Port Macquarie Half Ironman 2009

With a seeded swim start according to the expected finish time, I started in the 34min to 40min category with a goal to finish the swim in 35 min. But for some strange reason, the swimmers in front of me were slower than me, and swimmers behind were faster. As a result, I was swimming over someone, and someone was swimming over me. It was more like a “drown the other swimmers competition” than a triathlon. Or maybe that’s wot a triathlon is supposed to be.



There was a slow swimmer ahead left, and a slow swimmer ahead right, and I was about to swim past them in the middle when all of a sudden they decided to close the gap between them, and squish me. I had to push them aside to make way for myself. I heard about another guy who was swimming next to a female triathlete. I think he would have been enjoying the company of the opposite sex until she unleashed her deadly weapon – her long finger nails. She scratched his face multiple times (probably unintentionally) and he came out of the swim bruised and bleeding. I think swimming in oysters would be safer than that. I followed the bubbles left by swimmers ahead and finished the 1.9 km swim in 35min, which was my target time.




Wore a sponge bob t-shirt in the transition area and went of on bike. The crowd loved it. The kids loved it. I had installed an aero bottle on TT bars the day before, and within the first km, it started to come out of the bars. The holding Velcro strap failed. So I had to do a bit of mechanical repairs – I used my elastic hair band to hold the bottle in place, and it worked very well. Although it was ridiculously hard to drink water from its pointed straw, and I felt I am just carrying a kilo of unnecessary weight on my bike. Anyways, I started to overtake people.





Someone ahead of me had dropped their helmet number sticker, and it got stuck on my front tire. It started to make “chick chick chick chick chick” sound as it would brush with the brakes in every rotation of the wheel. The cyclist I was overtaking started laughing at wot was going on. I tried to grab it off from the tyre while overtaking him at about 35km/hr, but it got stuck in the brake pads. It now made a continuous sound – “chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirr rr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...” By this time, the cyclist I was still overtaking was about to fall off from his bike laughing. He was a bit nuts. I putted my hand near the brake pad and grabbed the bloody sticker off from the tyre. Got the minor burn on the thumb, but it was worth it.



The Mathew Flincher Rd Hill in the cycling stage was at 36km and 81km. It is quite a steep climb, and I had to get out of the saddle to grind it in a low gear. There was a girl who was cheering “Go Giiiiii” but I have no idea who she was. The climb depleted quite a bit of energy, but hey, wot’s half Ironman without a challenge? A course with downstream swim, downhill cycling course with wind a tail wind, and downhill turn would be a disgrace to Half Ironman, and leave you quite down from where you started iniit?




Well, I finished the bike leg in about 3 hours (2hr55 + transitions), but my legs were jelly in the run. A chick went past me and said “You passed me on the bike, now I pass you in the run.” I couldn’t get a fast pace out of my legs, and I didn’t want to hammer it hard because 21 km is a bit long distance for that. There was a group of girls sitting by the side of the running track, and they cheers “Go Giiii! Go...!!!!!”
I asked "how do you know my name?"
They said "it was in newspaper."
“Wot newspaper?” I asked.
One of them replied “Port Macquarie News.”
I think she was being smart arse. I guess I will never find out who these ladies were and how they know my name! Others who didn’t know my name were cheering me by saying “Go sponge bob!” (kids loved that t-shirt)
“Go budgy smuggler”
“Go Jamaica!” :-S
“Go Predator!!” lol


Great crowd and a great day. I was happy that I gave a good attempt, and a identified that running is where I need to start working on. Looking forward to do that course again in Ironman Australia in March 2010!

Original Race Report on the Dulwich Hill Bicycle Club Forum