{"id":345243,"date":"2021-06-01T06:04:30","date_gmt":"2021-05-31T20:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=345243"},"modified":"2021-06-01T06:04:30","modified_gmt":"2021-05-31T20:04:30","slug":"first-times-the-charm-in-5150-triathlon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/first-times-the-charm-in-5150-triathlon\/","title":{"rendered":"First time\u2019s the charm in 5150 Triathlon"},"content":{"rendered":"
Daryll Deluna, middle, poses for a photo after receiving his first Paupau 5150 Taga Triathlon medal last Saturday.\u00a0(Kimberly B. Esmores)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year\u2019s Paupau 5150 Taga Triathlon was definitely the year for first-timers with a handful of them topping various categories. <\/p>\n

During the event last Saturday, a number of first-timers won top places last weekend including overall winner Jared Inselman. Other first-timers who made their way into the Top 3 were Daryll Deluna and Chong Nam Lee. <\/p>\n

Deluna, a Northern Marianas College student, came in first place with a time of 3:53:18 in the 19-under-category and it was only his first time joining a triathlon. Coming in at second place under the same category was Eric Phillip David with a time of 4:07:15. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my first triathlon. I\u2019m very blessed and very proud of myself. I didn\u2019t expect myself to be first place since it is my first triathlon and I\u2019m just very thankful and happy,\u201d Deluna said. <\/p>\n

According to the first-time winner, his biggest struggle of the day was keeping his patience.<\/p>\n

\u201cPatience was probably the hardest part, patience while you\u2019re doing the actual event. There was a lot of times I was running, biking, or swimming where it felt endless so I really needed to stay patient and I needed to keep calm and move at a steady pace until the finish line,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

However, the work was worth it because he was able to bring to life one of his dreams which was joining a triathlon. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has always been my dream to be part of a triathlon because I really look up to people who are ironmans and other triathletes in the Philippines so this has always been my dream since I was a kid. I always thought this wasn\u2019t possible because it can also be expensive depending on where you are but since I saw an opportunity here on Saipan, I just took that opportunity and I just joined,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Deluna gained his advantage during the bike portion of the race even though it was the most challenging event. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really struggled with the biking because I\u2019m not use to it. But, It was on the second lap of the bike, after everyone went down to Kensington [Hotel], I passed about five or six people and I realized that they were having trouble because of the wind. Fortunately for me, I knew how to counter that by putting my head down and I was able to pass them around Banzai [Cliff] and on the way back I was able to catch up to more,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Deluna said it took one month of continuous training to be triathlon-ready. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really struggled with the biking because I\u2019m not use to having long routes for the bike so I needed to focus more on my biking and doing more 20K and 40K as much as possible and because of that, I was able to condition myself as much as possible,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Chong Nam Lee, middle, poses for a photo after receiving his first Paupau 5150 Taga Triathlon medal last Saturday.\u00a0(Kimberly B. Esmores)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Triathlon novice Chong Nam Lee came in second place with a time of 3:29:37 for the 60-and-over category after Florence Antonio, submitting a time of 3:18:51. Rounding up the Top 3 was Manny Sitchon with a time of 3:31:57. <\/p>\n

For Lee, joining the triathlon was more of getting over his fear and finally crossing it off of his bucket list. <\/p>\n

\u201cJoining a triathlon was on my bucket list. Finally, I did it today and it was a little hard for me. I didn\u2019t even expect to make second place but I did and I\u2019m so surprised. I was afraid but I\u2019m so happy that I finally did it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Like Deluna, Lee said the swimming and running portions were no trouble for him but the biking part was where he encountered problems. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the hardest part was biking because every morning I go swimming and every day I go running so those were no problems. The problem was the bike [split] and the bike that I was riding was not my bike, it was my friend\u2019s bike, and the bike was a mountain bike so it was also hard because it was a little heavy so that was where I struggled,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Fortunately, despite lagging behind in the bike portion, Lee gained momentum in the last portion of the race which was the running portion because he had been training barefoot for months. <\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the bike [split] was running so when I started running, that\u2019s when I started to pass others and I felt very comfortable during the running. Every morning I run barefoot at the [Oleai Track & Field] so I can get used to it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Paupau 5150 Taga Triathlon was named as such because it encompassed 1.5-km swim, 40-km bike, and 10-km run, which adds up to 51.5 km. It was organized by the Triathlon Association of the CNMI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year\u2019s Paupau 5150 Taga Triathlon was definitely the year for first-timers with a handful…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":345246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}