-swim daze.  My transition must have been 4 minutes (but am not sure as the official transition times are included in the bike times.

BIKE - 1:22:05 (76th place): Unlike swimming, I had not trained much on the bike.  I recall writing the same thing last September about Murakami triathlon, and for Niijima my bike prepar

ation was even more feeble.  But I maintained my position reasonably well and 

felt like I was cycling pretty darn fast.  Niijima is described as a "technical" course with lots of tight corners and bumpy road surface and I am a particularly inept cyclist these days and kept hitting my brakes .  I found the bike course is reasonably flat considering this a is a mountainous, volcanic island.

RUN - 39:42 (4th place) - I ran very well, finishing with the 4th fastest run time in the field. Again, like at Murakami triathlon, my legs felt surprisingly good getting off the bike.  And like the Fuji-Susono half-marathon 

six days earlier, the Niijima run begins with a long, tough uphill and then continues to be a roller coaster pretty much the entire 10k.  But unlike Fuji-Susono, Niijima was cool weather and that made all the difference.  Niijima is a good course for seeing and cheering on teammates and it helped me to have the extra incentive of trying to overtake Phil and Nick.

NIIJIMA ISLAND - The Niiji

ma Triathlon is a wonderful weekend trip.  Embarking on the huge passenger boat at night from Tokyo feels like an exotic adventure.  And the island itself is in fact quite an exotic, tropical destination (especially considering you are still technically in Tokyo).   How many other triathlons have free, open air, natural hot springs beautifully perched on a rocky oceanfront cliff 300 meters from the finish?  The post-race party with most all the participants starts in these "Roman baths" then moves to sashimi dinner provided by the race organizers.  Cycling  around the spectacular island on Sunday morning completes the adventure.

(pictures courtesy of Mika T)

 

Gotemba Resort

Last year I could never be 100% sure that Mount Fuji really was looming over the Fuji Susono course, no matter what Yoshida-san kept saying - everything was shrouded in fog throughout the cold, drizzly weekend. And last year the half marathon was astonishingly easy for me - I somehow ran a 1:20:18 on the roller coaster course.

This past weekend at Fuji Susono saw clear weather and hot temperatures - Mount Fuji made for an impressive backdrop for all the photos that are huge and festive group took. And this year the half marathon was astonishingly difficult for me - I ran a 1:25:03 and even struggled on the long downhill finish.

Everyone was a bit slower this year - I only dropped from 4th to 6th place in my division. But my teammates did not seem to struggle nearly as much as I did. Perhaps I am weaker in the heat like I always like to complain about.

Or perhaps my 30+ teammates were just more realistic and wiser than me and took my advice about just relaxing at the bizarre Gotemba Resort and microbrewery.