Racing 2013 – Stage 2: Abu Dhabi International Triathlon

          Five weeks between Dubai Marathon and Abu Dhabi Triathlon quickly passed and I was already sitting on the plane to UAE again. This time I planned everything much better, but let’s come back a bit first.

          Five weeks or even two months since the beginning of the year seem a lot of time for training, but the reality is far different. I tried to train as much as I could, but there is not only training I want to do, so even after duathlon training sessions and 50 pool sessions more or less twice a week I did far less than expected! Merciless Garmin speaks clear. In the last two months I swam 15k, cycled 600k and ran 180k! Well…it is not much, but when I think about it, I did what I could, I was not lazy, so I feel OK with it J Enough training or not, only the race shows the truth…and there was a hell of a race to prove it! Long distnce Abu Dhabi Triathlon is 3k swim, 200k bike and 20k run!

          I think that the last year Abu Dhabi Tri was practically my first triathlon I ever did. I had practically no idea what I will be doing there. I rented a road bike in Dubai, had no road bike training, never cycled more than 100k in my life before a swan just enough to check that I can probably swim 3k in a row! Pain and struggle during the race was obvious, but time 9:23:14 was not that bad! This year everything was different! I had my own triathlon / time trial bike, did more training and most importantly I had some idea!

          So after the relaxed Friday morning flight from Doha to Abu Dhabi, where in the half empty flight were around 10 guys with bike cases, I took a taxi to the registration hotel and then after assembling my bike in the transition area I was chilling out in the sun with a strawberry milkshake. Then after some time my friends in crime Jaro and Yasa came, we had two dinners and went to bed around 10pm. This is how the day before the race should look like J When falling asleep and I felt ready, excited and confident!

          The good spirit continued on the race morning too. Everything prepared in time, without stress and only flaw was that I was waiting for the start on the wrong place of the beach, but I realized soon enough to join the others when the siren sounded!

          Swim went as more or less as expected. Still swimming on the tail of the field mostly alone, struggling a bit with keeping direction, but overall I tried to push and swim faster. Small problem was that I had my compression clothes under the wetsuit, so I was feeling a bit warm in 19°C water. Swim time 1:00:23 was identical as last year so I felt a bit disappointed, because it felt that I was swimming faster. Actually Garmin measured 3.66km and I heard the watch beeping every 500m, so I was quite happy to be just on my goal pace!

          Transition went smoothly because I had already all clothes on and 5 minutes it takes mainly because the bike mount line is quite far away. There is still a lot of space for speeding it up, but for now it went just right. Still on target and off for a 200k bike ride.

          One of the biggest problems of riding in UAE or Qatar is the ever present wind. I think that there is no single windless day and there is a big difference between 0 knots and 7 knots! The race day was no difference. First 40k to Yas Island we had decent headwind and I managed only 30km/h pace. But I was confident that with tailwind I can easily make 40mk/h to earn it back to my planned goal pace 35. Three laps around Yas Marina F1 race track and I was flying back towards Saadiyat 45. Now there were three 40k laps between Yas and Saadiyat, half head wind, half tail wind. That was the theory! The reality was far different, because at the beginning of the second lap the wind started changing in such a nasty way, that the whole ride felt like fighting headwind! And by the last stretch back to transition it was completely against the wind again! That sucked and it claimed my pace, my strength, my mind and I was cycling back in rather defeatist mood, disgusted and sometimes shouting!

         5:55:41 bike time (which is 33.8 km/h) was 10 minutes slower than I hoped for, but on the other hand I felt much better than last year. Only little numbness of my toes, which went away after a couple of steps in the transition area, no knee pain and overall I was feeling stronger and less wasted. Maybe I should have pushed harder on the bike then! The run proved me that I probably couldn’t!

          Run transition was slower, because I was losing motivation again and I did couple of things I should have done on the move and I walked a bit to the timing mat, but once on the run I started as planned with 4:30 pace! But the familiar thing started happening soon and I was forced to slow down. And I was slowing down and my pace was falling down until the very bottom at 6 min/km! I just couldn’t go faster. There was no energy…no power! But in contrary to the last year I kept running. Running slow, but running and any run is way faster than walking J And as I was getting to the second half of the run I felt some energy returning and I was slowly speeding up again. 

          And then it was! I was in the finish! With the time 8:51:09 I was more than half an hour faster than last year, but also 20 minutes slower than my goal time. Where was the mistake? Probably the main reason was the wind. Without wind I think I could have been much faster on the bike and going to the run in better mental state would probably give me more strength to attack…but maybe not!

          Sitting in the sun after race and eating and drinking whatever was available I quickly reconsidered the idea I had during the race to cancel the Ironman I signed up, because I didn’t see the point of going through all this and even worse in case of Ironman triathlon! But comfortably sitting, chatting and laughing with friends about race experiences and planning further challenges, you realize that the feeling of accomplishment is highly addictive, that giving up is not an option in anything and actually the feeling after you overcome the urge to give up feels the best and empowers you to do even more! So shut up and keep training. We can do better next time J The Ostseeman awaits!