My wave would start at 9:20am, so I have plenty of time. Taking a cab with my wife and daughter, we reached Palawan beach 1 hour before the race. The venue was not crowded like any running race I took part before. And I have no problem find the place for boy marking and setting up my transition. I also had not much stuff in the transition area, just my running top, shades, GPS and HRM, I skipped running shoes because I ran barefoot.
The bay was calm and sun not hot that day, good for race. There still have time, I jumped to the water to hug the water before racing with it. The bouyancy of sea water really surprised me. I had no problem floating and no need to struggle like in pool. I tested TI form several rounds until my wave assembly, make sure I would swim with the least energy today.
Each wave started very punctual, so did my wave. I queued at the back so that I would not block the fast people, and try to separate with other people. I heard people around me fighting vigorously in the water. I try to keep my own pace, that means I slowing down. And soon I did not feel people any more. As I raised my head and took a look, I found my self deviated from the route. I just kept on biasing left in the rest of the race an I think it should be accountable for the additional 2min over my budget: I should have finished in 22min according to my pool record but end up with 24:04. Before the end point I also most hit the rock outside the route and corrected by a official in a canoe. And unfortunately, when I struggled back, I cramped my left leg. I'v tried to swim in a paralyzed way to the end, didn't know if I could finish the run-- at least I didn't want to drop out in the water. Good new was I felt I could run when I stood up in the water, bad news was I was not so refreshed as I expect. Swimming did cost lots of energy even swimming in TI. I could not imagine if I swam a normal front crawl way, I should have been exhausted before running.
I thought to be the last few in my wave getting off the water. From the picture later I found the leading athlete of next wave (white cap, mine is red)had caught up with me right out of water (I finished swimming at 176 out 187 in my age group). So the transition area was empty and I saw the caps and goggles left beside my spot. I put on running top and started out. The trail leading out was quite raw and full of gravels. I tried to land softly and when I got to the road, it was my time. The track in Sentosa was great for barefoot run, so smooth and clean.
I tried to keep my HR to 174bpm as I planned. Unfortunately I could only get 4:45/km pace under such a HR. It seemed swimming had consumed quite some of my muscle glycogen. What surprised most was my HR reached to maximum of 186bpm at 1km mark when I trying to speed up to 4:00/km. Knew I could not break PB in this race, I tuned back to 4:45/km. It was quite comfortable and My HR was stable till the end. I finished 23:58, ranked 40/187, my total score also brought up to 123/187, not bad. The best parts were meeting two other barefoot runner along the route, cheered for each other; got cheered by my faithful audience, my wife and daughter at finish line. The organizer was very considerate and pull up the real line to greet every finisher at the point, making us more proud of out effort and achievement, kudos!
After the race, we began another Sunday's fun in Sentosa, a tour in Underwater World. We had a great time.
*My race results
*My certificate
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