NILA Aquathlon

The NILA Aquathlon was part of this year's SEA Games community events.

It was to be held parallel to the triathlon ladies competition. It sounded like fun, and with a race fee of $50, we rounded up the guys and gals from Team Triumphant to enter as a team.

There was no group discount mentioned at first, so I had to email the organisers to check. Their reply took a while, and only after I called them to enquire. Finally, they introduced a 5% discount which was $2.50...oh well better then nothing.

With that, we gathered 17 guys and gals and registered as a team. SOMEBODY registered himself twice, which caused a bit of a hiccup, but that was solved.

The race was supposed to start at 8am, but somehow later, the first wave became 10am. I was a bit stressed out then, because my cousin was getting married on the same day. No choice for it but to do a quick race and hurry home.

Race pack collection was at Kallang Leisure Park, where the SEA Games carnival was also being held. Took some pics with the boy and bought some SEA Games souvenirs.

Go Team Singapore!

I asked everybody to meet at race site at 8:30am, so we could take pics etc as I had to rush off after race. Benjamin and Marina took a lift from me down too. We managed to get some pics with the SEA Games mascot Nila.

At 9plus, we set up transition and decided to do a warm up swim. There was no area marked out for warm up, and the tide was very very low. So low that I scrapped my knee on some rocks. Went to the medical station where they applied some antiseptic cream and I was good to go.

The waves started a bit late, we assembled at the start marker and they led us by waves down to the actual start point. Tide was turning by then, and unexpectedly, we were in for a swim of our lives.

The sea was very choppy and currents were strong. On the route  back to shore, I kept hitting the guide ropes. I was sighting every 6 breaths, but with the current, I hit the ropes by the time I had sighted 3 breaths. Came out with the water with a bad time, looking at my watch was about 21mins, but actual it was 19mins.

On to transition and time to go out for the run. Run route was straightforward but it was getting a bit hot. Nothing compared to Putrajaya of course, but it did strike me that there were no volunteers along the route to mark questionable bends in the run route. I did a rather good pace, slightly less then 6mins, but felt a bit of chest tightness and walked a bit twice. Came in out of my run with a time of 32mins, which was satisfactory for me.

All in all, well...not the best race I've done in terms of organization and logistics etc. I heard from a colleague that the race was staffed by Sportshub employees without sourcing for volunteers or some experienced organizers. It also struck me later that there no photographers from the usual sources, so pics were very limited as we didn't have a photographer either. It was an ok race I guess.

Well, it was just a warm up for Desaru anyway....

Not my best timings

the cute medal