This was by far,the most difficult race to have ever been held because of the weather conditions. The race started at 7am, when the temperatures were already at 25 degrees Celsius, with 94% relative humidity. The swim was in the South China Sea and we had favourable conditions including low-tide. The water was murky and the buoys to mark the course went down as the wind picked up so, we had no idea where we were going. We had two laps on the swim and I was simply following the people ahead of me. The first lap was all right but I was way left of where I should have been and swam a bit long. The second lap was a disaster. By this time the buoys had totally fallen down and I swam even longer. I exited the water in 94 minutes. My previous best swim was in 80 minutes but, I was not unhappy. The swim was not very well marked and there is no point in losing hope at the end of a swim in the Ironman.

The bike course was very scenic and went through a lot of rice fields. The temperature was climbing steadily as was the wind. I was very happy to be cycling and biked hard to make up for lost time on the swim. I felt like I was in India, in Chennai actually because of the heat and humidity. The temperatures rose from 30deg to 34deg steadily during the bike ride. I was burning and my left foot, in my pedals was heating up and felt as if I was sticking it into a fire, straight. The course wound through some Chinese villages and all the children there were cheering for us. It was so amazing! Everytime I saw these kids, I would pick up and go faster. The crowd support was amazing. I finished my bike ride in 6 hours 41 minutes. Including 10 minutes of transitions (transitions are where you put on your bike clothes after the swim and put on your run clothes after the bike) I was out on the run. My previous best bike was 7:12 and I improved by more than half an hour on the bike.

Onto the run, I was pretty dehydrated and almost delirious. The temperature was now a steady 35 degrees and I had to pour ice on my head all the way. From the very first kilometer on the run, I suffered. It was not very different from running through a sauna, after having biked for 6:41 in a sauna. People were starting to walk because it was so difficult to run. I told myself that while I may not run fast, I would keep running slowly to get to the finish line. I ran down 25 women and more than 130 men but I had a very hard time on the run. I threw up twice because I could not keep down any food. It was pretty horrific weather. I could only take my sun glasses off at 6:15pm. They had been on my face for nearly 10 hours. My skin is burnt to a very dark red and I broke both my toenails again but, the finish was sweet. I was 4th in my age-group. 29th overall including the professionals. I was 19th on the run including the pros, on a day when I really had a difficult run.

I finished 35 minutes behind the last professional athlete, outran one professional woman and man, and I am very thrilled have this race result.