Torii Fall Triathlon Results and Review

Last Sunday, November 15th was the Torii Fall Triathlon. My first ever tri was the Torii Spring Tri in March of 2008. I had heard they usually do two a year but either missed it last fall or they didn’t run it. I’m not sure which. This course was the same as last Spring’s course which was significantly different that my first experience. The swim was 1000m in the ocean (two laps of a 500m U shaped course with a run up the beach between laps), followed by a LONG transition to the bike. We had to jog up the driveway to the gate area. My TI time was around 5:00 minutes and that wasn’t because I was slow getting on the bike; it was mostly the jog to the bike. We rode 8 laps around a course that included the eastern perimeter road, but it cut through the center of the base on the northwestern side rather than following the perimeter road like the first time I did this event. Finally the run was an out and back affair along the northwest perimeter road.

I think I prefer the old course for several reasons:

1. The bike leg was 5 laps instead of 8. It’s challenging to keep track of 5 laps let alone 8. Also, the old course was faster; perhaps a bit more dangerous though.
2. The run leg was three mini out and back loops which gave you three opportunities to gage your progress against your competition. This course only lets you see them once and also is one great big climb and then decent.
3. The long run in T1 is a pain. I didn’t feel it at the time, but my feet were bruised up from that. I could’ve thrown on some shoes but it just isn’t worth the time and you don’t notice the pain while in race mode. I did the next day though.

My results were good. I finished 5th overall, 4th for individuals, 2nd for 40+ age group. I was beat by 17 seconds in my age group. I was about 150m behind Mat Lubbers the entire run. If I’d known that was for first place I might’ve dug in a little harder. However, my training wasn’t race specific leading up to the event and I was just happy to be in such a good position. I figured I should just hold on and keep from blowing up and I had fifth place locked up. Looking back at it, I had some issues in T2 and a slow start to the swim that could’ve easily made up that 17 seconds, but hindsight isn’t very effective race strategy.

This course was the same as last spring so I was able to do some direct comparisons. My swim time was way better and this swim was in big swell and chop. Some people turned around at the first bouy and went back in. The DoD has a system of signals regarding safety for getting in the water. On the morning of the race, it was only one level below condition RED (when nobody is even allowed in the water). The wind and waves made it fairly dicey. Also, the wave action stirred up the sand so there was no visibility a the start, lap, and finish. I hit a rock twice (once during warm up and once in the race) that was only inches below the surface but I couldn’t see it due to the silt. All in all, my swim must be way better. Gina says I was 4th or 5th out of the water.

I rode the bike within 10 seconds of last year’s time, but I did it with much less effort this year. Because hadn’t done any race simulations or bricks leading up to this event, I worried about how my legs would do after the ride so I took it a little easier.

In the run, my calves were twichy for the first kilometer and I worried about cramps. I settled into a comfortable rhythm that had me holding a 4:10 pace at 162bpm. For me, that is very fast at a very low rate. I typically lose a lot of speed in my runs after a hard bike. However, I’ve been focussing on speed work in my run training for the last 3 months or so and I think it’s really starting to pay off. I ran the whole leg under 165 (typical race pace rate for me is 175 – 180) and still ran a 20:15 5k split. In training, I’ve hit 19:15 for 5k on fresh legs and at a much higher rate in training so I’m very pleased with that result. I also have been lifting consistently this fall and that is helping me with my endurance and effort. I’ve gone from 2 pull ups to 10 and my hip flexor work has improved my form in the run even when tired so I’m keeping more efficient to the end of the race. My overall time was within seconds of last spring’s, but my overall effort to get there was easier (except for the swim…I had a much more challenging swim this time as did everyone). That time got me around 10th overall last year and 5th this year. Part of that is because turnout was a little lower, but also part of that was the swim was likely a lot slower for everyone.

We had good weather and the Torii Station MWR folks did a good job of hosting. I usually leave fairly quickly after a race so I missed out on the food. I would’ve stayed if they would’ve mentioned that there would be food. Also, I wish the race brief would come far earlier so we get an opportunity to warm up before starting. Virtually every tri I’ve done wants to do the briefing right at the time I want to be warming up. That’s frustrating because the beginning of the swim is hard enough with a proper warm up. It’s truly intimidating when you are overwhelmed from the sprint start because you couldn’t warm up.

I’m not sure when my next event will be. I found out that Ishigaki is the same day as the start of Far East Music so I’ll be working. I have some time to train and choose something starting next March though.

This was my second event with the Garmin 310xt and it performed very well. Unfortunately, the GPS doesn’t work well in the water. I figured open water swim would track but the water must mess up the timing of the satellites. Also, it’s not quite as accurate with altitude as my 705 (I think it’s calculated rather than pressure based) so the climbing stats in my log are way off. I do like the auto-multi sport feature for the race though. You just hit the lap button at each transition and it automatically knows to go to the next sport in the que.. The display can be programmed specifically for each sport. Currently though, there is a bug that doesn’t allow for auto-lap to function at the same time as multi sport. Too bad because counting those 8 laps on the bike automatically would’ve been nice.

Torii Fall Triathlon Full Results

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Kumejima has really big spiders

Gina and I flew to Kumejima, a small island that’s about a 25 minute flight away to the west of Okinawa. Our Japanese language teacher grew up there and we decided to go visit. It takes about 45 minutes to drive all the way around it at 25 mph and only 10,000 people live there. To say this place is laid back is an understatement. Farming and scuba tourism appear to be the primary industries. There is likely some healthy amounts of fishing happening as well. This morning, we hiked to some waterfalls that flow up when the wind blows. There wasn’t enough water to really get the effect today, but there were some really big banana spiders there. This one pictured was about 10 inches from end to end. Each square in his web was about 1/2 an inch to give you some perspective. His web was about 6 – 8 feet in diameter and would move back and forth some 2 – 3 feet in the wind. This made it challenging to get a picture and also made him float uncomfortably near my camera a couple of times. We had to be careful of a few of his brother’s webs on the walk in and out of the observation area from the parking lot. I’ll have many more cool pictures and details later. Enjoy this one for now:

Really big banana spider

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Snorkeling at Okuma

Gina and I were invited for a weekend at Okuma with a friends of ours. Steve and I rode the 50 miles up to the Okuma Resort (run by the Air Force for DoD personel) while his wife and Gina drove up. Steve and I rode long rides of 40 – 60 miles every morning and Gina and I explored some snorkeling just off of one of the two beautiful beaches there.

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Lot’s of interesting pictures

I’ve taken a lot of pictures with my iPhone that I thought would be interesting to blog about but have negelected to get them on to the blog. So, I have a collection of several photos dating back to last November that I’ll post here and give you a caption for each one. Enjoy.

Is it a lime (the peel is green) or an orange?

An Okinawan coffee farm

Another shot of the farm

The whole family at the coffee farm

My band marches in the international day parade

Our banner in the parade

Jelly on your root beer float, anyone?

Check out the warning on the bottom

S C plays the saxophone in Vietnam

More Cambodia airport food choices

My mariachi guitarron debut!

A "Gina" sized couch

Seether in concert at Camp Schwab

Fish heads anyone?

Interesting combination of menu items at Tokyo airport

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Anti American Demonstration at Camp Hansen

I live a few miles south of Camp Hansen on Okinawa. It is one of several Marine Corps bases on the island. From time to time some of the bases will be the object of local demonstrations objecting to the presence of the bases or complaining about the noise around the air base. Two days ago I rode my bike up to Camp Hansen to use the pool there for my swim workout. Everything was normal on the way in but when I left there were about 30 or so Okinawans lining either side of the driveway to the main gate with various signs that read:

“Go home marines!” or “No more War!” and other similar slogans. As usual with these demonstrations, the people were very courteous and polite. There was a TV news camera set up but they weren’t recording anything. I think they were there just in case something video worthy present itself like a foolish American getting out of his car to make a scene. I don’t think this ever happens though. We get emails from the command from time to time at work letting us know about these type of demonstrations and what their impact of traffic will be as well as any potential safety concerns there are about Americans being near the event. I would estimate that we get notification for about 10 or 15 of these demonstrations/rallies/parades per year and almost all of them are very peaceful and organized.

It does make me stop and think about my presence here though. I remember my first day on the island looking at the base with it’s high fence and guarded gates to keep people out thinking it odd that we possessed a piece of property in a foreign country for our own military uses (yeah I know, we are here for the Japanese defense too). Imagine if you had a foreign (truly foreign) military base sitting right next to your home in the USA. Would that strike you as a little odd? Well, there are some Okinawans who feel the same way. They consistently site that a majority of the US bases in Japan are all on Okinawa while the island itself only represents a very small portion of Japanese land. Over the last several years, many of the more valuable areas once occupied by bases have been returned to the Okinawans and a huge move of marines from here is supposed to occur in the next 5 – 10 years. This change should alleviate some of the tensions currently in place, but the bottom line is that the native people here have been putting up with either Japanese or American occupation for the last 400 years or so and they many of them likely long to go back to being an independent region doing nothing but farming and fishing. Things have changed significantly here in the last 50 years since the war though and that transition would likely be much more difficult than many people would be willing to undergo.

Back in the early 70′s, before the reversion of control want back to Japan, there were some fairly violent riots as evidenced by a recent photographic exposition Gina and I went to a few months ago. Scenes of car fires, angry mobs with Molotov Cocktails, and general unhappiness were photographed over and over again. The reversion from US control back to Japanese control appeared to cause some issues as well. The change in currency from dollars to yen created a huge vacuum for businesses that relied on US soldiers for a customer base and they suddenly saw that base disappear. There are business districts on the island that are still frozen in time from 1972 because that’s the day they stopped operating and the areas essentially dried up economically. Outside of Gate 2 of Kadena AB has some areas that show this effect as well as some areas right outside main gate of Hansen. There are also many areas that have shown amazing recent growth as well. The Okinawans have little hesitation in creating new land to make shopping malls, factories, or other business centers. There is a constant movement of earth from land to the ocean around here as the island grows little by little with each bucket of fill. I don’t think the EPA would allow us to do such work on the coast lines of the US.

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Okinawa “Sweet & Salty” Tour

On each base here, there is a tour company that offers tours as simple as a shopping trip to as complex as a multi-week excursion to Australia. One of the tours that ITT (Kadena’s company) offers is called the “Salty & Sweet” tour. It hits a salt factory and a candy factory in the Yomitan area as a day trip. Gina and I decided to go drive to these factories ourselves and skip the whole tour bus scene. It’s much more pleasant on our own.

Each of these two”factories” was most definitely a tourist trap in every sense of the word. The salt factory advertised “free admission”, but they sent you through the gauntlet of restaurants and gift shops on your way in and out in order to separate you from your money as best they could. They did, however, offer some very fine Okinawan pottery and blown glass. It really was a fairly well rounded out offering of tourist goodies, right down to the walk down to the East China Sea and the views from the beach.

The salt factory had a small museum that shows the history of extracting salt from the ocean here over the years. It appears that it was backbreaking work in the olden days. They have some fairly high tech wind powered extraction methods now that work fairly well. For $15 you can extract your own salt in a pottery bowl over fire by boiling the water away. They say if you stir it the wrong direction, it’ll turn into sugar instead of salt. We decided not to part with our money to watch water boil. I guess we’ll never know if you can get sugar from salt water by stirring it to the left (my mother always said to be careful about mixing dough…it’ll turn out bad if you mix it backwards).

Next, we drove up the road toward Zampa Point and stopped at the candy factory. They specialize in large quantities of shortbread cookies and another type that is similar, but filled with a purple sweet potato filling. This second type is immensely popular as we’ve since huge quantities of these cookies going out of the airport here as mainland Japanese return from their Okinawan vacations. They don’t do much for me, but the store was very nice with samples of most products and a very nice pastry shop inside as well.

It was fun to get out a play tourist again. It keeps us in practice for when we have guests come visit.

Finally, click on this picture below. We call it Jingrish when you see something translated from Japanese and it turns out to be a mix of English and Japanese, or English with Japanese grammer. Sometimes it’s just funny, and other times you can’t figure out what it is they are trying to say.

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Whale Watching…Okinawa Style

Today is Gina’s birthday and we booked a whale watching tour for the day. The humpback whales from Alaska come here to mate and spawn and can be seen from January – March. Booking a tour is risky though because the weather can cause cancellations. Almost worse though, is bad swell and good weather. We had a beautiful sunny, low wind day. However, the swell was at 10 -15 feet high (the other whale watching boats would completely disappear from sight in the swell), which made for about 15 or so of our 60 passenger on our boat abruptly review their breakfasts as they got seasick from the waves. I’m glad I took my Dramamine and picked a safe stable spot low in the back of the boat to sit. Many people were up on the flying bridge which I know is a bad spot to be if you are susceptible to seasickness.

We motored out of Naha due West toward the Karema Islands and found the pod shortly there after. We watched them surface once every 10 minutes or so with about 6 other boats of people at very close range. Once in a great while, a whale would suface enough to get the classic look of the tail fin coming completely clear of the water. These animals are massive! To be this close to  them was a fairly cool experience.

We stayed about an hour longer then necessary and came back in after about 3 hours on the boat. It costs us about $50 each which included a bus ride to the marina from the base where we booked the tour. A good day was had, but I doubt I’ll do it again soon.

"Pirate III" or "Pilot III" depending on the translation

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Tom Arnold at the Kadena Special Olympics; True Lies II is coming!

My band combined with the Kubasaki High School Band last weekend to perform for the opening ceremonies of the Special Olympics. There were over 800 athletes (mostly Japanese) invloved with over 3000 volunteers and support staff as well.I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I agreed to do the gig. We weren’t even allowed to meet at the band room that morning because the whole area was used for parking. My students had to take all their gear home the night before and meet the school bus at the USO on the other side of the base. Students weren’t even allowed to be dropped off near the facility because of the crush of people inolved.

The weather turned out to be very very warm, but it had rained hard the previous day (and the next day) so we lucked out on staying dry. However, the Okinawan heat can be unbearable and not all of the band fit under the tent they set up for us. We did get plenty of water to go around though.

I had heard that Tom Arnold would be around to help out with the event and had hoped to catch a glimpse of him. Turned out that he was eating breakfast with the genearl in the restaurant at the USO when I was there waiting for the buses. I didn’t even notice them even though they were the only people in the restaurant. One of my students got a signed autograph. I was kicking myself for not noticing because it would’ve been a great opportunity to let him know that he was the critical component in making True Lies my all time favorite movie (I suppose Jamie Lee Curtis had a important role as well, but Tom’s character made the movie).

Well, as we set up for the opening ceremonies at the field, someone pointed Tom out to me and he was approaching the band to say hi to the student who got his autograph. I took the opportunity to introduce myself and got a couple of pictures snapped off by his photographer (which I knew I’d never see), but also by one of my band parents.

Tom's got some jet lag

He was jet lagged but was a genuinely nice guy. He thanked us multiple times for volunteering to help out the event and I got the opportunity to let him know how much I appreciated his work in True Lies. I also asked him when the sequel was due out and he told me, “Two years, when Arnold is done as governor.” He then went on to say that he had been at the Breeder’s Cup recently with Governor Schwarzenegger and that he had indicated interest in doing two more movies after his run in office ends. Tom spent quite a while telling me the details of the story and was very enthusiastic about it. I have no idea if there is any truth to any of it, but it was very nice of him to spend the time talking to me about it.

He went on to officially present the opening of the Special Olympics and had several kind words to say about the organization and his involvement with it. All in all, it was a fund day and my band didn’t sound too bad either.

This weekend we will be marching in a parade just outside of the base. It will be interesting to see how we are recieved in an Okinawan parade. This particular event has many American representatives as it is a parade to celebration cross-cultural ties and help with community relations here between the Okinawans and the US Military establishment.

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Pictures from the week

Click on each picture to see a bigger version (then click again for an even bigger version).

Pizza in the Sky is a very remote restauant at the end of a crazy farm road near Nago on the Northern end of the island. They menu is very limited: one type of pizza and one type of salad. They do offer several different drinks, but the pizza is very, very good (as long as you love garlic). There at least 30 people waiting there to eat when we arrived and after signing in, it only took about 20 minutes to get a table. We looked at the menu for about 45 seconds, ordered, and had our menu with 4 minutes. It was very quick.

Goya Champuru is a uniquely Okinawan stir fry with tofu, goya, and other vegetables mixed in. The goya is an acquired taste and some people say that it is partly responsible for the longevity of the local people here in Okinawa. This particular dish was quite good and we’ve heard that the skill of the chef dictates just how bitter the melon ends up tasting.

The soup shop in the furniture store we went to offered some very tasty soups. We tried the ‘safe’ ones to start (cauliflower for Gina and Ministrone for me), but there are some risky looking fish soups available as well. We’ll try those another day perhaps.

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Naha Tug of War

Gina and I went to the Naha Tug of War last Sunday and had a great time. Here is the Wikipedia article about it (click on any image to see a larger, more detailed version):

The Naha Tug of war (那覇大綱挽, Naha Tug of war^?) is an event at the annual festival held in Naha, Okinawa, Japan. Its roots may be traced back to the 1600s. Held on Route 58, it is a battle between the East and West teams. This correlates with the competition between two rulers in the Naha area in days of old [1]

The event draws some 25,000 attendees annually, and is preceded on the prior day with a parade celebration on Kokusai Street (also in Naha). In 1997 the event was first logged in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the largest tug-of-war event in the world. (reference url same as above). The rope weighs some 40 metric tons.

The festival begins with men dressed in traditional garb standing on the rope facing in opposite directions to symbolize the battle between East and West. A myriad of performances take place along the rope’s length—from martial-artists of varying ages to older women performing a sort of fan-dance. It is a truly international event with Japanese nationals, American military, and tourists all in attendance. Just before the start of the match a man dressed in the garb of the Ryūkyūan kings stands on a wooden platform hoisted in the air on the shoulders of men standing on opposite sides of the rope. The “king” is carried on this platform down the length of the rope, before the festival starts.

The main rope has many smaller ropes extending from it, and the participints pull these during the contest. The contest lasts 30 minutes and the challenge is to pull the other team a total of 30 meters. Not doing so results in a draw.

After the time limit expires, it is customary for participants to take a length of the rope as a token, and so throngs of people using tools ranging from their hands to hacksaws set on the rope cutting lengths of it to commemarate the festival.

Gina and I did manage to get a piece of rope at the conclusion so we have our one year of good luck. We didn’t actually partake in the tug for it looked a little dicey to get involved with that aspect of the event. However, as you can see, I did get several good pictures of the event. Even though I had watched it on TV last year, to be there in person was a whole new level of entertainment. The men holding the large poles with decorations at the top worked very hard to keep those poles vertical. There were about eight of these poles with groups of men working each one. During the actual ‘tug’, they made those poles dance and swing. Before the tug started, they paraded them around the site and into position, but only one person at a time would hold up the pole as they did this. It looked to me like it weighed in excess of 100 pounds and each person would only last a few seconds before handing it off to the next person. One of the groups did get their pole badly tipped over and nearly hit the crowd. A scary moment that reminded me of the year some balloons got out of control at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

The event happens every year in October and is a must see if you are visiting. October is when the weather finally starts cooling down as well so it is a very pleasant time of year to visit. Cooler but not so much rain yet. We also had a chance to do some sightseeing along Kokusai Street which is a long street of tourist shops that are all fairly cheesy. There are however some good restaurants there as well. We ventured off the street a few blocks to a local market and saw some great stuff there, including the fresh fish market. These fish are the same ones (the blue parrot fish in particular) that swim in the bay by our apartment and are constantly being fished for by the locals off the rocks. I understand they make very good sushimi.

Japanese lessons are going very well. We’ve learned Hiragana and Katakana and can now read a lot of signs around town. We also know how to sign our names in Katakana. Today I was able to read a sign and order a flavor of drink becuase I could read the sign. It was very cool to feel like I could communicate at least a little bit.

Preparing to tug

Fresh fish!

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