18.08.14

Success at the Desaru Half Ironman - I always love heading to new races around the world so when I got the opportunity to race the 2XU Desaru Half Ironman in Malaysia I jumped on board.

The race took place at the beach resort of Desaru a 90mins car trip from Singapore on the Eastern side on Malaysia. Being so close to the equator this race is renowned for being one of the hottest races on the planet but we were fairly lucky that we had cloudy conditions most of the swim and bike.

With the water temperature at 27°c it was of course a non wetsuit swim. I took the lead from the gun and had my old training and racing mate Jamie Hunt on my feet, it was just like the old days when we raced as juniors on the circuit. We had had a sizeable lead coming out of the water and wanted to increase it even more on the 95km bike ride, the course was fairly flat and fast and apart from the odd monkey it was a great ride. I managed to lead off the bike to hold a 8min gap, the run course would be tough with the temps now in the 30's and the humidity in the 90's. The course reminded me of the Hawaii Ironman run with it's very own Pit (a out and back section with a steep nasty hill to run three times. I tried to run at a steady pace and just survive the course without hurting myself to much as I will be racing again this week in the Metaman Triathlon(3.8km, 180km, 42km) on the Island of Bintan in Indonesia, a 1hr ferry trip from Singapore. I managed to finish in just over 4:18hr to take 1st place.

I now have a few days in Singapore to recover from yesterdays race and then head to Bintan on Wednesday.

 

AVANTI RIDERS