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Thursday, September 14, 2023
Friday, December 31, 2021
Resilience wins over adversity - story of last 5 years and a local Death Ride
Last 5 years
So I realize thats its been 5 years since my last blog post. A lot has happened since the Chennai half iron triathlon. Did a 50 km ultra run in Pune. Got my PB of 4:52 in FM at SCMM Mumbai. Relocated back to California. Then things went downhill .. I put on close to 25 lbs of weight over 3 years since 2016 as fitness activity came to a grinding halt after relocation due to the commute, work pressure, chores etc. Got back into cycling in 2019 with help of Team Asha (Thanks Sandeep for introducing me to the group!). Did a 2 day Seattle to Vancouver ride in 2019. Still was just barely maintaining my fitness.
2020
And then the pandemic happened. Life, as we knew it, came to a halt. No getting out of the house. No commute to work with WFH. 3 additional hours to spare in a day. Good opportunity to get back the lost fitness mojo. Ashish started a challenge of 21 days daily 21 pushups. That was the trigger I needed. Started with a goal of doing 5k daily for a week to see how it feels. Good thing that I just got a treadmill in December as running outside was out of question in those times. After 7 days felt fine so continued for a month and that turned into 100 consecutive days of running 5km+ for a total of about 460 miles (740kms) in 100 days. That streak helped me reduce my weight by 25 lbs and get back my lost fitness. In the meantime biking and specifically climbing increased significantly with coach Venki finding some of the toughest climbs in Bay Area for us to do. Did close to 100K feet of climbing through the year and some of the toughest climbs in Bay area . The confidence and fitness was at its peak by end of December. Charul - a super runner, Dhakkan runners coach, a Boston marathoner and a fellow Team Asha biker, reminded me that I had some really good base running miles in the year and recommended that I attempt some PRs. He invited me into a group virtual team for Boston 5K, 10K and HM. Was very happy that I got my PRs in running - a sub 25 5K, a sub 54 10K, and most importantly sub 2 hr HM!! 2020 turned out to be the year when my fitness journey really resumed in full swing.
At the end of the year, I had done 1230 miles of biking with 92K ft of climbing; and more importantly 913 miles of running. My maximum running mileage in a year. Its going to be hard to beat that!
2021 - Half Everesting
As 2021 rolled around, needed some new goals. The Team Asha alumni biking gang was primed to achieve some new goals. So we decided to do Half Everesting or Basecamp - basically we have to do a climb multiple times to reach half of the height of everest - 14515 ft. We found an ideal segment for our attempt - a local hill Mt Eden which has a segment of about 0.74 miles with 274 ft climbing. So we needed to do 59 repeats of the hill. Sounded quite doable as we had been trained up already by Venki for rides upto 10000 ft by then. We finalized on Feb 20 to be the D day. Some of us did 20 repetitions a couple of weeks before as a route recce. Took about 3:30 hours. So the HE attempt would take anywhere between 12-13 hours including the breaks. We had good full day SAG arranged. Raja for breakfast (as he couldnt ride due to his fall the week before), Sonali for lunch, Vandana and Monali for evening snacks. We rolled around 6:20 am in the morning. Venki, Siva, Bhupendra, Sandeep, Naveen, Saravana, Murali, Surya, Aman, Alok, Anantha and myself started with the goal of finishing the full ride or some folks wanted to do part of the ride. A few others joined for company and to cheer us along the way. What a day it turned out to be. Rained a bit in the morning but weather was quite nice. First 35 repetitions were reasonably comfortable which is when we stopped for lunch. The afternoon heat and fatigues sapped us big time till we got additional refreshments around loop 45. By then I knew every single small dent in the road and every single turn and gradient of every patch on the road. I started with climbing in around 7:10-7:30 minutes. By the 40th loop I was at 8+ minutes. Its mind numbing to do any hill repetition for 59 times! After 50 we could see the end in sight plus got a bit of a second wind as the sun set and it became cooler. Finished the 59th loop in the dark around 6:30 pm in quite cold weather. It was quite an exhilarating feeling to get in the Hall of Fame on everesting.cc. 7 of us - Venki, Siva, Bhupendra, Murali, Surya, Aman and me finished the HE attempt on that day. Quite a tenacious, determined and a super fit group indeed. The company of this wonderful group all day long is what helped us achieve this milestone. Some folks who couldnt finish or ride that day (or overachieveres like Bhupendra) - Raja, Naveen, Sandeep, Bhupendra, Alok came back and completed the HE attempt later on. So overall 11 folks from the Team Asha group got into the hall of fame! An achievement to brag about for sure! :-)
2021 - Death Ride
After this achievement I had to go into a hole for the next 4 months due to work. My company was building a platform to help micro businesses get government loans during the tough pandemic economy. Super crazy 120 hours work week for close to 3-4 months completely stopped my fitness activities in its track. I re-emerged again sometime in May/June. Just in time to join the team to train for the Death Ride in July 2021. Death ride is a climb fest. 105 miles and 15K ft of climbing in the beautiful Tahoe area. Its just one relentless climb after another. Kinda similar to the elevation we did in the HE attempt but the difference is that the climbs are much longer. Total of 5 long climbs. I had to skip some of the initial rides due to work. Fitness reduced as had a lot of muscle loss during this time. Also was mentally drained during this period. The group energy and the fomo factor helped get me back on the saddle. Naveen also pushed me hard to get back on the saddle to do the tough rides. Eventually caught up with the group and did some really grueling and amazing climbs in the bay area. The peak of the training was when we did Mt Diablo (a 11 mile 3500 ft climb) 3 times, Mt Hamilton (18 miles 3900 ft) 2.5 times. Did quite a few 8-11K ft climbing rides. Venki had created a perfect training plan to get us prepared for DR. All prepared we reached Tahoe, collected our bibs and were all mentally ready to have fun and do the ride. Venki, Sandeep and Murali had a mini disaster reaching Tahoe. Sandeep's car got rear ended with their 3 bikes on the bike rack in the back. All 3 bikes destroyed! :-( Luckily no injury to any of them. so they braved it out and decided to borrow/rent bikes and show up for Death Ride, such was the determination!
And then a bigger disaster struck .. A forest fire - Tamarack fire, got out of control in Markleville area which is where our ride was supposed to start.
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| The smoke plume was the first indication that something was happening |
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| This is the place where we picked up the bibs at 4 pm. Fire spread to this area at night and this photo was sometime the next morning when the ride was supposed to start! (Image sourced from internet) |
The fire spread like crazy and completely burnt down the area where the staging area for the ride was. It also jumped over the highway we were supposed to ride on. Unfortunately DeathRide got cancelled. We did a consolation ride around Lake Tahoe - one of the most beautiful rides I have ever done. No wonder this route is called America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride - AMBBR.
We didnt want to lose all the goodness of our climbing training, so we decided to go back to Tahoe and do the Death Ride ourselves in August.
Had a weeklong vacation planned to Colorado Springs in 2nd week of August to celebrate birthdays and anniversary. So training shifted to running during those vacation days. Was hoping to climb Pikes Peak (24 miles 8000 ft elevation gain) on my birthday. The toughest part is altitude. The altitude at the top is 14K+ ft. So would have been super tough. Unfortunately getting a bike rental in Colorado Springs was a logistical nightmare as during covid and the supply chain issues following it, rarely any bikes were available for rent. So the Pikes peak plan got shelved. A bucket list item for the future.
Back to the August DR plan .. unfortunately we were second time unlucky as another wildfire near Lake Tahoe ruined our plans. So eventually Venki decided to create a local Bay Area equivalent of Death Ride in September, sponsored by Team Asha. He called it the Crab Ride. A 115 mile 14500 ft ride in the Portola Valley area with 6 climbs. And with timed controls and SAG! Amazing route planning and this I feel this has the potential of becoming an iconic route in Bay Area. So we continued our climbing training for another month and did the ride on Sep 4th 2021. What a ride and what a route!
13 of us - Venki, Shriram, Siva, Murali, Anantha, Naveen, Bhupendra, Rohit, Naresh, Raja, Maneesh, Surya and me started the ride around 5:30 am. Alok thought the AQI was not that great so he decided to do the exact same ride virtually on his indoor trainer (Still cant believe he did the full 13 hour ride indoor)! Started with PageMill climb (8.3 miles 2000 ft), turned around at Pescadero road and climbed back up to Skyline on West Alpine (7.4 miles 1900 ft), then down on PageMill to Portolo Valley for the first SAG. Both these climbs in the early morning fresh legs were fantastic. There was some mist in the air while we climbed Page Mill. West Alpine climb usually comes in latter part of the day for most of our rides and we do it on tired legs in hot weather. This one was really early in the morning, so got a PR on it. Was going really strong. The SAG arranged by Venki and Team Asha was phenomenal. Having indian hot breakfast and tea/coffee on a tough ride is heaven!
We continued on to climb highway 84 and then northbound to Tunitas (8 miles 1850 ft). Down on Tunitas and then turned back and climbed Tunitas creek climb (8.3 miles 2000 ft). Then descended down to Woodside using Kings road. Second SAG. Again had fantastic lunch there and refreshed again. By this time it was around 2 pm and temperature was in mid 90s! Super hot and fatigued by this time. Kings Mountain climb next (4.4 miles 1600 ft) was a drag and had to stop a couple of times on the climb to get to the top. Took a long 30 minute break at the top to get some mojo back. From here on out there was 1 big climb and rollers on skyline to deal with and then the final 1/3 climb on Alpine left. About 4k ft to go. Descended down on 84 to get to base of OLH where found Anup and Deepak as god send. Refilled water .. had some quick refreshment and started the final big climb of the day OLH (3 miles 1250 ft). The most well known climb where top climbers benchmark themselves. My best time on this is around 31 minutes. This day though obviously took way way more .. happy to have finished it in 42 minutes. Anup and Deepak were cheering us along the climb. Took another 15 minute break at the top and then started the final rollers journey on Skyline. Another 2k ft to go. Reached Pagemill by around 5:30 pm. Another SAG and control with Samosa and watermelon. Amazing support! The temperature also started cooling a bit so had a second wind going down PageMill. The final climb on Alpine was a breeze and then the sprint to the finish line. Finished at around 6:50 pm. Ahead of the cutoff by about 40 minutes (I think). What a ride after the multiple false starts to the Death Ride this year.
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| We used the DR bib for our local Crab ride. With the stickers and all! Thanks Team Asha and Venki! |
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| Not the real DR but used the swag I bought at DR |
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| The super strong Team Asha group that did the first TA Crab ride |
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| Celebration dinner and drinks after the ride |
What a ride and what a group! The group was so resilient and motivated to do the DR over all the adversities we had faced, that we manifested the DR in our backyard!
The rest of the year we did more climbing and also completed the top 10 toughest bay area climbs. With all the climbing through the year, this year I had the maximum elevation gain in any year. 250K ft of climbing in the 2800 miles of riding I did in the year! Its going to be hard to beat that.
I really feel I am back on the fitness wagon again starting 2020 after falling off for about 3 years from 2016-2019. Huge credit goes to the Team Asha group that gave me the energy and motivation and the needed push at times to keep going.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Success, following a failure and tough times, is so much sweeter!! Chennai Half Iron success story..
Why Chennai?!?!
Chennai Trekking group holds a couple of triathlons every year and the December one has half, 3/4 and full distance. After the tough Hyderabad Half Iron triathlon in October, wasn’t really sure I would do the Chennai triathlon that was scheduled for mid Dec ‘15. But I had hopes that Chennai would be a flatter course and December Chennai weather would be more forgiving than October Hyderabad weather. So I had decided to do the Half Iron in Chennai as well to see if I could improve my timing from 8:35 to a sub 8 hour. Unluckily the Chennai faced a natural disaster in November/December with the major floods and the event had to be inevitably postponed.
Chennai Trekking group holds a couple of triathlons every year and the December one has half, 3/4 and full distance. After the tough Hyderabad Half Iron triathlon in October, wasn’t really sure I would do the Chennai triathlon that was scheduled for mid Dec ‘15. But I had hopes that Chennai would be a flatter course and December Chennai weather would be more forgiving than October Hyderabad weather. So I had decided to do the Half Iron in Chennai as well to see if I could improve my timing from 8:35 to a sub 8 hour. Unluckily the Chennai faced a natural disaster in November/December with the major floods and the event had to be inevitably postponed.
Eventually the event was rescheduled for
March 5th but given the expected hot and humid weather in Chennai in March I
gave up on the idea of doing this triathlon. In the meantime I had a Goa
Olympic triathlon in February. After my dad’s sad demise in Jan and the PYC
makeover program going in from Jan-March I had completely missed out on any
swimming practice before the Goa triathlon. Still went to Goa as I had company
– Kedar was also going. I was quite confident I would be able to easily
complete the event though, and no qualms about swimming in ocean ever surfaced
in my mind. But as the event started I completely messed up and started out my
breaststroke too fast. In hindsight I wasn’t gliding in my stroke at all and
was continuously trying to move my arms or legs. Naturally this resulted in an
anaerobic zone stroke where I went out too fast too soon. I was breathless after
only 400 or so meters in 10 minutes, and just couldn’t figure out how to slow
down and recover. There were no guiding ropes/tubes or anything to hold on to.
This was the first time I was swimming in open water and I realized that I had
to reach the nearest kayak which was about 50+ mtrs away to be able to hold
on to something and catch my breath. Even those 50+ mtrs seemed too much. As soon as I held on to the kayak though, I
had mentally given up. Holding to a standstill kayak was allowed but once I held
onto this one, I just felt like I had cheated. Plus I just couldn’t get any
confidence in my breaststroke and the remaining distance of another 250 mtrs
out into the sea and 750 mtrs back seemed a lot now. In hindsight I could have easily completed the event. Lots of folks held onto the kayaks regularly and completed the swim. Lots of lessons learnt in my first ever real DNF in an event. Overconfidence, under preparedness, going
out too fast, giving up too soon, etc. etc. Overall a horrible experience and
just couldn’t shake the fact that I quit.
Given this fiasco though, right away made
the decision of bouncing back and to go to Chennai for the Half iron no matter
the weather and other difficulties. I only had a week and half to prepare. I
decided to focus on the swimming. Started swimming coaching with Rajesh Kelkar
sir at Chaitanya Health club. He spotted a couple of mistakes in my
breaststroke right away and guided me to correct them. Did 5-6 days of swimming
practice sacrificing any other training. Was able to gain my confidence in
swimming back as I completed a 2 km swim a couple of days before the event in
an hour. Whew!! Booked the tickets to Chennai and also tried to find road bikes
on rent. Called quite a few stores but as it was last minute, didn’t get a good
road bike, but at least the store owner – Balaji cycle world, told me he had
reserved a ‘indian’ road bike for me. Another hurdle crossed.
The day before:
Packed up on Thursday and flew out on
Friday afternoon to Chennai. Had packed my stuff in a hand bag which I
thought I could carry on my shoulder/back on the cycle. But the bag had ended up
being quite heavy and bulky. Managed to get to the store in Ola. It was an old style cycle
store like in Bhavani peth or so.
When the guy showed me the bike, I was in for
a shock! It was actually a hybrid bike with fork and handlebar changed to
convert it into a makeshift road bike. Brakes were in horrible shape. Also the
bike fit wasn’t appropriate … I was leaning too far ahead when I held on to the
top of the handlebar. If I dropped on the drop bar I just couldn’t control the
bike. Anyways … didn’t have a choice.
Took the bike and started to this remote
place where the event venue was. My travails were not over yet. I was carrying
my hand bag on my back on the bike. The venue Agni college was
about 30 kms from the bike store. Had hardly gone 3-4 kms and I was already
ridiculously tired trying to navigate through the traffic with the heavy bag
making me precariously balanced on the bike. So after 4 kms decided to take a
simpler options and take an Auto and go to the venue. The auto wala obviously
charged me through my nose given my predicament – about Rs 500! But hey I wanted to stay slightly
fresh for next day too.
Then when I went to the venue realized that the
sleeping arrangements in Agni College were simply a large open room in a hostel
with benches. I shouldnt have expected anything more for free though. :-) A few other folks had already parked themselves there by clubbing
a couple of benches and making a makeshift bed. I did the same … Luckily I
grabbed the last couple benches … folks who reached after me had to sleep on
the floor. No mattress … so just put my small towel on my benches and hoped I
would be able to sleep through the night at least. Me and a few triathletes went
out in search of food. The place was so remote that there were no restaurants nearby. Finally we found a roadside
chinese food stall where we had egg fried rice. Crossed my fingers and hoped
that stomach could handle it. So no good hydration or carb loading a day before
… what with the flight, a long auto journey, bad sleeping arrangement and a half decent dinner. So basically almost everything that could go wrong the day before did. Hopefully
this wasn’t a bad omen or something.
I prepared my T1 and T2 bags. Lesson learnt from Hyderabad half iron was not to carry so much food on me. So this time I only had 4-5 gels, a couple of enerzals sachets, nuun tablets, a couple of bananas and a couple of bars in the transition bags and in the cycling jersey. The bike had only 1 water bottle holder so couldnt carry the 2 as usual. Plus the mini pump and an extra tube, toolkit on the cycle. No light needed.
When the guy showed me the bike, I was in for
a shock! It was actually a hybrid bike with fork and handlebar changed to
convert it into a makeshift road bike. Brakes were in horrible shape. Also the
bike fit wasn’t appropriate … I was leaning too far ahead when I held on to the
top of the handlebar. If I dropped on the drop bar I just couldn’t control the
bike. Anyways … didn’t have a choice. 
Then when I went to the venue realized that the
sleeping arrangements in Agni College were simply a large open room in a hostel
with benches. I shouldnt have expected anything more for free though. :-) A few other folks had already parked themselves there by clubbing
a couple of benches and making a makeshift bed. I did the same … Luckily I
grabbed the last couple benches … folks who reached after me had to sleep on
the floor. No mattress … so just put my small towel on my benches and hoped I
would be able to sleep through the night at least. Me and a few triathletes went
out in search of food. The place was so remote that there were no restaurants nearby. Finally we found a roadside
chinese food stall where we had egg fried rice. Crossed my fingers and hoped
that stomach could handle it. So no good hydration or carb loading a day before
… what with the flight, a long auto journey, bad sleeping arrangement and a half decent dinner. So basically almost everything that could go wrong the day before did. Hopefully
this wasn’t a bad omen or something.I prepared my T1 and T2 bags. Lesson learnt from Hyderabad half iron was not to carry so much food on me. So this time I only had 4-5 gels, a couple of enerzals sachets, nuun tablets, a couple of bananas and a couple of bars in the transition bags and in the cycling jersey. The bike had only 1 water bottle holder so couldnt carry the 2 as usual. Plus the mini pump and an extra tube, toolkit on the cycle. No light needed.
The D day dawns …
And it did dawn way earlier than it really
did. Had to get to the venue by 5. So had set the alarm for 3:45. But couldn’t
get relaxed sleep so got up at 2:30 only and then was tossing and turning. Got
ready in the hostel common bathroom. Had a Dink laddoo, banana and some milk to
refuel myself. Then headed off to the venue with a couple of other folks … with
no lights on the bike or on the potholed road trying to avoid as many potholes
as I could. Luckily no puncture or bike issues in that 2-3 km ride to the lake
where the swimming was to start. So finally reached the venue and now things
were were getting back to normal. There was excitement everywhere. Parked the
bike … no bike stand, so had to park the bike upside down on the seatpost.
Dropped off my T1 and T2 bags and left a couple of critical things like shoes
near the bike.
The lake was still dark but as the sun rose the quarry/lake turned into a sight for the sore eyes.
Beautiful little quarry/lake. About 200 mtrs length of which we were to do 150 mtrs one way. The water I was told was warm, quite clean and about 40-50 feet deep. Couldn’t wait to start the triathlon now. There were butterflies but not for whether I could complete or not … only because I had set myself an aggressive target of 7:30 to 7:45 hrs. Should in theory be possible – 1 hr for the swim of 1.9 kms + 3:30 hrs for the 90 km ride assuming Chennai’s famous flat terrain + 2:45 or therabouts for the half marathon which was again doable given the terrain would be easier than Hyderabad + 10-15 mins in T1+ T2. All theory and expectations. The one thing I had completely underestimated was the toll heat and humidity would play… one more time after first experiencing it in Hyderabad.
The lake was still dark but as the sun rose the quarry/lake turned into a sight for the sore eyes.
Get Set Go!!
They had a guiding rope in the middle with tubes every 25 meters. With kayaks on both sides so there was nothing to worry about either. But I was determined not to stop or hold onto the tubes. Was successful in the attempt and the swim was very smooth. Not my fastest, I finished my 1.9 km swim in 1 hour 6 minutes. Then about 2-3 minutes to get back to the transition area barefeet. Realized late that I had to pass through the timing sensors to end the swimming leg. So total official swim time showing as 1:13.
First they flagged off the Full Iron and 3/4 Iron triathletes. There were about 20 of them. Salute to the bravehearts. Then us the half iron triathletes were off in waves of 10-15. Had to walk barefeet for about 50 meters before we reached the swim start. 
It was just amazingly clear water in a beautiful setting. I was swimming slower than usual but it was an effortless swim.
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| Swim in the beautiful quarry lake |
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| Smooth sailing |
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| Focused |
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| Cursing the guy in front who was swimming from left to right in front of me! :) |
The organizers couldnt find my T1 bag so I wasted another 3-4 minutes there. I was in my tri short so no need to change. I just had to wear the cycling jersey and the shoes and off I was. Had a quick banana and a couple of glasses of water and I was on the bike. Spent about 14 minutes in this transition due to the missing bag. Ignoring the 3-4 minutes spent finding missing bag I should still need to shave off another 2-3 minutes from this transition and get it down to 5 minutes or so.
Felt quite fresh and energized starting the cycling leg. Was still wet from the swim so the cool breeze while cycling was feeling very nice. Sun was out but couldnt feel it at all. Started out quick fast. But soon disaster struck. The roads were full of gravel and loose sand and potholes due to the damage of the recent flood. My bike's breaks were really bad. And the poor bike fit meant I was leaning a bit too forward and not comfortable applying brakes. While navigating a sharp left turn about 2 kms from the start I veered too far off to the right and just couldnt get the cycle back on the road. Kept on veering to the right through a thorny bush and then bam! ... down into a ditch!! face down first. Palms saved due to the gloves. But the chest, left knee and chin took the brunt of the fall. Another triathlete riding behind me and a coupe of other localites came to help me as soon as they saw me. Adrenaline pumping, I took quick stock of things ... bike was in good condition, no visible bad damage. I was bleeding in 3-4 places and left knee and a couple of ribs hurting a lot but not to the extent I should quit. Decided that this wasnt an event I wanted to quit after finishing the swim successfully so decided to roll along. The other triathlete and the localites were quite surprised to see me get back on the bike ... they really wanted to help and I really wanted to keep on moving. :-) No water to wash the blood off as only had enerzal with me, so decided to stop at the 20 km aid station and get cleaned up instead of going back 2 kms.  |
| Upset navigating through horrible traffic |
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| Volunteers applying first aid to the knee. Thanks so much guys!! |
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| Run starts with broken knee torn pants and heavy sun |
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| A satisfied smile at the finish line ... |
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| With organizer Peter Van Geit |
Cant thank the organizers enough and especially Peter Van Geit for his selfless contribution in organizing the Chennai triathlon for such a cheap price! Where else would you get a very well supported half iron event for only 600 Rs ($10!!).
After celebrating the success and looking back a bunch of lessons from this event ...
1. I had thought the Hyderabad terrain and heat was killer. But Chennai is even worse to do a half iron level event especially in March. The skin burns I experienced from this event will also serve as long term warnings before I think of doing another triathlon in Chennai in March. December maybe .. but never March.
2. Running in heat is still a huge huge problem for me. 3 hrs 26 minutes when my half marathon PB has improved to a respectable 2 hrs 5 minutes now! Still have to figure out how to control the body heat and heart palpitations in such bad heat. Cant get myself to practice running in the afternoon yet, but guess have to do it to get over this issue.
3. Have again fixed the breaststroke swimming confidence for long distances. Huge lesson learnt is never go to any tri event without practicing swimming. No overconfidence to be ever shown in swimming. Also still need to get much much better at freestyle to improve overall timing of half iron. 4. Need to plan much better for the event. Airport to venue transport ... rental bike ... stay ... food etc. Improvement needed in the planning part.
5. Rental bikes ... never rent the bike from Balaji if I ever go to Chennai. I saw a few really good bikes from Deppak Babu from Just Rent bikes. He in fact was able to get road bikes from Madras Randonneurs ... in much better condition that the bike I had gotten. More generally, while renting a bike do lot more research and plan in advance. I trusted the Balaji store guy and figured he would give me a good bike. 6. Slow down on bad roads especially on a rental bike till you get confidence. A fall can damage more than your timing ... (PS: I had to xray my knee and ribs and luckily no fracture ... but took me a couple of weeks to recover from these injuries and get back on track)
7. The never give up attitude helped me here as well. Thats definitely one positive. Even after the fall didnt want to give up and that helped immensely. Proving to myself that the Goa DNF was an aberration was quite important to me and I did it. :-)
Monday, October 12, 2015
First triathlon - Half Iron... aka Half Ironman ... aka Ironman 70.3 ...
How it all started
Sometime during 2014 I had a kida in my head that I wanted to do a triathlon in 2015. Triathlons are a combination of 3 activities - swimming, followed by cycling followed by running. There are various distance events - sprint triathlon (750 mtrs swim + 20 km cycling + 5 km run), Olympic distance (1.5 km swim + 40 km cycling + 10 km run), Half Ironman distance (1.9 km swim + 90 km cycling + 21 km run), and then the mother of all triathlons - the Full Ironman (3.8 km swim + 180 km cycling + 42 km run)! My goal for 2015 was at least do a Olympic distance triathlon.
Swimming preparation
I had done 1 duathlon in March in Pune and knew my weak point and how to improve that - namely the transition from cycle to run. There was one Sprint and Olympic distance triathlon in Pune in April, but I wasnt comfortable with swimming. It was my biggest fear factor. So skipped that event. The only time I had actually done 'real' swimming was in my 5th grade when I had learnt breaststroke in SP College tank. Even that one was without proper breathing technique. So I had to basically start from scratch on the swimming front. I enlisted my daughter Tosha to teach me swimming in our society swimming pool. She was doing a good job teaching me where I was going wrong in my freestyle and breaststroke and how to improve. Improved a bit from that. Then in summer decided to really learn swimming and so I started coaching class at Solaris Baner. A bad time to start swimming coaching with all the kids' summer break. But hey it was already May and I only had 7-8 months left in the year. Started the classes .. as expected the coach couldnt pay enough attention. But during the time he could I learnt freestyle and improved my technique in breaststroke. Now I could do 25 mtrs to 50 mtrs laps of freestyle non stop. But no more. So at one point I decided to try breaststroke and see how much distance I could cover, to increase my confidence. And to my surprise I could go upto 1 km ... then 2 kms .. then all the way upto 4 kms non stop with breaststroke with a kinda reasonable speed of 2 kms/hr. By the end of June I was confident that I could do a triathlon in open water and swimming wouldnt be a challenge anymore!
Why Hyderabad
But the next challenge was finding triathlon events. Typically there is one in Pune in summer. I had already missed the one in April. I was hoping there would be one more ... but that never materialized. So after scouting for events across the country found Hyderabad triathlon on Oct 11. They had sprint, olympic, Half and 3/4 ironman events (they couldnt call the events IronMan as thats a trademark owned by World Triathlon corp. So they call it Half Iron :)) Now if I was thinking of going to Hyderabad for the event, I would rather to a longer distance than Sprint or Olympic. So thats how I registered for the Half Iron at Hyderabad - one of the tougher courses in India due to the terrain and heat. Especially October heat. I knew I would be killed in the heat. Another big bummer was that the triathlon was on the same day as Pune's marquee running event - Pune Run Beyond Myself (PRBM). Leading upto October I had encouraged almost 30-40 of my friends and colleagues register for PRBM but I would miss the event given the conflict. But hey, so few triathlons in India - beggars cannot be choosers.
Training
Given the Hyderabad full marathon in Aug, I couldnt focus on full time training plan for the triathlon. So did a few Brick workouts to improve the cycling to running transition. Also did the Bhor duathlon full solo (5 km run + 45 km hilly cycling + 10 km run) ... equivalent or a bit more than a Olympic distance triathlon to gain confidence. If I hydrated well and had enough quantity of enerzal and energy bars/bananas while riding, I could carry that energy into running. Also another challenge was legs feeling heavy after the transition to running. Only way to overcome this for me was to practice. So did some interval Brick sessions in the gym - (15 min hard riding + 15 min running at fast pace) times 3. These helped me a lot. Didnt have to worry about the logistics of parking the cycle and moving to running and managing the transition 5-6 times. Gym brick sessions although boring are definitely worth it. Got my legs and my nervous system used to the rapid transitions with these sessions. A few long sessions of road biking of 40-50 kms followed by 15 km run helped with emulating real world transition scenario from cycling to running. One thing I didnt practice at all was transition between swimming to cycling. Mainly due to the logistics issues of managing the transition. This came back to bite me in managing the transition time... more on that later. 5-6 of these brick sessions and then regular running and cycling was my training routing. No formal triathlon plan at all.
My race day expectation was that I would complete swimming in 1 hour. Cycling in max of 4 hours. Running in 2:30 -2:45 hrs. Add about 15 minutes of T1 + T2 transition times. And I should be able to complete inside 8 hours. If I did cycling a bit faster I could even get down to 7:45 or even 7:30 on a good day. That was the hope.
Logistics
Another thing I was very worried about was logistics of how to carry my bike to Hyderabad for the event. I wasnt comfortable disassembling the bike, carry it in the flight or train and then assembling it in Hyderabad. What if I couldnt assemble correctly and gears didnt work or whatever. So decided to completely avoid that headache for my first triathlon and decided to drive down to Hyderabad for the event with a driver.
The Event
Finally the event weekend came around. Prepared my transition bags. Had to prepare 2 bags and 3 stacks.
The stack on the right was for swimming .. would use that during and before swimming. The stack in the middle was for the cycling leg. The night before the event I would stuff all the food into the jersey and neatly pack the jersey into the bag. The leftmost stack is for the T2 transition bag - cycling to running. (In hindsight I have realized that the food was a bit too much. I think I ended up eating 3 bananas, a couple of Gu gels. couple of enerzals. coffee. Didnt eat any energy bar. So a lot of optimization possible for sure in future.)
On Saturday, started from Pune at 4 am. Road condition is horrible from Solapur to Hyderabad. So took us over 11 hours to get into Hyderabad with very less sleep as had to keep the drive awake by chatting with him! Picked up my cousin Ketki, who was doing her first ever duathlon next day, on the way to the venue for bib collection, reached the expo, picked up the bib by around 4:30 pm. Had an early dinner with Ketki around 7 pm. Talked to Sonali back home as she also had a big day ahead - she was doing her first half marathon at Pune Run Beyond Myself (PRBM) event. Slept early after finalizing the transition bags and putting the bibs on the cycle and the jersey. Slept with butterflies in the stomach.
Got up around 3:30 am ... checked out of the hotel and reached the venue around 5:20 am. Parked the cycle and got my transition items and bags ready. Then got mentally ready for the swim. Met a couple of competitors and exchanged pleasantries - Anjali Bhalinge an elite athlete from Pune, and Manoj Balekar, a professional swimming coach from Mumbai. Hyderabad triathlon swim is in a swimming pool which is not the norm ... so only about 30 triathletes would go in the first batch at 6 am in the swimming pool. Next batch would have to wait till the first wave came out. So next batch would start at almost 7 am... meant cycling and running in much more intense heat. I was lucky to be in the first wave. The organizers gave us instructions and a pep talk and the event was flagged off 25 minutes late at 6:25 am.
There were 10 lanes ... each lane had 3 swimmers. And there was a volunteer per lane who would count the lengths. We had to do 38 lengths of the 50 mtrs pool to cover the 1.9 km distance. My hope was to finish swimming off in 1 hour. I started swimming with a length of freestyle. Did one length freestyle and then as usual was breathless. So switched quickly to breaststroke in the middle of the second length. As I got into the rhythm of the breaststroke, with body warmed up, I started completing the laps at a steady pace of 3 mins/100 mtrs. There were a bunch of guys who were doing freestyle and doing it much faster than me obviously. Some were doing breaststroke like me and I was proud to notice that I was going faster than the other breaststroke swimmers. Some folks were stopping every 100 mtrs or so.
One guy who apparently couldnt swim was running in the swimming pool instead of swimming! :-) Finally the countdown started as I got to 30 lengths and I increased the pace a bit. Completed the 1.9 kms in 1 hr 2 minutes. Was out of the swimming pool feeling reasonably fresh.
Went to the changing area and thought I would quickly change and get to my cycle. Hmm ... realized my first mistake. I should have swam in my Pearl Izumi triathlon shorts. It takes a long time to get out of wet clothes especially when you are in a hurry. It took me 8 minutes or so to change and wear the triathlon shorts and my jersey! Then headed out to the transition area and put on the shoes, helmet etc. Ate a banana quickly and had the Amul coffee from the can. Ate one Anjeer bar. Another 7 minutes gone! Started cycling quickly. The cycling mat was a km away at the main gate of the IBS univ. Another 2 minutes gone. A total of 17 minutes T1 transition time!! Way too much!! Have to optimize this and get this down to 5 minutes in the future events. Started cycling at 7:50 am or so.
I knew cycling was my strong suite. Also I had studied the cycling route and elevation profile carefully. I knew it was a slightly uphill route but compared to my rides in Pune it was mostly a flattish route. 500+ mtrs elevation gain over 90 kms was more like a regular Lonavala ride. There was one small 2 km climb towards the end near Movie tower hill. And then the steady climb of about 4-5 kms from ORR till Gachibowli stadium. I was hoping that I would complete cycling in 3:30 to 3:45 hrs. Did fast high cadence cycling and reached the turnaround point at 40 kms or so within 1:35. In this patch I overtook 8 competitors. I was out 15th from my wave in the swimming pool out of 30. After the first 40 kms cycling I was now at 7th. Manoj had come out of the swimming pool first I think. And was 30 minutes ahead of me out of the pool. Anjali was 4th or so. And Manoj was 2nd or 3rd. Probably around 10 kms ahead of me - so about 20 minutes or so ahead. It was almost 9:20 am or so. Was very lucky that it was overcast and there was no sun yet. Happy with this performance so far. Ate a quick banana and had gatorade at the aid station at turnaround. Route coming back I kept going strong but speed slowed a bit. No one I had passed was able to catch up with me but I couldnt pass any other cyclists either. I could see 3/4 iron triathletes and the remaining half iron triathletes on the opposite side. Kept on cheering them. Cheering others gives me some additional energy. Completed the Movie Tower hill climb strongly and downhill there was fun. Then the final 6-7 km drag started once I crossed ORR. As I noted earlier it was a steady climb all the way upto Gachibowli. In fact the elevation gain here was more than the elevation gain of Movie Tower hill. Also another thing playing on my mind was that this is the same route I had to run on. So many climbs!! Damn!! I started seeing the triathletes and duathletes from other events into their running and cycling legs at this point. Kept crawling towards the stadium. Finally reached the stadium and completed the cycling leg at around 11:35 or so - 3 hrs and 45 minutes for 90 kms cycling. 5 hrs 10 minutes for swimming+T1+cycling. 7:45 was out of question now but a sub 8 hours was certainly possible and well within sight. I was confident I could complete the half marathon in 2:45 max. Nice.
Took some time to relax a little. Ate a banana, a chikki bar. I had finished almost 1.5 ltrs of Enerzal on the cycle ride so was well hydrated. But still had a couple of glasses of water. Took some time to empty the pockets of excess food I had carried on the cycle ride. T2 transition took almost 10 minutes. This was also way too much. So total of (17+10) 27 minutes or so transition time! Have to get this total transition time down to max 10 minutes.
The sun was out in full force in the last half hour of cycling from around 11 am. No cloud cover at all. Temperature had already touched 35 degrees and would later reach upto 38 degrees during the run! I started running in such brutal weather - first ever hot afternoon run! Thought if I could do a 7:30 min/km average pace, I could still manage a 2:45 and thus a sub 8 hour finish. Started well but soon hit the uphill on ISB road and had to walk. On the downhill I kept running upto 3-4 kms or so. But by this point my energy level had already reached a nadir. The sun was really crazy hot making things impossible for me. There was pretty much no shade on the road either. Completely barren! Around 4.5 kms I felt slight dizziness. Body had heated up too much. I decided to take a break on the side of the road. Just sat down where I found some shade. Too many thoughts crossed my mind during what I think was eternity but was only a minute or so. For the first time in such a competitive event I felt that it would be ok to quit at this point. I can come back stronger in the next event etc etc. All the negative thoughts. Then the sane part of my mind spoke ... The event cutoff is 10 hours which was still 4:15 hrs away. Even if I walk the entire remaining 16 km distance I would be able to finish it. And decided to move along. Whew - close call!!
Walked till the next aid station 500 mtrs away. At the aid station poured 3-4 glasses of cold water on my head and body and the cap. This rejuvenated me big time. I felt a surge of energy and felt that I could run. Ran for 1.5 km at slow clip. Came to the ORR by then. Again the energy sapped as body had heated up again. Walked for another km till the next aid station. Poured another 3-4 glasses there and kept on running. Now this was my modus operandi. There was an aid station almost every 2 kms or so. So I would pour 3-4 glasses of water on myself. Drink a couple of glasses of water and 1 gatorade and then power on. I would fill up one of my bottles in my belt with water so I could pour it on myself if my body heated up before the next aid station.
The sub 8 hour finish was a lost cause now. I just wanted to complete it now. Strangely no one I had crossed in my bike ride had managed to cross me yet even though I was so slow. A couple of folks from the next wave in the swimming pool had crossed me though. I kept run walk routine at a pace of 8 to 9 mins/km and the water pouring routine. The IBS road on the way back, as earlier noted, is a continuous climb of 3-4 kms. Walked most of the climbs. Ran a few. Finally last couple of kms left. A half iron competitor from the first wave had crossed me at 12 km mark and was just ahead of me. I kept him within my line of sight trying to catch him as he was also doing a run/walk routine. That gave me something to focus on in those tough patches. I would catch up with him and then he would move on. Finally neared the stadium and ran the last 500 mtrs.
Still finished behind that guy, but was so glad I finished!! 8 hours 33 minutes! No celebrations at the end ... just too exhausted to even do that. I had taken 3 hours 15 minutes for my half marathon, an hour 5 minutes more than my PB for HM! This was indeed my toughest event ever. The 600 BRM is no comparison. Neither is the Hyderabad Full marathon. Satara hill half ultra was nothing compared to this one. All those events seemed like a cakewalk in front of this. A very well deserved medal at the end! A good looking medal as well.
Had a hearty lunch and then finally had the strength to call home and tell Sonali and Baba the good news! Sonali also had finished her first half marathon on that day in just above 3 hours. What a day of achievements for the Sambhus family! :-)
This endurance event tested me physically and mentally. I guess my aggressive target of 7:30 to 7:45 was also partly to blame. Even though I had taken much longer than my expectation, I still had managed to finish in a reasonably good time for my first triathlon. Official timing of 8 hours 35 minutes for a first triathlon and that too a half ironman at that was still good. To top off the fun, I later came to know that I was overall 13th from the entire field. Total 60+ triathletes had started. 36 had completed in time. And I was 13th in that field. And 1st in the 40+ category. Wow! So it was a tough event for others as well, not just me. Happy happy!
Lots of learnings from the event.
1. In half ironman you start the run around 11 or noon. So need to put in some serious practice to run in that heat and sun OR choose some events with more forgiving climate and terrain. Should be able to complete a half marathon in max of 2:30 or 2:45 in the half ironman.
2. My Brick workouts really helped. My legs didnt feel like bricks neither did I get any cramps.
3. Had to reduce transition time down to 10 minutes. I could have easily shaved off 20 minutes from the 8:35 hours if I had optimized transitions.
4. My swimming speed for breast stroke is optimized to 1 hr for 2 kms. Only way to improve swim speed further is focus on freestyle.
5. My cycling speed can improve a bit. I should have been able to shave about 15-30 minutes if I had kept the intensity high all the way till the end.
6. Dont give up! Even though I felt like shit in the middle of the run, I was able to figure out a way and complete the event.
7. I am not ready for a full ironman. This event took all the physical and mental energy I had. I can possibly do a 3.8 km swim followed by 180 km cycling. But no way I can do a full marathon in 6 hours after the 2 events. Typical cutoffs for full ironman are 16 or 17 hours. And with my current half ironman timing I wouldnt be able to meet that cutoff. I need to be comfortable with a full marathon distance and should be able to finish it in 4:30 or 4:45 or thereabouts. Hopefully in SCMM. Also I should be able to do a half ironman within 7:30 to 7:45 max in Indian climates to hope for a successful finish at a Ironman.
Overall I feel I can easily shave off 20 minutes from transition time. Then another 30 minutes or so from the run if I practice runs in the afternoon. And hopefully another 10-15 minutes in cycling. So I can shave off 1 hour with some effort and target a 7:30 hour finish for the half. There's a half, 3/4 and a full iron event in Chennai in December. Maybe I will attempt another half iron then to see how and if I am able to apply some of the learnings. Fingers crossed.
Sometime during 2014 I had a kida in my head that I wanted to do a triathlon in 2015. Triathlons are a combination of 3 activities - swimming, followed by cycling followed by running. There are various distance events - sprint triathlon (750 mtrs swim + 20 km cycling + 5 km run), Olympic distance (1.5 km swim + 40 km cycling + 10 km run), Half Ironman distance (1.9 km swim + 90 km cycling + 21 km run), and then the mother of all triathlons - the Full Ironman (3.8 km swim + 180 km cycling + 42 km run)! My goal for 2015 was at least do a Olympic distance triathlon.
Swimming preparation
I had done 1 duathlon in March in Pune and knew my weak point and how to improve that - namely the transition from cycle to run. There was one Sprint and Olympic distance triathlon in Pune in April, but I wasnt comfortable with swimming. It was my biggest fear factor. So skipped that event. The only time I had actually done 'real' swimming was in my 5th grade when I had learnt breaststroke in SP College tank. Even that one was without proper breathing technique. So I had to basically start from scratch on the swimming front. I enlisted my daughter Tosha to teach me swimming in our society swimming pool. She was doing a good job teaching me where I was going wrong in my freestyle and breaststroke and how to improve. Improved a bit from that. Then in summer decided to really learn swimming and so I started coaching class at Solaris Baner. A bad time to start swimming coaching with all the kids' summer break. But hey it was already May and I only had 7-8 months left in the year. Started the classes .. as expected the coach couldnt pay enough attention. But during the time he could I learnt freestyle and improved my technique in breaststroke. Now I could do 25 mtrs to 50 mtrs laps of freestyle non stop. But no more. So at one point I decided to try breaststroke and see how much distance I could cover, to increase my confidence. And to my surprise I could go upto 1 km ... then 2 kms .. then all the way upto 4 kms non stop with breaststroke with a kinda reasonable speed of 2 kms/hr. By the end of June I was confident that I could do a triathlon in open water and swimming wouldnt be a challenge anymore!
Why Hyderabad
But the next challenge was finding triathlon events. Typically there is one in Pune in summer. I had already missed the one in April. I was hoping there would be one more ... but that never materialized. So after scouting for events across the country found Hyderabad triathlon on Oct 11. They had sprint, olympic, Half and 3/4 ironman events (they couldnt call the events IronMan as thats a trademark owned by World Triathlon corp. So they call it Half Iron :)) Now if I was thinking of going to Hyderabad for the event, I would rather to a longer distance than Sprint or Olympic. So thats how I registered for the Half Iron at Hyderabad - one of the tougher courses in India due to the terrain and heat. Especially October heat. I knew I would be killed in the heat. Another big bummer was that the triathlon was on the same day as Pune's marquee running event - Pune Run Beyond Myself (PRBM). Leading upto October I had encouraged almost 30-40 of my friends and colleagues register for PRBM but I would miss the event given the conflict. But hey, so few triathlons in India - beggars cannot be choosers.
Training
Given the Hyderabad full marathon in Aug, I couldnt focus on full time training plan for the triathlon. So did a few Brick workouts to improve the cycling to running transition. Also did the Bhor duathlon full solo (5 km run + 45 km hilly cycling + 10 km run) ... equivalent or a bit more than a Olympic distance triathlon to gain confidence. If I hydrated well and had enough quantity of enerzal and energy bars/bananas while riding, I could carry that energy into running. Also another challenge was legs feeling heavy after the transition to running. Only way to overcome this for me was to practice. So did some interval Brick sessions in the gym - (15 min hard riding + 15 min running at fast pace) times 3. These helped me a lot. Didnt have to worry about the logistics of parking the cycle and moving to running and managing the transition 5-6 times. Gym brick sessions although boring are definitely worth it. Got my legs and my nervous system used to the rapid transitions with these sessions. A few long sessions of road biking of 40-50 kms followed by 15 km run helped with emulating real world transition scenario from cycling to running. One thing I didnt practice at all was transition between swimming to cycling. Mainly due to the logistics issues of managing the transition. This came back to bite me in managing the transition time... more on that later. 5-6 of these brick sessions and then regular running and cycling was my training routing. No formal triathlon plan at all.
My race day expectation was that I would complete swimming in 1 hour. Cycling in max of 4 hours. Running in 2:30 -2:45 hrs. Add about 15 minutes of T1 + T2 transition times. And I should be able to complete inside 8 hours. If I did cycling a bit faster I could even get down to 7:45 or even 7:30 on a good day. That was the hope.
Logistics
Another thing I was very worried about was logistics of how to carry my bike to Hyderabad for the event. I wasnt comfortable disassembling the bike, carry it in the flight or train and then assembling it in Hyderabad. What if I couldnt assemble correctly and gears didnt work or whatever. So decided to completely avoid that headache for my first triathlon and decided to drive down to Hyderabad for the event with a driver.
The Event
Finally the event weekend came around. Prepared my transition bags. Had to prepare 2 bags and 3 stacks.
 |
| Transition bag items. Right stack for swimming. Right + Middle are T1 transition bag items. Left stack are the T2 transition bag items. |
On Saturday, started from Pune at 4 am. Road condition is horrible from Solapur to Hyderabad. So took us over 11 hours to get into Hyderabad with very less sleep as had to keep the drive awake by chatting with him! Picked up my cousin Ketki, who was doing her first ever duathlon next day, on the way to the venue for bib collection, reached the expo, picked up the bib by around 4:30 pm. Had an early dinner with Ketki around 7 pm. Talked to Sonali back home as she also had a big day ahead - she was doing her first half marathon at Pune Run Beyond Myself (PRBM) event. Slept early after finalizing the transition bags and putting the bibs on the cycle and the jersey. Slept with butterflies in the stomach.
Got up around 3:30 am ... checked out of the hotel and reached the venue around 5:20 am. Parked the cycle and got my transition items and bags ready. Then got mentally ready for the swim. Met a couple of competitors and exchanged pleasantries - Anjali Bhalinge an elite athlete from Pune, and Manoj Balekar, a professional swimming coach from Mumbai. Hyderabad triathlon swim is in a swimming pool which is not the norm ... so only about 30 triathletes would go in the first batch at 6 am in the swimming pool. Next batch would have to wait till the first wave came out. So next batch would start at almost 7 am... meant cycling and running in much more intense heat. I was lucky to be in the first wave. The organizers gave us instructions and a pep talk and the event was flagged off 25 minutes late at 6:25 am.
There were 10 lanes ... each lane had 3 swimmers. And there was a volunteer per lane who would count the lengths. We had to do 38 lengths of the 50 mtrs pool to cover the 1.9 km distance. My hope was to finish swimming off in 1 hour. I started swimming with a length of freestyle. Did one length freestyle and then as usual was breathless. So switched quickly to breaststroke in the middle of the second length. As I got into the rhythm of the breaststroke, with body warmed up, I started completing the laps at a steady pace of 3 mins/100 mtrs. There were a bunch of guys who were doing freestyle and doing it much faster than me obviously. Some were doing breaststroke like me and I was proud to notice that I was going faster than the other breaststroke swimmers. Some folks were stopping every 100 mtrs or so. One guy who apparently couldnt swim was running in the swimming pool instead of swimming! :-) Finally the countdown started as I got to 30 lengths and I increased the pace a bit. Completed the 1.9 kms in 1 hr 2 minutes. Was out of the swimming pool feeling reasonably fresh.
Went to the changing area and thought I would quickly change and get to my cycle. Hmm ... realized my first mistake. I should have swam in my Pearl Izumi triathlon shorts. It takes a long time to get out of wet clothes especially when you are in a hurry. It took me 8 minutes or so to change and wear the triathlon shorts and my jersey! Then headed out to the transition area and put on the shoes, helmet etc. Ate a banana quickly and had the Amul coffee from the can. Ate one Anjeer bar. Another 7 minutes gone! Started cycling quickly. The cycling mat was a km away at the main gate of the IBS univ. Another 2 minutes gone. A total of 17 minutes T1 transition time!! Way too much!! Have to optimize this and get this down to 5 minutes in the future events. Started cycling at 7:50 am or so.
Took some time to relax a little. Ate a banana, a chikki bar. I had finished almost 1.5 ltrs of Enerzal on the cycle ride so was well hydrated. But still had a couple of glasses of water. Took some time to empty the pockets of excess food I had carried on the cycle ride. T2 transition took almost 10 minutes. This was also way too much. So total of (17+10) 27 minutes or so transition time! Have to get this total transition time down to max 10 minutes.
The sun was out in full force in the last half hour of cycling from around 11 am. No cloud cover at all. Temperature had already touched 35 degrees and would later reach upto 38 degrees during the run! I started running in such brutal weather - first ever hot afternoon run! Thought if I could do a 7:30 min/km average pace, I could still manage a 2:45 and thus a sub 8 hour finish. Started well but soon hit the uphill on ISB road and had to walk. On the downhill I kept running upto 3-4 kms or so. But by this point my energy level had already reached a nadir. The sun was really crazy hot making things impossible for me. There was pretty much no shade on the road either. Completely barren! Around 4.5 kms I felt slight dizziness. Body had heated up too much. I decided to take a break on the side of the road. Just sat down where I found some shade. Too many thoughts crossed my mind during what I think was eternity but was only a minute or so. For the first time in such a competitive event I felt that it would be ok to quit at this point. I can come back stronger in the next event etc etc. All the negative thoughts. Then the sane part of my mind spoke ... The event cutoff is 10 hours which was still 4:15 hrs away. Even if I walk the entire remaining 16 km distance I would be able to finish it. And decided to move along. Whew - close call!!
Walked till the next aid station 500 mtrs away. At the aid station poured 3-4 glasses of cold water on my head and body and the cap. This rejuvenated me big time. I felt a surge of energy and felt that I could run. Ran for 1.5 km at slow clip. Came to the ORR by then. Again the energy sapped as body had heated up again. Walked for another km till the next aid station. Poured another 3-4 glasses there and kept on running. Now this was my modus operandi. There was an aid station almost every 2 kms or so. So I would pour 3-4 glasses of water on myself. Drink a couple of glasses of water and 1 gatorade and then power on. I would fill up one of my bottles in my belt with water so I could pour it on myself if my body heated up before the next aid station.
The sub 8 hour finish was a lost cause now. I just wanted to complete it now. Strangely no one I had crossed in my bike ride had managed to cross me yet even though I was so slow. A couple of folks from the next wave in the swimming pool had crossed me though. I kept run walk routine at a pace of 8 to 9 mins/km and the water pouring routine. The IBS road on the way back, as earlier noted, is a continuous climb of 3-4 kms. Walked most of the climbs. Ran a few. Finally last couple of kms left. A half iron competitor from the first wave had crossed me at 12 km mark and was just ahead of me. I kept him within my line of sight trying to catch him as he was also doing a run/walk routine. That gave me something to focus on in those tough patches. I would catch up with him and then he would move on. Finally neared the stadium and ran the last 500 mtrs.
Still finished behind that guy, but was so glad I finished!! 8 hours 33 minutes! No celebrations at the end ... just too exhausted to even do that. I had taken 3 hours 15 minutes for my half marathon, an hour 5 minutes more than my PB for HM! This was indeed my toughest event ever. The 600 BRM is no comparison. Neither is the Hyderabad Full marathon. Satara hill half ultra was nothing compared to this one. All those events seemed like a cakewalk in front of this. A very well deserved medal at the end! A good looking medal as well. Had a hearty lunch and then finally had the strength to call home and tell Sonali and Baba the good news! Sonali also had finished her first half marathon on that day in just above 3 hours. What a day of achievements for the Sambhus family! :-)
 |
| Mandatory selfi at the finish line! ;-) |
This endurance event tested me physically and mentally. I guess my aggressive target of 7:30 to 7:45 was also partly to blame. Even though I had taken much longer than my expectation, I still had managed to finish in a reasonably good time for my first triathlon. Official timing of 8 hours 35 minutes for a first triathlon and that too a half ironman at that was still good. To top off the fun, I later came to know that I was overall 13th from the entire field. Total 60+ triathletes had started. 36 had completed in time. And I was 13th in that field. And 1st in the 40+ category. Wow! So it was a tough event for others as well, not just me. Happy happy! Lots of learnings from the event.
1. In half ironman you start the run around 11 or noon. So need to put in some serious practice to run in that heat and sun OR choose some events with more forgiving climate and terrain. Should be able to complete a half marathon in max of 2:30 or 2:45 in the half ironman.
2. My Brick workouts really helped. My legs didnt feel like bricks neither did I get any cramps.
3. Had to reduce transition time down to 10 minutes. I could have easily shaved off 20 minutes from the 8:35 hours if I had optimized transitions.
4. My swimming speed for breast stroke is optimized to 1 hr for 2 kms. Only way to improve swim speed further is focus on freestyle.
5. My cycling speed can improve a bit. I should have been able to shave about 15-30 minutes if I had kept the intensity high all the way till the end.
6. Dont give up! Even though I felt like shit in the middle of the run, I was able to figure out a way and complete the event.
7. I am not ready for a full ironman. This event took all the physical and mental energy I had. I can possibly do a 3.8 km swim followed by 180 km cycling. But no way I can do a full marathon in 6 hours after the 2 events. Typical cutoffs for full ironman are 16 or 17 hours. And with my current half ironman timing I wouldnt be able to meet that cutoff. I need to be comfortable with a full marathon distance and should be able to finish it in 4:30 or 4:45 or thereabouts. Hopefully in SCMM. Also I should be able to do a half ironman within 7:30 to 7:45 max in Indian climates to hope for a successful finish at a Ironman.
Overall I feel I can easily shave off 20 minutes from transition time. Then another 30 minutes or so from the run if I practice runs in the afternoon. And hopefully another 10-15 minutes in cycling. So I can shave off 1 hour with some effort and target a 7:30 hour finish for the half. There's a half, 3/4 and a full iron event in Chennai in December. Maybe I will attempt another half iron then to see how and if I am able to apply some of the learnings. Fingers crossed.
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