Ohhh Oshima triathlon: surfing USA

Another month, another triathlon...we had a nice weekend in the neighboring Oshima (big island), a mere 2 hour jet boat ride from downtown Tokyo. 5 nanbanners (Phil, Andrew, Stefan, Laura, and your humble narrator) made the trip for the adventurous rough water swim, superfast bike, and hot and windy run. My lovely wife, accompanied me as usual, and thanks to her, the action shots of the race and party are below.

This was me looking genki in a "guts pose" before the swim start....easier to do before the race starts...



Tiptoeing gingerly thru the rocky beach...



Driving it home with the waves behind me...



Back to the beach...where is that zipper again?



Running surprisingly hard to transition 1..trying to beat my 4 minute T1 from last time...


Just mounted Hillary Swank, and ready to crank with the nice tailwind...



I'm riding so fast that Megu's shot is blurry...




Is that a happy-to-be-off-the-bike grin, or a sadistic grin when the pain starts to kick in?



Bringing it home against a nasty headwind...




Team Oshima with post-race euphoria...



Megumi is in the haus! She had a tough workout too!



The Ryano with 2 little rhinos...



This spot is reserved for Meggu...the only veggie plate!



The waiting is the hardest part...kampai already!




My results were decent this year.

Swim: 28:13 (57th place)
Bike: 1:08:40 (31st place)
Run: 46:08 (51st place)
Total: 2:23:01 (29th place overall, 27th out of 244 male finishers)

It compares well to 2 years ago. My times from 2008 were:

Swim: 31:59 (78th place)
Bike: 1:09:28 (38th place)
Run: 46:21 (55th place)
Total: 2:27:48 (43th place overall, 42nd out of 190 male finishers)


This year I finished much higher, 29th, versus 42nd 2 years ago, despite the more crowded field. The wind and heat were tougher this year, so I guess I was better prepared.

Swim:
The swim was faster, but a slightly shortened due to the immense waves. They say it was 1200 meters instead of 1500 meters, so I figure an extra 4-5 minutes, but the swim was much more challenging this year as the huge seas rocked us up and down like seals in the surf. It was actually a fun adventure to get thru, and I felt moments of surrealism as I glimsed at the tiny minnows swimming below me.

Bike:
I was particularly happy with the bike, which I improved by about 45 seconds despite getting lost in T2, which must have cost me 40 seconds. It was also hotter than last time. Without the 4 minute T1 transition and 1 1/2 minute T2 transtion, my bike was about 1:02:15, very close to that 1 hour barrier, averaging 38.5 kph. 2 years ago, I averaged 37 kph, so that was a nice improvement.

Run:
The run was a hard grind as we had a nasty headwind for the final 5k. 2 years ago I saved too much for the 2H of the 10k, so this year I made sure I was near max throughput for the first 5k. I did 22:42 for the first 5k, but as the head wind hit me at the turnaround, I couldn't hold the pace. The heat was started to make me dizzy. Luckily a guy passed me with 4k to go, and I sped up, got right on his tail, and drafted for the next 3k. Still, the last 5k was 23:27, so the allusive 46 minute barrier once again escaped me.

No worries, though, a fair show, given the big waves, wind, and heat factors. With a little more speed training in the pool and on the bike and track this summer, I should be ready to test PBs in both olympic and half ironman distances in August and September.

Nijima triathlon: paradise in Tokyo

This was my 2nd year in a row to Nijima, and the beautiful island did not disappoint. Last year we had a cozier group of 6-7 peeps, but this year the gaijin horde dominated the course, with 18 of us in the race, and 3 supporters.





As for the race, I had hoped to beat my time of last year, 2:25, but my lack of training over the winter was going to make that a tall order. On race day, some small waves on the swim and a breeze on the bike course shattered any hopes of getting close to my time of last year.



Compared to last year I lost 30 seconds on the swim, 2 minutes on the bike, and 30 seconds on the run. It was a fun race though.

Swim: We (Keren, Jay, Mika, Mary, Ma, Phil, Pia, Vanessa, Motozo) lined up 4 minutes after the young bucks, and sprinted into the shallow water. It is quite an easy start, with about 100 "free" meters of running and porpoising allowable, I felt



pretty relaxed and settled into my usual drafting position behind a big splashing guy about my speed. At the halfway I came in at 12:10, so hoped to get in under 25 minutes, but I must have slowed slightly. I came out at about 25:00, but took almost a full minute to get out of the wetsuit despite not wearing socks.




Bike: The bike was tougher this year. We had a stiff headwind at the first 1-2k until you ride thru the little town. And the course is very curby and hilly, so it is hard to get into a good groove on the bike. 3 loops X 13.3k. At the end of the first loop, I had done about 25 minutes and knew that it was going to be a slow one on the bike as I had hoped for 23 minutes X 3 = 1:09 bike...




but alas one cannot control the elements...it was great to see many nanbanners on the course...I targeted Reza who was about 4-5 minutes in front of me, and had wild dreams of catching up to Keren, who was behind Reza, but had started with me, so about 1 minute ahead. It looked like Kimm was having a great debut, as he and Adam dueled it out several minutes ahead of the "pack". And of course Jay and I had our friendly rivalry on the whole course. I knew I needed a big cushion on the bike, as Jay has run well under 40 minutes at the olympic distance. So my 2nd and 3rd loops were about the same, and I dismounted Hillary Swank at 1:15 or so...as I bent down to put on my running shoes, I got severe stomach cramps where the actual ab muscles popped out...very painful...so I had to do some extra stretching before I could start running...some Japanese girls were saying, "yabai" as they saw me stretched out at T2, and I hoped they would call the marshal's on me...

Run: The first part is a severe climb, but I was ready for it, and was thrilled to see my wife Megumi at the top of the hill. I thought she would start running with me as she has done before in races....we got near the turnaround and I saw all the same guys running well: Adam, Kimm, Stefan, Keren, Reza, Andrew, which was nice motivation to keep pumping hard...




At the turn, I caught a glimpse of Vanessa behind me (she is a fast runner)..more incentive to run hard! Near the 5k, Bevan lapped me with a "gambatte"...eeyyyy! 2nd 5k was almost exactly the same split 23:22, although I accelerated at the end, I was fully spent and did not have much to finish strong.





Times:

Swim: 25:59 (52)
Bike: 1:16:10 (37)(T1 and T2 included)
Run: 46:47 (34)

Total: 2:28:59 (34th place out of 242)


To put it in perspective, last year's times were:

Swim: 25:22 (75th place)
Bike: 1:14:08 including T1 and T2 (35th place)
Run: 45:49 (32nd place)

Total: 2:25:21 32nd place out of 170 finishers

So my swim actually improved from last year despite the slower time. That is encouraging since I have only done 4-5 swims this year.
The bike needs a little work, although I was more competitive this year as well.
The run was a smidgen slower in gross time and competitiveness, but not too shabby.

Many thanks to Phil and Mika for setting up the trip again. Congrats to Kimm, Ma, Phil, Andrew, for popping their proverbial cherries. Thank you Meggu, for your lovely support and photos. Thanks to Gerard for coming all the way from Aussie! Che che to Leng Leng and Arnaud for coming and supporting also. We will miss you!






For those that care, here is my write-up of last year's event.

http://davidmotozo.blogspot.com/2009/05/nijima-triathlon-long-and-windy-road.html

Next up is Oshima, June 12, with vague hopes of cracking the 2:22 PB area...would need a fantastic swim on that rocky coast to give myself a chance...final note: if you ever go to Nijima, take the plane from Chofu. It is a fast, scenic ride for only a few pennies more than the ferry or jet foil. Nothing like flying back to Tokyo from a distant island in 30 minutes!

I'll be your superman: Tokyo Marathon 2010

Hello earthlings! This was my 4th consecutive Tokyo marathon, but 1st as SUPERMAN. I think I will try to break the record for consecutive TOkyo Marathon’s by a gaijin/uchuchin, if I haven’t already. As Steve and many other’s already echoed, it was a miserable race with hard rain just above the freezing point, even for someone with super powers. I definetely was feeling like I had been zapped by kryptonite at 16k when we made the turn at Shinagawa and headed into that vicious freezing wind.








Thanks to Super Steve, we were able to keep our spirits and bodies warm before the freezing rainy start, but that is when the happy part of Superman’s story ended (until the superfantastic La Boheme party and nijikai). I managed to sneak in okusan wonderwoman to the A gate, and we quickly warmed up from 0 to 5k, running at 5 minute pace with plenty of fuel in the tank and encouragement, “Superman, gambare”...i wondered how many times I would here that in one day. Than I pulled over for a H2O break and lost wonderwoman. Mary pulled up and gave chase to super okusan, which left superman all alone...


I was happy to run with Mika for a considerable distance, thanks to Mika’s stretching regime. Than it was a very very lonely 20k to 30k….I had super blisters on the bottom of my feet from the moisture…lots of skin ailments/chafing from the not-so-super costume, and the old hamstring injury felt ready to start screaming again. The only consolation was that wonderwoman was ahead of me by 10 minutes on pace for a big old PB!(and Leng Leng screaming "you are superman!" at Hibiya).





At about 33k the blister pain subsided to a dull ache and I latched on to Arne for some comradery, with plenty male bonding with Fabian and Arne for the last 8k. At 35k, i felt like I could finish well under my PW time, which was my worst-case-scenario goal (yes, this race was worse case scenario).







I felt that superman would never-ever live down the shame of running slower than his IRONMAN sub-4 hour time, even with that heavy soaked cape! At 42.189k, I felt genki enough to do a little superman dance and victory lap around the finish line, so I guess my time would have been a minute faster or so, but no cares on planet earth...my PW was not violated! And my lovely wonderwoman Megumi came through with a massive PB by 11 minutes. She clearly likes freezing rain more than superman.





super splits were:
25:19 (up up and away)
25:12 (superistic)
26:16 (hmmm)
26:27 (uh oh)

27:22 (chotto)
28:10 (ara…)
28:45 (down to planet earth)
30:28 (Houston we have a problem)
14:21 (FUBAR)

3:52:22 Superman

3:39:21 Wonderwoman





Many thanks to nanbanjintachi Steve, Leng Leng, and Chiba san for a super dinner…great to see Joachim/Christiana from China too…






ps. FUBAR=F’ked Up Beyond All Recognition

2010 update

I took a massive holiday from running since the wedding in October, but starting up again during our honeymoon in Maldives this past few weeks. Tokyo marathon is on the near horizon with 6 weeks to go, but I am feeling better. I ran 25k today and 28k last Sunday, which were my 2 longest runs in several months.

Here are a few shots of the honeymoon.

I will put more on my travel blog...

http://motozo.blogspot.com/

Dou suru? Aizu!

Beautiful Aizu was the venue for my latest triathlon exploit, appropriately named "Utsukushi Triathlon in Aizu" on Lake Inawashiroko. Despite the hot and humid conditions of mid-August Tokyo, we had near perfect conditions with overcast skies at the start of the freshwater swim.



Swim: Dave Sims, Tony, and me lined up at the "floating start", wondering how far we would actually swim. The shallowness of the lake was quite apparent, although the swim course had been altered this year to reduce porpoising and increase actual swimming. I had a decent swim time, but was unprepared for the wading and porpoising. Although porpoising increases your speed, it is harder to do than swim, and my legs felt like bricks. I guessed Dave was having a tough time also, as I was only a minute or so behind his powerful strokes after the first loop. 2 loops of 750 meters and I was on the beach in 26 minutes, close to my best swim effort.



Bike: It was a long run to the bike area and rather slow transition. My bike training had gone fairly well and I looked forward to a ripper on the gentle downhill course. I averaged 35.9 kph. I rode with Tony for a while, but at about 20k, the downhill steepened, and Hillary de Cervelo topped 55 kph. I should have kept on pedaling hard, but the high speed spooked me, so I held off and lost Tony and his 6 friends. The rest of the ride was rather uneventful. My bike time including both transitions was 1:10:24, so about 1:07 or 1:08 net time.

Run: Run time was disappointing. I felt moments of strength and would surge as much as I could, only to feel the stomach cramps, hamstring aches, and general fatigue force me to slow down. It didn't help that there were no distance markers throughout the course, so I had no idea of pacing. Perhaps I would have picked it up had I seen a 23 minute 5k split. Who can say? Total 10k split was 46:22 for 103rd place in the run. For an experienced runner with a recent 1:36 half marathon time in July, unforgivable.

Swim: 26:11 (70th place)
Bike: 1:10:24 (53rd place)
Run: 46:22 (103rd place)

Total time was 2:22:59, 60th place out of 400 participants, a PB by almost 3 minutes, despite the slow run.

Congrats to Dave and Tony, who both had PBs also. Next month is my last tri race of this year most likely, in Hasaki, Chiba. It should be a fast course with cooler weather. Time to hit the track and get those run times down!

Obuse half marathon: The namaste zone

My right hammy was my achilles heel this year at Obuse. It had been acting up in the past 2 weeks before the race, sidelining me last week during a track workout, so I was apprehensive going into the race on Sunday morning. We also had a huge meal the night before at our favorite Nagano Italian place and woke at 4 am to make it to the early 7 am start. I again had eaten too much and slept too little. On top of that the clouds pulled away our sun cover just at the start time, so we had the extra heat to deal with.

At the start I lined up near the elite runners hoping to latch on to Paddy and others for the initial 5k. I could see Paddy running just in front of me as the gun went off, and accelerated up to him. I joked, "Isn't this a 5k race?" to Paddy as I went by him very temporarily. He soon was off and away into the sunny morning hills. At 1k my watch said 4:05 so I took my foot off the gas pedal as I was looking to do 4:30 pace. Next came Terry at about 3k. It was very hot as the sun was fully sizzling, so I didn't stay with Terry long. At 5k, I went thru at a reasonable 22:20 just as Simon came up to join me. We stayed together for most of the next 10k, which was a nice push for me.

My hamstring started to scream at 7k, so I needed that extra push to get me thru and take my mind off that aching feeling. I had pulled slightly ahead of Simon, but he reeled me in again just at the 15k mark. I saw 22:56 for the 10-15k split and noted, "going too slow", and gently pushed down on the gas pedal. It became harder to breath, but I used my limited yoga experience to adjust my breathing pattern, and somehow fell into a nice groove. I began to feel outside my body and had reached the "namaste zone". With only a few k to go, I started chatting with the other runners, again trying to take my mind off the physical aches. I finished without major incident and ohh that water fountain at the finish line was heaven on earth. I was starting to feel human again...

Splits:

22:20 5k

22:37 5k
22:56 5k

23:02 5k

5:04 1.1k

1:36:03 total gun time

I was happy with that time, although far from my sub-1:30 PB. My last time in Obuse was 2005. Upon reflection into the deep archives of my running records (a big cardboard box in my closet), I note a 1:38:40 in 2005. I remember it being pretty hot 4 years ago, maybe a little hotter than this past weekend. But I give myself credit given my lack of high mileage over the past 2 months. Megumi had a nice race too with a 1:46, which was much better than her expectation of 1:50 plus alpha. This race could be a nice warmup for the festivities in October! More to come on that soon....

Many thanks to the Chandlers for splendid organization. If Sara Cummings is the queen of Obuse, than Mami and Gary are the princess and prince. This is a wonderful race and fun weekend. Highly recommended.

Kamakura Roughwaters 5k swim

I did my first open water non-triathlon swim race 2 weeks ago in Kamakura. It is called "Roughwaters Swim" due to the usual large wake coming in from the south. I think the long 5 kilometer distance of the event also implies that it is rough for some people. For most of us ironmen doing the event (Jay, Mika, etc.), there was little doubt that we could complete the course without incident. (An ironman swim course is 3.8k followed by some 10 hours of grueling bike and run.)

It turned out to be a mild day with little wake, although it was very hot espescially inside my full body wetsuit. As it was my first outdoor swim race, I had little expectation for the top tier as I had reckoned the competition would be stronger than a typical triathlon. (I finished 60th out of 195 triathletes in the Murakami swim last month). So I was quite surprised to see my name of the top of the list, #7 overall and #1 in my age group. My time was 1:28:30, which was a faster pace than my 1:17 swim in ironman last year for the 3.8k distance.

The course started from the beach and I raced ahead of the group, confident in my porpoising ability. I stayed in the lead for a good 150 meters as noone could match my dolphin tactics. After 150 meters, finally some decent swimmers caught me and whizzed by. I tried to draft off the fast guys for a few strokes. At the last buoy, I felt pretty good, made the 180 degree turn, and headed back to Kamakura beach. I noticed that I was swimming comfortably without much breast stroke, a change from my previous races. At the beach I saw Jaynie cheering. In between gambares she indicated that her boyfriend Jerome was in front of me and Jay was behind, while Mika was still missing in action. I ran thru the start gate and entered the water again. I focused on a couple of swimmers that I recognized, and drafted off of them most of the 2nd loop. After that the race was pretty much a blur. I actually took one water break at the raft parked in the middle of the course. I did not go 100% until the last loop given my inexperience in open water swims. I also felt a little worried about the heat as it was about 25 degrees, the temperature borderline for wetsuit usage. I need to get a sleeveless wetsuit one of these days.

After Jay and Mika came in, we relaxed on the beach and watched Omar do his 3k swim, which was his first time also. He is fast but had a problem with his wetsuit top, and fell off the leaders after the first lap. We than ran 10k thru the hills of Kamakura and had a couple of beers on the beach to round up a perfect day. Thanks to Jaynie for her support and pics. Mika maido domo for signing me up at the last minute.

Haruki Murakami is in the building

3 words: Hot hot hot. This year the Murakami triathlon was held on June 28 instead of its normal late September date,

which eased the normally rough sea of Japan conditions. However, it was extremely hot, over 30 degrees at 9 am and 35 C at 11 am. This would be my hottest olympic distance tri, and memories of

China's "dual in the sun" half IM with Mika and Jay haunted me. None of the clouds appeared that had been forecasted, and I escaped to the one oasis of shade near the beach after setting up my bike in the transition area.

Swim:

Still, I thought I might have a chance to crack my PB of 2:25 given the fast bike course, but blew the swim with a 31 minute leg. This was shockingly disappointing, as I had swam a 25 minute in Nijima last month and had trained consistently in the pool and Kamakura this past month. I tried to keep my head up to locate the target buoys, but I suppose I didn't do this enough (every 3-4 strokes), and I got caught out of line a few times, causing a zigzag formation.

Bike:

The bike split was ok at 1:11:48, a little slower than last year's 1:08 (without a swim). There was a stiff wind going out for the first 20k, and I couldn't get Hillary above 32 kph. I battled the bike out with my friend Tony, who also was sporting a Cervelo tri bike (name unknown). He is about the same speed as me on the bike, so I wasn't too worried about the slow speed in the headwind. The tailwind at the turnaround was great. Weeeeeeeee at over 40 kph for most of the 2H of the bike. Average time was almost exactly 35 kph. I pushed it reasonably hard on the bike as I knew the run was pretty flat.

Run:

T2 went well and I was in and out of T2 area in about 15 seconds, but I felt awful for the first 5k. My legs wouldn't move. I said, "run faster" to my legs, but they would not respond. I guess it was the heat and my lack of running since the Oxfam 100k hike injury. I jogged it for 25:00 5k split as

Tony tried to reel my in, about 20 meters behind me. At the 5k point, Megumi yelled, "Tony's right behind you, Babe!" I suddenly felt a little more genki as if Meg's encouragement were a wake-up call, and picked up the pace. At the next corner, I noticed that I had dropped poor Tony, who is not as experienced a runner as your humble narrator. (incidentlly Tony wants to start running with Nanban Rengo). The 2nd 5k was just under 23 minutes for a 47:57 total 10k run.

Total time was 2:30:54, my slowest time in a couple of years, after a 2:25 PB in Nijima. I finished 1 minute ahead Tony, who also finished 1 minute behind me in Nijima. Congrats to Mika, who had a 2:43, good enough to win her age group. And a big ootsukaresama to Ma, who did her first tri in about 3 hours but a DNQ. Many thanks to Dave Sims for driving us up and back to the race. Nice to go without having to pack and assemble the bike! Thanks as always Megumi for the pictures and support.

A final note: The famous author, Haruki Murakami, was in the race and did over 3 hours. I hoped to get an autograph as I just finished reading "What I talk about when I talk about Running", but I never did see him....

2:30:54 36th overall (out of 195 finishers)

6th Age group (out of 33)

Swim 31:09 60th

Bike 1:11:48 19th

Run 47:57 61st