Tag Archives: Triathlon

MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 5

Filipino Contingent’s After Party

Thanks to Princess and Fred Uytengsu from Sunrise Events, and David and Honey from 2XU Philippines, there was a fun Melbourne Ironman after party at Chihuahua Mexican Bar & Grill. It was fantastic to re-live our great memories from Melbourne where every member of the Filipino contingent became an Ironman.

After party1

The party was a lot of fun and I was delighted to be awarded with a nice trophy for getting the best marathon split for the group with my 3:28:27 time.

After party3

Magical Melbourne – 5 Melbourne Highlights

(1) Beautiful St.Kilda/Melbourne: We were absolutely delighted to be staying at a beautiful apartment in the heart of the action. Our view from our room was spectacular (as seen below). We booked through airbnb as it is inexpensive and you can find an ideal locations with kitchens and all the modern conveniences. St.Kilda is where all the main events were happening and we loved the area. You could swim at the beach, walk to the Ironman expo, bike and run the marathon course, and experience the great restaurants of the area. The people, lifestyle and ambience were truly fantastic.
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MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 4

The Run – The Reason I Swam and Biked

Wow, what a blast it was to be finally off the bike. I did a quick stock take of my body and I was feeling good. I had no cramps, was very happy with my bike nutrition and drinks consumption.

It was a great relief to have on my trusty K-Swiss mens running shoes and I felt I was ready to rock the run course.

K-Swiss

I was initially thinking of maintaining a 5 minute per kilometer pace but decided to go with the flow and run at whatever pace I was comfortable doing. Well, for the first 10km that pace was at a quick 4:31/km average. I was flying past many triathletes with many a spectator commenting on my pace, my easy running style and encouraging me to keep going. Indeed, the most memorable guy was standing outside a hotel with a beer in hand. He told me if I maintained my pace that I would overtake 500 people. I must have done a double take and looked at him with apprehension as he then repeated it and told me to keep it going. I kept his comments in my mind the whole run as I did indeed want to overtake 500 people.

It turns out that I actually ran past 472 people with not one person over-taking me. So, of the 360 that took me on the bike it turns out that I got them back on the run with interest. I got to overtake another 100+ who were already running even if I was still many kilometers out on my bike.

MIM11

I loved the run. I will never forget it as I got my personal best time of 3:28:27 (beating my previous best by almost 2 minutes). It is very empowering to know you can run so strongly after a hard bike ride.
Continue reading MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 4

MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 3

The Days Before the Ironman

One of the highlights of the whole trip was our breakfast with most of the 80 strong Filipino contingent. Thanks to Fred Uytengsu and Princess of Sunrise Events we had an excellent breakfast together and discussed our excitement for the pending event. Fred even arranged for the eventual female winner, Caroline Steffen from Switzerland, to give some words of inspiration to us all. She also won Melbourne Ironman 2012.

MIM Caroline

After putting our transition bags into Frankston we simply ate well and rested.

MIM bike

We had a very big late lunch of smoked salmon with avocado, scramble eggs, ham, mushroom, tomato, spinach, chicken, green tea and even a glass of red for me! We were in bed by 6pm and had a restful sleep knowing we had trained well, tapered appropriately and had done all we could to be ready for the grueling task ahead of us.

Definitely no carbo-loading occurred this time. Luckily we had Tri-United 1 as our triathlon warm up before Melbourne as Natasha learned a very valuable lesson. Despite not eating much bread, pasta, rice, noodles etc. for at least a month before Tri-United 1 Natasha decided to “carbo load” a little the night before the race. She ate a simple Japanese Udon Noodle dish that reacted very badly with her stomach so that she was quite ill several hours before that race and up to gun start. That lesson was well and truly learned from and neither of us would make that mistake again here! We stuck to our regular nutrition of quality meat, vegetables and fruit.
Continue reading MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 3

MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 2

The Build Up to Melbourne Ironman

New Year, New Team

Natasha and I enjoyed our time in the Fitness First tri-team and have many good friends there, but we felt that the new-year was time for a new team. We left Fitness First with the intention of joining Team OMO with David Richmond. OMO stands for On My Own! However, once my old mate Jonah knew we were team-less he made us an offer we could not refuse. He offered friendship and a nice green tri-suit. Luckily for us Sante Barley welcomed our training buddies in Wallen, David and Julien as well.

MIM1

Continue reading MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 2

MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 1

You are an Ironman! These are the 4 words a lot of triathletes aspire to hear one day.

It is not just receiving the medal, or wearing the Ironman shirt afterwards, that makes those words so special, but the knowledge that you have achieved something significant that you can look back on with pride. It means that you were able to master the 3 distinct disciplines of the Ironman event (swim 3.8km, bike 180km and then run 42.2km).

This 5 part post will discuss these 3 disciplines as well as the most important and neglected 4th discipline of nutrition. Nutrition relates to your eating lifestyle months prior to the event and not just the supposed carbo-loading fallacy most athletes do the days prior to their event.

I hope you can learn from what I did right (as well as wrong) so your first Ironman will be a success.

MIM13

Continue reading MELBOURNE IRONMAN Part 1

TESTIMONIAL: CRISELLE’S JOURNEY

Hi Chad,

Thanks for introducing your Primed Lifestyle to Wallen and I. Our 3 children are not into it yet as we will introduce it to them gradually. I have decided to start this new lifestyle because of the way you talked about it after Tri-United 1 in March, 2014. You were very convincing, but it was more than that, I saw the overflowing energy in you, and your skin was healthier than before. What convinced me more was the result in SUBIT triathlon where you beat Wallen for the first time in 14 months.

Chad & Wallen2

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TOP 10 BENEFITS OF TRAIL RUNNING

(1) The scenery. If you love to run then what better than getting to see the beautiful sights that rural Philippines has to offer? It is fun running through local villages and talk to the friendly locals, if only politely to ask for directions;

Trail running 1

(2) The fresh air. Well, if you have ever run along Edsa then you know what I mean. Besides the great scenery you get to breathe fresh, clean air;

Pimco Trail run

Continue reading TOP 10 BENEFITS OF TRAIL RUNNING

What Motivates You To Perform?

Tri Friendly Rivalries

Our motivation to race in triathlons is because we enjoy competing, having fun and meeting great new friends. Sometimes those friends started as rivals: friendly rivals, but rivals non-the-less. It is fun to be a little competitive as we would all rather finish one spot higher if we could (unless you came first).

One of my friendly rivals is Jualyn. We have been friends since our running days and have run many races together such as Quezon City Marathon, Condura Marathon and a few Milo Marathons.

cicouchad03

I had not beaten Jualyn in triathlons since he did his very first triathlon at Tri-United 1 way back on March 10th, 2013. He had beaten me in at least 4 triathlons since then and was getting a bit cocky. One of our last races was Tri-United 1 in March 2014, and he beat me then by 1 minute and 52 seconds.

I recently beat Jualyn by 1 minute and 14 seconds at SubiT triathlon on April 27th, 2014. My time was 2:31:03 and Jualyn’s 2:32:17.

Facebook Posts to Inflame the Rivalry

• Chad Davis – Hey Jualyn, How are you mate? Having sleepless nights thinking about how I beat you by 1 minute and 14 seconds? It is nice to get you back after you beat me in every triathlon we did together since Tri-U 1 in March 2013. Haha. I am enjoying this very much. See you for some training soon my friend.

• Jualyn – you got me Chad Davis, but no worries in Tu2 prepare for new battle hehe

• Criselle (Jualyn’s wife) – Haha, he’s having a hard time to believe it Chad , congratulations!

One of our next races together after Tri-United 2 on July 6th will be a 21km trail run on October 12 in the beautiful Sierra Madre mountainous region of Tanay Rizal. To join us visit http://www.pimcosportingevents.net/ or https://www.facebook.com/PimcoSportsEvents.


Please see one of our most popular posts on the benefits of trail running: https://primedforyourlife.com/2014/06/06/top-10-benefits-of-trail-running/#more-403

Another Friendly Rival, RJ Lorenzo

My other friendly rival is RJ Lorenzo. I still remember the 23rd of June, 2013 when I beat him at the 5150 standard distance triathlon and he was telling me that he couldn’t believe it! At first I did not know who he was but when I saw the RJ on his race bib I knew it was the RJ who had always previously beaten me!

Rival4

Since April 2013 RJ and I have raced 6 times with us winning 3 times each and a difference of just 17 seconds combined after almost 20 hours of racing! Who is the better triathlete? RJ was 17 seconds faster over the 6 triathlons but I won the last race in March 2014 so I am the better triathlete in my humble opinion. For now!

Amazing Co-incidence

Here is a cool and amazing co-incidence. In 2 triathlon races (Tri-United 1 and Melbourne Ironman) Natasha and Weng have raced over 277km for a combined time of exactly 18:33:21 each. Great racing ladies!

Rival7

So, who is your friendly rival? Do they motivate you to keep training and inspire you to do your best. Competition is healthy and should be fun. Good luck to Jualyn and RJ Lorenzo, but not too much.

CHAD’S PRIMED JOURNEY

2013 Exercise and Weight

For the year 2013 I did the following exercise which totaled over 11,000 kilometers: Swimming 302km;Biking 6593km; and Running 4163km.

Despite all this exercise (some would say chronic cardio), giving up beers for many, many months prior to Ironman Japan on August 31st 2013, and being careful with what I ate, I still had love handles and put on an extra 2 to 3 kilos over the Christmas break despite still exercising and being conscious of what I ate.

During 2013 my weight hovered from around 70 to 73 kilos. I ran an average of 80km per week, biked an average of 127km per week, and swam an average of 7.5km per week. I also went to the gym regularly and was conscious of eating “healthily”. My weight was not too high but I had definite excess weight around my waist that I could not get rid of no matter how much exercise I did.

Chad pre-Primed

What if I were to get injured, went on work trips, or just didn’t care to train so much? I would gain weight right? You can clearly see that I could not exercise away my bad diet.
Continue reading CHAD’S PRIMED JOURNEY

SUBIC BAY INTERNATIONAL TRIATHLON RACE REPORT

Sunday April 27th 2014

1.5km swim/40km bike/10km run

Pre-Race
This was the first triathlon race for Natasha and I since our Melbourne Ironman adventure just 33 days earlier. My training for the run and swim were good but I had not used my tri-bike since the 180km along Melbourne’s smooth roads. I had biked just once on my road bike for the Clark duathlon 2 weeks earlier. Despite a lack of kilometres riding on the bike I felt fresh, knew I was strong and light (62.2 kg) so I was confident I could still bike ok. Despite exercising less (and eating more) my weight was the lowest it had been for 20 years.
Continue reading SUBIC BAY INTERNATIONAL TRIATHLON RACE REPORT