Hyderabad triathlon
Going to Hyderabad for the triathlon has become an annual fixture now. Every year we try and take it up a notch. Set new targets, hit new highs, still doing many things "for the first time in our lives".
With each event we are getting stronger, learning new things, making new mistakes & hopefully not repeating them too often. Last year it was the first time I and Gurmoksh Singh were attempting the Olympic distance and Manesh, ishpreet and raksha were attempting the half iron. This year there were 3 of us. My partner in crime - Manesh Nambiar and the prodigy Shubhankar Bivalkar. All of us has set our eyes on the half iron distance this year. Its 1.9km swim followed by 90km on the bike and a 21km run :) We decided to drive down with the 3 bikes from Pune on Friday evening. And just like that we were on our way!
Roads were great till Solapur, but after that it was a nightmare. We had dinner near Solapur and for the first time got a taste of the Solapur spice - easy on the way in, hits for after a few minutes. Fun!! The roads got progressively worse after this, and it slowed us down. We got into Hyderabad by 3 am.
We had booked an affiliate hotel of YHAI which turned out to be horrible. Shady bathroom, Ac won't work because they can't find the remote, dirty sheets. I do think YHAI (Youth Hostel Association of India) needs to pull up it's act - in a bid to increase the number of hotels under the affiliation banner they have roped in some horrible hotels. Quality check is important when your putting your brand on the line. Anyway so we slept by 4 am and woke up by 11 and decided to hit the city for breakfast and proceed to the bib collection venue in banjara hills. Had a very tasty breakfast at a burger king kind of joint if your familiar with Pune but the after effects of it very not so nice. And we went the whole nine yards by eating all the wrong things under the garb of carb loading. Things such as burgers, puffs, pastries, etc
Reached the venue courtesy Google maps without getting lost and was reasonably impressed with the setup. I still think they can do much better. Something on the lines of what was done by the organisers at Mysore triathlon - they had a whole day of sessions and talks planned by professionals on all aspects of the triathlon. Eg they had tied up with the swim expert and bike fit companies. Which is great learning for all athletes and adds a lot of value to the event.
After big collection we went on a hunt to buy spare tubes to prepare for the worst thing that can happen during a race the "flat tire". We ended up in this nice store called the bike affair bought tubes and were on our way home. Stopped on the way to pick up things we would need for race day such as sandwich spread, peanut butter, bread, zip locks, flavoured milk for the morning, apples etc
Had dinner at an old hyderabadi joint called cafe bahar which was pretty good. Chicken Biryani Hyderabadi style.
Came home started packing, filling water in the hydration bags, all of us got our transition bags sorted and went to sleep by mid night. We were staying about 25km from the venue
Lesson 1: stay close to the venue. Saves time in the morning which means more rest. Every hour counts on race day.
So we started by 4:45 and thanks to manesh's driving and Google navigation we reached the venue by 5:30am. Now we has to assemble the 3 bikes, fill air, get all the transition bags, it was all a bit chaotic. But thankfully the race did not start on time. It was set to start at 6:15am in the college campus. We reported to the check point, gave the transition bags, set up the bike and the stuff required for t1 there and proceeded to the pool.
There were about 29 athletes and 9 lanes in the swimming pool. 3 in each lane and some unlucky ones had to wait till the first ones got out. As the clock hit 6:15 , we could feel the morning chill in the air. Manesh in the lane left of me, Shubhankar to the right and splash! we jumped in and were on our way. The moment we had been waiting for was here. Sometimes it feels a bit unreal , that moment when your start an event you have been looking forward to and the initial five minutes are interesting in an awkward way - You want to take it slow as it's just the beginning there is a bit of nervous energy but at the same time there is excitement. So I started nice and slow has decided not to try anything new and maintain a steady pace. I had fallen off the bike a couple of weeks back hurting my collar bone pretty bad so was unable to put in the hours in the pool I would have ideally wanted to. So my target was to come out of the pool on the underside of an hour. And it did happen exactly how I planned it. Came out in 58 minutes. Went to the changing room, changed into the cycling gear went to the bathroom and by the time I came out manesh was out as well. We took about 15 minutes for T1 but was feeling good and was ready to make up for lost time on the bike. We started together at a good pace. Riding around each other, about 25km in, we were going a good average of around 30. On a nice flat stretch I was cruising at 35kmph and just then I didn't see a sudden speed breaker and was unable to slow down and BOOM! I got a "flat tire".
BIG LESSON - I always keep the tire pressure around 80psi and always get pinch flats, once I had I increased to around 100 and had still got a flat. But that was an exception- keeping high pressure reduces the chances of flats and despite many people telling me to keep the pressure high I was going by my gut and intuition which was completely wrong. From then on pressure is never less than 120 and have not got a flat yet.
Anyway so this was really really disappointing. Manesh was like 500m behind me and we both just knew that this was horrible. It was heartbreaking. I told him to continue as there would be no point in him screwing up his race as well. Luckily there was a aid station just 10m away and the volunteers came over to help.
I had a brand new spare tube and while changing the tubes we realized that even this tube was flat. That's it. This was really starting to hurt now. It was a loop of 56km - 28 going and 28 return, and I could see people passing me and soon I could saw people returning as well. The people on the return were people who got of the pool really quick 35-50 mins etc. I tried a lot of things- we struggled with the two tubes for an hour then I went for a ride on a two wheeler for 5/10km to find a tube repair but did not find anything. The organisers had a mechanic who was available on call (brilliant idea) but somehow he never reached me. We probably spoke about 15 times on the phone exchanging pleasantries the usual "where are you?" , "I'm near this landmark and where are you?", "I'm coming". I didn't get frustrated though, the fact that they even had a mechanic for the event is highly appreciated, it didnt help me is just my bad luck. But I just could not believe this was happening and somehow I wanted it fixed and wanted to cycle and finish this. Every 10 minutes my mind was calculating how much time I have lost, how fast do I need to ride. How fast i'll need to run if I start now, will I catch up with manesh, Shubhankar. Will I even see manesh, Shubhankar. Will I even finish??!!
Anyway time was passing I decided to chat up with the volunteers. They were really nice guys from deccan college and as it turned out they were computer science students. So we were chatting about the industry, jobs, and programming languages. Then one volunteer got an idea of sending a few volunteers with my wheel in a rickshaw to a bike shop to the nearby village to get it fixed. This was my only hope. I was waiting in the mean time I saw Shubhankar on the return. In my mind I was still very upbeat. I just wanted the bike to be fixed. Soon the guys came back with the tired fixed I pumped as much air as I could- probably 120psi with the hand pump. Took a photo with the volunteers and I was finally on my way.
Such a relief. I was very determined now. Nervous energy had completed transformed to determination and grit. I was just hoping I should not get another flat. Hardly 100m into the ride I crossed manesh as he was returning, I gave him the pump which I had borrowed and I knew I had lost approximately 2 hours. To make things worse cyclone HUD HUD had struck and there were heavy winds. Not only head winds but also cross winds. Had to hold on to the bike really hard a few times as the wind was about to throw me off the bike. I still maintained a good pace. I was determined to give it my all now. Took a few 2 minute breaks at the aid stations and reached the turn around point in a decent time. By the time I came back to the point where I had got the flat I had overtaken a lot of cyclists. I was feeling reasonably strong but was out of things to eat and bananas were starting to irritate. The bike section and the run section have about 8 km in common and I did not see manesh or Shubhankar on that section which meant that were probably at the run turn around point. I finish the bike leg in 5:30. which I was proud of given what had transpired.
So it took about 10 minutes for t2 transition, went to the bathroom, took a piss, drank some water, changed into the running shorts and I was on my way. Decided to walk the first 1/2km as to play it safe and build up slowly. Post 1km I started running slowly. Luckily because if the cyclone the weather was good. It was hot but not the unbearable heat that you normally associate with afternoons on Hyderabad. 3/4km into the run I crossed Shubhankar and I was very happy for him. He had done a sprint and directly jumped to the half iron distance and it was the first time he ever ran a 21km. So it was a great effort and his final time was 7 hours 36 minutes. After about another 2/3km I saw Manesh and they both encouraged me to go on and give it my best. Manesh finished with a final time of 8:10 which was a huge improvement from his last year's performance. I ran the next few km well. After the 8/9km mark I started getting slower. I would run 1/2km take a walking break of 500m to the aid station - re hydrate, eat a banana or two walk another 500m to let that settle and run again. There were aid stations every 1/2km. I had pushed a little hard on the bike and that was starting to show. Could not run continuously so kept doing this 1/2km running and walk till the end. Did overtake many people on the run as well who got away from me on the bike section. As I crossed the finish line Manesh and Shubhankar were there to congratulate me and take pictures. I Took 2:58 minutes for the 21km run. Overall time of 9:50 minutes for the half iron triathlon. As it turns out 10 hours was the cut off for the half iron distance and I had just made it. We all were very satisfied with our performances. Many lessons learned. Big big thanks to the volunteers at the Hyderabad triathlon. Until next year! Cheers
With each event we are getting stronger, learning new things, making new mistakes & hopefully not repeating them too often. Last year it was the first time I and Gurmoksh Singh were attempting the Olympic distance and Manesh, ishpreet and raksha were attempting the half iron. This year there were 3 of us. My partner in crime - Manesh Nambiar and the prodigy Shubhankar Bivalkar. All of us has set our eyes on the half iron distance this year. Its 1.9km swim followed by 90km on the bike and a 21km run :) We decided to drive down with the 3 bikes from Pune on Friday evening. And just like that we were on our way!
Roads were great till Solapur, but after that it was a nightmare. We had dinner near Solapur and for the first time got a taste of the Solapur spice - easy on the way in, hits for after a few minutes. Fun!! The roads got progressively worse after this, and it slowed us down. We got into Hyderabad by 3 am.
Reached the venue courtesy Google maps without getting lost and was reasonably impressed with the setup. I still think they can do much better. Something on the lines of what was done by the organisers at Mysore triathlon - they had a whole day of sessions and talks planned by professionals on all aspects of the triathlon. Eg they had tied up with the swim expert and bike fit companies. Which is great learning for all athletes and adds a lot of value to the event.
After big collection we went on a hunt to buy spare tubes to prepare for the worst thing that can happen during a race the "flat tire". We ended up in this nice store called the bike affair bought tubes and were on our way home. Stopped on the way to pick up things we would need for race day such as sandwich spread, peanut butter, bread, zip locks, flavoured milk for the morning, apples etc
Had dinner at an old hyderabadi joint called cafe bahar which was pretty good. Chicken Biryani Hyderabadi style.
Came home started packing, filling water in the hydration bags, all of us got our transition bags sorted and went to sleep by mid night. We were staying about 25km from the venue
Lesson 1: stay close to the venue. Saves time in the morning which means more rest. Every hour counts on race day.
So we started by 4:45 and thanks to manesh's driving and Google navigation we reached the venue by 5:30am. Now we has to assemble the 3 bikes, fill air, get all the transition bags, it was all a bit chaotic. But thankfully the race did not start on time. It was set to start at 6:15am in the college campus. We reported to the check point, gave the transition bags, set up the bike and the stuff required for t1 there and proceeded to the pool.
There were about 29 athletes and 9 lanes in the swimming pool. 3 in each lane and some unlucky ones had to wait till the first ones got out. As the clock hit 6:15 , we could feel the morning chill in the air. Manesh in the lane left of me, Shubhankar to the right and splash! we jumped in and were on our way. The moment we had been waiting for was here. Sometimes it feels a bit unreal , that moment when your start an event you have been looking forward to and the initial five minutes are interesting in an awkward way - You want to take it slow as it's just the beginning there is a bit of nervous energy but at the same time there is excitement. So I started nice and slow has decided not to try anything new and maintain a steady pace. I had fallen off the bike a couple of weeks back hurting my collar bone pretty bad so was unable to put in the hours in the pool I would have ideally wanted to. So my target was to come out of the pool on the underside of an hour. And it did happen exactly how I planned it. Came out in 58 minutes. Went to the changing room, changed into the cycling gear went to the bathroom and by the time I came out manesh was out as well. We took about 15 minutes for T1 but was feeling good and was ready to make up for lost time on the bike. We started together at a good pace. Riding around each other, about 25km in, we were going a good average of around 30. On a nice flat stretch I was cruising at 35kmph and just then I didn't see a sudden speed breaker and was unable to slow down and BOOM! I got a "flat tire".
BIG LESSON - I always keep the tire pressure around 80psi and always get pinch flats, once I had I increased to around 100 and had still got a flat. But that was an exception- keeping high pressure reduces the chances of flats and despite many people telling me to keep the pressure high I was going by my gut and intuition which was completely wrong. From then on pressure is never less than 120 and have not got a flat yet.
Anyway so this was really really disappointing. Manesh was like 500m behind me and we both just knew that this was horrible. It was heartbreaking. I told him to continue as there would be no point in him screwing up his race as well. Luckily there was a aid station just 10m away and the volunteers came over to help.
I had a brand new spare tube and while changing the tubes we realized that even this tube was flat. That's it. This was really starting to hurt now. It was a loop of 56km - 28 going and 28 return, and I could see people passing me and soon I could saw people returning as well. The people on the return were people who got of the pool really quick 35-50 mins etc. I tried a lot of things- we struggled with the two tubes for an hour then I went for a ride on a two wheeler for 5/10km to find a tube repair but did not find anything. The organisers had a mechanic who was available on call (brilliant idea) but somehow he never reached me. We probably spoke about 15 times on the phone exchanging pleasantries the usual "where are you?" , "I'm near this landmark and where are you?", "I'm coming". I didn't get frustrated though, the fact that they even had a mechanic for the event is highly appreciated, it didnt help me is just my bad luck. But I just could not believe this was happening and somehow I wanted it fixed and wanted to cycle and finish this. Every 10 minutes my mind was calculating how much time I have lost, how fast do I need to ride. How fast i'll need to run if I start now, will I catch up with manesh, Shubhankar. Will I even see manesh, Shubhankar. Will I even finish??!!
Anyway time was passing I decided to chat up with the volunteers. They were really nice guys from deccan college and as it turned out they were computer science students. So we were chatting about the industry, jobs, and programming languages. Then one volunteer got an idea of sending a few volunteers with my wheel in a rickshaw to a bike shop to the nearby village to get it fixed. This was my only hope. I was waiting in the mean time I saw Shubhankar on the return. In my mind I was still very upbeat. I just wanted the bike to be fixed. Soon the guys came back with the tired fixed I pumped as much air as I could- probably 120psi with the hand pump. Took a photo with the volunteers and I was finally on my way.
Such a relief. I was very determined now. Nervous energy had completed transformed to determination and grit. I was just hoping I should not get another flat. Hardly 100m into the ride I crossed manesh as he was returning, I gave him the pump which I had borrowed and I knew I had lost approximately 2 hours. To make things worse cyclone HUD HUD had struck and there were heavy winds. Not only head winds but also cross winds. Had to hold on to the bike really hard a few times as the wind was about to throw me off the bike. I still maintained a good pace. I was determined to give it my all now. Took a few 2 minute breaks at the aid stations and reached the turn around point in a decent time. By the time I came back to the point where I had got the flat I had overtaken a lot of cyclists. I was feeling reasonably strong but was out of things to eat and bananas were starting to irritate. The bike section and the run section have about 8 km in common and I did not see manesh or Shubhankar on that section which meant that were probably at the run turn around point. I finish the bike leg in 5:30. which I was proud of given what had transpired.
So it took about 10 minutes for t2 transition, went to the bathroom, took a piss, drank some water, changed into the running shorts and I was on my way. Decided to walk the first 1/2km as to play it safe and build up slowly. Post 1km I started running slowly. Luckily because if the cyclone the weather was good. It was hot but not the unbearable heat that you normally associate with afternoons on Hyderabad. 3/4km into the run I crossed Shubhankar and I was very happy for him. He had done a sprint and directly jumped to the half iron distance and it was the first time he ever ran a 21km. So it was a great effort and his final time was 7 hours 36 minutes. After about another 2/3km I saw Manesh and they both encouraged me to go on and give it my best. Manesh finished with a final time of 8:10 which was a huge improvement from his last year's performance. I ran the next few km well. After the 8/9km mark I started getting slower. I would run 1/2km take a walking break of 500m to the aid station - re hydrate, eat a banana or two walk another 500m to let that settle and run again. There were aid stations every 1/2km. I had pushed a little hard on the bike and that was starting to show. Could not run continuously so kept doing this 1/2km running and walk till the end. Did overtake many people on the run as well who got away from me on the bike section. As I crossed the finish line Manesh and Shubhankar were there to congratulate me and take pictures. I Took 2:58 minutes for the 21km run. Overall time of 9:50 minutes for the half iron triathlon. As it turns out 10 hours was the cut off for the half iron distance and I had just made it. We all were very satisfied with our performances. Many lessons learned. Big big thanks to the volunteers at the Hyderabad triathlon. Until next year! Cheers
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment