Keeping things in perspective

I cringe when I see this photo.........bad running form.......leg too far in front:(


well done!!

Hi everyone,

I just did the Trifam sprint tri this morning which consists of a 750m swim, 16k bike and 5k run. Generally, the shorter the race, the more painful it is. Well, as usual, I had to do catch-up after the swim; in fact, i rounded a wrong buoy but I realised my mistake fast and lost not more than 10 secs getting back on course. Because of that mistake, I "lost" the pack and had to swim the last half of the swim on my own:(

I had a speedy transition; it is really much faster to have my shoes clipped in beforehand and it saves me the embarassment of fumbling to get my cleats in at the start line. And then it was off to twenty plus mins of pain on the bike!! My speedo was not working, and I was racing by feel, which is not a bad thing, cos you can get obsessed with htting a certain speed on the bike and neglect the signals the body send you. I was going at a controlled" hard, bearing in mind that I will probably have to run like crazy after the bike. Honestly, this is the best I have felt on the bike at any of the Trifam races. Though there were some sections where I slowed, i was generally pushing it most of the time trying to catch the guys in front, but all I saw was the long coastal rd....I was not making up much time on them.

I was running fast on the run and trying to catch the top masters guy in front of me.....I think he might have repreented Australia in the age group worlds cos he was wearing the Australia racing uniform, but I just couldn't put in the additional effort required to close that gap. So in the end, I finished 5th overall, 4th in the men's open.

In fact, as I am writing this, I am still a little bit upset that I did not make the podium. But LAWRENCE!! HEY!! WAKE UP!! SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU BECOME OBSESSED WITH PLACINGS!! REMEMBER, IT'S NICE TO WIN BUT WINNING IS NOT EVERYTHING!! What is most important is the EFFORT! Did I do my best today? Yes, I did! That is the most important. Honestly, there is no way one can be top dog all the time. Yes, I may be top dog at a small race, but there will always be someone somewhere out there who will be faster than me. Therefore, placings are relative, but what remains constant is the effort that I put in.

On a side note, my wife did the race too! I think she had a good swim and a relatively good bike, but she made a wrong turn and ended up at Tanah Merah ferry terminal:) When she came back from the bike, I was already done with my race :) She actually cried a little and wanted to stop, cos she knew she would probably be the last finisher after losing so much time. But somehow, she found the courage to continue after calming herself down and ended up having a good run. I am really proud of her for not giving up and finshing what she started.

Ok, that's it for today. Thanks for reading! One more race in Bintan next week!