Abu Dhabi ITU Race Report

I signed up for the Abu Dhabi ITU because several of my friends in Doha went last year and told me it was a great event. That might have been true back then, but it sure wasn't the case this year. Parts of the weekend were good, but overall I was very disappointed in what's supposed to be one of the premier races in the region. I won't be going back.

I flew down to Abu Dhabi via Doha on Qatar Airways, a fairly uneventful trip. This was my first experience on their discount arm, and I hope I don't have to fly it again. The seats are pretty uncomfortable, there's no entertainment system, and the legroom is much less than on their normal planes. It's like flying on United, really, and I expect more from QA. After waiting what seemed like eternity for my bike to show up at baggage claim, I hopped in a taxi and was on my way to the hotel to check in and meet up with Alan. He wasn't too hard to find - at the hotel bar of course. We had a few beers, talked about the plan for Friday, and went off to bed at a decent hour.

Friday morning was the practice swim. The race organizers opened part of the course for anyone who wanted to get in to test the water, sight the buoys for the race, and loosen up after traveling. They let us swim the 500 meters the sprint athletes would be tackling the next day. This was good for getting used to the water, but not very helpful for learning where our course would be. The entire marina area was filled with buoys of all shapes, colors, and sizes. One of the race officers had to show me which tall orange buoy was the correct one for the Oly race, and it's a good thing he did. The other tall orange one near that one was for the elite course. Apparently more than a few people went the wrong way on Saturday. I opted not to bring my wet suit for the practice swim. I wanted to see what the water felt like in case it was deemed too warm for wet suits on Saturday. The verdict? Not too bad, definitely doable without a wet suit, but much preferred to have one.

Trying to get into the swim was my first view into how well the event was or was not organized, and it was clear they didn't think things through. In order to be allowed on the dock for the swim, you needed to show your wrist band. In order to get your wrist band, you had to pick up your registration packet. Registration opened at 10am. The swim was from 8-9. Presented with this dilemma, the organizers did not choose option 1 (allow people to swim without the bands) or option 2 (open registration early). No, they chose option 3, open everyone's packet to take out the wrist band and make them come back and stand in line again at 10 to get everything else. Not a huge inconvenience but definitely a bad sign of things to come.

Knowing we couldn't get our packets for over an hour or rack our bikes until noon, we walked back to the hotel to shower and get some breakfast. I think breakfast before race day has become my favorite part of a race. What's not to like about the freedom to eat as many pancakes as desired? Add in the masala omelettes the chef was making to order, and I had one delicious meal.

We met at 1230 to ride our bikes over to registration, which turned out to be not too much of a hassle. The volunteers at registration were able to keep up with the crowds pretty well, and aside from a line to get our bikes inspected before entering transition, things went pretty smoothly. One of the local bike shops was there doing free tune-ups, and not just the basic stuff either. They were tweaking the derailleurs, truing up the wheels and spokes, and cleaning and lubing the drivetrain too. Had I known they were being that thorough, I would've stood in line for one instead of making a mess of myself cleaning my chain while the bike was on the rack.

I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through the vendors (picked up a nice pair of 2XU bike shorts for half price), visiting with people I knew from my novice tri camp last year (one of whom is doing a full this year like me), and drinking as much water as possible. The high 70s of Friday were forecast to be 80s on Saturday, a bit warmer than usual and not exactly ideal weather coming from Erbil.

With transition opening at 5am, race day came early, and then I got up. One of the very nice things this race does is keep transition open for athletes in later start waves. Rather than have all 2300 people arrive at once to set up, they allow you to enter transition when it's convenient for you, though they did close it at certain periods to let the swimmers from the maxi distance waves that started first exit the water and get out on the bike course free from interference. For all the things they got wrong over the weekend, this is one of the ones they got very right. Being able to show up at 7 for a 750 start sure beats getting there at 530 and sitting around for a few hours.

I used this race as practice for how I want to do things at Galveston next month, one of which was a new way of setting up my bike computer. Rather than having to remember to start it when getting on my bike coming out of T1, I tried turning on the auto-pause functionality, hitting Start, and leaving it sitting there on the bike. This worked like a charm. When I grabbed my bike to head out to the bike course, the unit detected movement and resumed operation. I use my Garmin to record the entire race, but I find it easier to see the bike computer instead of mounting the 920 to the bars and looking at the small screen.

Leaving transition on my way to drop off my bag at bag check, I noticed no line at the toilets (the UAE uses portable toilet buildings instead of the plastic ones used everywhere else) and decided to take advantage of the situation while I had the chance. Once inside, I realized why there was no line: there was no water and thus the toilets and sinks didn't work. The ladies toilet building didn't have any water either. How the race organizers botched this one up is beyond me. With a few thousand people entered, you'd think that restroom facilities would be near the top of the list of things to be sure were in place and functioning.

I dropped off my bag, sat down in an empty chair, and delayed stuffing myself into my wet suit for as long as possible. To pass the time, I chatted with a guy across the table from me from Finland. He had flown in for his very first tri, leaving behind sub-zero temperatures for the warmth of Abu Dhabi where it was already in the 70s. Poor guy was already a lot more uncomfortable than I was. Finally, around 730, they called for my wave to report to the dock. The time had come to get into the suit. Thanks to plastic bags on the feet and Body Glide on my wrists and neck, I managed to put my wet suit on, and after a few minutes of rolling the material up my legs to my waist and up my arms to my shoulders, my new friend zipped me up and I was on my way.

They held us on the dock until the wave in front of us made the turn at the first buoy, at which point we were asked to slide into the water and hold on to the dock until the start. Even with a few hundred people in the wave, most of us were able to grab a piece of the dock. The rest put their hand on one of our shoulder's and floated until the horn went off and away we went. I started at the very righthand end of the dock with a straight line to the first buoy that would hopefully keep me out of the scrum in the middle. I took off very quickly. I blame the extra buoyancy from the wet suit and not my inability to pace well during an open water swim. Before too long, I settled into a routine that seemed to work pretty well for me. Swim 3-4 minutes, switch to breaststroke to catch breath and see the buoy, lather, rinse, repeat. I felt I was working hard, maybe too hard, and liked having the 10 second break to calm down and relax. I got pretty mentally discouraged when the buoy I thought was the turn for shore wasn't. I'm not really sure what it was for. It could've been there to guide us along the course to the real turning point, but there were enough people swimming to either side of it that make me question that assumption. Either way, when I realized I wasn't able to turn left and swim hard for the finish, I started doubting whether I'd ever be able to get through an Ironman swim. It felt like I'd been out there forever. Finally, I made the last turn and swam towards the dock. Or as much of the dock as we could see. The arch that we thought was marking the swim exit was off to one side, making it difficult to judge exactly where the exit was until you were close to shore. For evidence of this, look at the nice curve in my path and you'll see almost the exact spot where I figured out the exit was to the right of the arch.

Coming out of the water, I felt tired but good about my swim. I didn't get run over, managed to draft for a while off the people around me, and didn't get caught by anyone in the wave that started behind me. Turns out I had a 30-minute swim, much better than I thought I did, and was 19th out of the water in my age group. Needless to say, I didn't remain in 19th for very long. I took my time in transition to make sure everything was in place and ready to go. I know Mary is going to fuss at me for taking so long, but while I'm still learning how to do this, spending an extra few minutes is worth the peace of mind of knowing I'm ready for the bike.

The bike course was two loops along the Abu Dhabi Corniche. Quite scenic and very flat, though without a lot of shade. The roads were closed to vehicular traffic, so for most of the course, we had plenty of room to ride. There were a few places where it narrowed down to one lane and got fairly congested. It was almost comical listening to people coming up from behind shouting "On your left," and trying to pass in those sections when the riders were already three or four abreast. No collisions occurred between bikes or between bikes and cones, but more than a few "Fuck off and wait" were uttered. As my bike handling skills are barely beyond the novice stage, I simply held my line and let everyone else get wound up.

My instructions from Mary were to keep my hear rate in zone 3 and try for a steady and even ride. I think I managed to accomplish both goals, especially since zone 3 felt way too easy. I was clocking along at 18-20mph and had a mental discussion with myself over slowing down to be in low zone 3 or to keep motoring along in the 3.8-4.0 range. I opted for the latter. I kept up with my fueling the whole time, drinking one bottle of my Powerade and most of one bottle I picked up at the aid station. They planned the course very well to locate the aid station on a slip road so the main course didn't get dangerous with people slowing down and bottles in the road. I ate a piece of Clif bar every 20 minutes, kept my head down out of the wind as best I could, and yes, I took advantage of the draft of some large clumps of riders in a few of those narrow one-lane sections. Technically against the rules, I know, but I wasn't about to intentionally slow down while 15-20 people went by.

The end of the bike course was extremely dangerous - a hairpin u-turn followed by the dismount line 30 yards later. It was too far away to slow around the turn and just coast to a stop. I saw one woman ditch her bike and slide across the line so she didn't crash into the other riders who were braking and getting off their bikes. I nearly did the same thing because it really was a quick slow->u-turn->pedal->speed up->halt kind of sequence. Not very well thought out at all, like a lot of the small but important details during the event.

T2 was another more-leisurely-than-truly-necessary happening. Not all of the wasted time was my fault, though. When I got back to my towel, I saw the guy who was racked on the other side of the bar from me had stuck his bike on top of all my stuff and there was no room for my bike. After trying to find room for mine somewhere near where it belonged, I gave up and stuck it on his side on top of his gear. A few sips of water and a change of shoes later, I was on my way. It was really hot by this point in the morning, and I knew constant fluid intake would be the key to a good 10k run.

My first mile was sub-9, probably a little to fast for the conditions, but I couldn't slow my feet down. The legs just kept turning over rapidly as if they were still on the bike. At each water stop, I walked while drinking a cup or two of water, poured one over my head, stuffed ice down my shirt if they had any, and started running again right away. There was no Powerade, Gatorade, or sports drink at either of the aid stations. They only had Red Bull, helpfully in both the regular and sugar-free varieties. Or not. Needless to say, I didn't see very many people choosing to drink Red Bull in the middle of a race. I held a pretty good pace and routine on the entire first lap and most of the second. The wheels fell off at mile 5 when the aid station ran out of water and ice. The mental letdown of looking forward to a cup of water on your head and then coming up empty was significant. I began walking and ended up run/walking the rest of the course until I got to the finishing area. No walking allowed then; have to look good for the crowds and the photographers. Not that any of my race pictures ever come out with me looking good. I've always got the worst expressions on my face, my form has gone to shit, and I look like I'm dying.

Anyway, I crossed the line in 3:01, barely missing my goal of coming in under three hours. Those lazy transitions killed me. Once across the line, I expected to be given a medal (nope), some water (nope), and maybe a snack (nope). There was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, for the finishers. They had run out of everything and no one was taking the initiative to ask for more supplies. "Go to the registration tent," was the default answer of every person there, including the race officials with the formal ITU passes. Like any of us were in the mood to walk all the way through transition and back to the registration area to get a medal and some water. I ended up talking to the very friendly guy who was announcing people coming across the line, and he was able to reach someone who showed up about 10 minutes later with a shopping cart full of medals. It really shouldn't be that hard to have all of the boxes of medals stored at or near the finish line along with several hundred cases of water too.

My next trip was back to the tent where we had dropped out bags off before the swim. I figured I'd pick up my bag, go back to transition and pack everything up, and head to the hotel to shower, change, and have a beer before the pros started their race two hours later. Good plan, right? Too bad it didn't work out that way. The bag drop tent was woefully understaffed by people who had clearly never organized numbered bags before, and the line to get into the tent had a 45 minute wait because they couldn't figure out how to efficiently retrieve people's bags. I decided not to wait around because in a surprise turn of events, the race announcer began telling people that everything had to be out of transition, except the bikes, by noon. So much for the race program telling us that transition will be open for our use from when we finished until 6pm. Once again, their desire to cater to the pros made things complicated and difficult for the rest of us.

Carrying my wet suit, bike shoes, and other gear along with my bike wasn't easy, but I managed to get it all sorted and out of the area with 15 minutes to spare. By this point, the line for bag drop had decreased to a 25-minute wait. Still a long time to be standing around in the sun, but better than it was before. Finally, I made it into the tent and understood exactly why things were taking so long. The woman at the table looked at my number, pointed to a pile of bags, and said "yours is over there. Go and get it." Fortunately, my bag was a grey transition bag and was very easy to find. The participants trying to find their blue race-provided bag amongst the sea of blue race-provided bags weren't so fortunate.

All told, I had a really good time seeing my friends from Doha and Dubai, and with the actual race  segments themselves. The organization surrounding the race was abysmal, though, and I'll never do this event again. I doubt I'll be living here a year from now, but if I am, I'll go race at TriYas which got glowing reviews from everyone who had been there the weekend before the ITU race.