Uy is first Filipino ultraman race finisher
Ultradistance racing sounds absurd. Imagine this: 515 total kilometers (km) of swim, bike and run in a three-day span that no Filipino has been able to finish for many years.
That was until Jennifer Tan Uy conquered it very recently.
“When I crossed the finish line, I wanted the world to see that Filipinos can,” said Uy, the exhaustion evident in her voice after doing a 10-km swim, 421-km bike and an 84-km foot race that is the Ultraman World Championship, where a really elite field saw action in Hawaii over the weekend.
With only 20 participants called, Uy carved out a first for PH sports by finishing the race while proudly carrying the Filipino version of the red-white-and-blue in several stretches of the race, most especially when she crossed the line to make history.
“This milestone is for the Philippines. It is a symbol of what Filipinos can do.”
She was third among women, 13th overall. But those don’t actually matter.
What matters is that she conquered the overwhelming odds by clocking four hours and 39:41 in the swim, followed by a 7:17:57 finish for the first leg of the bike of 144 km to close out the first day.
She then answered Day 2 by pushing through another 275.84 km atop her bike, completing it in 11:28:16 for a two-day total of 23:25:54 before confronting the double marathon the following day in 10:34:11.
Uy had an overall time of 34:00:05, but her medal, which is of the same color as that of the champion, Alex Kniazeu, glitters as bright as gold, with survival being the biggest target.
It was also personal redemption for Uy, who nearly missed the cutoff at Ultraman Florida earlier this year.
That near-defeat lit a fire that carried her to Hawaii, where she vowed she would never repeat the mistakes that almost cost her before.
“Knowing my struggle in Florida stemmed from poor fueling, I enforced a strict, preplanned nutrition schedule. Every 15 minutes, calories and electrolytes,” said Uy.
