Sunday, August 03, 2008

Valdes Bonding at the O3

"I love it when a plan comes together!"
- Col. John "Hannibal" Smith from the A-Team

I just know yesterday is gonna be one of the highlights of 2008 for all of us. Our O3 adventure turned out fantastic, with a 3rd place finish among the relay teams.

We're all still on Cloud Nine, but just to bring us back down to earth, perhaps it is also best to clarify how we got our podium finish.

First off, only 7 teams registered for the Relay O3, and then, only 5 actually showed up.

The first place Powerade Team was unbeatable. They had the Philippine Long Distance swimming champion, who did the 4k swim in about 48 minutes, then a Tour of Luzon biker for the 120k ride and finally a champion marathoner for the 30k run. Their total time of 6:05 was so fast that they caught up with the overall O3 winner, Mathieu O'Halloran, who was flagged off 30 minutes ahead of the Relay and finished on his own in 6:36.

So really only 4 teams were vying for 2nd and 3rd. Then the two other teams actually got DQ'd, the Cagayan de Oro Team because their swimmer started with the O3 pack instead of with the Relay start, and the Happy Feet Team because, unfortunately, their biker had a crash as she neared the finish.

So that left Team Valdes vs. the Ocean Adventure Team, who all turned out to be pretty young and athletic guys. Ocean Adventure won 2nd place with a strong 8:20 time, a good 48 minutes ahead of us, with each of their team members winning against us individually: their swimmer finished in 1:09 vs. my 1:21, their biker did 4:01 vs. Robin's 4:15 and their runner clocked 3:09 vs. Tessa's 3:31.

I think Robin could have potentially matched or beaten their biker, but he had a bike crash in Tagaytay a week ago and was still nursing bruised ribs and hips. We're just glad that he was able to make it to Subic. Tessa's best 10k is already sub one hour, so the 3:09 is within her reach. As for me, 1:21 is the fastest and longest I've ever swam, so a 1:09 seems pretty far away.

Well, win or lose, we did have loads of fun, especially with Dave, Mona and the kids in our support group. Lots of pictures will be loaded up on our Multiply sites soon.

The official race results are here. Our official times are:
Swim 4k 1:21:01
Bike 120k 4:15:56
Run 30k 3:31:10
Total 9:08:07

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

your wife was soooo cute while running. how can she look like she's just dancing and gliding while running 30-freaking-k?!

hope to see you at the clark aquathlon!

Anonymous said...

Hats off to the Valdes Team! Congratulations to you guys for the podium finish! You guys really kicked ass in the relay event. It was a pleasure meeting you. Hope to see you in future races and events. Cheers!

Don Ubaldo
Team CBRE
O3 Relay Team 2

DV said...

Thanks Don, see you at future events too! If you want to see our pix, visit my Multiply site, http://hkpirate.multiply.com.

freckle-face said...

congratulations... galing-galing!

Maver said...

congrats cous! cheerio!

monet

 
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