2013 Half Metaman

So why the Bintan Metaman, well, why the half Bintan Metaman to be specific? What has that race got going for it, other than a cool name, to make the trip worth the effort? As it turns out, a few things.

When I planned my races at the beginning of this year, I hadn't planned on the Metaman. I had planned to do the Phillipines 70.3, which by all accounts is an awesome race. However, I kept putting off doing my entry for the Phillipines and when I finally got around to looking the race up, I found that my laziness had cost me, and it had sold out. I was still keen for a race sometime around August and so looking at what was available, the Metaman came up as an option. Daryl and a few others from the Darwin tri club had done the 2012 version of the Metaman half, and the reports were positive. So I thought it would be worth the visit. Decision made.

So what is the Metaman. The Metaman is actually an Ironman length race held on the island of Bintan, which is part of Indonesia and near Singapore. It happens to have the second largest prize purse of all ironman distance events in the world. First prize is $40000 US. However, they also hold a couple of other races on the same day, a shorter event called the Metaman Blitz and a half ironman length race, called, unsurprisingly, the Half Metaman. I did the Half Metaman, first prize is not $40000 US.

Bintan is a largish island that the Indonesian Government has been trying to set up as an alternative to Bali (apparently). As a result it has a number of resorts on it. It is one of these resorts (Nirwana Gardens) that hosts the Metaman event. Large parts of the race take part on resort grounds and surrounding area, including the start, finish, swim, transition and the entire run. The event is set up for a competitor to stay at the resort and compete, something we did, and which I have to say works really well. Given we were going to be staying at a resort, we thought we might as well make the most of it and planned a family holiday as well.

Plans made, entries done, flights and accommodation booked, there was nothing more to do other than pack up the family very early on a rainy Wednesday morning in late August and jump on a plane.

The trip up to Bintan went remarkably smoothly. The organisers really spell out the process for getting there. You need to book your ferry tickets in advance. You need to book a slot on the ferry for your bike, which the ferry is setup to carry because of the race. You need to get to the ferry terminal nice and early (two or three hours before departure). As long as you do all those things, it really goes very easily.

Once you are on Bintan, you are in resort world, which means they take care of everything for you. The resort has a bus ready to pick you up from the ferry terminal and take you to the resort. They transfer your bike for you; move your luggage for you etc. Our family had never been on a resort holiday before and it was a bit of a revelation. The race organisers and the resort work very well together to make the whole process really easy. From Perth it is a long day of travel, with several transfers, but taking it one step at a time, we were impressed how easy the day was, even with two kids.

After a full day of travel, which included meeting up with my parents in Singapore, we arrived at our Villa in Nirwana Gardens late on Wednesday afternoon, tired, but there. We ate some dinner, and then collapsed into bed, ready to start preparations for race day in the morning.

As I mentioned above, we arrived on the Wednesday. The organisers had race related activities organized for both the Thursday and the Friday before the race. On the Thursday I went on a two hour guided bus tour of the bike course and then took part in a guided recce of the run course. There was also a swim course recce on Thursday afternoon which I didn’t do. On Friday morning there was another swim course tour, plus all the usual registration, bike racking, briefing type things to do. All up getting there on Wednesday worked pretty well. I spoke to a few people who got there earlier, but that was mainly to get out of Australia’s winter. Getting there on Wednesday I felt I had plenty of time to get settled but not so much time that I got bored. None of the stuff on Thursday was compulsory and so arriving late Thursday or early Friday is also doable, which plenty of people did. For me Wednesday was a good middle ground.

I would consider all the familiarization events run by the organisers to be worth doing. I would be lying if I said all the tours ran smoothly, but the information gained was valuable, particularly on the bus tour of the ride course, were we got our first glimpse of what they meant by rolling hills.

Once up and fed on Thursday morning, I finished putting the bike together and then went on the aforementioned tour of the bike course. It didn’t get off to a great start, beginning almost an hour late while they struggled to find buses with working air con. But once going it was very interesting. It showed that the hills really did just keep on going, but they weren’t huge. It also showed that the road quality would vary from large highway style roads, to some pretty small local roads. Always one lane going each way, but sometimes only just. The surface on most of the roads seemed to be pretty good though, a bit broken in places. The traffic looked like it would be there, but not heavy.

After the tour on Thursday I spent the rest of the day relaxing, before heading out for an evening recce of the run course. Once again this was really worth doing, since it cleared up a few bits towards the end of the lap that I was unsure about (the course sort of winds around a bit at the end). It also was a great feeler for how running was going to go in the heat. It was a slowish run, but by the end I was happy with how it had felt.

Friday morning I headed out on the bike to do the first and last 15km of the bike course. The organisers had said on the tour that this section had the worst hills, and it had certainly seemed it from the bus. It was a very reassuring ride, with none of the hills seeming particularly bad. In fact, by the end of the ride, the thing that stayed with me the most were the descents, rather than the climbs. So I took that as a sign that the ascents can’t have been to nasty, if coming down them was more memorable. I felt a bit funny off the bike though, which I put down to heat, dehydration and a lack of breakfast before heading out. The ride hadn’t been a long one and it hadn’t been that hard. I made a mental note to be very careful on race day.

The other famil activity for the Friday was a swim over the course. Looking back, post race, I can say that going over this leg is essential. The sight lines on the swim are pretty long with long gaps between buoys, plus the visibility of the buoys is not great. I had real trouble on race day sighting the course and that was despite me having been on the famil. It wasn’t helped by the fact that the course wasn’t fully laid out when we went over it on Friday, so the number of buoys etc changed slightly prior to race morning. But still, without the prior knowledge from the famil swim, I would have struggled.

The rest of the Friday was pretty cruisy, with the usual registration, bike racking and briefing taking place. The only other highlight of the Friday was an almighty thunderstorm that raged for a few hours. It was a proper knock em down tropical storm. Thunder, lightning, the whole bit. Talking to people afterwards it certainly got some nervous about what would happen if a similar storm hit on race day, particularly during the ride. I was very glad I had waited until the afternoon to rack my bike.

Talking to organisers afterwards, if such a storm does hit during the ride, the plan is to stop everyone at the next aid station they reach and shelter them until the storm passes. If too much time is lost, the organisers would then make a decision as to whether to scrap the ride as a leg. I am not sure how all this would work in reality, but apparently that was the plan.

 

Part of the bike racking process was also dropping off gear bags. As with a lot of races, the Metaman requires you to put your running and riding gear in bags, rather than leave it near your bike, keeping the transition area clear. You can put your helmet and shoes on your bike if you like, but the shoes must be attached to the pedals. The Metaman set up with the gear bags is a fairly standard one, a bag for riding gear and a bag for running gear. The running gear bags were hung on a long rack full of hooks. The riding gear bags were chucked onto a pile in one of the change tents to keep them dry. All up the set up made me nervous. The bike bags were simply in a pile, although I assumed they would be laid out on race day. The running bags were hung approximately in order, but there was nothing to show where they were, other than the number on the bag. Finding the bag would still require you, or a handler, to search through bags. I made an effort to familiarize myself with where my bag hung. My comment to my wife after dropping off the bags was that the setup had shambles written all over it, but time would tell.

After all the preparations were done, it was time for a fairly relaxing evening and then bed.

That night I had a pretty good night’s sleep, although it was interrupted by needing to get up and go to the toilet a lot. This was due to fact I was drinking almost constantly on Friday in an attempt to stay hydrated. It was a pain, but I am very glad I made the effort.

Morning came around and whilst I was nervous about how I was going to handle the conditions, all up I felt good. At that point I wasn’t really nervous about how I would go, most of my thoughts were centered around survival.

The start of the half Metaman was at a fairly relaxed 8:30am this year. Combined with the fact that I didn’t have to travel to get to the start line, it meant I could have a very easy morning. I was up at 5:30, had my breakfast etc, started hydrating again and just relaxed a bit. Around 6:00 or so I headed down to transition to set up the bike for the day. That was all going smoothly when I realized that I had forgotten my helmet. On my way out of the door that morning I had realized that I had forgotten my water bottles. I had gone back to get them and in the process of collecting them, put my helmet down and left it. Annoyed about the need for unnecessary walking on race day, I was about to head back to my Villa when up popped my wife with my helmet. She really is very good.

I finished setting up the bike, put on the nutrition and hydration, pumped up the tyres, said appropriate words of sympathy to the guy next to me who had just burst his tyre and then had another nervous look at those gear bags. The ride ones were now in two rough rows on the ground. Not perfect, but hopefully it would work. I made note of where mine was, had another look over the bike and then headed back to the villa to relax.

I had also had meant to have another look at the swim course from the shore before leaving the transition area. I was most of the way back to the Villa when I realized I had forgotten to do that. Oh well I thought, I swam it yesterday, I will be okay. That ended up being a bit of a mistake that would bite me later.

I have to say having the luxury of going home between setting up transition and starting the race was great. It was wonderful to sit back and just chill waiting for start time.

An hour or so of relaxing and hydrating later and, it was time to grab the goggles and cap and head to the start line.

So what does the course at Bintan look like:

Nirwana Gardens resort it built across two bays, separated by a low headland. The swim leg for the half Metaman starts on the beach of one bay (beach start) and then heads out around the headland to the next bay. The swim then heads across the second bay to the far end. At the far end you turn almost 180 and swim back towards the middle of the bay. There is a final buoy in the middle of the bay, at that buoy you turn right and head into the beach and the transition area. The major turns are at a buoy just past the headland, a buoy at the end of the second bay, and a buoy in the middle of the second bay. There are intermediate buoys along the way to guide you, but as I found out they are pretty tough to see. From the beach to the first buoy there is a lane rope (like in a pool). Yep it goes the whole way to the first buoy. They say the water temp is 29 degrees, which it may well be. Whatever it was though, I thought it was just about perfect.

There is a reasonable length wade at both the start and finish of the swim, certainly time for a porpoise or two (or three).

Once you hit the beach at the finish of the swim there is a short run up the sand before heading through a shower and into the transition.

 

 

This year the bike gear bags were in two rows to the right of the transition entry. One of the handlers in the transition area grabs your bag and hands it to you; you get your riding gear out, put your swimming gear in and head to the bike. There are change tents available if you want them. There was supposed to be a bin to put your bag in once you are done with it, but it wasn’t there on race morning. I am still not clear what we were supposed to have done with our bags. Once you are ready, you grab your bike and take short run out of transition. The transition area is pretty compact.

The bike course starts in the resort and heads out along the main resort road. You start almost straight into a short hill. I considered putting my shoes on before getting on the bike to avoid trying to put my shoes on while going uphill. In the end I did start with the shoes clipped to the pedals and it was fine. I wasn’t able to get the shoes on until most of the way up the hill, but the hill was short enough that I didn’t think it mattered too much.

I won’t describe every single hill on the course; it is enough to say there are a lot. There a bit over 700m of elevation gain over the course of the ride (according to my Garmin). But I also don’t want to make this more of a big deal than it is; they really are hills not mountains. As the organisers describe it, for almost all of the hills you can see the top from the bottom. They are not significant enough that you need to consider modifying your gearing. I find that whether or not you find hills a big deal depends a lot on how comfortable you feel on hills. However, for me I would say that the hills were a factor, but not a killer.

The one hill I will mention is about 10km into the ride going out and about the 75km mark on the way back. It is the biggest hill, but even then it is only about 1.5km long, and you only gain about 40m or so of elevation. As long as you spin your way up it, it shouldn’t be a problem.

About 15km in you pass a checkpoint which is the entry for the resort land. Once through that checkpoint you are off resort land and onto normal Bintan roads. The first aid station is at this check point. From this checkpoint until around the 25km mark you are on reasonably small local roads.

At the 15km mark the hills don’t go away, but they do become a bit less continuous. At around the 25km mark you hit a highway and the going becomes a lot quicker. The short sharp hills go away and the road surface improves. Things stay this way for the next 20km or so. As you approach the 50km mark you get close to the coast again and you head through the outskirts of the second biggest town in Bintan. From here the roads get smaller again with some really technical winding sections. The road surface also degrades a bit. The short sharp hills start to reappear again too.

Around the 70km mark, you hit the resort land entry checkpoint again, but this time from a different direction (you have done a big loop). You now turn back onto the resort road and follow it back to Nirwana Gardens. The ride back isn’t exactly the same as the ride you took out, taking a bit of a detour to make up the distance, but you do ride up pretty much every hill that you road down in the first 15km of the ride. You ride back into the resort, head past the turn off to transition a little bit, do a 180 at a roundabout, ride back to transition and thank your lucky stars you aren’t heading out for a second lap.

All up, there are 4 aid stations on the ride. The course is not closed, but traffic is not heavy. All intersections are controlled and you have right of way, but as the organisers told me when I asked them about it, ‘the police will wave you through, but if they don’t, I would stop if I was you’. For most of the way, the course is marked by officials waving flags to direct you, certainly at all major intersections. Only once did I wonder if I was still on the course.

I don’t want to overplay the hills, but I will also say the hills, combined with the weather, make this a very tough ride. You will probably hear a couple of people say it the toughest ride they have ever done, and they probably aren’t exaggerating. I am just trying to think through various rides I have done and I agree this would have to be right up there. It wasn’t the most painful ride I have ever done, but that is because I was being very careful with pacing and hydration. But that care was necessary because it is so tough. The ride doesn’t need to scare you away, but it does need to be respected.

Once back into transition you hand off your bike (the handlers will rack it for you) and head to the run bags. These are hung on a rack in one big line. Once you get your bag you can sit down (or head into a change tent) get your shoes on and get on with it.

The run leg is three laps of 7kms. The lap is a bit of a mixed surface and can quite easily be broken up into sections. This is how I mentally broke up the lap:

• Transition area – aid station next to transitiion
• 0 – 1km  - paved paths that wind through the resort along the beach front, aid station at 1km mark.
• 1km to about 2.5km – compact sand trail through jungle, just behind the beach front. Aid station at about 2.5km mark, turn around at aid station. 
•  2.5km to about 4km –run back down compact sand track. Aid station at end of sand track (same aid station as the 1km mark).
• About 4km to about 5km – onto bitumen, up a service road and then onto main resort road. Mostly uphill. Aid station at about 5km mark
• 5km to 6km – down and up three rolling hills on main resort road. Aid station at about 6km mark
• 6km to 6.5km - Mixture of paved paths and roads through resort. Hit far turn around and get lap counter band
• 6.5km to 7km – turn around and return to transition area and aid station. Or Finish Line.

The running surface is reasonable. The paved sections are pretty good, but uneven in places, so you need to watch where you put your feet. The compact sand trail really is that, it is a pretty hard surface. Not like running on a beach. There are some uneven sections though that need care. The hills are short and sharp. They are a pain, but they weren’t as bad as I was expecting. This year the aid stations all had, water, coke, isotonic drink and sponges.

The last part of the course that needs describing is the weather. It is probably the toughest factor. Bintan is pretty close to the equator and so it is hot and humid. Probably around 32 or 33 degrees and something close to 100% humidity. I have raced in these conditions and I have raced in 40 degrees, dry heat. In my opinion low 30s with high humidity is harder. In these conditions you sweat constantly and in huge amounts, but the sweat doesn’t evaporate, so your body doesn’t cool. In response to being hot, your body sweats more; you can probably see where this is going. It is very easy to get very dehydrated. Once that happens races start to fall apart. Your race plan for this sort of race needs to account for stacks of fluid replacement, as well as doing everything you can to reduce your body temperature. Those sponges on the run are crucial.

So that is the course, more or less.

I got to the start line not long after 8:00, had a bit of a warm up and then got ready to race. At about 8:25 we were all herded into the starting area. Given the small size of the field, there was a single wave for everyone, men, women, pros etc. This is where I made my first mistake. I have done a fair few tris now, and I am a pretty good swimmer, but I still don’t feel comfortable pushing my way to the front of a start line. As a result, when the race started I was one person back from the front and on the right. The pros were at the front and on the left.

 

 

At 8:30 the gun went and we were off.

I got clear of the carnage pretty quickly. There was a guy going at a good pace to my left and I thought ‘score, here is a quick swimmer’ so I jumped into his draft. He did the usual thing though and slowed after a couple of hundred metres, so I left him behind. I spent another hundred metres or so swimming past a few more people until there was just clear water in front. When I looked I saw that there was another group ahead of me, but they were way ahead. That was the pros and there was no way I was going to catch them. I kicked myself a bit, I should have put myself on their toes from the start. If I had, I think I could have held them. Oh well.

Sighting for the swim started off well with the lane rope to follow until the first buoy. The first part of the swim is over coral and so is actually quite pretty if you have the time to look. As you reach the first buoy, you swim over the drop off and the coral disappears to be replaced by…nothing.

I reached the first buoy and turned left. As expected there was no way I could see the far buoy, but I knew from the recce to head for the headland of the next bay. So that is what I did.

The swim leg of Bintan is a little deceptive. At the beach, the water looks beautifully calm. But once you are out at the first buoy, there is actually a little bit of swell. Not much, but just enough that if you try and sight when you are in a trough, you can’t see anything. The situation is made worse by the fact that the buoys are just not quite tall enough. They are pretty big, but they could do with just being a little bit bigger. Remembering my surf life saving I reminded myself to sight on the crests.

I didn’t see the first intermediate buoy until I was swimming past it. From there though I was able to see the next one, which gave my course a bit more confidence. The swim continued in that fashion for most of the way across the second bay. You couldn’t really see the far turning buoy, but you could usually see one intermediate buoy from the next. I couldn’t see the far turn, but I knew it was there.

I eventually reached the far turn and turned back into the bay. It was at that point that I realized my mistake of not checking out the course again on race morning. As I turned I knew I had no idea where I was going. I remembered the race director saying that from the far turn in the swim to head towards the sun, which is what I did, but I really couldn’t see the buoy at all. I kept swimming hoping it would come into view, but then I saw a jet ski flying towards me. Was that guy saying something? At this point I did stop number one. I completely stopped in order hear the guy, he was yelling ‘that way’ pointing out to sea. That is when I saw the next buoy, about 30 degrees to the direction I had been swimming in. This buoy had not been there when we had done the recce swim the day before. Great I thought; now I know where I am going, let’s get on with it, off to that buoy I went. When I reached it though, I had the same problem all over again; I couldn’t see the next buoy. Now I was paranoid about doing the same thing again, so I came to a full stop again. I even yelled out to the jet ski rider asking where the next buoy was, but he didn’t hear me. At that point I saw the next buoy and so started swimming again. That buoy was the last one after which I was on my way to the beach, annoyed at myself for the needless loss of time, but very quickly putting it behind me.

 

 

Once I was out of the water, I was into transition, yelling my number over and over in an attempt to make my bag retrieval go smoothly. It didn’t work. I ran to about where I knew my bag was and was quickly given a bag. I was about to run off to my bike, when I felt shoes in the bag. But my shoes on are the bike I thought. Wrong bag. I am not even sure what I did with that bag, I think I threw it to somebody. My bag then very quickly arrived. I whipped out my number and my sunnies, put the goggles and cap in and then went to put my bag…, where was the bin, where was I supposed to put my bag. In the end I just threw that to somebody as well. The whole process really threw me and as a result I quickly ran up the wrong bike aisle. My flustered brain not making sense of where I was supposed to be. However, my practice of transition, along with a team rider pointing, kicked in and I finally went down the correct aisle, grabbed my bike and was on my way.

All up, it wasn’t the best swim/T1 I have on my record. Got there in the end though.

Once out on the bike though, things began to improve. Once I was moving on the bike I had two thoughts going through my head constantly, hydrate and conserve. I knew the hills in that first 15km and so I made sure I held back a bit on them, spinning up them in a lower gear than I knew I could push, conscious of the fact there were many hills to come. Pushing the downhills, no coasting. For my nutrition plan on the ride I knew I needed to be going through almost two bottles of fluid every hour. To achieve that I wanted to make sure I was drinking fairly constantly. I started the ride with two bottles (I can carry three on the bike) and the plan was to pick up a new one every aid station. As it turns out two bottles every hour wasn’t going to be a problem.

By the first aid station I was through most of a bottle. Stuff this I thought, I am going to need more than one bottle here. My logic was that even if I didn’t drink the second bottle, I could pour it over myself. With that in mind, I ditched my empty bottle at the aid station and grabbed two, one isotonic for drinking, and one water for drinking and wearing. This ended up being the pattern I would follow for the rest of the aid stations.

Just a quick side note here. After the race I mentioned that I grabbed two bottles at every aid station to somebody, and his questions was, ‘how did you do that’. So here is a quick guide to grabbing two bottles at an aid station, well at least how I do it:

Step 1 – slow down (at least a little bit)

Step 2 – grab the first bottle and put it in your mouth, hold it with your teeth

Step 3 – grab the second bottle

Step 4 – put the second bottle away

Step 5 – put the first bottle away.

Easy.

Bottles at the Metaman are 750mL by the way, just for future reference.

After the first aid station we were out on to local roads and the first of what would be many experiences with the local kids occurred. Just past the first aid station was a school and all the kids were out on the side of the road cheering and wanting high fives. It really was very cool. This ended up happening all along the ride course, anywhere there was a school or a town. It was one of the highlights of the ride leg. Just be mindful though, high fives at 40km/h can really hurt.

Once into the guts of the ride I found I was feeling pretty good. I was getting up the hills pretty easily and the speed was ticking along nicely. For this first section we had a slight headwind (8km/h, ESE apparently), but I was being careful not to fight it. Since the beginning of the ride I had been passing competitors in the full Metaman (who had started 90 minutes before us) and so I was very rarely alone.

After 25km of so we hit the highway and speed really took a jump. For this section the road surface was great and the wind became friendly. I felt like I was flying along.

After about 40km I saw a couple of people in front that I wasn’t catching as quickly as I had been catching most of the full Metaman competitors. Hmmmm I thought. On one particular uphill I caught the first of them and saw that is was one the pros from the half. I wasn’t entirely sure of my position out of the swim, but I was now one higher. Not long after that I caught the next half Metaman competitor. I considered hanging back a bit and using him as pace, but he was going too slowly so I headed past. He hung around on my wheel for a few kms, but around the 50km mark when we started hitting hills again, I lost him.

Things continued like that for the next while. I was now in the heart of the ride and feeling pretty strong. Hydration had been going well once I had taken the decision to get two bottles per aid station. Nutrition also seemed to be going nicely as well. Around 60km when we were back in the rolling hills I did a bit of a check on how my legs were feeling on the uphills. A bit of a burn going up each one. Let’s just be careful here I thought, I don’t mind a bit of lactate on the hills, but I didn't want to redline. So after 60km I made a bit more of an effort to pace myself again.

It was on this stretch that I had my only, ‘I hope this is the way’ moment. I was going through some of the windier parts of the course and hadn’t seen a competitor or a marshal for some time. The roads sort of looked familiar from the recce, but a lot of the roads in that area looked similar. I didn’t have much choice but to power on and not long after that I saw another course official. Phew. I have to say I was never that worried, I was pretty sure I was right, but there was a couple of nervous moments there.

Around this point I also passed another of the half metaman competitors. He seemed to be having a hard time of it and I moved past him pretty quickly. I still didn’t really know where I was in the field, I actually thought I might have had the lead, in reality I was now 2nd.

At about 70km I hit the last aid station, which is at the turn off to the resort road. This was where the only hiccup of the ride leg occurred. I hit the aid station ready to grab my two bottles (and really hanging out for them, I was nearly out of water at that stage). But instead of the usual line up of guys offering bottles, there was only two people, with a bottle each. They just didn’t seem ready for us. I grabbed one bottle and was looking for the rest of the aid station before realising that that was it. Short of stopping and going back, there was nothing I could do. Very annoying. I now had about a bottle and a half for the last 20km. Not the ideal way to finish the ride.

As I have said before, in the last 20km you ride back over the same hills as in the first 15km of the ride, but from the other way. I am not sure why, but for some reason they feel easier in the last 20km. That last 20km I felt pretty good. I did another lactate burn test on the legs and found that it hadn't got any worse, so felt happy to push the last hills. I carefully conserved my bottle and a half of fluid, but even then I was completely empty by the time I hit transition.

I rolled into transition hearing from the commentator that there were people in front. I couldn’t quite make sense of it, so I didn’t know how many, but some. Based on what I heard, I thought I was 3rd. My time for the ride was about 2 hours 23, which is much quicker than I had expected for this course. Having said that I think it might have been a couple of kms short (around 88km).

After dismounting I handed off my bike and was about to run to the transition bags when I realized that my Garmin watch was still on the bike. I use a Garmin 910xt with a quick disconnect mount. I use it as a bike computer on the bike and then I swap it to my wrist for the run, one watch for the entire race. It is a system that I have used for a while now and I think it works pretty well. I quickly reached back and grabbed it. That was close.

Over the course of the ride I had drunk nearly 9 bottles of fluid, a bit over 6 litres and I didn’t feel gluggy or over hydrated at all. In fact I think I could have drunk more. I spoke to a lot of people who drank a lot less and felt a lot worse on the run. That is a big lesson here, you don’t want to overdo it, but don’t underestimate the hydration in this race. I was hydrated again (clear urine) within two hours of the race, which to me says I got the hydration about right. The crux of that hydration was the bike leg.

Into transition and the finding of the run bag went a bit smoother than the finding of the ride bag, but I was still left standing still for a moment while it was located. Shoes and hat out, helmet and sunnies in and I was away.

 

 

With the weather conditions being what they were I knew that I would have to pace myself pretty conservatively on the run. I wouldn’t be running quick and shouldn’t expect to. With that in mind I took it out pretty gently.

From the word go I was grabbing everything I could in the aid stations. My aid station run through typically looked something like this:

Cup of water – over the head

Cup of coke or isotonic – in the mouth

2nd Cup of water if I could manage it – over the head

Sponges – lots of sponges.

I did this at every single aid station, there were 6 per lap.

With the sponges I would do a big squeeze over my head to drench myself and then I would tuck them into the front of my tri suit. If I felt like I hadn’t got enough water from the aid station I would also use the sponges to grab a drink. If the sponges had been soaking in dodgy water then I figured I could pay the consequences for that later (there were no consequences by the way) but hydration was more important. I would keep the sponges with me all the way to the next aid station, squeezing as much out of them as I could on the way. At the next aid station I would ditch those sponges and get some fresh ones.

Using the aid stations this way, I have to say I felt pretty comfortable for most of the run, temperature wise anyway.

Even with my gentle pacing at the beginning of the run, after the first couple of kms I was not feeling great. At the 4km mark I ran past my family and said to them ‘I am in trouble’, I really didn’t feel good.

 

I was tempted to let it go, but I thought to myself, I still don’t feel bad enough to walk, let’s just tick this over. I let the pace drop a bit more and kept moving along. As I said above, the run course is very easy to break into stages, so I just kept myself going in stages. Just up the hill to the aid station, just down this hill to the next aid station etc. Doing this I found myself at the end of the first lap, and surprisingly starting to feel okay.

The second lap I was starting to feel good, but resisted the temptation to lift the pace too much, save it for the last lap I told myself. At about the 10km mark, Mark Jansen came past. He asked how many were in front and I said I thought there were two. He told me the other pros were behind and chasing hard, but that the next age grouper was a long way back. I thought I was now 4th overall, but I was confident of winning my age group, so let myself relax a bit. I kept Mark is sight for some time, but then lost him on the hilly section of the second lap. On the second lap I noticed that the pros behind me had slowed down and didn’t seem to be gaining anymore.

 

 

 

On the second lap, I almost rolled my ankle twice on the compacted sand trail. As I said above, the surface is pretty good, but it does require care. After the second time, I reminded myself that I was very fatigued and to be careful.

Coming into the third lap, I was feeling okay, but was ready for the race to be over. I ticked off each section as I moved through them. Sandy track, done, hill, done. At the turn around on the sandy track I saw that I had now gained some time of the people behind me. I am pretty sure I can hold this position I thought. At the end of the sandy track, I had the, ‘I am close enough that I am definitely going to finish this race’ thought, which is always a nice moment. Coming into the last couple of kms I tried to lift the pace, but to be honest I am not sure it was a very impressive effort. I finally got to make that right turn up the finishers chute, under the arch and that was it. 4 hours 26, which I was amazed with, given the conditions. It wasn’t until a fair bit later than I found out I was also 3rd overall.

 

 

 

So overall impressions of the Metaman. It was pretty good; it is certainly something a bit different, quite an interesting race, but it is tough, very tough. It also isn’t quite as polished as some of the big Mdot races. The race works well in most aspects, but there are little things, like the transition bags and that last aid station on the bike, where it isn’t quite perfect. Those are little things though. If you don’t let them frustrate you too much, then the rest of the race is good.

There are some great aspects to this race as well. The field isn’t that big and they are mostly all staying at the resort. So you see the same people everywhere and end up getting to know them, which is really nice, it had a great community type feel.

Given that everyone is in one place, you get up and personal with the pros as well. I was chatting to somebody in the foyer and she said she had done the race in 2012, so I asked her what she thought about using a disc on this course. It wasn’t until after our chat that I realized it was Belinda Granger (female winner of the Metaman in 2012 and Ironman legend). So that is pretty cool.

The convenience of racing and staying at the resort is also pretty nifty.

The kids on the bike course, awesome.

Would I do it again, hmmmm, possibly. It is a tricky race to get to, but it is good once you are there. The biggest question in my mind before the race was not how I would do, but whether I would finish. Now I have seen that finishing is possible, I am not quite so scared of it. So yeah I might go back.

As with all my races, there are a few key thank yous I have to make now that I am done. A big thanks to Daryl, my coach, whose experience was key in preparing for what is a pretty unusual and very tough race. His programs and his advice meant I was able to race and race well.

A big thanks also to my support crew, who on this race included my parents as well as my wife and our kids. Having them there always makes a trip logistically easier, but much more importantly than that, having their support made all the difference on the day. Away from race day, without the support and patience of my family, there would be no racing, so as always a big thank you to them.