I would like to thank all my English speaking friends and supporters in the US and world abroad for all the support of the past 6-7 years. It’s been a tough journey and I appreciate everyone who messaged me words of encouragement and congratulations.
As most of my audience are Chinese speaking, I apologize for not always posting in English. I’ll try to be better about that in the future. Below is a my short race recap of my 3:58:54 record breaking performance that went down back in Taiwan.
Nervous international fights, dismantled and reassembled my bike 3 times, 14 days of quarantine in un air conditioned heat chamber LOL (Taiwan is kind of hot), and my best 70.3 half Ironman race ever, here we are! Enjoy.. thanks again
Last year at Elsinore 70.3 in Denmark I underestimated the race courses’s difficulty, thinking for such a flat course I can easily break 4 hours. The bike leg didn’t go well, but running off the bike, I did some quick math and thought a 1:15 half marathon will be enough. During that time I still wasn’t very confident of my own endurance and was petrified of bonking halfway through the run. Nervous to push during the run, I held back until the last 5k. When I entered the finishing chute I saw the clock and it started with 4....I knew I had failed.
I was very regretful of my mentality and attitude for that race. Ever since then every single training run I do where I start to feel my legs go weak and felt the same fear at Elsinore 70.3, I would stay calm, endure the pain, and keep moving forward at the limit.
After more than a year, I took the risky flight from pandemic hard hit California to my home country Taiwan and then quarantined for 14 days. Thankfully I made it to start line for Ironman Taiwan 70.3 safe and healthy. I told myself at that moment, do not waste this opportunity.
I knew I couldn’t keep up with Sam during the swim, but I was quietly confident in my form, after a whole year of band work and technique help from my wife, I didn’t get any jello arms through the swim and was able to push full gas.
After I got to the shore, I got on my trusty Giant trinity (the dragon that changes color) and started my most confident sport of cycling, chasing after Sam. The first lap my old injury in my left hip came back to haunt me so I stayed conservative, though still able to average 42 kph. Second lap my left hip warmed up and the pain went away so I went full gas, enjoying the nice rolling course averaging 45-50kph on the 11 highway along the coast. I passed by many other competitors who cheered me on giving me a lot of energy.
Getting off the bike, I felt really good and started off averaging 3:30/km. I thought to myself a 1:15 half marathon is definitely doable. As I passed Sam at 4km mark my pace kept dropping and heart rate kept climbing. All of a sudden the clouds went away and the sun came out to play. I thought crap, this is bad. Every aid station I would grab two cups to drink and two cups to pour on myself, not wanting to slow down to waste anymore time. Every kilometer my pace would drop by a second and by halfway I did the math and realized breaking 4 was not going to happen. I started to feel very depressed and wanting to cry. I thought about How I spent the whole year training for this one race, left my family and my wife at home for a whole month, quarantined for 2 weeks, what the hell am I doing? I snapped out of that and slapped myself mentally and said if I’m not going to break 4 hours today I’m going to at least run until I got nothing left to give myself some closure. I wanted to finish the race not breaking four hours knowing I did my very best and didn’t have it, and not because I was scared. I had blisters underneath my thumb toe nail and it was extremely painful but I carried on. I slogged
Through the last 10km and found myself back in the finishing area. A friend yelled you still have two minutes til 4 hours! I still had hope and accelerated like crazy. I crossed the finish line and couldn’t believe my eyes... 3:58:54
This is my most satisfying race ever. I realized you really can’t let off until the finish line, because anything can happen. This race was very special since I basically time trialed alone from start to finish. To break 4 hours, the Taiwanese nations record for 70.3, and to share the race course with Sam, the pro athlete that inspired me to chase my dream , I couldn’t be more grateful.
