IRONMAN Taiwan – my worst race experience

I gave myself two weeks to look at this race with some objectivity and distance. In short, this has been one of the worst races I have participated in and only by sheer luck and good preparation by the participants we didn’t have more casualties.

Here is the bullet point version – if you want to read more, please scroll down as I explain more

Race venue:
- Magong is a ghost town. No Ironman buzz, no tourist activities to do for family, very few places to eat.
- Getting there with a bicycle was seriously difficult affair
- Organizers made racers run around town they held welcome dinner, briefing, registration, bag drop, T1, T2, awards, roll down all in different venues
Race itself:
- Wetsuit legal – Apparently water temp was 24.3C degrees, but felt like 28C. Organisers should take into account the air temp of 29C and 90% humidity. It was dangerous to send people into the sea for 1hr in their wetsuits
- Bike course – Too few aid stations, both positioned on downhills on the loop part of the course. They were not manned properly and racers had to STOP to fill bottles themselves by the table. They ran out of water/isotonic later on i the race. Residents on scooters were real danger
- Run course – aid stations too far apart and lacking sponges on such an exposed route with no shade. Something is wrong if professionals walk big parts to survive and racers get 2nd degree burns
Finish
- It was not the Ironman atmosphere I am accustomed to. There was no buzz, no fun. Rather sad affair. City seemed like it wanted nothing to do with Ironman. Just race and go.

Logistics: With limited space on planes, a lot of people opted to use the provided bike shipping service to transport their bikes from the airport to the island. This was fine for most people but with the typhoon that landed 4 days before the event began, some people never got their bikes when they arrived on the island until a day before the event.

There were a number of things that were poorly implemented:

- having the race briefing in some other location that was 1km away

- having the welcome banquet in a restaurant that had 3-4 floors and with food that was probably not very good to eat before a race

- bus transportation to the different venues were a bit sparse

Swim: Very nice 2 lap course. Water was mostly calm. Having a rolling start was a good idea as it made the swim less congested.

Bike: Peng Hu is a bit famous for having high winds but luckily on this day, the wind was not too bad. The roads were better than I expected as the volunteers did a wonderful job of clearing debris from the roads after the typhoon. I would still recommend 25mm tires on the rear as there were a few rougher parts of the road. Overall, bike course was pretty good albeit after the 2nd lap, some parts of the road started to get quite congested. There were quite a lot of rolling hills so I would say it looks a bit more difficult than what appears to be on paper (maybe 800m cumulative elevation over 180km)

Run: The weather forecast was a bit of a lie (said 28 degrees on a number of sites). Reality was that it was 32 degrees heat (which felt like 40 due to 90% humidity). The actual course itself was a 2 lap course which aside from a bit of up/down near the beginning of the loop, was mostly a boring undulating road. Unfortunately there is almost no shade so it is really difficult to run well if you're not used to the heat.

Usually an impression is strongly influenced by subjective achievements in a given event. So although I had my PB classification, I will try to give as objective a judgment of the whole Ironman event as possible.

I picked Taiwan because in my ignorance I expected it to be chilly so up north and late in the year. It turned out to be my hotest race so far with humidity reaching well over 85% making it feel like far over 39'C. But then, that's not the organisator's fault...

What I for sure will try to avoid in the future are races with 2 different transition spots. It just makes everything quite complex especially if the organiser soedn't support your transprt from one venue (eg the registration area) to transition. Moreover, the transition was set up so poorly I had sometimes the feeling to be racing in a local event. The whole IM spirit was lost somehow. Add to that that we had somethig like 4 or 5 official venues to be at (registration area, final ceremony (the opening ceremony was cancelled!!), carbo loading which turned out to be local seafood specialities (before race day!!!!!?????) and whose restaurant was overfilled so that a new bus had to be organised to bring people to another location, and you can pretty well imagine that it was not a perfect leading into race day. 

The swim was non-spectacular but neither bad, with an Australian exit and quite strong currents at times.

The bike course was all at full sun burst with no shades at all. It lead all the way to the other small islands by means of wind-haunted bridges. Although there was quite some traffic on the bridges itslef, I felt the police and volunteers did a great job in directing the car traffic. Aid stations were a mess, however (some located at he end of a downhill slope...) as you could tell the inexperience here. At round 2 of 3 we all literally STOPPED at the stations and it felt like on a bazaar to get your water bottles and electrolytes. Somehow most of the bottles were not screwed tightly so when you drank out of them...!! ;))

The run course was hilly and again not one single shade spot. Aid stations were great at first but soon ran out of (cold) water which made it difficult for the second part of the run. 

The roll-down ceremony was poorly visited, unfortunately (yet another venue!!) but well conducted.

All in all, it's a very challenging course! And I am confident that with this first experience many hiccups (late arrival of bikes, aid stations, venue number, restaurant choice) will be avoided next year.

IM Taiwan was my 5th Full IM and my first DNF. Overall, I'm sad to say it was the lowest quality IM experience I've had.

Maybe I missed a trick as I wanted a cooler race than Langkawi and figured Taiwan in October would be cooler.

My opinion of the race was down to complex logistics and the brutal weather which was well into the 30s on race day compounded by negligible shade on the entire bike/run. It didn't feel like a sporting event in the end.

Pre race logistics were very messy. My bike arrived with me on my flight from Taipei but I know many were delays.

Event logistics were also challenging. T1,T2, athlete briefing were all in different places meaning athletes had to make several trips in the day(s) before the race. Not what you want to be doing when I just want to eat, rest and sleep and stay out of the sun.

On to race day.

An early bus to the start.

Swim was really nice. Clean water and not choppy, although there was a current. I'm puzzled why the race organisers made it wetsuit optional. It was over 30 degrees outside and very humid so whilst the water was 24.3 apparently (wetsuit cutoff is 24.5) it was a wrong call to allow wetsuits to be used. Anyways. I had a good swim so move  on.

I quite liked the actual bike course but it was REALLY HARD. It was incredibly hot, and no meaningful shade so we all got fried.

Mid way through the bike, the aid stations were quite comical, there were probably 10-15 athletes at each one stopped so we had to try and get what we could from the volunteers.

Further, a number of the aid stations were on downhill stretches so we had to brake a lot to get drinks AND they were too infrequent in such hot weather.

I heard from slower bikers that the aid stations ran out of water, so folks went to 711 on course for supplies.

Roads were not closed to traffic. I can understand the issues doing that on a small island with fewer roads and it felt quite dangerous at times with scooters, buses, trucks on the road along with all the athletes. Whilst the police were out in force, I fear there will be a car/bike accident at some point if this race continues.

So now the run.

It was the most soulless run imaginable, just asphalt and sun, with zero shade and I mean ZERO shade! Personally after cramping badly in T2 I walked/jogged//hobbled to 4k. And then went home as I didn't see the point in continuing to fry myself in whatever the weather was at that point. Even the pro times were slow... When many of them are walking, well it's not really sport in my opinion.

Overall, the challenging logistics and the brutal weather left a poor impression and I won't be rushing to sign up for IM Penghu next year. Another race in Taiwan, yes but Penghu no.

Firstly, please note that I pulled out at the second half of the marathon so that my placement was DNF. Regardless, will try and keep the review as objective as possible. 

Penghu is a small island about 50min flight from Taipei. If you are not accustomed to hot weather or enjoy racing in heat and humidity it will be highly unlikely that you will enjoy this race. We hit a sunny day on race day and course felt like 40 degrees. Even at 4am you felt like you're in a sauna. Most top positions in age groups were taken by local Taiwanese despite some very strong athletes from abroad so take that into account if you feel it may be an easy race for a Kona slot.

Planes flying there are small so if you want to guarantee your bike travels with you I'd advise you go early and leave late. Otherwise you need to rely on the local bike transportation company. This year a typhoon hit a few days before the race (tyhoon season so highly likely this happens again) and due to that a lot of people did not get their bikes in up until Friday or even Saturday (race Sunday).

Registration process fine, logistics a bit of a hassle due to T1 being about 15km away from expo/registration and organisers provided no means to take your bike there which meant you either ride there to rack before race day or have to hire a cab. Highly recommend you rent a scooter for all the back and forth to expo/registration/town etc. Pre-race day you needed to be in 3 different places (T1, T2 and race briefing), all of which are not at a walkable distance from eachother, not ideal when all you want to do is have your feet up and relax. 

Race morning you have to drop off your bike bag to pick up on the way out from the swim. Something I don't really get as you can just leave your bike bag next to the bike and head straight there after the swim rather than having to add an extra thing to do. Water is fantastic at 24-25 degrees (still allowed wetsuits which is beyond me but probably to help out weaker swimmers), course very easy to navigate, really enjoyed that swim. Be prepared for the odd jellyfish, especially if you're allergic.

On to the bike and road surface is great throughout the whole course. For once marshalls were relentless and were stopping people for drafting penalties right left and center. Very good to see. Aid stations were a let down, with one of them running out of water about 3.5hrs into the race which was probably around 11am and extremely hot. Volunteers were overwhelmed by sheer volume of cyclists and by the second lap each aid station resembled a turkish bazaar or a commodity trading pit with people off their bikes trying to find what they need while volunteers scrambling to fill up bottles. Forget picking up a bottle while riding. Hopefully they will improve that process for next year. 

I also found the bike course dangerous at times, roads are open to traffic and going through some very narrow bridges you get cars overtaking from the opposite side and see them heading straight at you.. This can be an extremely dangerous situation if you're not looking up while riding. Also scooters coming out from sidestreets etc, requires a lot of caution and that also drains your energy. 

The run took a lot of courage to even start! At that point temperatures were at the highest of the day, and you were looking at a 2lap course on desolate, endless asphalt roads, no shade or support along the way. Just you, aid station volunteers and your fellow pilgrims. Course is not flat and has some long uphill (albeit not steep) sections. Saw many people collapse due to heat and ambulances seemed quite busy. The last part of the race was all about heat survival and I have a lot of respect for all finishers. Personally the wheels had come off for a number of reasons, ultimately the decision was whether I want to run-walk a 6hr marathon simply to finish or pull the plug, regroup and fight another day. If it were my first attempt at the distance I probably would have but I quickly ran out of arguments on why I should continue so it was game over at 21km. 

To close, I was well aware that this would not be a race to rave about afterwards, I joined purely due to the chance of a Kona slot. There's a lot of amazing events out there that offer a much better experience so I probably won't be coming back. However, if you live in the region then it's probably a convenient spot and if you love racing in the heat then that gives you a definite edge.