A race is more than just a course. It is made up of the location, people and with those people in the location you get atmosphere. For Xterra Philippines, from the moment I arrived I felt a bit like a rock star. From the Driver at the airport with a sign with Xterra Mr. Mike Waring, asking about bikes, how long I train, to the welcome ceremony at the Cebu Convention center which was over the top like China’s Opening Olympic ceremony in 08, while at the race venue, you have shuttles to take you to/from the race site, guides to take you around the bike course. It never stopped.
A little background, the title sponsor for Xterra Philippines is Vaseline for Men. I snickered too when I first heard that, but there were billboards everywhere. Turns the make everything from shampoo, aftershave, soap, and a host of “skin whitening products”. Yes, just what I need, for my skin to be whiter. While the US thirsts for a golden brown, they want to get whiter. The world is a funny place. Vaseline for Men is like a Proctor and Gamble.
Pre-ride: Soo hot. I went from 34 with rain mixed with snow to 90 and 89% humidity and went out for a ride 2 days later. The course is two loops a has a lot of hardpack, road sections connecting trails, quite a few short steep climbs, a couple semi-loose descents (very reasonable), and about 15~20 mins of knarly slice your sidewalls lava rock. The graveyard sections had one nice short descent that you had to keep your speed and get off your front break and was bumpy with rocks. A very fast course that has just enough to keep a roadie on his toes.
Pre-Run: No way to find the race course here, it winds around villages.
Race Day:
We had a kind phone call to wake us up at 0345 to remind us breakfast was at 0400 and the busses left at 0445. Super early morning, but with that heat, no problem.
Arrived at the venue and the place was already packed. Made my way to transition, past the security with Machine guns (at least my bike was safe), set up transition, then plastered on Planet Sun Hawaii sunscreen went out for a warm up (super easy to get warm). Got back switched over to do a quick swim warm up. Noted Silicon swim caps are much warmer than the normal ones they give you.
Race start:
With a remote control helicopter with a camera filming us, the Governor of the Cebu prepared to start the race. I decided to line up front with the group since everyone was way too far back and found myself behind Coach Lance Watson. Figured I could follow feet for maybe 25 meters.
When the gun went off, I was doing pretty well for the first 200 meters, found some feet and hung on until I got a fist to the left goggle knocking the seal. I had to quickly drain water, put it back on, started swimming again, and got caught by the trash and smash swimmers and got eaten. The first lap was still in the low 13 mins so I thought I could salvage a good time out of this, but the jet lag, lack of sleep, hydration levels, and just plain “hot” feeling in the water I felt like I fell apart. Still exited the water right at 30 mins. When I took my silicon swim cap off it felt like hot tub water so I knew there was no cooling going on there.
Got out on the bike and started to hammer, caught quite a few people and was starting to make up ground when I realized my camel back was not providing water, the hose was pinched somewhere and I didn’t check it. After hearing an Xterra Pros story about a pinched water hose and the struggle, I pulled off, lost some time, got it right and went forward. While this is going on the course is lined with spectators everywhere cheering. As we passed schools, they had a whole cheer for us. At some point it was painfully loud, but soo cool. I however was not cool, I was cooking, melting almost shutting down. About ½ through the first lap I realize this went from racing to surviving. When we got on a ridgeline and the wind came, my HR dropped 10 beats and I could hammer until the next valley or lack of wind. Apparently I was the whitest person most of these folks had ever seen because the only thing I kept hearing was …”hes so white”, whoa-white, and a few school girls wanting to touch my skin…I was the tourist attraction.
By the time I got back to transition I was over 2 hours a bit disappointed, but I hadn’t passed out (worried a few times), had survived running out of water, a few hill walks where I wasn’t sweating (super scary), nowhere nowhere near enough electrolytes and was ready to go for the run.
Out of transition for the run I knew it was hot, so I grabbed my cycling water bottle dumped on my head, filled it out of transition and started running. Could hold 8:30 miles for the first 2, then the heat hit….even with the cheering crowds I was falling apart. This run course was so much fun…everywhere had crowds, we were running through back yards, chicken coops, past herds of goats tied, through another farm with peacocks, horses, all lined with people cheering. It was soo tight that you couldn’t see who was behind you but could hear the crowd erupting for the guy behind me. Turns out it was the towns mayor on the running relay blowing by me. By this time was barely managing 9:30~9:45 min miles and legs were starting to feel cramps coming on. Then got to have some fun on a super long raised bamboo bridge across fish ponds. I was expecting to keep getting caught but wasn’t getting caught by that many oddly enough. Then we had a beach run, only no beach, the tide came in and we were in almost waist deep water…the two guys in front of me were #4 and #5 in my age group, tried swimming, but the sea water was kinda gross.
Once back on land they both took off and didn’t see them until the finish line. I finished with a 60 min 10K, but I didn’t pass out (was really concerned about this), didn’t completely cramp out, and still finished.
As my radiator died before my engine died, I had a little extra for the finish line photo below.
Click here for a Youtube highlight video: Xterra Phillipines
Xterra Philippines: If you want to go to a race to see the spectators, feel like a rockstar and I think Xterra Pro Will Kelsey said it best that this is the closest we will come to a Tour De France cycling feeling, then this race is for you. Logistically it is set up to arrive Thursday or Friday, race Sunday, leave Mon or Tuesday. I don’t recommend coming from 34 degrees to 92 degrees and 90% humidity with only 2 days to adjust. A bit difficult to train in local community due to location and traffic practices. Also recommend finding where the Whale Sharks are that time of year before you get there and have a plan to get there after the race. The place is like no race venue you have seen, it has huge sponsorship money so they don't mess around making it look awesome.
Post Race:
Monday most people were leaving and I was looking for something to do. Talked to the local Hotels activity desk and they recommended Island Hoping. Turns out it is snorkeling, and cruising around the neighboring island. Sounded like fun and they quoted $82 USD for a day. My initial thought was man , that seems kinda steep, until I realized I rented the boat and a guide for the entire day. So I hoped on the boat, had a guide and 2 boat crew. Saw Dolphins, played with clown fish, had a crazy fish feed and then chilled onboard as we went to a bamboo floating restaurant. Enjoyed 6 large prawns and rice and went back snorkeling. The weather got rough so we decided to head back after 6 hours of snorkeling and chillin. Good day. Couldn’t get to the Whale Sharks down south, but that is ok, will have to get them another time.
Sad Part of the Philippines:
I usually would not write about this in a race report, but people need to hear that this is really going on today. While waiting for the airport shuttle in the hotel lobby (had a couple hours) reading a book, another American in his late 50’s approached me and started chatting, no grilling me with questions. This guy creeped me out as a complete sleeze bag within 30 seconds. The types of questions he was asking were way out of line for casual conversation while traveling overseas. So I fired a few very pointed questions back and came to find out he was in Cebu with his Girlfriend that he met in Manila in an online chat room while in Arizona. He Flew to Manila, flew her down to Cebu for a week, then sent her home and he was going back to Arizona. So I not so quietly repeated what he just said out loud for others to hear and realized he was a full blown Sex tourist. The type you hear about on a 60 minutes special It saddened me that this really exists. I was soo tempted to lay into further but he caught on that I saw what he was doing and he said by and quietly left. Errg this guy is part of the problem of why Human Trafficking exists.
No comments:
Post a Comment