Dear athletes, below the relevant updates for the upcoming month
* Race Report: Ironman 70.3 Vietnam, Pattana Tri Festival, Pho3nix Kids race
* From Zero to Hero: Andrea’s story & race report
* Races are back! 4x Iromans 70.3 to pick 2nd semester
Race season is finally back on again, we had 3 events back to back in May with excellent results for our team. One of them was Andrea DiCaprio performance at Ironman 70.3 Vietnam, Andrea joined our squad 3 years ago as a complete beginner in all 3 disciplines, fast forward he is now one of the strongest age groupers in the region over the Ironman 70.3 distance
Other notable results were a total of 3 World Championships qualifier in Vietnam, 7 first timers over the Ironman 70.3 Distance and 6 podium finishers in May across all 3 events
Races are also finally back, there are 3 confirmed Ironman 70.3 events happening in the 2nd semester of this year. Cebu, Lombok, Langkawi and Puerto Princesa
Enjoy your training,
Vinnie Santana
ironguides Head Coach
Members Updates – May Races Report:
Pattana Triathlon Festival
We had members at all 3 distances! Some dedicated podium finishers as well as inspiring first timers
Half Iron distance
Veterans
Victor 3rd overall in 4h30 and new PB
Kipsan 4h56 2nd overall non-elite and 1st AG non elite
Dirk 2nd in his AG, and 2nd “Family man” of the race First position was former member Toll, talk about busy and fast guys
Anand 6h03 and new PB
First timers
Gam achieved her dream and finished the race in 7h00`7 sec (need some dimples on the water bottle to shave those 7 sec 55)
Romain’s 4h52 was a warm up for his career and will be coming back much faster
Matt came in 6h20 as a training day for Ironman Sweden and Peter who just started triathlons late last year managed 6h50
Congrats to old member Chris on the overall win and Kenshin who attended our races and set the pace early in the race and push everyone to their limits
Standard Distance
Andrew managed the 2nd best bike split of the race and 4th in his age group
Champ our sponsor from Optima Bike was 3rd overall
We received the below message from Andrea in March 2019 – legit beginner that could not swim
Fast forward to May 2022 – Andrea placed 5th with a time of 4h46 at Ironman 70.3 Vietnam (there were 7 slots for the World Champs)
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ANDREA’S OWN RACE REPORT BELOW
Ironman 70.3 Vietnam Race Report.
Recap here (WARNING long post only for Triathlon Fetishists) : I qualified for the 2022 World Championship BUT…..it’s all to be redone.
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Swim 1.9km = 33’33’’
Bike 90km = 2h23’
Run 21K = 1h44’
Total Time 4’ 46’’
5th Age Group – 20th Overall
5 out of 7 called for World Championship in St. George – Utah – United States on 28/29 October 2022
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I don’t want to sound arrogant but I don’t want to hide either … I was really trained for this race, I was sure that without mechanical problems and with a bit of luck I would be able to play in the top 10 of the group.
I was so trained that I secretly hoped for the worst possible conditions (rough sea, wind and terrible heat in the race) to be able to play even better with those in front.
In the last 10 weeks, I have practically done a half marathon every Wednesday morning and a sort of half ironman every Saturday morning with the beasts in HuaHin … the race was a rest day compared to the previous 10 weeks
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SWIM: the Sea was much less rough than the day before, the first 200 meters not easy due to the waves but then all quiet until the end. I chose to start very slowly to take off the strong swimmers from behind and find plenty of free space in front (one of the last of the first group).
I entered the water much more calm than usual (thanks to the April Training Camp where we certainly “ swam ” in a very very angry sea) this helped me to keep my heart rate low in the first meters and then keep a stable pace until the end, as we have tried several times in training.
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BIKE: as per strategy, very slow first km, until anyone passes me, then I started pushing until halfway where I realized I was a bit low in average power and I significantly increased until I found myself first in the group of pursuers of the first 30 athletes … in the middle of the race it started to rain quite heavily, moreover the route was in my opinion very dangerous … too many bottlenecks and an internal loop that put the head of the race side by side with the tail with a very dangerous difference in speeds. I lost something in the corners to avoid taking risks and I was slowed down several times by the flooded roads but all in all I managed to do better than I had anticipated.
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RUN: I am beginning to understand that running in long races is truly a separate race where many variations come into play that can greatly influence the pace and the final result.
The last km of the bike stopped raining and a little sun created a crazy humidity … Even in the run I chose to start very slowly and I started to hum in my head the music of Pacman when he chases the ghosts in the corridors (sound)… every person I passed was an eaten ghost(sound) … I enjoyed until the 14 km when I became the ghost who ran away!
Halfway through the race, the temperature rose considerably due to the sun and humidity but the plan was to stay focused on my pace until halfway through the race and then watch the race time on the clock and attempt to attack the leaders of the K group (I did not look at the race times from the start of the swim until 10 km of the finish line).
For a few meters I was on the podium of my group but then I was passed by strong runners who ran at 4’30 ” on average … another level (for now …).
I tried everything by accelerating to the max for the entire last km but they were too far away.
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The goal was to go below 5 hours so I am extremely satisfied with the result, half of the credit goes to my coach Vinicius Santana who trained me from zero (I didn’t know how to swim, I never had a bike and I was just running to lose weight ) until reaching a world qualification in 3 years. As always, his training plan was simply perfect: there’s no secret I train almost 20 hours a week, go to sleep every night at 9pm and wake up at 4.30am every morning to be able to combine work and training.
7 days a week Saturdays, Sundays, Holidays included. I am not athletically gifted in any discipline, I train a lot but also a little if we compare it to real athletes … I am not the best at anything, I am just the most hungry of all when I have a goal in mind … I can slow down but I always get there and in any case, I would easily sell my soul to the devil just to be able to take what I want…it has been always like this, all my life.
So I qualified for the October World Cup in the United States?
Yes, but I will NOT be able to go
I have a work commitment in Singapore that week that cannot be postponed, I already knew it long before the race, since last year, when they called me on stage for the slot I tried to ask if possible to postpone it to the next world championships of 2024 in Finland but the business machine of the Ironman has been inflexible…
So everything is to be redone … from October onwards I will go hunting for the world qualification again, first in Lombok in Indonesia then in Puerto Princesa in the Philippines, and then again and again at each race until I manage to qualify again for the 2023 World championship in Finland (this time without business appointments!).
Honestly, I’m not much disappointed (now…) on the contrary, the bright side is that I just have more time to train even harder and present myself in Finland better than I could have been in October in the United States.
A special thanks to Kipsan Beck who was the first to believe in this result, it all started with his idea during one of our killer run sessions at the Track.
Sponsors & Discounts:
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OTHER SPONSORS AND PARTNERS
Find the discount codes at the members area of our website (login at the footer of ironguides.net)
OPTIMA BIKES
The exclusive prices for ironguides members – email info@ironguides.net for more information:
20% off for Omega Frameset (Price 69,900) with free Aero caliper brakes (7500THB.)
10% off for Carbon Wheels
5% off for Omega Completed Bike
TRI-DASH THAILAND: 10% OFF at any event during 2022 – use our coupon code on the members area when registering for the race http://tridashthailand.com/
UJAMU: 10% OFF Ujamu herbal drinks – use our coupon code when checking ou https://ujamu.net/
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