Racing season went on right the next weekend
with the Sprint triathlon in Dukhan. Last year I finished around sixth place,
also because I forgot to put my helmet into the transition zone and had to go
and collect it from the car! This year I had more experience and probably even
more power, so I had hopes to follow my second place from 2011! But just small
ones, because the main objective was to race hard and enjoy! This is my
attitude for this year J
It was a beautiful Friday morning. After camping
in the desert nearby we didn’t have to spend one hour driving from Doha, so we
could come to the venue just around 7:30am and with no rush prepared everything
for the race. It was so nice that the race was starting at 9am. I’m not an
early bird and every extra hour in the morning mobilizes more of my strength!
The distances were a bit shorter than last year and 400m
swim passed really quickly. I tried to work with my arms hard and increase the
stroke rate. It felt like I was going faster, but when I got back to shore and
saw many people around, I knew that I was same fast as always! But in the race
concentration there was no time to think about or be disappointed about such
things. The race was not over yet!
I hopped shirtless onto the bike and started pedaling as
hard as I could the 16k bike section. I didn’t have the proper tri clothes yet,
so I decided not to waste time with putting a shirt on! I saw Lance Armstrong
doing a triathlon half naked and where else than in Qatar’s 30 degree mornings
you should try it too J
I started quickly passing a lot of people and because the two loop course was
short I didn’t have any idea what my position could be. So I kept going around
37 km/h average, just focusing forward.
Just at the beginning two guys I passed started drafting
behind me! In triathlon this is not allowed, but here it was, so it was not a
problem. Well it was not a problem from the rules point of view, but I had a
big problem with it! I wanted to complete the race as proper triathlon on my
own, and therefore I wanted everyone else to do it on their own also J I
didn’t have any benefit from drafting anyway, because as soon as I was not in
front we were slowing down and I didn’t just want to drag them to the finish!
So on the slight downhill, where I’m somehow usually faster than others, on a
roundabout, I sprinted forward from the back and was flying down 50 km/h easily
leaving them behind J
During the second loop I saw Iain on the other
side of the road, who I knew is faster on bike than me and basically the only
fast person I knew. “Wow…if he is behind me, it is a good sign” a though blazed
through my mind, but with your heart racing at 180bpm, the brain is focused on
other things than thinking about some positions! So I just kept going…
I dropped the bike, changes shoes and headed for the last 4k
run. I saw two ladies and one Filipino, around 100 meters in front of me and
thought “This cannot be the front of the race!! I have to still be somewhere
behind!” and mindlessly kept running and focusing on another problem. My
stomach was cramped and I couldn’t catch enough breath!
It happened probably from swallowing too much
water in the sea, or air when drinking, or just because I was pushing too much.
I didn’t know, but the only thing I knew was, that I couldn’t run properly.
Properly means fast and fast on 4k distance means less than 4 min/km. I was not
running that slow with 4:20 min/km, it was painful and I was slowing down even
more.
After around 1k I overtook that Filipino and saw
the rest of the run route in the distance. To my surprise there were really only
those two ladies left in front and not that far ahead! But I couldn’t do
anything to chase them. I was stuck, gasping for air, burping and slowing down
instead. Obviously the other runners started closing on me from behind. Slowly,
but steadily!
And at 1k to the finish Joe finally caught me. He passed me and
tried to find his revenge for me letting him behind on the bike ;) But to his
bad luck in that moment I finally burped out enough air and set my lungs free.
There was still enough strength in my legs from not running at my full
potential, so I rather easily leveled his pace, followed him for a while and
around 200m from the finish I sprinted from the back and left him behind once
again J
Third place overall then, but the fastest man! Those two
ladies were just too good! I won a big box with a home theater system and with
Ondrej and my lovely race photographer Jitka we went for a pizza and towards
the day on the beach! I just love these short morning races. They just power
your day J
Finally the Qatar’s local racing season started! And looking
at my calendar, it will be a super busy one, with races practically every
Friday and sometimes also on Saturday! There will be plenty of MTB or road
races and time trials organized by western expat Qatar Chain Reaction and
Filipino Padyak Qatar.
There will be a few triathlons organized by newly
established Tri Club Doha or Dukhan Triathlon. There will be a series of five
Aquathlons organized by Aspire, couple of 10k runs, 15k run or the inaugural
Doha marathon!! And I’m not mentioning many other fun and charity events. Just
too many events to do and one will have to start being picky J And if somehow
there is a blank weekend, there will be always something in UAE…like a 20+20
Desert Stinker trail run.
But the first one of them, QCR 3h MTB endurance race, was a
no brainer, because it was first and MTB is on the top of my priority list,
although triathlon is getting a lot of my attention lately!
Duhail off road 5k track full of technical perks, climbs,
descends, fast and slow section, got improved last year so now it is even more
fun and challenging and definitely one of the best MTB grounds in the country.
Around 30 racers lined up for the start of the
three hour category with another 70 starting one hour later for the half
distance. This made the race the biggest MTB event ever. The siren sounded
everyone shoot off towards three hours of rounding around the track. Who
completes most laps wins. Simple as that J I
won both of the previous editions of this event so I was confident. Not as much
as usually, because I could feel the lack of proper training over the summer,
but I hoped everyone would be in the same position. Wrong assumption!!
Julien, Jock, Jonathan and others started like it was a 5k
sprint and I had to work hard to get back to the front pack from my lazy start.
After 500m one of the first guys got puncture and angrily threw his bike on the
ground in frustration. “ Gonna be a tough race” I thought forcing myself not to
chase full speed the leader and watch also the sharp stones on the ground. “One
puncture and I’m done” I reminded myself, but kind of trusted my tubeless
tires!
Jock and Jonathan went ahead full speed and me
with Julien were on the hunt. The tempo was just too fast and my heart rate was
at 180 straight from the start. “I can’t keep up like this the whole race” I
started panicking! Jonathan realized this in the middle of the second lap,
slowed down and we passed him. At the beginning the third lap we finally caught
Jock and I was hoping that the pace will slow down and we will relax. No way!!
Jock and Julien started to race each other and I realized that I just cannot
keep up if I want to finish the race and started to slow down letting them go L My dream about a triple was fading away!
So I started to cruise on my own, still decent speed faster
than the rest of the field, but trying to recover and watch my back. In the
middle of the fourth lap Jock got a puncture or some mechanical problem he
couldn’t solve and had to retire from the race. Then I was second, but felt
like I was continuously slowing down.
It was true because one lap later Jonathan closed on me,
passed me and I had to try to stick to his tail. It was hard, but I didn’t want
to give up so easily. Unfortunately for him his new rohloff rear wheel spokes
loosened and broke, so by the end of that lap his chase was over. And I was
still second with no one in sight ahead nor behind.
From that time I really started to cruise and suffer. Lack
of training and my weak shape showed up in full strength and had to work hard
every lap to complete it. During the eight round Julien lapped me like a
bullet! He was still flying like at the start! Road bike time trial couple of
weeks back should have warned me that those roadies maybe don’t have the
technique on the mountain bike, but they have the muscle…which counts even more
that skill I’m afraid!
The last laps I had to even stop and rest my
toes because of serious pain, but there was no one behind me even after 3
minutes of rest. I lined up next the Filipino weekend warriors doing the half
distance and we cruised together. They are definitely getting better every
year, but it was me who was that terribly slow! Frustrating, sad and worrying!
I finished second with 12 laps in 3 hours and 20 minutes
(they made me do one more lap because I finished 11 in 2:57!! Last year I did
14 in the same time. But the biggest worry was my shape for the upcoming MTB
Championship series organized by Padyak where they are promising huge support,
prestige and prize money…and you want to be part of an event like this and you
want to be visible in the event like this! We’ll see how bad it really is…still
more than a month to go J
Islamic three day EID holidays are almost a mandatory reason
to leave the country! I didn’t have enough leave days to extend it to a full
week, but fortunately my generous company allowed me to take leave from 2014 J And because Jitka had leave enough, we could start planning where to go…which
is somehow being quite difficult decision for us!
We were obviously not the only one who wanted to escape from
Qatar, so two weeks ahead all the tickets to anywhere were double the price and
with a fact that autumn seems a worldwide low wind season our decision making
was really a tough task!
At the beginning we wanted to go to Greece, than Sri Lanka,
Maldives, Nepal, Egypt…but always there was something wrong we didn’t like. It
was either too expensive, too complicated, too long travel, too crowded and as
we were spending more and more time just browsing without finding we started to
get even crazier ideas like Indonesia, India or Ethiopia! We were running out
of time and each day we didn’t decide the tickets were getting more and more
expensive!
At the end we made a comprehensive Excel spreadsheet with
flight times and cost estimations, picked two and we liked the most and chose
our destiny J “Wherever we go it is going to be great if we are together” I secured Jitka
that Maldives will be superb!
You’ve seen pictures from Maldives right? Crystalline
waters, white beaches rounded with palm trees, wooden houses on shallow reefs
and stunning underwater life. Safe bet! Well…in certain places and certain time
for sure!
We wanted to be at the smallest budget possible
and do kitesurfing and stand up paddleboarding, so based on Google maps I chose
the Maafushi island. Maafushi is one of the many local Maldivian village
islands, with no alcohol, no picturesque cottages standing on water and no
luxury what so ever, but cheap and public ferry ride from airport.
We got a
decent and clean room in a guesthouse, which was unfortunately not directly on
the beach. But no problem…beach was just 100m away.
The problem was though,
that the beach was full of rocks, corals a palm trees were just on the water
edge, making it quite unfriendly to kiters. The good places for kitesurfing
were either on the leeward side of the island or inaccessible, because there
was a prison. Things like this you cannot find out from Google maps!
Using SUPs was also not exactly as expected
because even on the shallow reef area there were many waves and once the waves
are half a meter high it is very difficult to stand upright…especially on a 26
inch race board! And going to other islands across deep open water channels to
snorkel at better reefs than the Maafushi’s small one was almost impossible!
Also an exceptionally big hurricane was forming up next to India
was making the weather extremely shifty, unpredictable and which was forming isolated
heavy rainstorms running across the sky and showering us every hour! Adding up
very average meals and rather vegetarian unfriendly cuisine in our place, no
wonder that from the first day the mood was not great and there was a tension
and questioning “Why the hell are we here and not in some beautiful resort like
from a catalogue!” It was just not going according to the plan!
True…the place was not perfect and the first two days we
were just running around, trying to do what we wanted with little success and
basically learning our way around, but on the other hand there was no guarantee
that we would be happier in a posh isolated hotel island with no spirit and
among people from higher levels which we would hardly come along with! There we
wouldn’t definitely met Jascha, a lone German kitesurfer, having his last
minute budget holidays in Maafushi also J
With more people stuck on the island (he
definitely didn’t look that “stuck” as we did!) it was easier to do things,
ease the tension and try to enjoy more. With him we saved our second day by
hiring a boat to go kiting to an amazing sand bank at Cocoa Island resort
nearby. We had a great session spiced up with some rainstorms passing by and
pinning us down under the kite to protect us from heavy rain and winds.
For three hours we were kiting like in the
promotion spot…shallow blue water, white clouds, sand and palm trees at the
back! Magical! Then the resort staff kicked us out to protect their 1000 dollar
a night guests from invaders disturbing their boring peace by doing some
activity one kilometer away from the beach and spoiling their view!
Inspired, we took another boat the next day and went for the
whole day to a similar island with a perfect sand bank, but no resort and
annoying people. Unfortunately the cyclone Phailin had a different idea about
us enjoying kiting in paradise and sent over 25 knots of wind! Excellent conditions
if you have smaller kite than 12m…which you usually don’t have when the
forecast is 15 knots max! Like that we just had to sit and wait until the boat
picked us up in the evening. Such a bad luck and waste!
So we resigned on kiting and went for a snorkeling trip the
next morning. Much better, because we were swimming with manta rays, turtles,
huge schools of fish and were surrounded by unbelievable colors of coral reefs
and the life around. I went out kiting at our beach in the afternoon and had very
nice session. That I had to launch and land the kite in the water, ride over
corals and waves, and pay for any possible mistake (which didn’t happen!) by
smashing the kite into the trees was a small issue J And the mood was going up
again…
The last day we took our SUPs and paddled to the Cocoa
Island once more to have a lunch and maybe a beer too! Waves were quite big so
we spent the most of the 9km paddle doing Sit Down Paddleboarding! But it
didn’t matter, because it was nice to be out on the sea anyway. Luckily the
decided to check out their beautiful house reef first before going to eat,
because as soon as we ordered and we revealed ourselves not being their guests,
we were again kicked out from an empty restaurant with 150 dollar order.
Private is private and policy is a policy! Silly!
And that was it! Five days in “paradise”. Once taking a boat
back to the airport we were kind of happy to go home again, despite the last
good days improving the experience 100%, but on the other hand kind of unhappy,
because we knew that if having a better weather, better island and better
hotel, this place could easily be that dream paradise as we were imagining it!
We’ll see when and if another chance will be given to prove it J
The Most Beautiful
Thing means The Sabah 100k Ultra Trail Marathon in Malaysian part of Borneo.
100 kilometers and 5000m of elevation gain through super steep hills and jungle!
Sounds like fun right? That’s exactly why I was coming down there for the third
consecutive year. OK…it was also because I was on the podium on the previous
years and had the entry for free J But this time I was not coming alone! Four
friends from Middle East joined me for this challenge which promised to be the
toughest out of all the three editions of the race!
I came to Borneo on
the evening before the race as usual. Checked in the hotel and met with Jaro
and Milan. During dinner we chatted about how we were and how we trained. Milan
had run Leadville 100 mile race a month ago and was struggling with injured
ankle since, so he hasn’t trained. Jaro was not training much either because of
UAE killing summer. I tried my best after I came back from my holidays in Czech
Republic, but ran maybe 150 kilometers in the last month, so nothing much
either! But apart from that we were obviously very well prepared J Not much time for anything else! Sleep,
breakfast and lets run!
The next day on the
start we had to unfortunately wait for an hour more because there was a huge
queue of 500 competitors for crossing a suspension bridge five a time, but it
went quite fast as we chatted with some familiar faces from previous years.
When it finally
started I sprinted forward to be close in the leading group of the race,
because shortly after the start there was another suspension bridge to cross
and I didn’t want to get stuck in there! Once I was behind it I could start
focusing fully on the race, because the rest of the field got obviously stuck in
one hour queue again!
The first part of
the race was almost the same as the first year and I was recognizing many
places making the navigation and route finding easier. I was really hot and
humid, my heart rate was high, but I tried to keep some decent pace anyway on
the first flat 10k. Another annoyance was that everything was wet and muddy,
because of heavy rains in previous days. There were also many river and water
crossings so practically from the start to finish I was running with wet shoes!
But what to do. Everyone had wet shoes!
But the trail was
fun, narrow with sharp curves, though trees and canopy, jumping over roots, up,
down…when running like this focusing on the trail, you just don’t mind some
surrounding discomfort J
When sky-climbing
though pineapple plantations toward a short jungle look I caught up again with Jimmy
Tee, the guy who won the 2012 edition ahead of me and the guy who trains as
many kilometers in a week as I do in a month! Also runner Hedilee was closely
following me, but from his heavy breathing I hoped we wouldn’t last long. So
our group of three was running together through the jungle following the
leading guy somewhere in the front.
I was a bit faster
on the technical downhills so I outrun Jimmy on the way towards the water
station 2. We had to run the same beautiful narrow path cut into the steep
mountain slope as in 2011. I remembered very well, because that time on my
kilometer 65, I caught the second breath and was flying. This time I was not
flying that fast even on my kilometer 20, because the terrain and weather were
really exhausting and the progress was slow. I got to the 25k checkpoint after
4 hours of running! “It is going to be a long day” I thought when changing
socks and throwing out leaches from my shoes!
Jimmy obviously was
taking this race seriously so he rushed in the checkpoint just after me,
quickly got some water and ran away. By the time Hedilee also caught up and we
continued together. Not for long as I was again faster on the downhill on a
slippery concrete staircase. Next came a long steep paved road climb. I was walking
fast, but I felt like I was losing energy and spirit! Baking on the sun and
drinking disgusting waster I got at the last water station definitely didn’t
help. I spend some time refilling my camel bag and Hedilee caught me again. But
when we turned again away from the paved road and I got in the better mood in
the shade under the trees and with dirt under my soles, I saw him for the last
time!
And then started
raining! It not just some rain, but a proper tropical rain shower. My shoes
were soaked wet in a second and from the dense canopy around the narrow
mountain trail water was dripping straight onto my head. For a minute I kept
the rain cooling me down, but soon it became too uncomfortable, I put on my
Goretex jacket and continued in a happy pace J I think that sometimes the extreme conditions
can evoke an exceptional power in me to resist , endure and make me stronger.
And this time it was extreme.
Well…it could have
been more extreme and I almost wished it was! In that time I was already high
on the mountain so I missed the majority of the rain, because the cloud was
showering the below valley and all the other slower competitors for more than
an hour! It caused some rivers to rise and made some crossings impassable
trapping hundreds of runners inside the jungle! I luckily escaped the mayheim
over the ridge to the other side and enjoyed the last 10 kilometers before the
half running over the undulating wide dirt road familiar from 2012 race course.
Another heavy rain
shower caught me on the last 500m uphill to the half, but it didn’t matter I
was almost there! It took me long 7 hours to reach the 50k mark! I quickly
checked the gap I had on Jimmy and Vlad. Vlad was just way too fast with more
than an hour advantage, but Jimmy was almost in reach with some 20 minutes on
me. Previously he was complaining about how the race was tough, so felt my
chance if the conditions remain same or better become worse to make the race as
much uncomfortable as possible ;)
I quickly reloaded
some nutrition and dry socks from my drop bag and left. Apart from being
tougher than previous years, there was another big difference. I felt great! I
felt strong. I had no crisis so far. I could run downhills in decent pace
without any pain. I could run flats and speedwalk uphills without problems. No
stomach sickness, dehydration…nothing! This was different because the previous
years I was caught in exhaustion, anger from the course, extreme muscle
pain…many things that made the race a hell and made me force myself not to
quit! This time it was a pleasure to be on the course J
I blasted a fun
technical downhill through fields, climbed another hill and got onto another
familiar section from the last year. Unfortunately there was a long section on
asphalt road and the rain was not coming! Exactly the opposite was happening,
because the skies were clearing and a beautiful red sunset was coming up on the
horizon! At dusk I was already high below Mt. Kinabalu on the famous loop
through muddy cabbage fields, my favorite part of the 2012 course!
I put on the head
lamp, reflective vest a jacket and dashed though the nigh, jumping over deep
holes, water pools and gliding on a slippery trail. Trail runner’s heaven and
there was no time to think that I had run 70 kilometers already that day!
Once I got back the
checkpoint 8, where I already had signed up when going up to the loop, I could
finally check how far the guys behind me were. To my surprise the first runner
came there one hour after me and that was almost two hours ago. “And I have
probably even more advantage now, because I ran the loop quite fast!” I though
and this fact made the last super long downhill much easier. “If I just keep
running like this and nothing serious happens, I can make the podium again ;)”
and I took off into the night.
This 10 kilometer
section was mostly steep downhill and it absolutely killed me last year. It was
at kilometer 30 and after that I was seriously thinking to quit! This time I
was much quicker at kilometer 80 and was enjoying it. Kilometers were flying
past and I was getting closer and closer to the finish running a known route
reducing chances of getting lost and mentally helping to feel the progress! And
my route knowledge also helped in the last steep climb. I remembered it to be
quite short, but it wasn’t! It was actually super long and exhausting. I think
I got into some kind of crisis there walking up tiredly at 4km/h, but still
thinking “I remember it was just behind this corner!” But it obviously wasn’t
and the climb lasted an eternity! I couldn’t push more because there was
nothing much left and also my head was telling me that it was not necessary,
because everyone was so far behind and ahead also. Jimmy somehow got scared
that somebody might catch him and blasted the last downhill escaping me from 25
minutes, I was keeping on him almost the whole second half, to more than one
hour in just 10k!!! And I thought I was running fast J
When I finally got
on the flat road I remembered leading to the last year finish line I realized
that this year the finish was on the hill and I would have to run all around
that hill to get there. “Another 6k of climbing up?” I desperately asked
myself. “I will die!” But to my great relief the course was heading on another
path straight up to the finish line at a shining hotel on the top of the hill!
I could see it already and it helped greatly to scale those final meters!
And again I was
there, in the finish of a 100 kilometer run! If I was ever not sure if I can do
it, now I could be certain J Although it took 16 hours to complete making
it the longest race I have ever done, it was enough for a bronze medal! I lost
more than 2 hours on the winner and more than one hour on the second, but also
gained more than one hour on the fourth J
Milan finished in 19
hours with injured ankle, Jaro abandoned in half point because of fatigue and
lack of sleep and Davy had to give up at 25k for foot injury. Overall only
around 40% runners completed the 100k! It was a very tough year!
What to say! It was
great race and this time I was enjoying it all the time. Beautiful and
challenging trail running terrain, no crisis and podium finish…what to ask
more. Maybe to have paid the entrance fee and flight ticket for the next year
to help me decide whether to come back :D
First year first, second year second, third
year third…fourth year fourth? Nah!! All good things are three J
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