Pre-Race Report
The flight from Hong Kong was pretty uneventful, just the way I like it. Had one interesting thing happen at the airport check-in. The lady who gave us our seats also stapled a "contact form" to the back of our boarding passes and asked us to fill it in. The form requested that we not use the name of a person who was flying with us today. I looked at my mate and said, this is a crash form! The lady behind the counter smiled and said that actually it might be for a lucky draw.... I told her that I really didn't want to win that lottery!
Managed a little sleep on the plane and we rolled into Guam at 5:00 a.m. They have a new airport and I took full advantage by grabbing a little extra sleep on a nice piece of carpeting in the waiting area
We arrived in Saipan early yesterday morning and were met by the race director, Bill. Bill has been holding the Tagaman race for more than ten years. On the drive into town he told us that he reckoned that this would be the most competitive race ever. Bill was too polite to say it but, this is due to the fact that a number of past champions will be racing, rather than the dynamic duo of Cookie and me.
My first impression of the heat was that it wasn't too bad. It feels abut the same as Hawaii. Apparently, Saipan has the most stable climate of any place in the world. Every day the temperature is about the same and the evenings are all pretty warm as well. The daily high is 28-30C, high 80s F.
Quite humid but no worse than Hong Kong. The local have told me that this is the dry season but it has been raining off and on for the last little while. There was an early typhoon that came up two weeks ago and the clouds are left over from that storm.
Saipan seems to be real popular with the Japanese. They account for 90% of the race entries as well as 90% of the folks staying at the hotel. I have also heard some Chinese being spoken. Not a lot of Canadians to be found, not that I hang with my homies much in Asia.
A fantastic dinner last night and then early to bed.
Up early the next morning to get down to the water to check the likely conditions. The race starts at first light, 5:30 a.m. This enables most people to finish before the worst of the heat arrives.
swim is wetsuit legal and with the water at least 80F I had no idea why. We were told that the Japanese prefer to swim with wetsuits. Well, if they are making up 90% of the field then I guess that is fair enough. To get an idea of just how toasty I am going to be tomorrow, I brought my fullsuit down this morning. I have brought my new IM stealthsuit, received free in a lucky draw at IMOz! The suit is a little tighter than my other IM suit and I thought that this would be a good opportunity for a test drive.
Only one way to describe wetsuit swimming in calm salt water, FAST! It is a fine line to draw between speed and hydration. Let's hope that I have made the right decision. We won't really know until 10K into the run.
A bit later, I went for a quick brick along the race course. It is a three loop course on a perfectly flat road. No shade but tree lined (should reduce crosswinds) and a good surface. The bike ride will be fast. Seeing as it will be the only time that I will be cool, this might be the place to hammer. Then again, there could be a strategy to hold back on the bike a little and run from behind. As you can see, my race strategy has not quite come together.
The run is going to be hot and humid. Ghee-leur (use a french accent to say it). This morning it was cloudy with a light breeze. I was still sweating up a storm. In direct sunlight, I'd rather not think about it.
My roommate has arrived and he is the winner from last year. He is from Auckland and looks fast. A real pro, not a sneaky HK age-grouper who scammed one hell of a free deal!
Well, that's pretty much it for now. Oh, I nearly forgot. What would a pre-race report be without some projected splits (have I ever hit these things?).
Swim 2K - two by 1000 meter loops with a short beach run in the middle => 30 minutes
T1 - run through the hotel to the parking lot => three minutes
Bike 60K - three by 10K loops => 1:34 or 38.5 kph average speed
T2 - no idea but it is at another hotel => two minutes
Run 15K - one loop of fun! 7:15 miles or 4:30 Ks -> 1:07:30
Add it up - 3:16:30
My roommate did it in 3:01 last year!
gordo