A few weeks back I took part in my first 70.3 in Liuzhou.
Bit of an intro. It has been a bit of a whirlwind start to Triathlon for me. After having the 10km Shonan OWS swim in Tokyo cancelled last year after doing quite a bit of work in the pool I was a bit lost and was looking for a challenge so I thought I’d give triathlon a try. Long story short, I’ve been doing triathlon now since last October and so far my first three races have been a Sprint, then an Olympic and now a 70.3 in that order. I’m definitely enjoying the journey. I’m a foreigner based in a small town in China so most of the learning has been via this website and youtube, and most of my training has been solo.
Anyway, Liuzhou.
My wife, daughter and I decided to drive to Liuzhou from our hometown in Dongguan, around a 650km drive which we split over two days. We arrived in Liuzhou on the Friday afternoon before the race, enough time to register and get the race kit that afternoon.
On the Saturday morning I took the bike out for a ride to check out some of the bike course and did a river crossing swim at the open water starting point to get a feel for the water. In the afternoon I dropped my bike off to Transition and managed to get a fairly good nights sleep before a 4:50am wake up for Race day.
Awoke on race morning to a wet wet wet day. The Radisson hotel I was staying at was around a 1km walk from the T1, and I did the walk to T1 in the pouring rain. It was race day and I had a grin on my face the rain couldn’t wash away. After checking my bike, I, along with all the other competitors hopped on shuttle busses which took us to the starting point of the swim a kilometer or so down the river.
The swim went fairly well, and with the rolling start beeper there was not much hustle bustle in the water during the swim. The water was flat and it was fairly easy to settle into a good rhythm. After the swim it was a quick run up the 80 or so stairs from the river to T1 to grab the bike gear and get riding.
The bike course was fairly flat, and with the rain about I found my heartrate really kept pretty low. Going on the advice from this site I tried to keep my power average around 85% of FTP for the entirety of the ride which made the ride fairly comfortable. Next time I’ll follow my Garmin FTP as opposed to my zwift trainer as I find the Garmin does read a little higher and I probably could have pushed a bit harder in the ride. Coming off the bike I scurried into T2, put on my shoes and hat and started the run.
Within the first 500m of the run I was hit with pretty severe cramps in my legs. Damn. Being so early into the run I grit my teeth and tried to run it off. I’m guessing my training was lacking some good brick sessions to properly prepare me the for the transition.
After a painful 5km or so the cramps started to subside and I managed to get a bit more into the run. Out of the three sports in Triathlon the run leg is definitely my worst, and it became apparent by around the 15km mark that my legs, while ok for a standalone half marathon, are not good enough for a strong run after a 1.9km swim and 90km bike ride. My legs felt slow and heavy.
By the time I hit the last kilometer of the run I decided to pick up the pace and get to the finish. Unfortunately the last 500m of the course was wet, had quite a few turns, a bit of up and down and I managed to slip and slam really good on one of the final turns. Coming down hard on my hip and knee. Being so close to the end I managed to pick myself up off the wet pavement and do the adrenaline run to the end before the pain of the slam really kicked in.
Pretty emotional feeling at the end, and happy to crack 5 hours first time round.
00:26:15 02:34:00 01:45:54 04:55:21
Finally, any feedback on my bike fit would be appreciated, I’ve got no idea where to start and it’s a bit tricky where I am in China to get some expert one on one advice. Average power on the ride was 215W (221NP, 35kph) and I’m 72kg.
Bit of an intro. It has been a bit of a whirlwind start to Triathlon for me. After having the 10km Shonan OWS swim in Tokyo cancelled last year after doing quite a bit of work in the pool I was a bit lost and was looking for a challenge so I thought I’d give triathlon a try. Long story short, I’ve been doing triathlon now since last October and so far my first three races have been a Sprint, then an Olympic and now a 70.3 in that order. I’m definitely enjoying the journey. I’m a foreigner based in a small town in China so most of the learning has been via this website and youtube, and most of my training has been solo.
Anyway, Liuzhou.
My wife, daughter and I decided to drive to Liuzhou from our hometown in Dongguan, around a 650km drive which we split over two days. We arrived in Liuzhou on the Friday afternoon before the race, enough time to register and get the race kit that afternoon.
On the Saturday morning I took the bike out for a ride to check out some of the bike course and did a river crossing swim at the open water starting point to get a feel for the water. In the afternoon I dropped my bike off to Transition and managed to get a fairly good nights sleep before a 4:50am wake up for Race day.
Awoke on race morning to a wet wet wet day. The Radisson hotel I was staying at was around a 1km walk from the T1, and I did the walk to T1 in the pouring rain. It was race day and I had a grin on my face the rain couldn’t wash away. After checking my bike, I, along with all the other competitors hopped on shuttle busses which took us to the starting point of the swim a kilometer or so down the river.
The swim went fairly well, and with the rolling start beeper there was not much hustle bustle in the water during the swim. The water was flat and it was fairly easy to settle into a good rhythm. After the swim it was a quick run up the 80 or so stairs from the river to T1 to grab the bike gear and get riding.
The bike course was fairly flat, and with the rain about I found my heartrate really kept pretty low. Going on the advice from this site I tried to keep my power average around 85% of FTP for the entirety of the ride which made the ride fairly comfortable. Next time I’ll follow my Garmin FTP as opposed to my zwift trainer as I find the Garmin does read a little higher and I probably could have pushed a bit harder in the ride. Coming off the bike I scurried into T2, put on my shoes and hat and started the run.
Within the first 500m of the run I was hit with pretty severe cramps in my legs. Damn. Being so early into the run I grit my teeth and tried to run it off. I’m guessing my training was lacking some good brick sessions to properly prepare me the for the transition.
After a painful 5km or so the cramps started to subside and I managed to get a bit more into the run. Out of the three sports in Triathlon the run leg is definitely my worst, and it became apparent by around the 15km mark that my legs, while ok for a standalone half marathon, are not good enough for a strong run after a 1.9km swim and 90km bike ride. My legs felt slow and heavy.
By the time I hit the last kilometer of the run I decided to pick up the pace and get to the finish. Unfortunately the last 500m of the course was wet, had quite a few turns, a bit of up and down and I managed to slip and slam really good on one of the final turns. Coming down hard on my hip and knee. Being so close to the end I managed to pick myself up off the wet pavement and do the adrenaline run to the end before the pain of the slam really kicked in.
Pretty emotional feeling at the end, and happy to crack 5 hours first time round.
00:26:15 02:34:00 01:45:54 04:55:21
Finally, any feedback on my bike fit would be appreciated, I’ve got no idea where to start and it’s a bit tricky where I am in China to get some expert one on one advice. Average power on the ride was 215W (221NP, 35kph) and I’m 72kg.