Race Report: 2011 Kaohsiung Romantic Love River Triathlon

The calm before the storm: race venue, T-16 hours

Look, I didn't name the race, OK? It's a silly translation from the Chinese - nothing about "romantic" in there, except that the river really is called the Love River.

There, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the race!

The good: The course was flat and fast. The river was slow-moving and free from waves and currents. The swim start was conducted in three waves, making it a less "punchy" situation in the water than when a mass start of all competitors is used. The weather was highly cooperative (read: the sun didn't come out and the day was essentially cool, with an overcast sky). There were many enthusiastic supporters cheering on the competitors. There was essentially no wind on the bike course. (BIG contrast to my last triathlon!)

Watch out for "logs"

"Other"*: The Love River is an urban river. Yes, that means that there is at least some degree of sewage drainage that reaches it. It smells a little bit like a sewer. It was hard to get past that during the first part of the swim today. Thankfully, I didn't see any "logs" floating by as I was swimming. There was a marked lack of restroom facilities both at the transition area (a middle school, which had a few restrooms that were quickly overwhelmed by the volume of participants and support personnel) and on the course (no facilities dedicated to the race - not a single port-a-john). Race materials were entirely in Chinese. There seemed to be little to no enforcement of drafting rules on the bike - there were pace lines and pelotons all over the course.

Random: This is the first triathlon I have ever seen where flotation devices were not only authorized, but seemingly encouraged! Seemed like about every other person was "swimming" with some type of "floaty". Weird.

"Floaty" at center

Let's discuss my times for a moment. I am not sure when or if official finish times will be published, so I can only go off how my wrist-mounted GPS unit describes my performance and the time on the official race clock when I crossed the finish line. I finished at about 3 hours 5 minutes on the clock, but if you subtract the five minutes that elapsed prior to my start (five minutes between waves; I was in the second wave), then you've got pretty much 3 hours flat. This exceeded all my expectations for the race! I figured I would be lucky to finish in 3 1/2 hours. (It had been a while since I had run this length of race, known as an "Olympic distance" race: 1500m swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run; so I couldn't really remember what my last finish time in this sort of race was. I just looked it up - I've got to get a bit faster to catch up to where I was in 2008!) I didn't wear a timing device of any kind on the swim, so I am not sure how that turned out, but based on the overall finish time (approx. 3 hours) and the times I did record on the bike and run, we can interpolate the approximate swim time. More on that in a minute.

Heading for the finish line

My bike time was 1:12:28, good for an average of about 20 mph (this is probably my biggest triumph of the race; I have been doing close to no cycling recently), and my run added another 55 minutes and 30 seconds. That's a grand total of about 2 hours and 8 minutes. That leaves 52 minutes for the swim and 2 transitions. Supposing each transition took 5 minutes, that would mean I did the swim in about 42 minutes. Remember, this is just an estimate. Hopefully at some point I will be able to get my hands on the actual official finish times, split times, etc.

Looks like 3:05:12 to me

I was hampered by thigh cramps on the run. At about the same place each lap (it was a 5-lap run course) I had to stop and do some static stretching and a bit of slow walking to work out cramps in my right (and later my left) quadriceps which slowed my overall run pace average considerably. Since it was only a 10 km race course, I tried to pour on a little speed, but it kind of backfired on my with the cramping. I am not going to be trying to go fast on the run in Singapore in a couple weeks (see below).

One interesting aspect of this race that made it really unique was the participation of a great number of Taiwan's military personnel. The Republic of China (ROC) Marine Corps is actually headquartered in the greater Kaohsiung area and there is also a major ROC Navy base here, too, and there were no shortage of personnel from both services participating in the race.

Me n' my boy

As for the future, I won't have much time at all before it is time to race again - exactly two weeks from today I will participate in my 5th Half Ironman race in Singapore, where the course might be flat, it might be calm (not windy), but it won't be cool. (Daytime highs there this week have been around 90 degrees, whereas it only got to about 80 degrees here today.) The Singapore race is notorious for being hot, in fact it is advertised as being quite similar to the Ironman World Championship course in Kona, Hawaii, in terms of the climate and environment. Since I've raced on the Kona course twice (just the Half Ironman, not the full shebang), I know that it gets really hot out there. The temperature and climate in Singapore will be a challenge for me.

I need to keep up the training, because before you know it, it will be time to head to Beijing in May for the big one - 2011 Ironman China. I had a scare in this race last night - I saw something online that said wetsuits were compulsory for the swim (turns out they changed that at the last minute, which is good for me, because I don't have one). I am going to need to pick one up soon, though, because I am sure the reservoir we will be swimming in near Beijing is not going to be warm! (I recall a triathlon I did in May some years back near Kansas City - the water was absolutely frigid! I think Kansas City's latitude is a little bit south of Beijing's...)

"W I N N E R !"

Happy racing!

GJS

*A Marine aviator I once worked with told me that these are the two categories that they use during their after-action debriefs - "good" and "other" - in an effort to make the not-so-good less, umm, charged, shall we say. I kinda like that formula, and will use it forever myself.

2010 Taipei International Half Marathon: The Report **UPDATED**

**UPDATE** December 26, 2010: Official finish time was 2:01:48 - a bit off my race goal.  Better luck next time!  See http://www.sportsnet.org.tw/score_101219_21.php and search for finisher #2712 (they list 1000 finishers per page, if you select the "all finishers" under the half marathon results choice).  There you will see me.  Or you can try to search for my bib number (18253) or my name (c'mon, you already know that one).  Merry Christmas!


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Editor’s note: the below race report was drafted on the day of the race, as the competitor rode the High Speed Rail train back to Kaohsiung.  At the time he wrote this, the running human did not have a chance to access media or news reports about the race, nor to examine his own results.  An addendum will appear at the end of the post that adds some clarifying information in these regards.  Read on…

The "writing salon" aboard the HSR train where this post was drafted

Without yet having had a chance to see any news reports about the 2010 Taipei International Marathon, I would have to say that I think there very well may have been 100,000 or more participants.  There were so many people, it took me over 10 minutes to move from where I was at in a mass of people (thousands and thousands) at the race start over the timing mats to actually start the race (it was about 7:15 AM local time when I started the race, which actually began at 7AM as advertised).  I actually saw one fellow crowd-surfing towards the start line, as if it was a giant rock concert.

My aims for the race were quite modest.  I no longer establish “finishing” a race like this on as a goal – I’m sorry, but barring some type of catastrophic injury or natural disaster, I am going to complete a half marathon, it’s no longer such a long distance to run for me.  I wanted to finish in less than 2 hours, a decent but not too difficult pace that under normal circumstances should be attainable quite easily for me.  I wanted to run easy for the first hour (~the first half of the race), and then step it up in the last hour for a nice “negative split.”  I reality, because of the crowds of runners, my pace during the first hour was far slowed than I figured it would be, so I changed strategy, trying to “keep the horses in the barn” until about the 9 mile mark.  Then I ran harder during the last 3-4 miles to produce the negative split I was looking for. (I have yet to have had a chance to review my race data, but I’m quite sure that it was a pretty decent negative split run).

2010 TAIPEI Marathon

EveryTrail - Find hiking trails in California and beyond

(Note: this map is not my personal results/pace, etc., but of another competitor that I found online)

The race was on a very flat course that made a loop of Taipei City.  The only elevation changes of note during the entire ½ marathon course were a few on- and off-ramps traversed when moving from regular streets to elevated highways or underground tunnels.  Coupled with the fantastic weather for the race today (about 60 degrees F and clear at race start), conditions were ripe for a fast race – that is, if you started with the elites at 6:57 AM.

 

Why?  Well, go back to the first sentence in this post.  I have never, in all the races I have done in the past 10 years, seen anything close to the number of people turn out for a race that I saw today.  In my mind, I consider marathons like those held in Chicago or New York City to be very large (I have not yet run either one, but have heard that they boast something like 40,000 participants).  I do not know as of yet how many people were out there with me today, except to say that it was A LOT.  So many that at no point on the 13.1 mile half marathon route did the congestion ever go away.  There were tons of people from the start to the finish.  Usually in these races once you make it several miles in, the crowds of runners start to thin.  Not so today.  I was trying to duck and weave in and out to find running room from beginning to end.  It’s not a set of conditions that are conducive to fast finish times (again, unless you are out in front of the pack, like the elites runners).

Gear staged the night prior to the race

Because there were so many runners, it seemed to me that the aid stations were lacking in adequate personnel to keep up with demand.  I actually missed the first two aid stations because the throngs of people blocked my view of them and I was pretty much past them by the time I realized they were there.  But when I finally saw one in time to stop, I was hardly able to get any refreshment.  Unlike at any race I have done previously, it was essentially self-serve – that is, there were bottles and containers of water or sports drink on the tables at the side of the run path, and there were cups, and it was sort of a free-for-all to pour your own drink.  This created “madhouse” conditions – every runner for himself.  I had to elbow my way to the table to try and pour a beverage.  Generally, in other races I have done there are either volunteers holding the drinks out to the runners – pre-poured – and you can grab one as you pass, no need to stop and try to pour the drink yourself; or there are pre-poured drinks set on the tables that you can grab and go – again, no need to self-serve the drink.  I believe these methods to be superior in terms of quality and speed of refreshment.  But it seemed to me that the rest stops did not have enough personnel to support these methods.  I only saw one or two volunteers at each table, far too few to keep up with the thousands of runners coming past.  This is certainly an area for improvement.

Another needed improvement is related to the lack of on-course restrooms.  Just as I remarked on in my write-up of the 2010 Ironman 70.3 Taiwan triathlon a couple months back, the race today had far too few restroom facilities on the course.  In fact, I didn’t see a single race-provided venue for this type of need until after 6 miles into the race.  I saw some people, prior to that point, running off the course to businesses and fire stations along the course to use their facilities, but if the race was doing what it should in terms of providing adequate ON COURSE facilities, this behavior shouldn’t be necessary.  Finally, about 5.5 miles into the race, near the river, was a toilet provided for use by people who use the riverside recreation path.  Because the race did not have any on-course toilets to that point, there were some people waiting to use the facilities (women, and presumably men who needed to “sit”), but far more men who chose to use the nearby bushes and treeline for their “facilities.”  This would not have been the case if portajohns had been placed on the course in sufficient numbers and often enough to relieve the (literally!) pent-up demand.  On later portions of the course, near the aid stations, there were generally a couple portajohns, but even so these were insufficient in number to prevent long lines (and the concomitant choice of convenience for many men, trees or bushes nearby).  The race would be better for everyone if this issue was successfully redressed in future iterations.

I was able to see some of the elite runners at the end of the race – the marathoners, that is.  The top men were finishing the full marathon as I was coming in to my finish.  It’s a bit depressing to be “lapped,” so to speak, by these runners, but quite amazing at the same time to see up close how fast they are moving in comparison to a “regular” runner like me.  I heard (but have yet to confirm) that a new course record was set today.

Post-race "snacky-treats"

In all, it was a nice experience.  I am glad I did not try to run the full marathon because it would have been pretty tiring to keep on going.  I was glad to be done after 13.1 miles.

GJS

Editor here again: check out this page on Flickr (note: it is not the running human’s Flickr page – he did not take a camera with him during the race; http://www.flickr.com/photos/future77/sets/72157625503659903/) for some photos from the marathon.  See also this report (http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aSPT&ID=201012190019) from Taiwan’s official news agency that puts the competitor estimate at 110,000 (with 31,000 in the marathon itself).  A course record was NOT set yesterday; the top male finisher crossed the line at 2:14:04 (course best is 2:11:05) and the top woman finished in 2:30:37 (course record was set last year by the same woman, at 2:30:05).  Finally, while final results for all runners were not available at press time (they will eventually be posted here: http://www.sportsnet.org.tw/en/,  some unofficial times for the running human are 1:51:14 (from the Taipei Marathon Information and Results Finder here: http://marathon.taipei.gov.tw/change.action?request_locale=en_US; screenshot below) and 1:55:45 (from his wrist-mounted GPS unit).  As posited above, the runner did indeed increase his pace throughout the race, averaging 9:40/mile over the first ~5.5 miles, then 9:23/mile for the next ~4 miles, and a swift 7:23/mile over the balance of the race (about 4 miles).  Both of these times seem to be a bit low, as in, faster than the actual finish time.  This post will be updated when the official finish time is available.

Running, Taipei edition

Heading to Taipei this weekend to run a half marathon there.  I think I saw somewhere that there will be 100,000 participants for the event, which if true is completely mind-boggling!  I've never heard of such a large race, and was not aware that the Taipei International Marathon was a race of that magnitude when I signed up for it.  I still plan to run it, but I'm just saying...  It may because there are like 5 different race lengths offered: full marathon, half marathon, 9km, 3km "fun run" ("free entry to the first 20,000 persons!"), and 2km kid's run.  I think showing up early to the race start for this one will be a must.

You can follow me online.  Here's the link: http://marathon.taipei.gov.tw/change.action?request_locale=en_US  Just type in my bib number, 18253.  Race starts Sunday, December 19 at 7AM, Taipei time.  I am to finish roundabout 2 hours, but with all those runners to dodge and weave between, I may be way off!

I'll write a little bit about how the race went next week, if I can find time.

GJS