TriDubai

The IM 70.3 Thailand took place on 23 February in the seaside town of Bangsaen.  Whilst my prose may not be up to the standard of previous race reports I hoe this gives a good description of the race, the location and the organization.

Bangsaen is located about an hours drive south from Bangkok.  So, the first challenge was getting to the venue.  However, the IM organisors laid on coaches from the two major airports to the town.  All hat was required was to book a place for yourself and your bike box in advance.  This cost USD 60.00 and was worth doing as it took all the hassle out of travelling there.  There was a team of IM organisors at the airport to get you sorted out and on to the coach.

The coach took you to the race hotel and venue for the IM Expo (which was next to transition), my hotel was about 20-minute walk.  Poor planning on my part I read the scale wrong on the map and thought it was a lot closer.  Anyway, the organisors organized a taxi for me to get myself and my bike bag to my hotel.  A very cheap ride, certainly by Dubai standards.  I stayed in the Kalm Bangsaen which is a boutique type of hotel (polished concrete walls, direct access to the pool from your room etc).  It was clean and comfortable.

 However, I would recommend staying in the venue Hotel.  Not expensive and very close to the start.  The other advantage is there being a breakfast on race morning.  When I asked my hotel if there was a race morning breakfast, I just got blank looks.  I ended up buying some muesli and bananas and having breakfast in my room.  Plenty of very cheap places to stay in Bangsaen even along the sea front. 

Bangsaen itself is a pleasant town and the beach front promenade is full of street food which I love and is very tempting, but I avoided until after race day for obvious reasons. 

To save me time getting to the start on race day and so I could have a bit of extra time in bed I hired a scooter to get from my hotel to T1 on race d ay.  Very cheap about AED 50 for 24 hours.

The Expo was as normal with the usual suspects selling stuff.  Briefings were held on 2 days and were in English and Thai and covered everything needed.  Obviously, the Corona Virus was on the organisors minds as when you went n and out of the expo they squirted your hands with hand gel.   Although as you can see from the photo below Thai races have a flavour all of their own!!  Not 100 percent sure what these girls (or even if they were all girls) were doing but it seemed silly not to get a photo with them.

The Race.

I have to say I thought the race organization was very good and everything seemed to go very smoothly.  Bike check in check out all went smoothly.  There are no bags issued for run and cycle gear and no racks to hang bags on, but you get a sectioned area next to your bike so everything you need is where you need it.

Swim

Not a great deal to say about the swim which is a non-wetsuit single loop swim.  The sea was calm on the day, even though it was a windy day.  The course was marked by a rope and buoys all the way round so you didn’t really need to do any sighting, even I would have struggled to lose my way.  I would only have two criticisms of the swim one of which is about organization and another about the other swimmers.  When approaching the beach at the end of the swim there was an arch set up in the water that you had to swim through to exit.  This caused a bottleneck which everyone had to go through. A minor thing but it was a little frustrating having to fight your way through other swimmers.  The other one was the perennial people self-seeding badly. 

Bike

Roads were as you would expect in Thailand some good some not so good but much more good than bad, although you needed to be aware of dogs wandering into the road.  I thought it was an excellent course with some fast sections some hills and nice views (if you lifted your head up long enough).  It was an out and back course with regular aid stations with the normal assortment of Isotonic drinks, water, gels and bananas.  Everything you needed really.  The roads were closed although there were a couple of sections on the motorway where the road was only partially closed.  This was technically fine but there were very strong crosswinds on this section and good control was required unless you wanted to be blown into the vehicle traffic lane.  There were very few marshals on the course although they did have cameras (not that I saw any) set up along certain sections, presumably where they thought people might draft.  Having said that I did not see any large groups form, like you see in Dubai, and I didn’t witness any deliberate cheating.  The end of the bike was a nice flat and fast finish back into T1.  One of the best bike courses I have done.

Run

Its all about the run!  A 3-loop course which had 3 hills in each loop.  Not massive hills but enough to make you grit your teeth.  The run went through a monkey sanctuary which was interesting.  Plenty of aid stations serving iso, water, coke, gels, fruit and what was called “Thai Snacks” Not sure what they were and didn’t try them.  They also have a couple of Civil Defence vehicles spraying fine spray of water as you ran past them.

End of the Race

Good crowd at the end and they gave you your country flag to carry onto the finish, but I had put a lot of effort in on the run and found holding a flag above my head almost too much effort, and consequently I looked like a right idiot (don’t say it!) grimacing as I came across the line.  You were given vouchers for food and a medal and a finisher T Shirt.  You have to be a bit careful with the food as the first lot I had was very spicy, much too spicy for just after the run but there was other food to eat.  They had the usual massage set up but they only massaged legs.  I have to say that this was without doubt the best post-race massage I have ever received, and my legs felt rejuvenated.

Summary

I thought it was a well organized race on a great course and I would recommend it for beginners and experienced triathletes. Bit of an odd medal though.

Paul Redding