Most of my Timex Multisport Team mates would not be aware that hidden away in the Philippines is another Timex triathlon team with 25 members, training hard and racing diligently at every opportunity.

The wonderful thing about racing in the Philippines is that travelers from the Timex “International” Team, as we are sometimes called, are welcomed like long-lost brothers and extended every friendship and hospitality.  So if by chance you find yourself heading over to the Philippines you will find another Timex community of athletes that you never knew you had, smiling, introducing, sharing common experiences and welcoming you to their local Team.

Some of my Timex Philippines family

It is indeed a small world, and thanks to Timex it is getting even smaller.

And so it was that I found myself a week ago in Manila, at 5:30am on Sunday morning, lining up with my Philippines Team mates, and thousands of other eager athletes, to run a 10km foot race around the Mall of Asia (MOA), one of the largest shopping centers in the world.

The weather was perfect, having come from brutal heat and humidity in Darwin Australia, Manila was cooler, with beautiful misting rain to keep you yet cooler.

The plot was simple in this “Battle of the Sexes” race in the male-centric Philippino society – the girls took off, and in true cave-man type style the men were let loose 7 minutes later, the goal being to catch the fleeing girls.

About to race …

So the girls head off, and 7 minutes later so are the guys, with the pace doing justice to Usain Bolt.  And just like Bolt, at around 200 metres these macho-greyhounds are spent, with only 9.8 kilometres left to run they slow, with some falling by the way-side walking.  Such was the frenetic start to this race.

I cannot really say much more about the race.  It wound around the reclaimed land area around the MOA, drink stops strategically placed, traffic-control well in place.  Impressive at the sheer numbers of people up so early and racing. and lots of cheering from lots of spectators.

With about 3k to go a young guy probably in his early 20′s strides up confidently beside me and shares a few hundred metres.  Being a typically friendly Aussie I say “G’day, how’s it goin?”  He tells me he is with the Philippines Defence Academy, that I am running strongly, then abruptly stops!  A passing friendship that I made on this run.

With just 2k to go, Oli, one of my Philippines Timex Team mates, runs past with a friendly greeting, and heads off into the distance.  After a brief flirtation with fatigue I decide not to be discouraged, lift my pace and claw back the distance that I have lost, plus a bit.  In the dying meters of the race we cross the line almost together.  I am grateful for the boost he gave me when I most needed it.

A quick pic at the start/finish

Lots of good drink, food and Timex buddies at the finish, with a group of maybe 20 of us all talking about our race, and cheering in others.

In due course the presentation gets underway.  One of our Timex “Family” wins her age group, and we are all happy.

It comes to my age, and a runner with a time some 9 minutes slower than me is awarded my win.  I protest, but a failure in the timing system seals my fate.  There seem to be others protesting the same outcome.  After such good organisation elsewhere in the race, the timing and awards are a joke.  A race organizer to certainly avoid in future races.

And to highlight the wonderful Timex global family that I belong to, one of my Philippines Team mates summed it up wonderfully with a few consoling words

“Stu – it doesn’t really matter what RunRio’s system says – in our hearts we know you are the winner.”

With such good friendships around the world we are all winners, enriched by warmth and goodwill amongst our fellow athletes.

Grafitti at local shop near where I stayed in Auckland

Whilst Americans were freezing in the depths of winter, and my Australian mates were battling record summer temperatures and savage bushfires, I found myself in Auckland New Zealand on a mild, damp and windy morning lined up to start NZ 70.3.  My first race in my new M60-64 age group.  I had high hopes for a good race, and a burning desire to get one of the 30 Kona slots on offer.

The day before the race, organisers had taken competitors on a bus tour of the “top end” of the bike course, that part which went north from the city, over the harbor/harbour bridge with spectacular views of the city, and around a hilly and technical course that made up the first 35km/20 miles of the ride.

Panorama of Auckland from the Harbour Bridge

Parts of the bike and run included sections from the original Ironman New Zealand course in 1984, the first Ironman event held outside the USA.  Organisers had been negotiating with city officials for 2 years to get permission to ride “the bridge”, and other high use city and port areas.  The event was a marvel of logistical planning.

The race started at what is called the “Viaduct”, a lavish port development left over from successful America’s Cup days, with mega-sailing boats and huge private motor yachts moored everywhere.  Not to mention many hundreds of other smaller boats, including ancient square-rig sailing ships.

If you wanted to be in the centre of the NZ maritime universe, this was the place to be.

Handily the swim leg was started in 4 minute age/gender waves.  This meant much smaller groups, less congestion and a clean swim.  The zig-zag swim course was compact within the jetty area, minimising choppy water, and held at slack-water on low tide, so there were no currents.  The swim was wetsuit legal with water temp at a pleasant 19/66.

Navigation was hard – the swim was “under-buoyed”, with a lot of background clutter making sighting of buoys tricky.  More than usual “head-lifting” was necessary to find your way.  But the smaller groups from the wave-starts made the swim pleasant.  The navigation challenges worked to my advantage.  As always I am a slow-starter and a lead group of 8 or 9 made a 50m/yard break on me.  But then, inexplicably, (I guess playing “follow the leader”) they all swam a wide arc on the second last leg and I passed them swimming a direct tangent to the next buoy.  I was the 4th swimmer out in the M50+ wave – two M50-54 swimmers got the jump on me, and I was second in my age.

By T1 the weather was drizzly, making the technical bike course slippery as well, not helped by the proliferation of large square polished-metal man-hole covers strategically located to cause maximum danger/difficulty/damage.  Although I didn’t see any myself, I heard reports of lots of crashes, in particular 9 on one corner just near transition.  There were also lots of racers getting punctures.

The wind came into its own on the ride.  The organisers had thoughtfully briefed everyone on the Saturday bus tour that the course would not only be windy, but the wind would always be a headwind.   It was a New Zealand thing, they said.  They were not far wrong.

So, in short, the ride was challenging.  I went out hard for me, but was conservative in the slippery/technical places.  Following what I thought was a reasonable swim, I wasn’t sure if I was leading my age group.  I did not need to ponder long, as coming off the Harbour Bridge a fellow competitor in my age group rode past me like I was standing still.  This reinforced my long-standing doubt that I cannot ride!  Notwithstanding, I went on to record one of my fastest 70.3 ride times, despite the course and conditions.  Pleasing that you can still improve at 60 if you work long and hard enough in training.

So on through an uneventful T2 and on to the run, and we are at last liberated from the omnipresent fear of crash or mechanical failure.   I sort a few admin details in my head of how the race is going, and how we are going to push through the final leg of the race to the finish.

I say “we”, because races to me are a partnership between my mind and my body; the mind makes unreasonable demands, and the body reluctantly complies.  And in any case “we” were struggling to keep focus on the race because of the pace, and any debate or diversions in my head are a good distraction to take my thoughts away from the body’s reports of pain.

Well, was T2 in fact uneventful?  My left shoe foot-liner had, in my transitional rush, doubled over and formed an uncomfortable lump under my foot.  Momentarily I savored/savoured the unusual/novel texture, and reflected on how different it probably felt to my right foot.  However, my right foot was largely numb coming off the bike.  I fought the time-wasting temptation to stop and fix it, knowing that I would simply collapse in a mess of protesting muscles.

In my fatigue I had a surrealistic epiphany, and wondered whether I might “change” feet, ie swap my left and right feet, so that my numb foot could correspond with my crumpled foot-liner and not feel the lump, using one problem to solve another.  A brief reflection on the daydreaming impracticalities of foot-changing brought me back to reality, and the mind instructed the body to get on with racing, and forget about the distraction of discomfort.

So on and into the run, and I started passing all kinds of people younger and older, many of whom had passed me on the bike, as I tried to relax, and generate maximum speed from minimum effort.  Turn-arounds on the two-lap out and back course came and went, as did feed stations every 2kms.  Hydration, nutrition, pace, focus.

I managed feeble waves to spectators who read my name on my race number and cheered me on.  And I gave a Wellingtonesque-grimace that passed as a smile.  The run was hard, and the bod slowly spiralled towards exhaustion.

But I was in the grip of a mild mania that spurred me ever onwards – I knew of at least one competitor ahead, that I wanted to catch, and I guessed there was an Aussie mate of mine that should not be far behind.  I knew that he was a much better runner than me.  Relentless push and pull factors; I drove my bod as hard as I could run.

I sniffed the finish – the crowds grew, the cheering became louder and louder, my watch said I should have finished; I pushed all thoughts of pain away, thought of good form and good speed, lifted my effort to max for one last frenzied dash to the end.

Everyone knows what that last 100 metres/yards down the finish chute is like.  The crowds are fantastic, you take it all in, convert it to one last push, and cross the line.

Finish at last – the “smile” is a grimace!

At the instant of crossing my body/mind partnership, by prior arrangement, unravels.  The mind reels inwardly, the tears well up in the eyes, the mind stops tormenting/demanding of the bod.  In turn, the body rebels at the demands having been made of it.  I slump on to my catcher, wracked with cramps, heaving for breath, feeling a tremendous lightness of spirit that the race is finally over and I can let the tension go.

The run was pretty much flat other than one small rise over a small bridge, but was roughly 1.6km/1mile too long, something sheepishly acknowledged with a big smile and an apology by race organisers at the presentation after dozens of GPS users queried similar “long” readings on their watches.  Given the windy conditions, and on corrected time, the run was up with the best that I have ever done in a 70.3.

I placed third.  My Aussie mate came in just 43 seconds behind me, doing the fastest age run split by over 5 minutes. The one Kona slot was accepted by my age-group’s winner, so no roll-down.

An honest course, a tough race.  I left it all out there, plus a bit.  Now I need to find an Ironman to try and qualify again for Kona.

The Booty

Details …

Time                        5:03:44 (corrected = 4:56:14)

Swim                        31:30

T1                             1:15

Bike                         2:43:34

T2                           1:02

Run                        1:46:21 (corrected = 1:38:51)

Me and race organiser “Big Bird”

Big thanks to Jeanette Blyth (alias “Big Bird”) and her team for putting on a great inaugural 70.3 race, and to my home-stay hosts Janine (and Gareth) for both a very warm welcome and fantastic support.  Thanks guys.

My host Janine, me, and Timex Wellington NZ rep Graeme Robertson

The Rev3 Olympic in Columbia MD today was cold and wet.  Wife Ali competed in memory of her sister Kristin, who died of non-smoking related cancer in January 2007, aged 38.

Ali finishing, proudly displaying a memorial race plate in memory of her late sister

An off-duty Santa enthusiastically supported the race, bringing joy and smiles to all.

Stu Fitch & Santa

Brenden’s smile

This is a short story about a remarkable young man, who faced more challenges in completing his first triathlon than most athletes face in a lifetime of racing.

Last weekend I raced the Rev3 in Portland Oregon, winning my age group by around 13 minutes.  At a finish interview I described my race to Timex team mate Dave “Scoop” Erickson as the “perfect race” – one of those rare events that occur every 3 or 4 years where, despite all, everything goes very very right.  You try every subsequent race to make it happen again, but despite your best efforts you have to wait your time for the “perfect” race to happen again.

Little did I know that a mere seven days would elapse before I would experience another perfect race, of a very different kind, at the Hayden Idaho sprint triathlon.

I found myself as the runner in a team “Brenden’s Angels”, comprising Hayden Price swimmer, Brenden Nichols as biker (with his amazing dad Ken assisting), and me as runner.  I felt very privileged being invited to join this VIP Team, especially as at nearly 59 I was almost twice the combined age of the other two members.

Hayden, Brenden & me pre-race

Brenden is but 18 years old but has faced more than his fair share of adversity in the last year.  After graduating near the top of his high school class, Brenden was a freshman at Carroll College in Montana where he planned to study pre-med, with a goal of becoming a neurosurgeon.

On October 15, 2011 all this was to change – Brenden was a casualty in an horrific car smash on US 12 on the Montana-Idaho border that broke his neck and ribs, collapsed his lung, damaged his brain and led to nearly four months in a coma.

Things looked very bleak for Brenden, and the odds were very much against Brenden even living, let alone racing in a triathlon within 9 months.

Prior to his accident Brenden was the quintessential Ironman junkie – he loved every aspect of Ironman, followed the sport in great detail, decorated his room with Ironman goodies, and was training to race IM himself.  It was probably the fact that he was in such good physical condition that contributed to his amazing recovery.

Super-dad Ken Nichols, Brenden & race official Cathy Stephens at T1 waiting for Hayden to finish the swim leg

Anyway, Brenden is at the start of a long journey of rehabilitation, a cruel irony given his desire to become a neurosurgeon.  The very things he was to study now form the centre of his universe.  Brenden has a bright intellect blurred by extensive neurological damage that impedes his interaction with the outside world.  He is learning to speak again.  He is learning to walk again; and in due course he will ride a triathlon bike and swim in open water again. For now he can make his way down the hall with a walker, ride down the street with a semi-recumbent trike, and swim a modified breast-stroke with the aid of flotation devices.

Conversations are short and simple, restricted to 2 or 3 very slow words, “thumbs up”, some sign language and a wonderful smile that wins friends with everyone he meets.  You want to say so much more, but the words are not there, and you can only guess at the frustration locked inside

But through all this you sense that Brenden has an indomitable determination to overcome his challenges, and it would be hard to find anyone with more drive, focus and commitment.  An inspiration at the extreme, especially as he retains a strong motivation to compete and complete an Ironman.

Brenden at the end of the bike leg followed by his dad Ken, with swimmer Hayden on the left

So there we are on race day.  Young Hayden ready for the swim, Brenden on his semi-recumbent tricycle, accompanied by his dad, then me running.

The race goes well, and in due course around 100 yards from the finish, all Team members join together to cross the finish line. – Brenden walks the distance with assistance, to the enthusiastic cheers of the assembled spectators.

Brenden & Team just across the finish line

At the awards ceremony Brenden is treated to loud applause when the Team is presented with its winning medals in the VIP Category.

Brenden & team on the podium

Brenden in every sense embodies the Ironman spirit to triumph over extreme adversity.  Seeing him out there giving it a go, his first triathlon since the car-smash despite everything life had thrown at him, was indeed the Perfect Race.

Winners are grinners – the first step for a remarkable athlete

Pico de Loro – Philippines  Sat May 12 & Sun May 13

by Stu Fitch & Ani de Leon Brown

After much planning and promotion for the “Ironkids” clinics the Saturday swim and run sessions saw me, Filipina Timex Team member Ani de Leon Brown, and her Australian husband Dan giving intense triathlon tuition to just four kids.  Bad weather caused numerous last minute cancellations, and with some late arrivals numbers we were well down on what we had expected.

Ani, Gianina, Raphael, Gabi, Gracie and Stu at the swim clinic

But the opportunity to give these kids a lot of individual tuition was taken, with talks on open water swimming technique, navigation and triathlon starts, followed by practical sessions in the clear waters of Pico de Loro Cove.

One keen participant was turned away

This was followed with beach runs, then races with the kids, which they very much enjoyed.  We also took some time talking with parents, giving them a better understanding of the sport, how to prepare their kids for racing, and generally bringing them up to speed with the sport of triathlon.  This was important as the kids’ focus on triathlon is frequently enhanced with Mum and Dad’s dedication to the sport.

Getting ready for our open water swimming practice

Sunday we had two additional starters, now with an age range from 6 to 12yo.

Ani, Dan, Gabbie, Gianina, Gracie, Rafael, Maxine, Umi & Stu

We started with a bike clinic, which included safety on the bike, wearing of helmets, navigation around an obstacle course, bike skills, plus correct seat heights and tire pressures.

Lining up for the obstacle course

The kids really enjoyed being set new challenges, and were very energetic in doing everything asked of them.

Stu & Umi Filipinos tend to be of shorter stature than most – Stu is a giant here

After the skills and drills we had a mini-Duathlon, which saw the kids do one circuit of Pico de Loro Village on their bikes, around 1.8kms, then two laps of a run course.  Then we had drinks and some chocolate, and a long chat about triathlon before we broke up.

Umi & Rafael learning to race-mount their bikes

It was a lot of fun, and everyone enjoyed the Clinics.

Bike skills and drills – a very keen group!