Port Dickson International Triathlon 2012

It's good to have an aspiration to work towards. Case in point, the Port Dickson International Triathlon 2012 last Sunday. First and foremost, I am no triathlete. I can't cycle nor run to save my life. I can however swim and I have been part of tri-relays on three occasions now. The first, in Bali June last year and the second, in Singapore in May. We took part in the sprint relay, the former with Richard and Lee Kuen, the latter with Bunny and Lee Kuen as my team mates.

This time round however, my friend Ray, a previous Iron Man participant on the comeback trail, registered me as his team swimmer in the Olympic distance relay. That would mean moving up from 750m to 1.5km between the Singapore and Port Dickson races. Apprehensive I was but I always relish a challenge. So train harder and more often I did in the month leading up to race day in PD. With much encouragement from my friends, I set myself a reasonably achievable target of finishing the swim leg in under 40 minutes. My friends, in particular my team mates Ray and Wei Min, thought 30 minutes might be possible.

Suffice to say, I completed the swim portion of the race in 31 minutes 21 seconds and our team finished a respectable 30th in the men's relay, and 64th in the overally relay event out of a 109 teams. Happy I was to have managed the Olympic distance tri swim leg, in a pretty good time too by my standards. More importantly, my team mates were happy with the swim. Being the first leg of the race, I always feel that it is necessary to get them off to a good start, so there is pressure somewhat. Ray and Wei Min did very well too, and we were more than satisfied with our performance, our first as a team. An enjoyable race it was and I am sure there will be more to come in the future. For now, I have to continue training. The best swimmer in the race was 10 minutes ahead of me. There is still some catching up to do. Another challenge to conquer indeed.

Photo courtesy of Ooi Wei Min.