The NTUC Duathlon 2006

Participated in my first ever duathlon event, The Young NTUC Dual-thlon that will take me on a swim across the Marina Bay and a run past major landmarks of Singapore's waterfront area and Central Business District. Each participant will swim a distance of 200m from One Fullerton to DXO. This is followed by a picturesque 3km run that will take you past the Esplanade Bridge, Raffles Quay Road, Shenton Way, the Singapore Conference Hall and back towards the Esplanade. As part of the Mt. Kinabalu Climbathon training, we were sponsored for this event, and were encouraged to participate. I am no swimmer at all, but still I plucked up enough courage to give it a try.

DO and I arrived at about 8am to meet the rest of the team at Clifford Pier. We got our Mizuno running singlet from mida, and started to prepare ourselves like getting my arms marked, pinning the bib on, and placing my stuff at the 'Transition Area'. Divey was nice to come a give us support, after her 10km Sunday run. I also met the SAFRA MF team doing their Sunday LSD, and a few other familiar faces from Trifam. We walked to the start point about 300m away, collected our swim caps (mine was yellow, along with DO, Xavier, Yee Sheng, Sim and Kops). Most of the people were reasonable swimmers. I was one of those that could hardly swim, and that was my first experience doing a swim race, not to mention in sea water to boot....haha.

Soon, it was my wave to get into the waters. Because this event is really a fun one, we were dispatched one at a time. I took to the waters quite well initailly, doing my glides. As I looked up, I could see other swimmers moving way ahead. I could also hear swimmers coming from behind. I was tensed, and wanted to quicken my pace and swim faster. That resulted in me doing shorter strokes, and thrashing quite a lot...I got tired midway, and had to hold on to the guide ropes to regain my breath. DO was around just to ensure I was ok, and he told the boatman to allow me to take a rest....thanks DO. After the rest, I felt much better and was able to complete the swim quite ok. By then, many of the swimmers have gone ahead, including those from the wave behind. DO and I got up together, and we took our time to get a good rinse to wash off the salty water, and got changed into our running gear. Because I was wearing tights, I just had to put on my running singlet, running shoes and I was ready. My legs felt tired initially after that swim. I felt better as I ran, just following DO from about 25m. The run was releatively short, and I think we completed it in less than 10min....definitely shorter than 3km.

After competing the race, we gathered for some nice team photos, and proceeded to Marina Square for makan. The team then went to the WOS-Mizuno outlet to test our feet and get recommendations for running shoes. My feet measured US size 9, and was recommended by Tym (the Mizuno consultant) to wear size 10 Wave Rider 9. Overall, an interesting race of a different kind for me, and I will have to improve on my swimming by a lot to even consider doing a serious biathlon or triathlon event in future.