Going Kamikaze in Japan.

With the nature of my previous post, I'm sure you may be wondering exactly how that bike setup modification worked for me, and how the race in Japan went overall.

Here's a few race notes, and for those of you who are actually interested in racing in Japan next year, check out my upcoming article in Lava Magazine for some of my travel, eating and tips for the race!

1. The point-to-point swim was wetsuit legal and fast. With a typhoon in the days leading up to this race, part of that could have been due to weather changes, but there was a fairly strong current pushing us the whole way. Best as I could tell, one pack came out of the water before me, so it was off to the chases after an 800 meter run to T1.

Swim split: 23:20

2. As I mentioned in the post before this one, this bike course is extremely complex with over a hundred 90 degree turns and eight u-turns. Chasing a pack in front of me, I rode solo up to about 50K, but just couldn't hunt them down, and every split I took at the u-turns they were maintaining a consisten 2 minutes on me. After I was overtaken by the second main pack of 6 riders, I stayed with them for the final 30K into T2, where I arrived a bit nervous knowing that I needed to put at least 2 minutes into that first pack on the run if I wanted to podium. Interestingly, drinking to thirst on the bike, I was still drinking close to 40oz of water per hour, while putting away about 4 gels an hour. You lose lots of fluids in the Asian heat and humidity!

Bike split: 2:35

3. This run is fairly flat and fast, with aid stations every 2K and lots of small groups of frenzied Japanese spectators cheering for the athletes. Early on, I decided to go a bit kamikaze, as I felt like I got a slow start and was already more behind than I wanted to be coming off the bike. At the 4K, I opened up to my threshold pace and just decided to go until I blew up. I managed to pass a couple athletes, but didn't quite run my way up as far as I would have liked. Since I was running pretty hard, I didn't waste too much time with nutrition, and for fuel, I had a few quick sips of coke at some of the aid stations, maybe about 200 calories worth for the whole run.

Run split: 1:22

Overall time: 4:27, 4th age group, 13th overall

I managed to snag a Vegas World Championship slot, and also took away a valuable lesson from this race: if you want the best fried chicken, fried shrimp and sweet potato sake on the planet, go to Japan!

Also, and this may be of interest to you minimalist out there, I only did one 30 minute run per week in my final 3 weeks before this race. Everything else was commuting on my Elliptigo! Something to be said for elliptical trainers and not running very much. ;)

Nutrition/Gear notes:

-Day before: Millenium Sports Somnidren GH and EarthPulse for sleep

-2 hours pre-swim: 4 scoops LivingFuel SuperBerry 

-30 minutes pre-swim: 1 Nutrarev, 1 Energy28 and 1 delta-E, 20 Sprays Magnesium Oil, 10 Master Amino Pattern capsules, 4 Extreme Endurance

-Skinsuit: Synergy Hybrid

-Google: Blue Seventy Element

Bike notes:

-Shoes: Louis Garneau Tri-Speed shoes

-Helmet: Gray Aero helmet

-Wheels: Shimano C-50

-Tires: Challenge Triathlon

-Groupo: Shimano Dura-Ace

-Seat: Adamo ISM Road Saddle

-Sunglasses: Native Eyewear

-One gel every 15 minutes, water when thirsty

Run notes:

-Shoes: K-Swiss K-Ruuz

-4oz Coke every other aid station.

-Water when thirsty

And a big thanks to all my sponsors. Check them all out here.