AeroFit Triathlon – Race 5

This was my third AeroFit triathlon, a sprint distance (750m swim, 20km bike, 5km run) that takes place at Golden Tulip Al Jazira Hotel and Resort in Ghantoot, a 30 minutes drive from Dubai Marina.

This time I had a special guest with me, my cousin Nuno who came from Portugal to race with me in Abu Dhabi and Singapore. This was his first triathlon, so it was an excitement for both of us.

At the end, the feeling of satisfaction was amazing, but throughout the race many thoughts came to my mind.

The swim was awful because I’ve not paced myself (was going too fast for my fitness level), I had my new wetsuit which I haven’t tried before, and there was people all over the place.

At half way in the first lap, I thought I was going to quit. I was feeling exhausted, no strength, everybody was coming over me, and it was not going well at all. When I got out of the water to go for the second loop, I walked to recover my breath. Second loop was a little bit better. I paced myself, tried to relax and do an easy swim. At the end, the goal is to enjoy it and have fun. Of course that we always want to improve our time and get a personal best, but if you don’t enjoy it, what’s the point?

Then there was the transition, where I was aspiring to save a couple of minutes. I’ve mentally rehearsed this in my mind several times, and even did a couple of times the night before. Basically, no socks, gloves, anything. Just me, the bike, helmet, shoes and race bib. I even tried to close the shoes strap in the bike, which ended up being a mistake. Soon I’ll get my triathlon bike shoes, and that should improve a lot. Nevertheless, I managed to reduce around 3 minutes in the 2 transitions.

Next came the bike, and the run, and in both I’ve managed to reduce significant time compared to the first and second race. Here’s my progress since first race:

1. Sep 30 – Race 1: 1:21:35
2. Nov 18 – Race 3: 1:22:38 (improved times, but changes in swim course make it longer)
3. Feb 24 – Race 5: 1:15:43

At the end, I’ve done a great progress and I feel very happy with my new PB, due to a great improvement on fitness level, and also on the transition times. I do feel that I need/can/should improve a lot on my swimming performance. Need to find a swimming coach that can take me to the next level (from basic to basic+ ) so that I can get out of the water much ahead than I’m currently getting.

My cousin … he was flying (though he need to improve on the swim like me, and he finished so ahead of me that he had time to take breakfast, pick the camera from the transition area and take a picture of me crossing the finish line .

At the end of the day, I’m not expecting to get any podiums, and I just want to have fun and exceed myself, and I’m doing that. Next stop is Abu Dhabi International Triathlon with the “short” distance race (1.5k, 100km, 10km) and then Aviva Ironman 70.3 in Singapore (1.9k swim, 90km bike, 21km run). Goals for the next two races? Have fun, learn, and get to the finish line.

3rd Anniversary

Tomorrow is the 3rd anniversary of my first half-marathon. Believe it or not, it is a very memorable date for me, so I’m very happy to go back to Ras Al Khaimah and run again the RAK Half Marathon.

I still remember how I felt exhausted but with an extreme sense of achievement after completing it in 2h19m, despite the fact that there were men and women with 50 and 60+ years old, people in funny and heavy customs running much faster than me.

I’ve “run” a long journey till this day, and I couldn’t have done it with a lot of people that helped me. Vas Modinos was my buddy during this first half marathon. He could have run it faster, but he decided to stay with me all the way to make sure I would reach to the end.

But all started with Mr. Rainer Strassner  and Véronique, both colleagues at Microsoft, who took me for a run in Prague and I almost crawled back to the hotel. I felt challenged, and after buying a GPS enabled watch (thanks again to Mr. Strassner), I started taking running more seriously.

Then I started using Dailymile, a wonderful social website for athletes, thanks to a tip from Dan Grady,  and friends like Tatyana, Miruna came along. Ben Walton was another one, that on top of being a fantastic athlete and a great inspiration, gave me amazing tips when I got injured, and this was an amazing benefit and retribution of using Dailymile.

Of course I can’t forget Roland, who back in April 2010 used to smoke 1 pack of cigarettes a day and struggled to run 5km with the MS gang that would run early morning before the meetings, and 6 months later was running the Dublin marathon and challenging me on the total kms run in the year.

After running Dubai marathon the injuries came, and most of the people above helped me by motivating me or giving me tips and advice. Thanks to Tatyana, Relu and Miruna, I’ve started swimming and cycling, and now I’m doing triathlons. Then I’ve started meeting other like minded people, who also started doing triathlons, like Alistair, or even a little bit more hardcore people like Matt Warnock, who did this year his first Ironman in Wales, and also inspired me today with his blog.

I can’t finish these thoughts without referring my cousin Nuno who apart from being a young athlete with a huge potential, has been a great source of inspiration and a great motivator.

The most amazing thing for me in this journey is to see how influence from other people is so important, either for good things or/and bad things. I can feel how I get so motivated and inspired when surrounded by these people, in the same way that I felt in high school when I started smoking because my friends were also smoking. This is one of the reason that I try to take my kids as much as possible to these type events, so that they also feel inspired and motivated to do sports, and hopefully get addicted for the rest of their life to these healthy habits.

I’m definitely addicted to sports now, specially running which I consider like my “meditation”, and take a piece of advice and stay way from me when I’m more than a week without exercising, because I become grumpy.

Amazing journey that I’ve done in these last 3 years in many facets of my life. Back in 2009 in RAK I’ve done 2h19m, 2 years later in the Creek Striders Half Marathon I’ve done 1h58m, and this year 1:46m. Whatever is the result tomorrow, or even if I don’t reach the finish line, I’ve already won. I’ll do my best, even if it is a training race but doesn’t stop being a very special one, but I’ve been missing trainings, getting lots of cramps, and not too much sleep. Nevertheless, I know I’ve already won.

Looking back, I could say that the guy in the picture above is “somebody that I use to know”, the title of the song I’ve heard more than 20 times only this week.

 

Happy Anniversary, and I wish for all my friends running tomorrow that they have a great race, and most important, have fun!