Thursday 28 August 2014

Metaman Bintan - Racing in Paradise

In a bid to escape the worst weather on earth (i.e. winter), I grabbed the chance to head over to tropical Bintan, Indonesia, for the annual Metaman Race.

On the race website, Metaman is described as "a tough, honest iron distance triathlon".  This does nothing to describe the beauty of Bintan, the friendliness of the locals or the tropical paradise that is Nirwana Gardens, race venue.

In the build up to the race I was lucky enough to stay with Jeremy and Janet in Singapore. Not only were they feeding me very delicious meals, but Jeremy was an ideal cycling buddy (who also went on to win his age group in the half iron distance race). Without him I would still be cycling in circles around Singapore trying to find my way home.

After the concrete jungle of Singapore, it was bliss to arrive in Bintan where the most road traffic you would experience was a handful of scooters and a troop (?) ... herd (?) of monkeys.

From this:
 
To this:
 
 
 
Race morning dawned as every other morning - very warm. It was a nice experience to head down to transition without wearing layers of clothing and dreading the moment I would have to strip it all off.
Aside from a flat tyre in transition, which I quickly replaced, race morning was relatively relaxed and I couldn't wait to just get started.
 
The water was a warm 29-30 degrees for the swim. I lost the front pack before the first turn buoy - this is the first time I have been dropped for a solo swim in a race! I then aimed to stay steady and comfortable as I knew it was going to be a long, hot day. Before long I realised I actually had Bec and Jo swimming on my feet, which was some consolation that I wasn't the only one to get dropped. Plus if there were sharks (which there aren't), ideally they would sneak up behind me and eat one of the others instead.
 
I was quickly dropped on the first few hills of the bike!
 
At Ironman New Zealand I made the mistake of riding too hard in the first half of the bike, and then grovelling home a bit for the last 40km. Knowing it was going to be hot and not wishing to repeat this experience I started conservatively - in hindsight, too conservatively :-/
I spent much of the ride alone, with only villages breaking up the jungle around me. These were always a good source of motivation - the local kids lined the street and cheered for all they were worth. If you gave them one of your empty drink bottles (of which I seemed to have many), they acted like they had won the lottery.  It was very cool.
Most of the ride was uneventful, aside from a torrential shower of very warm rain for the last 20km, making peering out of my fogged up sunglasses a bit tricky. Luckily enough there were none of these on the road:
 
 
 
As they are the size of very short-legged dogs.
 
I hit the run feeling good, which lasted for 2km. Then the heat began to hit. Aid stations were about 1.5km apart, which I initially thought was overkill, but I soon realised that this was pretty much the distance you could run without going crazy in the heat. Each aid station was a welcome nirvana of drinks and ice cold sponges. My pace soon dropped and my race goal changed to merely finishing. I soon caught Bec, who had pulled a hamstring, and moved into 4th, where I stayed until the welcome sight of the finish line.
 
 
 
Although I raced slower than what I thought I was capable of, this was an amazing experience. I learnt a lot through the race, and met some amazing people, some of whom I have looked up to for many years.
 
A big congrats to everyone who finished a tough day. And to Gina and Cam who once again showed why they are such amazing athletes.
 
I have to say a big thank you to Jeremy and Janet for opening up their home to me and Roger, and to their two girls for putting up with Roger!
To the race organisers, for a well run and top notch race - this is definitely on my racing calendar in the future!
To the team at Bob's Bikes and Shoe Clinic for their continued support.
And to Rog, who had the very tough job of coming along with me - I know it was a hard place to be for a couple of weeks....