I'm pretty sure I finished the Challenge Philippines race more than 72 hours ago, so why am I still achey all over? CP definitely lived up to its "toughest half distance tri in the world" reputation. The hills of Bataan were alive with the sound of grown men and women whining, grunting, and crying (for help).
Climbing on the final 12-km of the bike leg with Katja Rabe. Photo by Andy Leuterio.
I was pretty happy to come in 4th overall woman, among some very tough ladies out on race day. Massive fan of the women's champion, Emma Pooley, who was so far ahead on the bike last Saturday that she was practically in a different zip code! For those of you who don't know, Emma is a world cycling TT champion and Olympic silver medalist for cycling TT!!! #fangirlmodeON
As usual, I came out of the water at the tail end, in 8th place of 10 in the female pro/elite wave. But I was confident that I would make up some ground on the bike, as I had been training in Subic since December. Being familiar with the very hilly and technical bike course is definitely an advantage, especially for someone like myself, who is not the fastest at sharp corners and steep downhills. I overtook Filipina Elites Maria Hodges and LC Langit early on in the ride, with Carol Fuchs just a few meters behind me. I managed to drop Carol after the first hill section at BTPI, and picked up Katja Rabe and Louisa Rundqvist at the flat section around the 25km or so. I rode the rest of the race with Katja and Louisa, working hard to push the pace in front, as I knew Carol, a very solid runner, was just behind us by a couple of minutes.
The top three women were too far ahead to catch, and so I just concentrated on riding the last two hill sections as well as I could, and hopefully make Louisa and Katja a little tired for the run. Louisa got dropped somewhere before the last 15km, seeming to be struggling with the hills and heat. And I rode all the way to T2 with Katja, who seemed quite fresh as she even managed to talk to me as she overtook me on the last hill up to Morong gate.
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