wang writes

All my worries about the world champs in Clearwater were unfounded - I did my best ever half-Ironman today in 4h 55min 53sec, about 33min faster than I’ve ever gone. All three legs saw improvement, the biggest jump however was on the bike. Having my post-race lunch now, so here’s a quick update. No pic to show unfortunately, they’re in mine and Damo’s digital cam.

Swim 1.9km - 34:42
Organisers decided to move the swim from the sea to the harbour yesterday due to lingering poor weather conditions from Tropical Storm Ida. I think they were worried the swells and riptide would compromise on the safety of the competitors. It was a blessing, the waters were super calm, though at 69 deg Fahrenheit (about 18 deg C I think) I was freezing all the way through the one-loop course. We were started off time trial style at 2 sec intervals, which was great cos there was none of that jostling that would have been present in a mass start. On the outleg we swam into the sun, and I could barely see the buoyant so I swam off course a bit.

Bike 90.1km - 2:29.47
They weren’t kidding when they said Clearwater was a fast bike course! The last 20k was testing though - it was into headwind, on a slight incline and I had a front wheel flat.

Run 21.1km - 1:45.07
My legs were cramping during the bike to run transition but by the grace of God my legs were perfectly fine once I started running! Once again all the hill work paid off - the four long climbs were actually pretty ok!

Congratulations to all the Singaporeans who completed the race! See you at the awards dinner tonight!