The Austin Triathlon

The place to take your bib number and goodie stuffs


My bib number. Nice isn't it?


This is how a triathlete would lays his/her equipments out before the race. Swimming would be the first followed by cycling then running so you'll see the cycling shoe already attached to the pedal so that you don't have to waste time wearing it; you can wear them while cycling! It sounds difficult but once you practiced it, it's effortless. Once you're done with biking then it's running. The shoe has a special strap which you can just slip it on without tying. Fast and easy.



The transition area: It's where you coming from swimming, take your bike and go then come back and run. Believe it or not, people take about 1-1.5 minutes each time to change from swim to bike then to run.

Well, that fateful Monday came and against all odds I managed to finish my first triathlon race! It was tough at first because the most challenging course is the first event which is the 700 meters swim. It doesn't sound far but when you there on site and looking at the swim route, you'll scare yourself crazy.

The starting point, swim: That's the lake I swam. I have to swim until the second buoy and turn around and swim back. Pretty far I tell you. Took me about 18 minutes.


The black line shows the swim route that we're supposed to go and the blue is the path that I swam. I started freestyle but I could'nt see where I was going and ended up right in the middle of the loop when I realized nobody was around me. Then I turn back into the course and changed to breaststroke all the way.

Anyway, once I reached the end of the swim, I was a little exhausted but extremely relieved that I finally finished the most challenging course. Feeling a little disoriented I managed to run to my bike, swallowed a pack of PowerGel, slip my shoe in, wear my helmet and my glasses and off I go! From that on, cycling and running was easy in comparison.



For cycling, I have to ride for 27km so I maintained my speed at 30-33 km/h as much as possible. Sometimes I got ahead of myself especially when there's a lot of people cheering and went up to 40... Uphill was easy but I was cursing during downhill; I was passingby people while doing uphill but they pass me by when I was going downhill... Weird? I wasn't aerodynamic enough. They're all using road bikes whilst I'm using a mountain bike with road tires.

Goodies that I got: They gave us a nice polyester t-shirt (those quick dry types), a nice running cap (also quick dry), swim cap (to identify your age category and also to see you clearly in the water so they can rescue you if you're drowning), a timing chip and some energy bars and gels.


Timing chip: This is a device that a chip that helps time your race accurately. It works by RFID whereby you run pass a receiver (a matt) and it transmit a unique serial code to the computer. It's self-powered through the use of a magnetic induction method. The coil inside is powered when you pass through a magnetic field (the matt). More details here.


Since Khai Ling and Kelmynn likes to self pose with their new clothes so I'm doing it too =P. Here's my actual tri clothes complete with my bib number. That's the same clothes that I wore for all three events without changing to save time.



Race day: Moments before my event starts.
Since there's a lot of bikes and you might get disoriented after swimming so what triathletes do is they try to remember where they park their bike. Some attached a cute looking helium-filled balloon while some just remember the closest thing to their rack. I park my bike on the second how from the top so I can easily find it.



Body marking: The closest I get to body tattoos =P
Every triathlete has to have their body marked with their number on their legs and arms. Their age is also marked on the calves. This is where you can see which girl is younger or older than you easily. XD


The live band performances after the race


Lots of foods were ups for the taking. It's eat all you want breakfast of tortilla with chicken or beef, loads of fruits, loads of sodas and stuff. I only managed to wallop one huge banana, a chicken tortilla and a coke. Small stomach =P

The 5km run was challenging too. I thought it was going to be easy but the weather wasn't forgiving that day. It was hot! I aimed for 4.30 min/km pace and managed to finish in 23 minutes. At the end of the finishing line, I was totally exhausted with sweats all over. One of my few motivation to push myself to run hard was to pick on someone infront of you and try to overtake him. Once you overtake him, you pick another runner. Great for kiasu people like me.XD

The finishing line. The cameramen were at the back of the line and I was just too tired to pose. I hope I didn't look bad in it.



Tim and I after the race:
Tim, my manager is the one who supported me. He loan me one of his bike and helmet and taught me a little on swimming (he wasn't good at it, he said) so I want to give my upmost appeciation to him and also Laurel (his wife) for their great support. =D

Thanks to all my lovely friends for their support too! And to my dearest May for her never ending encouragement; without her I wouldn't be able to finish =).

Tim went for the full distance Olympic category and finished in 2 hours and 28 minutes while I in the Sprint half distance finished in 1 hour and 40 minutes earning myself a 155th overall placing out of 731 (both gender) and a 12th place for my age category. Quite all right a timing for a first timer, I guess.

It was a really exhilarating and fun experience of joining my first tri race and I think I got addicted to it. All the hardwork of training for it; weeks of swimming, running and cycling and finally actually racing for it and giving it your bestest is feeling that is hard to describe. You've got to try it yourself to know. Will I join again? Of course! XD


The results for Sprint distance