RMAF 10km - 25 May 2008 - better late than never

Many thanks to mr tey for the photo, very gemuk but funny that i am smiling all the way to the end from this funny rmaf run...

I had signed up for this race a couple of weeks back, in the 10km category, in anticipation that I may wish to race for Sundown next week and needed a bit of rest (more on that later...).

There is always a first for any race. I had done a DNS before (Did not start), never wish to do a DNF (Did not finish), but this was a LTS (Late to start!!!) - my first start late race!

Looking back, I can actually see how funny it is, but I was really close to giving up and driving back. I had surfed around the net looking for directions to parking for this run since two days ago, and failing to do so, I set off at around 6am, and reached around the Sungei Besi airbase area in around 10-15 mins. My first mistake was not able to get onto the partially blocked slip road, and ended up on the SMART highway lane. So, I headed to KL and turned back. Second attempt following some small signboards, ended up in a blocked slip road, the cop asking me to go go ahead. And I ended up in Cheras direction, turning back, another block, and the cop asking me pusing balik. By then it was almost 645. After pusing balik, found the road to the airbase blocked off, but this time, there were about 5 cars also trying to inquire. Finally seeing how there was less than 5 mins to starting, I moved ahead and parked like about 750 m from the turn off. And ditched all the gadgets and ran to the turn off, only to find a man directing further ahead the entrance to the airbase. And ran to the entrance, almost 7am flag off time, only to have the man in the entrance telling me to run forward for a BUS!!! What the ****?? By then, I was almost running pace, had run almost 1km+, and got onto the bus, together with a handful of similar fated persons about 8 persons, and the bus waited for a minute or two for stragglers. And as the bus moved to the other end of the airbase, the bus driver pointed to the airbase and said, hey, the category C,D,E,F is flagged off, there they are running on the airway, maybe you should get down and just join!!!! It was not funny.... :-)

We took the bus all the way to the starting point being pure sports-people. And there we were, after alighting from the bus, squeezed past the barricade of the next flag off category, to jeers and cheers of bunch of army men, and me and 3 other guys quickly sped off, where the last of the category E/F people who were walking were almost 3/4 off the airbase runway. So we were about slightly under 10 mins late all in....

The good news was that, the late start made me so concious that I did not want to be last. Paced with veteran C3167 Syed Ahmad (who was in the late bus!!!) who told me he ran in last week's race, and he was furiously also trying to catch up after parking far away. We looked really weird trying to potong these young kids starting to catch up almost at the end of the runway (about 1km+) - these kids were walking, and me and this veteran malay man was furiously running the runway to catch up. It was almost weird also because C3167 ended pacing throughout the race with me, finished almost the same time, and the first 3-4km, I almost felt strange, he was running faster than kids who were probably less than 1/3 his age, and I was in my blue Singapore Marathon souvenir vest looking really out of place among the kids dressed in the event t-shirt and most of them were Malay. So I look like some SPG running with an older man... ahem.

To be honest, this was one of my best 10km for the year - I ended up clocking about 1hr 6m in a pretty comfortable run - but the master clock was flashing 1hr 45 for the half marathon runners when I finished - this means we were about 9 mins late (the half marathon started 30 mins ahead). And pour salt into wound, there were few runners in 10km category, and I missed medal position number 50 by 2 persons in front of me!!

Note - Finally found a hill more nasty than double hill - the one at the back of Kuen Cheng school, where the Chinese cemetary's are. Yes, we ran past almost 2km of chinese cemetary. At one point, I joked to one of the girls that it gives you more motivation to run faster since both side of the road was lined with cemetaries. She said, well, if you dont disturb them... but well I said, huge stampede of runners waking the dead up early in the morning... heheh.

Funny episode, and good run, glad I went and still persevered despite being late. Now, come to think of it, the runway looked pretty short....

And I had to hike another 1.5km back to the car... (making this a 13km race? haha!)

Antara Anyer dan Jakarta

Song name - "Antara Anyer dan Jakarta" - Sheila Majid

I received a SMS from Hendra today that he was meeting with one of my ex-client team members, GPU. Hendra used to work for me in a bank merger project in Jakarta - I was there in 1999. It brings back a lot of memories. Hendra would not have messaged me if he did not have the same flashes of deja vu - meeting with people from the past... this was one of the good project experiences I had in my career in consulting. After all, there were very few of us who has these fond memories still around the same company.

How time has passed ... It was a time when I was still young, impressionable, motivated. I headed out to Jakarta during the period when Megawati was elected president. The previous election shed blood and many did not want to go to work at Jakarta at that time. I was just promoted at that time and was eager to "take on new roles". I was promised to lead a technical team, and my "friends" - colleagues I was close to was going for the project. It was led by a good charismatic leader. The team had already been there for a while to build the merger plan. It was time to implement the plan.

This was my most memorable project. When I went there, I was given a pager. The pager was a security device which the firm subscribed to using a security consultant. The pager provided key information to tell you when to run or when to stay put, it also had different levels of security alert.

But I found the country very friendly and safe. I actually really liked the people, the client and found a lot of comfort in the environment. I "co-led" a fun team, a small 6 person team which managed the technology integration aspects - in my final role - I was a one person leading about 20 men in rollout teams. Thinking back, this must have indeed been very challenging for a chinese female like me then. My co-team manager was an easy going local - he is still around the firm. My client manager was a steady individual, who drew a lot of strength from my input. We got along very well and I was a good trusted advisor. I presented in Indonesian to the CIO twice. We rolled out 20 branches, and in one incident, we were locked in a branch overnight due to security issues outside. I was driven around by a driver who was a standard norm in indonesia. My driver smuggled durians into my apartment for me when I asked for the "best durian" in Jakarta. I slept in a room with 15 other females during a "client away" trip. During our weekends we would go to Puncak (the hillsides) for some jagung bakar. I created a reusable warehouse for recycling equipment. I worked in that warehouse which was small size of two conference rooms, underground, with about 20 smoking men all the time. I had the worst rollout incidents in this project - all things went wrong at one time that it was 2 nights of sleepless nights before we were able to go off. I regret that I left in a hurry, because after that I left for another offshore project in Taiwan.

The Sheila Majid song Antara Anyer dan Jakarta still hangs in my memory of those days. Not because of any love story (thats what the song is about!), but the experience and the people whom I met, and that I never went back there for the last 9 years - I said I will be back but I never did... it brings back a lot of memories.

And the best thing was, I did go to Anyer. One day, a few of us asked our driver to drive from Jakarta to Anyer and to the corner of Java island, took a ferry to Sumatra and back. It was just another town at that time, but when I heard the song, I knew the meaning will always ring in my head as long as I remember the good old days then, the camaraderie of friends and long lost acquaintances. I cannot remember all my team members, but there are a few HP, ESS, GPU, AW - these are my clients who were mad enough to be with me on that journey.

I hope I can say again, I will be back. I miss those good old days, and respected all of the people I was with then.

New Balance Pacesetters 15km 18 May 2008

Thanks Tey for the photo. What was I looking for, I looked quite tired! I hope I did my big smile for the camera cert... heheh

This was my second NB 15km race. The first one I did in 2006, whilst last year, I skipped it due to illness.

I've never felt so good about a race for almost a long long time. I had really not run for about 2 weeks+, not even in training, drowned in work and also this nasty lingering cough. I skipped the 30km night race last week, and decided to pull out of Sundown on the same day last week due to lack of practice.

Today's race went quite well, even though I was almost 6 mins worse than my time in 2006. I could not tell if it was just the standard decline in my performance in running (as observed in all the races!), or it was just the change in route. This year the route was indeed a bit more challenging due to the teasing ending but not yet when there was almost about 2 km more towards the end near Padang Merbuk, and the last 1 km, we had to do the KTM loop which is a nasty hill which punctured everyone.

This year's race also saw a unique medal - in shape of a NB shoe!

I surprised myself with a consistent pace, and I throughly enjoyed my new found toy, my ipod shuffle with a mix of silly chinese songs (Twins!) and real rock stuff from Eagles, INXS. My collection of MP3s in iTunes were a mixture of CDs I had ripped from a few occasions, with equal mix of chinese and english titles.

All in, I had a good continuous running pace, with only and yet only the 2nd hill of the double hill and also the final KTM bit which taxed me and forced me to a walk. My knees felt fine and I had no blisters and I did not push myself to the limit at the end to manage my own exertion.

This run is my post-retirement run. I could make it a comeback run, but I am still not sure. Now I am indeed tempted to go and try the Sundown just for the heck of it, but as I told SCH this morning, the problem I had was that I did not know how to quit and stop. Having never encountered injury and also immense body stretch of a marathon, I would have no idea when is the breaking point.

This is coming from one who has not hit the wall before. So how would I know unless I try.... still... I cannot imagine being carried off to a hospital in singapore all because I wanted not to waste my SGD 50 for the race fees...

Think about it for one more day.

Weekend Deja Vu with Australia @ Hunteroos Race

I have not blogged for a while. Almost 2 weeks plus ... Perhaps to refresh my POV and blog status, I thought I'd restart with the lighter side of things. Last weekend we participated in the Australian Hunteroos Race. Almost very excited to be going for another "treasure hunt" after the last disappointment with the Trailblazer's Race, we were all gung-ho and arrived at 3 Kia Peng all eager.

Firstly, this was not a treasure hunt but more an Amazing Race. Secondly, it was the most well sponsored "race" we had ever encountered. They served breakfast, provided T-shirt and caps, started the race at 9am (which is unusually late), and had wine, beer, and huge lunch served, even with Angel Hair pasta.

I played the didgeridoo (what?) for the first time (see Pic1-that is not me). Yeah, that australian aborigine music pipe. Me, running with a nasty cough was huffing and puffing all my saliva into the **** pipe and some young punk telling me, you have to loooose your lips and "blow softly" do not need to take hard puff. Just try just try... after like 20 times on the "didge", I was almost annoyed that he was not even looking at me when I made some almost music sound. Finally out of pity of this bronchitis sounding participant (me), he finally said, one last attempt and I will see, and in my final puff, he gave the the points. I cannot believe I would pay to do this!

We all got a chance to do the Flying Fox for the first time in the KL Tower (see pic 2). I heard of a reverse bungy, but never knew they equiped the tower with a flying fox from AJ Hackett the bungy experts. Well, the Flying Fox cost almost RM 30, and I would have not paid to do it if on my own, as it was a short distance, but as part of the race... greaaat! What was really disappointing was that I leap off the stand, had a real good relaxing swing down, posed for the camera, and MISSED the "trump card" extra point kangaroo shirt man standing next to the camera-man!

Lastly, as another part of the race, we had to eat a slice of Emu and a slice of Kangaroo, not knowing what was each and identify one or the other. Mr JS ate the entire Emu happily without sharing and we were in such a disappointed state that we had a pretty good time kidding ourselves and convinced the organiser to give us another piece to try. Well, it is indeed the first time I probably tasted Emu but maybe I had eaten kangaroo meat before. It wasn't too good to share these "endangered" national animals of australia as toasted meat for the participants... especially with a team who calls themselves Skippy (us) (the Australian bush kangaroo, according to Ms JS).

That was the weekend for me, got home flustered from over-excitement in the earlier part of the race, some disappointment mid of the race, and a full stomach end of the race.

But, kudos to sponsors. Just not too happy with organisers for some "flaws"...