Ironman China account by Sharon

China 70.3 was the toughest race ever for me and i am deeply humbled by and am full of respect for the tremendous superhuman physical and mental determination it took for all IM participants to complete the race in such difficult conditions

My swim was a disaster in a murky endless pool that almost got the better of me. Logan and I swam without wetsuit as the race started at 9am and it was getting hotter by the minute. It was a struggle to reach the 2nd buoy and after some endless 20min of struggling againt the current, the swim race marshall on ski boat came over to tell the rest of us stragglers to skip the bouy and follow the flow of the current and head for the 3rd one instead. The strong current kept pushing us downstream away from the 3rd, 4th, 5th buoys and we were again battling the currents from the 2nd last buoy to reach the shore. Disgusted by how long it took for me to finish the swim (1.10), I think i kinda mentally gave up on the rest of the race and kinda plodded my way through the bike and run legs.

On the bike course, the headwinds along the highway took its toll on me and reduced my pace to that of a leisure ride. the C2T chaps I saw in the opposite direction along the way later said how come i was doing a leisurely tour de hainan bike ride during the race haha...
the searingly hot weather made me change my game plan of stopping only at the 60km aid station mark. I decided to stop at the aid stations at approx every 30km to top up my camelbak and bottle. Despite the constant hydration and salt tablet intake, heading up the steepest slope on the course almost made me cramp up but thankfully it was arrested by another quick popping of a salt tablet. By the time i crawled my way to the bike finish, i had taken about 5hr in total already for swim+ bike. This meant that I had 3h to run the 21km before the 8h cut-off. But i was feeling horribly hot, headachy and exhausted. Met Bernard at the transition area only to learn he'd DNF cos of a stress fracture :(

This bad news further lowered my morale and I decided to pretty much just walk the entire 21km. Tried to run abit initially but the intense heat at 2pm just sapped away all my energy and raised my HR to an abnormally high level each time i tried to do a slow jog. Many IM participants were already on the run course and along the way I met David, Ching Hong, Terence, Ser Luck, Enrico, Jeffrey heading in the opposite direction. It took me nearly 4hrs to finish my 21k walk and when i got to the 70.3 finish line, it was closed already as I'd expected earlier, which meant my run time (3.45) and approx total time (8.45) wasn't recorded in the official results, resulting in a DNF. Thots of giving up crossed my mind several times during the race but i decided to just perservere to the end :)

Hearty congratulations to all C2T IMers esp Danny (1st IM) and Kona qualifier Shawn who took part in the race. The unique coconut husk medal is really something hard earned and one that you can all be very very proud off! :)