Powerman Malaysia race report

My friend Dave and I recently entered the Powerman Malaysia Duathlon in Lumut in Perak. In a word, it was Awesome.

From what I understand from others, we were lucky with the weather as it had rained in the night and it kept the temperature down, meaning the whole course was cool with a light breeze.

We got down the night before, and thanks to Lauren thinking that we would be in the boonies, we had enough water, 100 plus and snacks to feed the entire field. We checked into our (fairly gross) hotel, assembled and checked our bikes and then headed out to drive the bike course and find some dinner. We drove most of the route and realized it was basically completely flat, with a couple of small bridges and good road surface. Feeling happy with the outlook we went off, found a local restaurant for some food and then went home early to bed.

The next morning, having eaten PBJ's from the picnic box, we went to the transition. It was still drizzling a little and transition was a bit muddy, with quite a lot of confusion as to who was to be where, but it turned out really just to be some last minute reorganisation to try to move things like body marking under cover.

We racked our bikes, found the loo for a last minute leak and then it was time to line up. For some reason, Dave and I had decided only to do the sprint so we had a 5.5km run followed by a 30km ride followed by a 5km run. My overall level of fitness doesn't seem to be what it was, so i had no real expectation of time.

At the starting horn, i set off, middle of the pack and settled into a fairly steady, but not particularly fast pace. It was a very flat, open, one loop run around a big neighbourhood. It was perfect conditions. I did 30 minutes flat which is about a 27 minutes 5k. Not my fastest, but still happy enough with that.

The bike loop was one out and back, fifteen km out, easy turn and 15 km back. The road was excellent, the marshaling was great and the pace seemed... a bit sloweer than I would have expected, but it was not something i dwelt on too much as i picked off riders one by one. I was trundling along feeling pretty good, thinking that I was glad I didn't go all out on the run and kept lots in the tank. We passed the area where I made the u-turn in the car the evening before and then came around a bend and saw a bridge. Not just another little bridge, but a big bridge, over a big wide river. A bridge that I was not expecting; a bridge that just enough incline required me to get up out of my saddle! Nice.

It turned out to be ok in the end, although 2km later when I went over it again, it was a little harder on the quads. Bike was 59 minutes.

The second run started well. Like all of my races, it seemed to take my legs a little longer to warm up to a run after the bike, (which I put down to not enough bric training) but I got a steady pace within about a km and a half. Looking at the results, this is where I lost the most places in the race. On a race this short, you don't have the time or the luxury of giving your legs that long to warm up. It is definitely where Dave excelled and picked up minutes on me. We were pretty even until the start of the second run. His run was 60-90 seconds faster than me, he transition was just a pip faster and his bike was about even, but his second run was awesome and he annihilated me. I finally settled into a run pace that was not too shoddy and finished my second run in just shy of 30 minutes.

All in all, this race was very very well organized, it was a good course and it was in a great location. The Roti Canai (local Malaysian breakfast) across the street afterwards was a double bonus. Will I do it again? Absolutely. Do I reccomend it to others? Definetly. Do the organisers deserve a round of applause? Here Here. Was I happy with my time, not really, but not every race is about time. Some are just meant to be enjoyed!