Many of you know that Chris and I raced in the Shanghai 25KM Duathlon over the weekend. When I say ‘raced’, I really mean ‘struggled’ – at least for me, heh! It’s because we’re kinda PSYCHO and decided “Oh hey, we’re going to do a Duathlon!” when we heard about it…. but kinda, uh, omitted the training for a Duathlon part.

The Duathlon was:
4KM run
17KM cycle
4KM run

The run was not so bad ‘cos it’s only 8KM total… but the cycle? ARGH! One wee problem – both of us hadn’t cycled in ages. Me? Over 10 years since I last sat on a bicycle. And so we didn’t get any practice until the race itself, which meant I was SUPER slow on the bicycle at first since I had to teach myself how to ride all over again. *lol*!

Other problem was that I got myself too hyped up the night before, and had a grand total of 3.5 hours (!!!) sleep before the race, so I was like a zombie and my muscles didn’t really work. FAIL.

The weather was also, suddenly, freezing. It’s been really nice and balmy in Shanghai (despite us nearing winter), but on the day, it was drop dead freezing and so so so cold. We were NOT dressed for it at all, and so just about froze our butts off. I can’t even describe how cold we were… went right into our bones and we were soooo miserable. Good thing we were to spend the next 1-2 hours exercising 😉

Chris was a speed demon, despite not training for the race either. He has a lot of power in his muscles, and so zoomed ahead and was in front of the pack – so impressive, but I was so jealous! No fair 😛 I lagged and struggled and wasn’t super into it, because it was just sooo cold and windy, and I was in a zombie-like tired state.

I LOVED it though. I really like getting out there and having a great big ‘ol exercise.. and it felt really good and got all my blood pumping. Chris clocked in at a super 1:36:15 and me at a pretty sad 1:54:00. I was targeting under 2 hours though, so it’s not too bad 🙂

Would I do it again? HELL YEAH! In fact, in 2 weeks, I’ll be competing in the 21KM Shanghai Half Marathon… this one’s ALL running and will take me around 3 hours (gah) to complete.. and gonna do it on my (I-still-refuse-to-heal) dislocated kneecap. So ummm… wish me luck for that, I’ll need it 😉

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EDIT: *siiiiigh*… okay okay. I didn’t want to explain this earlier ‘cos it’s damn embarassing, but people keep asking so I’ll spit it out. How did all the photos below get taken? Dad ran around me in circles the ENTIRE time photographing me! Yep, my dad is THAT fit that he could run around / follow me, photographing me, and talking to me – believe it or not. He’s more than double my age, but kicked my ass 😉
We were a comical sight and people kept looking at us.. because 1) they were wondering why this girl had paparazzi following her and 2) this guy that was so fit he was just running around photographing, like it was no big deal! So, there you have it 😉

The day before (ie. on my birthday), we had to go allll the way to Pudong to
get our registration stuff.. It was an epic journey, for something that took 2 mins.

Cute pic!

Nah it wasn’t my bike, mine’s not nearly as cool-looking 😛

TRIATHLON, you say? 😉

We woke up at 5AM(!) and this is us (barely awake) on the train at 6AM

We carefully packed coffees in thermos flasks, only to have an entire one leak. FAIL

Loading up our bikes into the truck

It was BLOODY FREEZING when we got to the lake!!!

Listening to our briefing before the race begins

Warming up

Dad gets in on the action!

Aaaaaandddd we’re OFF!

2KM later, rounding the water-stop

Chris is a speed demon

Going over the bridge

Chris collecting his bike for the cycle part

Finished with the 1st leg of my run. Chilling out before getting onto the bike
(was too pooped to race properly!)

I’M TIRED ALREADY!!!! D’oh.

Grabbing my bike….

…..and off I go

The event photographer snapping a shot of me huffing & puffing on my bike 😛

FINALLY DONE with the bicycle leg

And then… the last running leg

Never been so happy to see the finish line

I’m sure I’m saying something highly amusing here, just not sure what 😉

Huddled on the ground trying to keep warm after the race

What a 5AM wakeup and ~2hours of exercise gets you – a coffee mug 😉

At the hotel for the buffet lunch

COOL shoes

Tucking in

YAY WE DID IT!