25 random things about Ironman 70.3
Barely two hours after Terenzo Bozzone won the Cobra Ironman Philippines 70.3 with a time of 3:51:25, he was carbo reloading during the press conference at the media tent with the rest of the foreign pro triathletes. Guess what he was eating? Donuts! “But don’t tell anybody,” said one athlete as they dug into a box of sugar-loaded donuts.
Here are 25 random details from a bittersweet race weekend that saw a tragic death, a heartwarming marriage proposal, and personal triumphs.
1. “It was like running in an oven,” said Lisa Bentley of the 21.1-kilometer final event. Bentley won the women’s division with a time of 4:24:29. “The run was for survival for the first time. I had never run a race where I just said, ‘Get to the next corner, get to the next corner.’ I didn’t even think about the next 10 kilometers. I was just thinking, ‘How slow can it be for you to run the last 6k?’
2. For Chris McCormack, 36, what made a difference in this Ironman was the crowd support. “It was amazing out there. Every time we went through a village, thousands of kids were screaming. There were probably a hundred thousand people lined up on the roads.” The bike route took them through the rural roads and rice fields of CamSur.
3. Filipino triathlete Noy Jopson took the title as the first Filipino champion of Ironman. “Nobody can take that away from me,” said Noy as he was signing the Alaska-Ironman tarpaulin.
4. CamSur may soon be the Ironman capital of the Philippines.
5. According to CamSur Governor Lray Villafuerte, over 2,000 locals volunteered for the Ironman weekend.
6. The team competition was won by Timex-Runrio, which finished in 4:08. Timothy Yap, member of the De La Salle varsity and UAAP Rookie of the Year, did the swim in 26 minutes; Mark Julius Bono, member of the National Cycling Team and Rookie of the Year-Tour of Luzon, completed the cycling in 1:25; and race organizer and former UP track star and UAAP awardee Rio dela Cruz ran the 21k in 1:25. I was at the transition area when Rio began the run — boy, his hair was flying in the wind!
7. Triathlete, Milo Sports and PR executive Lester Castillo proposed to his girlfriend Andrea Sy at the finish line. He kept the ring safe in his arm band as he swam, biked and ran.
8. The top foreign pro and the top Filipino pro had a time difference of 47 minutes. If you split the events, Filipino Noy Jopson was closest to Terenzo Bozzone in the swim (he was five minutes behind) and farthest in the run (28 minutes behind). Terenzo ran the 21k in 1:17; Noy ran it in 1:45.
9. A must-eat at CWC is laing pizza. It’s crispy dough topped, naturally, with gabi leaves and small shrimps bunched together with just the right amount of spiciness.
10. Lisa and Terenzo carbo-loaded the night before with pasta, salad and bread.
11. Bozzone and McCormack were neck-and-neck all the way with only two seconds separating them in the swim event; they transitioned to cycling at the same time. It was in the last two kilometers of the run that Bozzone pulled away. And by “pulled away” we mean less than a minute. He won the race by 53 seconds.
12. The pro athletes were unanimous in saying that the run was the most difficult part of the three events. By the time they began running, the temperature was almost 40 degrees. There’s just something different about CamSur’s heat — it’s not as humid as an afternoon after a rainfall in Manila, but it is more oppressive.
13. By 1:30 p.m., the heat had let up and it was raining. “Do you hear that?” Bozzone said, looking up at the tent’s ceiling. “It should have rained two hours ago!”
14. For the first time in Ironman, the relay format was allowed. Swimmers, cyclists and runners got to experience a triathlon as part of a team. Teams were made up of friends, colleagues, church mates, mixed, all-male, all-female. One church group, for instance, fielded two teams (Ligaya and Destiny), while other teams had names that carried their sponsors (Timex, Globe, etc.)
15. Athletes had to be up at 5 a.m. for their henna tattoos. Their race numbers were tattooed on their arms and legs. For most, it was the only part of their body that wasn’t burned.
16. The foreign pro athletes flew into CamSur days before the race and went island hopping — and by that we mean they swam from island to island.
17. At CWC, you can choose from three kinds of accommodations — containers (literally containers used in ports), cabanas (log cabins) and villas.
18. More than 400 individuals and 45 relay teams participated, with 70 percent coming from the 30 to 44 age group. The Philippines had 270 entries, 17 from the US, 10 from Australia, 10 from England, 8 from Japan, 5 from New Zealand and 5 from Canada. There were also competitors from China, Austria, Slovakia, Singapore, Germany, Spain, Korea and Mongolia.
19. Top Filipino triathletes in the race were Nonoy Jopson, Arland Macasieb, Alvin Alindogan, August Benedicto and Monica Torres. Also among the personalities participating were Fernando Zobel, Pia Cayetano, Anthony Pangilinan, Tessa Valdes, Leica Carpo, and Drew Arellano.
20. Alaska Milk president and chairman of Sunrise Events Wilfred Uytengsu led the athletes in a moment of silence during the dinner on Aug. 23 to commemorate the death of Miguel Vasquez earlier that morning.
21. CamSur has hosted six Survivor series, including the French, Israeli and Bulgarian versions.
22. It took Uytengsu three years to bring the Ironman franchise to the Philippines.
23. At the end of the swim leg, marshals were encouraging the athletes by saying: “One down, two to go.” Lisa Bentley admits that she really wanted to quit but she found “that little voice inside that says, ‘You can finish everything you set your mind to.”
24. David Charlton, owner of David’s Salon, was probably one of the most recognizable triathletes thanks to his picture in over 186 salons nationwide. Everybody was shouting, “Go, David!” The bulky hairdresser participated in the individual race.
25. The term “70.3” refers to the distance in miles of a half Ironman: 1.9k swim, 90k bike and 21.1k run. A full Ironman is 3.86k swim, 180.25k bike, and 42.2k run.
