Murakami Triathlon, the mission completed

Last Sunday, I went out to Murakami for 51.5k triathlon with Ma to overcome Niijima swim DNF, and the mission was happlily completed. Here is the report I posted to Namban (my running club) list.

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2:43:51 71st overall, 1st AG

S 35:59 131st

B 1:21:16 77th

R 46:36 51st

This race wasn't on my annual race calendar until I had a traumatic Niijima experience. I decided to do this because I just couldn't leave it without doing anything. Therefore, my mission for this race was to finish and I am happy to be able to do so this time.

Swim

The sea was very calm and flat, and thanks to the Kamakura swim with Jay, David and Ma a week ago, I didn't have fear in the water anymore. I started at the very end of crowd to avoid any brutal battle and made sure to myself to start very, very slowly. About 10 minutes after, I found myself feeling comfortable in the sea, and also picking up the pace a little by little. I comleted 1.5k without problem and even had 4 minute PB.

Bike

The course was mostly straight and flat, and all you need to cope with was the wind. I regret that I didn't bring Keren's DH bar that I have been keeping for a long time. But after the turn around point, we had fabulous tail wind all the time. I was also lucky to have a woman company all the time. I had to work hard to keep up with her. Without transition, I think my bike time was about 75minutes. (Need to work more on transition!)

Run
The heat was the factor. Also I was afraid of having a cramp in my leg, but thanks to the electrolyte tab Mary gave me, it didn't happen to me this time. And maybe because of IM training these days, 10km run felt quite short for me, but it doesn't necessarily mean I could run faster, unfortunately.

I won my age group (out of only 5 people) and had 5kg of rice. Nice bonus! I like triathlons because of this! :-D

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On the final note, thanks to Ma, Motozo, Meg, Adam, David S., Ben, Tony, Vanessa and Tomoko for sharing a good time there.

DNF at Niijima Triathlon

Last weekend, I made a trip to Niijima with other Namban tri mates (Mary, Phil, Motozo, Jay and Nick) for my first triathlon race for the season. I took this Olympic distance one as a season opener and it was supposed to be a fun race.

When I looked at last year's results, I found out that third place woman's time was slower than my Oshima time last year. I suddenly got ambitious. "I might get podium."

I have been swimming a lot, compare to last year before Oshima. I joined early morning swim sessions twice a week, doing lots of drills and interval training for full 2 hours each. I also joined Saturday evening swim squad. My upper body especially arms got bigger because of it. I was the most confident ever about swimming and I was rather looking foward to it than being scared. But....

Here is the report I posted Namban list.
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Mika Tokairin DNF

My first DNF triathlon. It's ironic because this was almost first time I wasn't nervous about swim leg and I even had slight confidence from recent early morning swim sessions I have been joining.

I started with 2nd wave group and about couple of hundred meters after the start, around the first buoy, I started to have difficulty with breathing and I had to keep my head up all the time swimming with breast stroke. Lots of people passed me and even 3rd wave group was approaching me with furiously fast (I felt it that way) pace. The breathing problem got worse and worse and I started to feel fear, but thank God! I found a rescue guy near me. I held his rescue board for a while and regain my breath. The guy said to me "It should be all right. Just start slowly, don't rush, relax, you can do it!". "OK, I will try..." I said reluctantly and started to swim towards 2nd buoy.

First, it seemed to have worked out. My breathing was calm and steady. But super fast 1st wave group started to lap me with furiously fast pace (I felt it that way) and my heart rate reached to maximum level because of fear and I started to have breathing problem again. I tried to continue but it again got worse and worse and I really had to stop. "I can't do this any more, let's look for the rescue guy who helped me while ago." I looked around, and found that I was middle of nowhere (I felt it that way). But this time, I really. desparately needed help. I shouted "Hey!!!" while doing dog paddling. No one noticed me. Again, "Heeeeeey!!!!". No one responded. I panicked. My breathing problem was getting worse and worse and some negative idea crossed my mind. I shouted as loud as possible. "?#&%$(?=$#!!!!!!!!!!!", then "zgjhgbvwbiqzpwbnvtzabn!!!!" and "bnrmdohesdkfjhgakdf!!!!".

One rescue woman finally found me and started to come to me with super slow (I felt it that way) paddling, talking to me "Daijobu desuka---? (Are you OK?)". No. Definitely not OK. I was rescued and came back alive! My first triathlon of this year finished less than 20 minutes (I can't believe it all happened in such short time. I felt it was like forever).. Shame, but I am glad that I stopped. This is the first time I ever had a life-threatening moment in a race.

I don't know why this happened to me all over sudden. Some said my wetsuit is too tight. Could be true, I gained my weight and my upper body got bigger because of hard swim training (and too much eating). Some said it must be cold water. Could be. It actually felt cold to me when I went into it. Or there could be other reasons. Whatever the reason was, I have to get over this experience. I hope this will be good lessons for my future races, especially for my first Ironman in this August.

Congratulations to Mary (prize winner), Motozo, Jay, Phil, Nick and Sumie! Watching and cheering you guys was really fun and I felt it was worth coming even though I couldn't finish. And big thank you to Phil for arranging such great place to stay.

END
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Today, I went to the doctor. He is a internist and also a sports doctor Yoshiko introduced to me. He sees many marathoners. I told him what happened during the swim leg. He said, "It might be some allergic reaction. Do you have hey fever?" I said yes. He said "When your immune system goes down for some reasons, sometimes you will get sudden allergic reaction. Nervousness or too much excitement before the race can lower immunity. Over training, too."

"I'm not 100% sure, but since you are OK now, you don't need any medication. Just choose the right time for next race. Spring is not very good for who has allergy."

Hummmm, sounds like I can keep training. That's a good news. Let's hope it won't happen again in Canada.

Sado Triathlon B type

Last Sunday, I completed Sado Triathlon B type (2km swim, 105km bike and 20km run). This was my 4th proper triathlon and 2nd middle distance one. Here are my result and report.

Overall time: 6h08m50s
Swim leg (2km): 47m48s
Transition: 6m37s
Bike leg (105km): 3h35m39s
Transition: 3m58s
Run leg (20km): 1h34m49s
154th overall
12th overall woman
Won my age group :-D

Two summers ago, I started triathlons as a seasonal fun activity and I have never expected "racing" in triathlons. For this time, I had a feeling that I was not only participating, but racing.

I got up at 3:40am and caught a bus at 4:20am to the starting area. The rain stopped and by the time we arrived the transition area, the sky was nicely overcastted and it seemed to become a pleasant cool day.

Swim
The sea condition was perfect, the water was almost as flat as a swimmingpool. As I knew that I am a slow swimmer, I started with the slowest groupand started swimming very slowly. First, I was just concentrating on keeping the form I learnt from my excellent swimming coaches, then soon I realised that I was passing many people, which was very encouraging for me because it never happened before. One mistake I made was that I happened to go into the inside of the course and got involved in the "battle", but even after having a Lariat at back of my neck, I didn't panic and kept　"racing" with people around me. When I came out of water, my honest impression was "is that it?". 2km swim felt much easier than 2.5km last year to me (is there any "wall" between these distances?), and I was excited when I saw my watch showing 47 minutes! I never expected under 50 minutes.

Bike
After taking an energy gel (ume aji, my favourite!), I got on the bike in an extremely good mood (go me!), but tried to keep sensible pace because 105km is not easy distance for me. Since I lost my cycle computer the day before, I couldn't monitor my speed at all, but I kind of knew the right pace from my feeling. Early part of the course was straight and flat through the golden rice field, then you hit the coast line where it started to get scenic but hilly. Around the one third of the bike course, it started raining and around 50km point it got hard, but it didn't bother me much somehow and I kept passing people. I was surprised that I felt even strong at the uphills and passed lots of guys in front of me. I thought I was not a climber because when I went for a long ride with Namban triathletes, I was always left far behind at uphills. Now the hard bike rides with those excellent athletes paid off! I passed more than 200 people at the bike part. Well, it's the privilege for a slow swimmer.

Run
I wasn't sure how hard I could run after 105km bike ride, but I was feeling OK, still had some energy left in me. My only concern was cramping. Before I started running, I drank Electro Shotz drink and grabbed Athlete Salt and Sports Beans, but I forgot to bring Cramp Stop spray with me. Anyway I was nearly fully equipped for cramping. But near the 5km point, my hamstrings started to cramp and I had to stop to stretch. I took Sports Beans praying "please please stop this cramp!!! I want to finish this race!". I slowly and carefully started to run again and went back to the decent pace. I had to run very carefully all the way because when I sped up to a certain speed, the cramp came back and I had to stop and stretch. It was a frustrating run, but at the same time, I was running faster than I was hoping to and I passed nearly 100 people during the run, so I can't really complain, right?

My Sado experience was so much fun and it became a good confident builder for my first Ironman next year (I got into Canada). On top of that, I got the first prize in my age group. That was a nice bonus. The cool weather helped a lot, and my energy supply went pretty well. Those two factors mattered a lot to this result.

Thanks to all who trained with me and gave me advises and encouragement, and to Brett who cheered me and helped me at many different points on the course.

I shall come back to Sado for A type race some day! Tri is fun! So much fun!!!

Oshima Triathlon

Just a quick report.

Swim 39:36 (172nd)
Happy to finish within 40 min. At the very latter part, I had a cramp in my right calf and got panicked, but managed to complete with no kick.

Bike 1:17:15 (including transition time, 103rd)
So much fun to pass many people! 3 minute improvement from 2 years ago.

Run 47:30 (64th)
I seemed to have used up legs at the bike leg, and got cramp at my left hams. Lost couple of minutes. But luckily I had a bag of Sports Beans with me and the electrolyte in it helped me to keep going. Time was dissapointing, but I am still glad to complete the race.

Total 2:44:21 (110th out of 212, 9th woman out of 30)
Despite my slow run time, I could finish within my target time 2h45m. I am happy and had so much fun!

All Nambanners did so well. Espacially Chris Flannagan came in 6th overall and Vanessa was in top three overall women. We are so proud of them at the prize giving party. Tri debutant Anthony did great, too! He got sick in the water and had a crash on the bike, but still finished in very good time, 2:43:33.

After the race, we soaked in open air onsen, went to the prize giving party, enjoyed nice self tempra dinner at the hotel, then had a fun at a karaoke place to close such a joyful day.

Suzu triathlon report.

This was my third triathlon and the longest distance ever for me. What worried me most was swim part. 2.5k in the ocean sounded pretty impossible to me first, but somehow, I chose this race as a summer project. I urgently needed to improve my swimming skill in 2 months. On top of swimming 3 times a week, I borrowed a "Total Immersion" DVD from Stuart and I also took private lessons. All worked pretty well on me and gradually I started to feel easier (never faster, though) in the water. It's always nice to experience your improvement through your training, and you can get it most when you are a beginner. So the improving process this time was so precious for me.

We had a beautiful weather on the race day morning. Unlike my first tri in Oshima last year, the ocean in Suzu was clear and calm, thank God! So I had less pre-race anxiety than expected. Although I had a bit of difficulty on navigating myself straight (sometimes I swam into others at right angle), I never panicked or drowned and could finish most-worried swim part alive. So relieved!

At the bike leg, we cycle 2 laps of 50.1km course. There are 3 significant hills in a lap and the third one is notorious "Ohtani Toge" where I saw many people pushing their bikes on the course. My target at the bike leg was not to get off the bike and cycle through to the top, so I tried hard nonetheless I was sometimes slower than people who push bikes. 2nd lap was especially hard with tired legs, but the spectacular scenery along the coast helped and competition against other women kept me going.

At the run leg maybe I should have tried harder, but didn't have enough guts left in me anymore. To be honest, I chose to enjoy the event rather than killing myself to run harder. I stopped at the every aid station (there are more than 10!) and enjoyed sumptuous water melon, oranges, lemons, bananas and umeboshi as well as drink and ice. I tried a bit harder at the last k and passed 5 or 6 people in front of me. Was I mean?

My overall time was 7:47:15. I don't know this time is good or bad, but this is the longest time I have ever raced and I am very happy that I could get to the finish line.

I became 8th out of 22 women finishers and won the age group, which was a nice surprise, but most importantly, I enjoyed the whole experience in this tiny town Suzu. Lastly, I would like to thank my tri mentors Keren, Jay and Stuart for sharing this great weekend. Tanoshikatta.