2010 Taitung 123K Triathlon

 
In August 2010 I spent three glorious weeks in Taitung. Braaivleis, sunny skies and Chevrolet - I think that's how the advert went. And I bought a bicycle. It's just impossible to be in Taitung without a bicycle. Roads are wide. Air is clean and the scenery is breathtaking. So I purchased a GT Mountain bike. Cost me 5000nt. A lucky deal that my wife identified on PC Home - the Taiwan shopping website.

This photo was taken in Taitung. Just another beautiful day...

I was riding up and down and finally rode the 50km north to Chenggong and the 50km back. I had run two marathons in Taipei in 2006 and 2007 and suddenly I started to wonder if there was something similar I could do on the bike with a run thrown in. ( I preferred not to think about a swim...)

An internet search led me to Craig John's Taiwan Racing blog. There I found a link to the Taiwan Super Triathlon website Taitung Triathlon here.

The Taitung Triathlon is held in April and October. The swim is here.

Taitung Flowing Lake. 1,1km to the other side. You'll swim there and back for the 123K. The first time I swam it, I did breaststroke and it took me almost 2 hours. I was so slow. Small woodland creatures crawling along the banks outpaced me.

When I got back to Tainan I went straight to the pool and started swimming. I cut back on the beer and dropped a few kilograms. Then I bought a road bike. A Fuji Roubaix 3.0. It's an entry level road bike - but it really made the difference. I cut an hour from the mountain bike time. I love the GT- but the Fuji ... there are no words...

I focused mainly on the swimming and I swam five nights a week. For an hour a time. I was on youtube constantly watching swimming and triathlon videos. And in the pool I tried to push myself. I started freestyle swimming and it was hard. Sometimes I only made 25m before stopping. But I kept at it - always seeing how much further I could swim before I sank. And finally I swam 2000m one night without a break. This was about 5 weeks after I started in the pool.

I ran maybe three times a week. At first 9 km a time.

And the bike never more than 60km and only on the weekends. The traffic was driving me crazy and in the end I found a huge block in the Science Park that was approximately 4 k in circumference and I did laps to train at a good pace. It was boring but it paid off.

The week before the race I went down to Taitung and rode the bicycle route and swam the lake. It was reassuring to have the opportunity to recon the course but I started struggling with an ear infection that kept me out of the water until the day of the race.

In the next post I'll talk about the race.