Port Dickson International Triathlon 2011

Date: 24 July 2011
Venue: Avillion Admiral Cove, Port Dickson.

I went there without booking any lodging. I just go and gamble. Luckily got a place available to stay, and it’s quite cheap. PD Marina World. I used to stay here when i first did my PD tri 2 years ago (2009). RM100/nite, it’s a 1 room apartment, with kitchen area, fridge, living room with sofa bed & TV, a bathroom & a bedroom. Good deal is it. The place quite scary, tall building apartment but look like not well maintained & abandoned. But hey, waddaheck, just wanna stay there for the race only. LOL

The total participants seemed to grow bigger this year. This is a good sign, would love to see the local triathlon scene getting bigger & bigger, it will be a well recognized sport in Malaysia, and more events a year, hopefully.

1.5km Swim

This year swim a bit different from last 2 years of my participation here. The tide is low this time, the shallow part is long from the starting point, so we have to run & wade through the shallow water about 200m then only can swim. But i decided to wade it slowly to save my energy. The water was so murky, with almost 1m of visibility. Cant see clearly other swimmers in front or beside. If the water are clearer, i can see swimmers around me and avoid them. I got hit, pulled, kicked several times.

Upon approaching the first buoy, as expected, bottleneck happened. A swimmer swam over me, small amount of sea water got into my mouth & i got panicked for a while! Damn!.. Well, this is triathlon, u cant avoid this kind of chaos while swimming with hundreds of swimmers. That why they release the swim part by wave to avoid chaos.

The water was calm, just little underwater current that i can barely feel.

My 1.5km swim done in 35mins! 😉

 

40km Bike

I have no problem with T1 (swim-bike transition). Started slow with the bike as my heart rate still very high, breathing hard. So i took it slowly, dont wanna push myself too hard. Cycling is my weakest part, and i didnt do much training also… hehehe 😛 So i just ‘layan’ with my own pace.

‘Layan’ and ‘layan’, until reaching KM 27, i feel my bike a bit heavy. Looked down at my rear tire, arghhhh.. it’s flat!!! Have to find a safe place to stop to have a look at it. Found out it almost no air in it. Dont wanna change the tube as it’s just not far away from the T2. So i just pumped in the air just enough for me to bring it home. Riding anxiously, constantly monitoring my rear tire, not a good feeling though :p my first flat during a race 🙁

Alhamdulillah made it back to the transition. Clocked 1:30 for the bike course.

 

10km Run

The running route was a bit interesting this year, but more difficult. 4.5km of running on the soft beach sands!!! That maybe good for the legs, but not good for a smooth run. Soft sand will make ur feet fumble & sink a lot.

Uncle Chan (organizer) chose this route as required by the co-organizer, Tourism Malaysia to promote tourism on PD. Although it’s hard, the route is very scenic & enjoyable! Didnt know PD still got a nice place to see & visit 😉

The new beach side route is not my complain actually. The only complain was, there was 2 water stations ran out of water. This is a big turn off for the run. Never happened before in Uncle Chan organized events. Hope they aware of this & will improve next time, k 🙂

Finished the run in 1hr sharp. My official total timing was 03:07:49! (source: TriathlonMalaysia.com)

 

PB or not?

By looking at the official timing, yes it was a PB for me. But i felt that the run course was under-distanced! Some said it was 8.4km or something. Well, whatever the outcome was, i managed to finish it in one piece. Alhamdulillah! Another triathlon added in my history 😉 that make it 6 triathlons done! 🙂

Next triathlon will be Desaru Long Distance International Triathlon on September. No more under trained after this LOL 😀