Well , here we go again.....it seemed hard to believe it was time for the Asian Champs again!  The last one took place in India back in October, so I guess it was only 6months ago.  This is always one of my most important races every year and the pressure was certainly on after getting sick in India and needing more ITU points in order to keep my Olympic dreams alive.  I knew before we even arrived, that the field would be the toughest we have ever seen at Asians, as this was an Olympic selection race for the Japanese and an automatic qualifier for the winner.  But all that said, training had been going really well and I even managed a PB in the pool a couple of weeks before so I was feeling ready to go.  It was awesome to have Cookie traveling with me again......I always seem to race better when he is there to calm my nerves and make me see straight. It is also so much more fun and to add to the mix, our best friend Newy from the UK was also over with his girlfriend, Jackie to round out the support crew.......no excuses now!

We flew into Manila on Thursday morning and after battling for 30minutes in searing heat to get through the crowds outside the airport, we finally located our car and driver.  Unfortunately, the aircon from our minibus had broken so we had to squash into a jeep, which ended up with Nicole (my HK team-mate) and I cuddling in the front for the 4hr journey to Subic Bay....who said team bonding wasn't a must?  We were greeted on arrival by the good news of a new race hotel and yes, wait for it.......a Seattle Coffee Shop over the road!  Wow, God was definitely feeling in a good mood.  I remember when I first started racing in Subic Bay 4yrs ago and it was nothing but an almost deserted military base with paint peeling off the hotel walls and cockroaches as room-mates.  The water front area is now really nice with little restaurants, bars and not forgetting the addition of the coffee shop....yep, I could definitely hang out here for a few days. 

As expected the weather was hot and humid but I seem to be specializing in picking races in ridiculously hot countries and as if the races aren't tough enough, why not go for all the really hilly one's too!  All joking aside, I was really happy the race director had decided to add a hill into each lap of the bike course even if they had to remove the other hill because of a bad road surface.  This would certainly make things a little more interesting and ensure everyone had to do some work on the bike.  It is great to see many of the ITU and World Cup races now adding hills back into the bike leg in an effort to make the races more interesting and avoid the situation of the race becoming a 10km run as we have seen so much in the men's fields.  I liked the hill on this course as it was about 2km with steep sections at the bottom and top....perfect places to attack and see what the others were made off.  After checking out the course, it was time to enjoy a couple of days of resting up ready for all the action on Sunday morning.

The U23's & Age-Group athletes raced on Saturday and it gave me a great opportunity to watch the swim start and transitions to help fine tune my plans for the next day.  The tide was pretty low which meant you could walk out about 50m, so the start and exit of the swim were going to be important.  I had a really good vantage point on the boardwalk and it was clear to me that walking/running for as long as possible was much quicker than dolphin dives or swimming.  We had three U23 men racing and Lemuel in particular had an awesome race to work his way through the field on bike and then produce the run of his life to claim 7th place.  Although Samuel came out of the water in the front pack, they never seemed to work as a group and were soon gobbled up by the chase packs, resulting in a slightly disappointing race for him finishing in 9th place.  Jason suffered from a weaker swim but hung on to come home to give HK the team silver medal.

After a good nights sleep and all the excitement from the day before, I was ready to race and get the show on the road.  The junior's were starting at 6am and we had the luxury of a 7.15am start although I came to doubt the luxury element on the run as the sun had climbed much higher in the sky!  Jill, Nicole and I headed out on the bike in almost darkness to get a warm-up in before the course was closed for the junior race and this gave me a chance to go back to the cool & calm of my hotel room before the race.  I logged onto my email as I had my motivationally music playing and it was an amazing feeling to see a heap of good luck emails from Siri (my coach), her Mum and all my training partners in the USA.  I had goose-bumps just knowing there were all routing for me and knew I couldn't let them down after all those horrendous sessions we had been through together this winter.  After a quick stretch and run, it was time for action and I headed back to transition for one final check and a swim warm-up. 

We had all been announced into our start positions, the helicopter was whirring overhead, the crowd were cheering encouragement.....come on, for God's sake shoot the gun! The anticipation was killing us as we were all ready to dive into the sea......"Ok girls, just relax, we've lost the starting gun!"  I had to laugh especially as I could see some of the others weren't impressed but eventually the gun turned up and we were off.  I followed my pre-race plans and just stayed upright as everyone around me was frantically swimming......WOW, how cool, I was almost in the lead!  It was a surreal feeling to be looking down on all these girls fighting for an inch of space to get swimming and I had all the time in the world to get in just the right spot and finally, I was in and away. I felt really good throughout the swim and was with a small group of girls about 10m behind the main pack as we neared the shore at the halfway point.  I ran hard into the beach and round the buoy, only to go arse over tit on the slippery starting mat....GREAT - back up again and I was soon on Ohmatsu's feet again.  By the end of the swim, we had lost a minute to the lead group but this was by far my best swim at the Asians......I was actually in the race coming out of the water with a few of the Japanese and Shatnaya from Kazakhstan. 

Once onto the bike, we formed a group and I managed to get everyone pulling through.  I knew that with only a minute between us and the front pack, we had a chance to reel in some of the swimmers ahead of us.  After the first climb, the lead group was reduced to five stronger cyclists (Hongni & Dan from China & Sekine, Nakanishi & Shimomura from Japan).  I attacked on the first climb and we dropped a couple of the Chinese girls and started to reel in those ahead.  By the last lap, we had passed all those ahead except the five left in the lead pack and had picked up Lin (CHN) & Kutsuna (JAP) although she dropped 30seconds back on the last climb.  I was so happy to feel that I was actually in the main race.......every other year, it has been the Japanese & Chinese off the front in one race and the rest of Asia out the back in another. Now all I needed to do was put together a solid run.

By this point, the sun had high in the sky but this wasn't stopping Sekine's blistering pace on the run.  Even though, we were only 2minutes back going into the run, she was ensuring we all kept pushing in order to make the 8% cut off time to win points.  I headed out trying to focus on light, quick feet and relax...I knew I had done the training.  I held myself together although it can't have looked too pretty and wasn't helped by the fact the Chinese athletes were getting extra water bottles handed to them outside the aid stations...like we all couldn't do with some extra fluid!  I had mapped out in my mind that my training buddies would be running a lap each with me as we did in training to help me focus.  I was also lucky to have Cookie at one end of the course and Jackie & Newy at the other all screaming encouragement.  By the time, I headed into the final lap the heat was unbearable but it's surprising how you can keep going especially as I knew points were in reach. The finish line couldn't have come soon enough and the cold towels as I lay in the recovery tent were heaven.  I managed 11th place, which while this isn't my highest Asian Champs finish, it's definitely my best result against this strength of field and I won enough points to improve my World Ranking to 108th.  Nicole and Jill had swum and biked together with Jill pulling 30seconds ahead in the final lap of the run to take 13th place and Nicole coming in 15th to give us a Bronze team medal.  Sekine held on to take the win with Hongni of China having the race of her life to beat Japan's top ranked athlete, Nakanishi to the line for second. 

Daniel (HK) had an impressive swim to come out of the water in 3rd place but unfortunately lost touch with the lead bike pack after numerous attacks.  This left him in no-man's land for much of the bike and eventually in the chase group 2minutes down on the leaders by T2.  He remained really focused and used every ounce of his run prowess to move up the field to 9th place and win enough points to further secure his Olympic spot even though this wasn't the result he had hoped for.  I was very happy with my day and my only disappointment was I still do not seem to be able to run as well as I can in training but hey, this game takes a huge amount of patience and at least I know I can run well in training so I am sure it will put in a guest appearance at one of these races....watch out!

Happy racing.

Cheers Claire

1. Akiko Sekine (JPN)                 2:06:17

2. Hongni Wang (CHN)                2:07:14

3. Machiko Nakanishi (JPN)          2:07:54

4. Maki Shimomura (JPN)            2:08:59

5. Wan Dang (CHN)                    2:10:08

6. Shatnaya (KAZ)                    2:10:40

7. Miyuki Biwata (JPN)                2:11:09

8. Lin Xing (CHN)                        2:11:58

9. Shizuki Kutsuna (JPN)              2:13:17

10. Saori Ohmatsu (JPN)              2:14:57

11. Claire Murray (HKG)                 2:15:25

12. ChunChun Teng (CHN)            2:19:33

13. Jill Fung (HKG)                        2:24:06

14. Fan Dan (CHN)                        2:24:26

15. Nicole Rayson (HKG)                2:24:48

For full results see www.triathlon.org