Taitung 123km Triathlon, Taiwan, October 2008

This is the race we were training for for the last couple of months. It was a 2,2km swim, 100km bike and 21km (it ended up being 23km!!!) run. It was the longest race I have done so far and it was a big challange. The swim was quite good and there was a lot more space to get into a nice rythm. I finished the swim in about 45min. Then followed the 100km bike. It was mostly flat and ideal for fast times. I am not sure of my time, but I'm guessing the I finished in under 3 hours (34km/h average speed). The run was very difficult for me. The first 5km after getting off the bike was difficult, but then my legs freed up a little and I could run with better rythm. I started to feel like I was running out of fuel a bit before the 10km mark and had to make use of all the water stops. I was also really glad that I decided to use my Fuelbelt. I certainly learned a lot about staying hydrated and getting enough fuel into my body. I had to walk quite a few times just to get my heartrate down a bit, but I was able to finish fairly strong. My overall time was 5hours and 59minutes. This time would have placed me in 9th position in my age group, but for some reason my chip did not register my time. I informed the organizers and hopefully that can still be sorted out.

I was very tired but also very happy after the race. I am very happy that I started doing triathlon and have have met some great people up to now. I'm looking forward to the next race six weeks from now in Pingtung in the south of Taiwan. It's an Olympic distance triathlon. I'll be taking it easy for a couple of days and then start focusing on that race.