Laguna Phuket Triathlon

I finally competed in the Laguna Phuket Triathlon last week after years of dreaming of doing this luxury resort triathlon event. And it was amazing - amazing accommodations, amazing food, and amazing organization (the organizers provided more police escort and support for the PRACTICE bike ride on the Friday morning before race than most events do for the race itself..) Of course before the race I said that Phuket event was just an excuse to visit Phuket, but when the race starts it was totally serious. And just like my last triathlon (Murakami in October) I performed great on the bike, slogged through the run in mediocre but acceptable fashion, and have a puzzlingly disappointing swim result:

Swim (1.8 kilometers in ocean and lagoon) - 40:34 / 359th place of 672

Unlike Murakami I felt I executed the swim really well. In the pre-race, pre-dawn darkness I grew increasingly stressed-out at the thought of my first real triathlon swim without a wetsuit. But my sighting was

good, my form felt smooth, and I had plenty of space even though I took an inside position around the buoys. It was only after the race when I saw my relative results that I felt disappointed with my swim. Swimming has been my main training focus and yet I am placing worse that I did several years ago.

Bike (55 kilometers with a few steep hill sections) - 1:42:37 / 112th place
When I see the bike results though I am ecstatic. I actually out-splitted Keren(!) on the bike. The Tim Smith Carbon Bike and my limited indoor training rides seemed effective again. I passed other cyclists on the steep hills from 5k to 10k and on several long straight sections toward the end. I seem to be the only cyclist with only one water bottle (most participants are carrying three!) - and yet I don't even finish drinking my one bottle before exchanging for a full water bottle and the two aid stations. Teammate Jack Byrd passes me around the 50k mark and I am inspired to chase after him the last 5k.

Run (12k on pavement, dirt and golf course) - 53:37 / 45th place
I slog through the run as best I can. Since it is "only" 12k, I do not bother with run/walk strategy. The run is not as miserably hot as I feared it would be - running on a golf course seems to alleviate some of the heat effect we suffer doing triathlon runs on pavement.

Total - 3:21:24 / 92nd overall, 8th out of 100 in age group

Pumpkin Push 5k

I completed the epic Pumpkin Push 5k this past weekend in Seattle. I ran the hilly course in 17:36 and placed 6th out of 636 competitors. Actually I don't know if I should call them competitors - many of the other participants were small children in Halloween costumes. Certainly the top dozen guys were competitive though -- I went out for a 5:25 first mile with a pack of 5 which broke up on a brutally steep short hill at the half way mark. As you can see in these pictures from the race photographer I was struggling to maintain a massive kick that I launched with 500 meters to go in an effort to crush some guy who had been running next to me the whole way. I did manage to beat him but could not overtake the 5th place guy. Well the cash prizes only went to the Top 3 overall finishers. Next year I will have to wear a costume.

Murakami Triathlon

Last Sunday's Murakami Triathlon was my big "A" race of 2011 -- it was not supposed to be, but it worked out that way.  The race was an Olympic Distance PB for me, and arguably my fastest overall triathlon performance to date. The bike leg was great, my swim was poor, and my run was acceptable.

SWIM - 31:09  (185th of 542)
It was a pleasant morning for a swim in the ocean. But despite all my training, I did not seem to execute well.  I got off to a slow start (partly by plan), and then just seemed to never get comfortable. Through the first half I had hopes that I was going faster than it felt, but when we ran up onto beach at the halfway mark I despaired to look at my watch and see spit of over 16 minutes.  (I had hopes of a swim time closer to 25 minutes). But open-water swim conditions are variable - my veteran swim teammates Chad and Keren estimated their swim times were 3 minutes slower than usual, so my effort was not as bad as I feared at that point.  And thanks to all the training I was not nearly as drained from the swim as I used to be several years ago.   

BIKE - 1:10:50 including transitions (51st place of 542) 

The bike distance of 40k is short enough that (unlike Vineman Half Marathon) the lack of long training did not seem to matter.  The short sessions on the indoor trainer did seem to help. And I have to admit again that my new bike really helped.  I simply outroll people on the black beauty.  I was amazed to pass so many people on the fast, flat out-and-back course.  It felt exhilarating cycling back with a tailwind at speeds over 40-kilometers per hour. 

RUN - 39:18  (23rd of 542)
I did OK. My unusually fast run at this course in 2008 (36:48) created unrealistic expectations. Sunday's 39:18 run time is in line with my other recent triathlon run times -- and my training.  In running my race result times and training effort are much more closely correlated. I guess that is a nice aspect of running - the justice, the simple payoff for the preparation involved.   

TOTAL -- 2:21:17  (49th place of 542)

Here are the overall results --

http://www.iwafune.ne.jp/~triathlon/2011/2011results-k.pdf

Sweltering in Singapore

Two years ago I did the Singapore Safra Bridge Run in 84 minutes which was good for a Master's 3rd place and an assortment of lavish prizes.  I recall feeling comfortable in the pre-dawn Singapore air and the equatorial humidity did not seem to affect me until late in the race. 

So I returned this past Sunday to hang out with my good friends in Singapore, do extensive swim training, and attempt to win enough marathon prize money to cover months of living in some Laotian jungle.  

The half marathon started at 5:15am, seemingly early enough to avoid the heat.  But before we had even covered 800 meters, I looked over to my teammate from Tokyo, Omar, who started with me, and exclaimed, "My god it is hot - it is so humid I cannot breathe".  I felt like I did when I ran in the high altitude of Denver, Colorado last year. Somehow I still managed to settle into a reasonable 4 minutes pace and start passing people.  

The marathon course is good for us people with background in urban planning and real estate development and I pointed out to Omar the whole new amazing skyscraper office district that the Singapore government is constructing at Marina Bay.  I am not sure that Omar really cared about the Marina Bay development project -- rather he kept replying about his lack of training and concern about melting.  Soon  Omar dropped back a bit, and by this time I had lost interest in the splendid sights of Singapore. For a while I concentrated on staying with a pack of Thailand team runners and then when I lost contact with them I concentrated on maintaining good form, then finally I  simply concentrated  on not giving up.   Increasingly I found myself cursing at my expat friends for living in Singapore.  

In the end I was pleased to finish in a time of 84 minutes just like two years ago (I am choosing to completely ignore several runners who claimed the course was short).   Somehow I seem to run 84 minute half-marathons when I am in sub-optimal conditions or sub-optimal training - Cape Town, Singapore, Katsunuma, Cambodia in 2007..

After the race I told myself that the next time I come to Singapore it will be only for swim events, but likely I will forget about Sunday, and find myself running in Singapore again. 

Vineman 70.3

A decade ago when I first started struggling to do a triathlon I was told of the Vineman Half-Ironman where the swim venue was so shallow that competitors could actually walk during the swim. This sounded great to me. Then a few years ago, teammate Adam York did Vineman and spoke of cool conditions throughout the day. This also sounded enormously appealing to me. So when my friend Arturo happened to mention the window of opportunity to sign up for Vineman 2011 way back last October I seized the opportunity to sign up, figuring I could always cancel and get the bulk of my registration fee back. Suddenly the event was upon me - it was only last month when Mika T pointed out that I should be doing half-ironman level training sessions, at which point it struck me that my Olympic Distance training was not optimal preparation for 5-hours of what is presumably my "A race". But Vineman was more of an A "trip" and I did not feel moved to alter my OD training plan. I would just wing it.

So it did prove true that the Russian River swim was so shallow that I could actually walk. Of course after ten years and hundreds of hours of swim training, this was no longer such a big deal, but it was kind-of interesting to stand up and look around during the swim. Unfortunately what I discovered when I looked around was that a lot of the people in my age-group wave were way, way ahead of me. I find that I do not get off to fast starts in swimming. My time at the turn-around was a distressing 22 minutes. But then we swam downstream rather than against the current and suddenly my speed was much faster. Faster not just versus the first half of the swim, but faster than the other competitors, I was passing people like crazy, apparently I am like a leaf and get carried along by the current. Carried back to the transition for a time of 36 minutes.

My bike time was 2:53:03, my 90k bike PB. I did not try to leave some strength for the run. In fact I barely seemed to have energy to make it to end of bike. At 80k a guy passed me and asked me if I was OK. I did not think I looked bad at that point, but its true I was tiring a bit toward the end of the ride. I tried to eat as much as I could, but I have been in more of a run/short triathlon mode the last few years and have lost some of the high calorie consumption while racing skill-set.

So my run was a survival thing and went OK. I ran 1:40:25 and was still passing people like crazy. It seems that in China, the spectators uniformly yell "Jar-yo" (literally "add gas"), while in Japan they invariably yell gambatte - which roughly seems to mean "hang in there" or "persevere". I thought Americans had a variety of random exhortations to cheer athletes on, but it seemed like the only thing I hear now is "good job". Though when I was passing some other faster runners Sunday, they commented "niiiiiiiice" which I thought was pretty cool. So over the last couple miles when my pace slowed to 8 minutes per mile and a couple other runners passed me I tried to reply in kind, but it just came out as a gasp.

Overall I was pleased with my Vineman effort given my training. Moreover it was a nice weekend amidst the scenery of Sonoma Valley and having the chance to see my classmate Gordon at his nearby Coppola Winery and enjoy post-race barbecue with Arturo after the race. Here are results -

Swim - 36:01 828th
Bike - 2:53:03 746th
Run - 1:40:25 400th?
Total - 5:17:44 354th

So (comparing apples and oranges), Vineman is my PB half-marathon to date:

2011 - Vineman - 5:17:44

2008 - China - 5:45:27

2007 - Lake Stevens - 5:33:28

2006 - Sado - 5:39:04

2003 - Wildflower - 6:14:48

Swim Relay Night in Singapore

I join the evening training swim workout with the Yellowfish Swim Squad in Singapore.

After months of swimming indoors and sharing one lane with 10 other swimmers, I find it glorious to swim in the open air on this typically tropical Singapore evening, surrounded by palm trees and towering residential blocks. The 16 club swimmers share 4 lanes in the spacious 50-meter pool.

When I arrive the coach, David, asks me about my swim level. Since I really have no idea about my pace, I mutter something about being OK in longer-distance freestyle, but lacking speed, and completely unable to do other strokes. So David assigns me to lane two, which is one of the slower lanes, and he has us do numerous sets of 200 freestyle. When it is my turn to lead the 200s, I swim them in around 3:45 and find myself over 30 seconds ahead of even the group in the faster lane 3 (though I am quite a distance behind the 3 guys in the faster lane 4 who are doing a different workout).

Then David informs us that tonight is a relay night and I find myself the anchorman for one of the 4 teams. This is the first race I have done in a swimming pool in my life, unless you count some informal childhood competitions dog-paddling against friends across a small neighborhood pool. I am the slowest of the 4 anchormen, and our team is crushed in the 4 x100. But then amazingly I manage to hold onto the lead and we win the 4 x 50. And then, even more amazingly I find myself doing the butterfly leg in the medley relay.

Now, I really cannot do the butterfly stroke, but I frequently do a "butterfly drill" for 20-30 meters as part of my training. The other three members of the team were adamant that they could not even do a single stroke of the butterfly, so being the team player I am I agreed to give it a shot. When the gun went off I gamely powered halfway down the length of the pool, windmilling my arms underneath me, and at this point, yet another amazing thing - I am actually ahead of the other 3 swimmers. Unfortunately I have not mastered my "butterfly" technique well enough to thrust my head fully up out of the water and get much air (I suppose this is one of the reasons I am ahead at halfway). Naturally I find myself gasping, sputtering, and reflexively holding onto the side of pool to get air. For the remaining 20 meters I am forced to revert to doing a hybrid dog-paddle, butterfly like flail. Somehow I make it to the hand-off, and my teammates seem pleased with my effort (or just happy that they did not have to do the butterfly). This being an informal affair we are not disqualified for the numerous infractions I would have incurred. My first pool competition of my life is great fun, though I probably should remain focused on open water competition.

Oshima Triathlon

I place remarkably well at Oshima Triathlon (Duathlon) on Saturday. As you can see from this picture I am very happy to win a medal.

I am mostly happy about my bike ride. It was far and away my fastest race on a bike ever - I covered the fast 40k course in around 64 minutes, thanks in part to very favorable wind conditions.

I finished 16th out of 250 (officially I was 12th but I am pretty certain the officials gave our wave a break of about 90 seconds).

Due to terrible weather before the race, the swim was replaced with a 5k run. I was disappointed that yet again I am unable to put all my swim training to use and attempt to gauge my swim progress. However the waves and w

ind and rain conditions right up until the race starting gun were terrifying. Moreover substituting a 5k run improved my competitive positioning - I was officially the fastest person in the 5k. On the other hand, both my transition on and off the bike were comically inept. Somehow in the tumultuous, pre-race storm I miscounted the racks and I was convinced my bike was on the far right rack when it was closer to the middle. Even worse, I double-knotted my laces on my running flats, a mindlessly stupid thing to do in a duathlon. The race timing results adds the two

transition to the bike time so I cannot determine how much time I consumed on the transitions and precisely how fast my bike time was - but I believe of the 1:09:19 total bike time at least 5 minutes were transition.

I found myself mostly dueling with teammate Stan Chow. I had managed to catch up with Stan who started in the first wave, but from midway in the 5k run to midway in the 10k run we went back and forth. Stan blew me away on the transitions.

The new bike ride certainly seemed to help. I felt so much faster - it was especially evident on downhill sections and so much more confident on corners and in crowds.

Amazingly I was fastest among the 5 Namban teammates (and even beat the legendary Kimm-san). If we had done a swim I have to think I would have lost the advantage, but compared to last year's Niijima result against Kimm-san, Reza, Motozo when I was 8-11 minutes behind on the bike, this year I was much more respectable.

My results (official):

5k Run - 17:12 (1st)

40k Bike - 1:09:19 (43rd)

10k Run - 40:40 (11th)

Total - 2:07:11 (12th)

Two Oceans - Cape Town South Africa

I traveled to Cape Town South Africa for the Two Oceans Marathon.

The marathon was meant to be my "A Race" for the first half of 2011. But ultimately it turned out to primarily serve as a fine excuse to journey to parts of the world I would otherwise never venture. The journey proved highly worthwhile, I can see why Cape Town was voted the world's number one travel destination on Trip Adviser. I have read that travelers are most attracted to places that remind them of their homes. Cape Town was like visiting a parallel universe version of my old home - San Francisco. And the athletic culture in Cape Town is amazing.

The marathon organizers held a "Friendship Run" around the Cape Town waterfront on Friday morning for runners coming from outside the country. It was a remarkably scenic and well organized event. I violated yet another sacred rule among more serious runners about never doing a run event carrying a balloon. This is probably an even more profound violation of the sacred standards than the many other rules I have now broken - doing pre-race group aerobics, walking during a race event, wearing the event t-shirt during the race..

The next day 6,000 runners gathered at dawn for the start of the marathon. Among the most moving parts of the event was hearing most all of the 6,000 runners around me bellow out the South Africa national anthem. As you know if you have seen the Hollywood movie "Invictus," the anthem itself is a beautiful song and represents a unifying element of South Africa ( During my visit to South Africa I was constantly reading and hearing of the issues of race and belonging and unity in South Africa)

The half marathon winds through Cape Town's upscale neighborhoods at the base of Table Mountain. I started slowly and managed to move past hundreds of other runners. My name was printed on my number and throughout the run spectators and fellow runners kept yelling "go Jay, looking good Jay" etc.

The race finished with a long, long finishing chute lined with bleachers that were packed with cheering supporters. Like at an Ironman Triathlon, the announcers work the crowd to encourage each runner. A different color medal is awarded to finishers under 4 hours, 5 hours 6 hours and 7 hours and as the clock ticked toward each hour mark, the crowd would build into a frenzy of cheering and stamping and clapping to exhort the runners staggering down the finish chute - yet another moving

element of Two Oceans.

My teammate Matthias had inspired

me to do Two Oceans - in fact I had originally had visions of joining him for Comrades, an 89-kilometer event in Durban, South Africa that also ranks among the world's great endurance events. Another teammate, Renald, is finishing up a several year work assignment in South Africa and he proved an amazingly host for us - we toured the wine country, cruised the harbor, climbed Table Mountain, ate at unique local restaurants, explored game parks and were able to gain a fascinating glimpse of South Africa. I may or may not make it back to South Africa for Comrades someday, but we are certainly keen to reunite our group for several possible events later this year and next in Europe.

(Oh, I finished the half marathon in 1:24:50 - I hoped to be able to run well enough to contend for prize money but it was not happening)

Its all about the bike

I had been in a stalemate over buying a new bike for a ridiculously long time. This really should not be so difficult - most of the cyclists I know spend countless hours researching and discussing their next bicycle purchase - one cycling friend lovingly studies at least 2 different bike magazines cover-to-cover each and every month in anticipation of a bike acquisition that might be several years away. But I could not even be bothered to even remember even the most basic information about my own old bike.

And I really dislike the triathlon "arms race" where vendors fuel a spiraling sense among triathletes that they need to keep up with competitors buying ever more expensive equipment, such that the average Ironman-level bike cost (including wheels) is approaching $10,000. I would be happier if races just supplied everyone with the same standard bike and the race would be totally about the cyclist ability, not his/her budget.

Five years ago I bought a $1,000 Antares as a stop-gap bike to use until I could afford a real, grown-up triathlete bike. The Antares was an object of much scorn and derision, especially since I took terrible care of it. Late last year the Antares" brakes reached a point where cycling was getting extremely perilous, and so I took the Antares to the local shop for desperately needed repairs. The bike repair guys told me it would cost 40,000 yen just to do the minimum work to achieve a moderate level of safety, and he urged me to immediately throw my bike into the trash bin, noting I could instead buy a better, brand-new bike for 60,000 yen. But I resisted buying another stop-gap bike. I would just prefer not to buy a lot of junk (the whole Ikea disposable furniture mindset is dispiriting to me, versus the traditional concept of buying a few, well-crafted items and keeping them for years and years and fixing these things).

Teammate Keren suggested I get in touch with "Titanium Tim" who was building custom made bikes, sourcing frames from close contacts in China. Tim was amazingly great - he spent considerable time carefully taking my measurements and consulting with me over frame, wheels and components. Tim initially suggested a titanium time trial frame with top end racing wheels, but I pushed back given my current level of poverty and the reality that I would spend far more time riding this bike around town than in races. Tim was able to put together a no-brand full carbon frame, no-brand full carbon racing wheels and the mid-range Shimano components for a cost that was maybe less than half what I would pay for a similar performance branded bicycle.


So anyway after the above anti-materialist rant how do I feel about my new bike?

It is totally great!

It is just a joy to ride (and I have only ridden around town so far). It is light and responsive and comfortable.

And I am surprised by the strong reaction to the bike. I figured I would not need to worry about theft because the bike is so non-descript - it is just an all-black stealth object - not at all bright and flashy like many high-end branded bikes. But in fact I have had several complete strangers ask me about the bike. And when it was parked in front of a cafe last week I observed two different sets of people point at it and make some comment to one another.

Even though the bike is great value it is still worth more than all my other worldly possessions put together.

Run/walk marathon

I ran Tokyo Marathon this past Sunday. 

I executed pretty well on my plan.  I did my weird run/walk tactic which seemed to help me make it to the finish line on limited training, and which seemed to puzzle so many spectators and other runners.  I ran 4:30, then walked 30 seconds, ran 4:30, walked 30 seconds, etc. from the start through about 33 kilometers after-which I only ran through to the finish.  The first couple walk breaks I found the course extremely crowded but after a few kilometers I had plenty of space to walk without interfering with the pace of surrounding runners.  I was surging pretty strongly off the walks.  At one point around 25-30k I had fantasies of dropping below 4 minute per kilometer pace and breaking 3 hours.  But around 32k my legs started feeling really bad.  I wished I could switch to swimming or biking (or sitting) for awhile.   I am glad I did the run/walk thing as annoying as it can be.  If anything I might have been better to have taken walk breaks all the way to the end. I plan to resort to the run/walk technique again in future runs, though hopefully not frequently.  

Here are my splits --