I think they need to add another obstacle ...
That would complete the challenges for this year's
Powerman. It had everything one doesn't wish for.
Our journey started on Friday after work. During the
Frday prayer break, we managed to grab our bikes. So as soon as the clock strikes 5, we were off.
Traffic was not bad and within 2 hours we were exiting
Bidor and as usual I felt hungry already. So we
stopped for dinner and I must say that was one of the best sup
sayur and sup
ekor I have tasted for a long time. Worth waiting almost 20
mins.
We continue our journey and only reached Orient Star at about 10.30pm. (
Sesat sikit ...)
Quicky checked in and our
sifu did some tuning to our bikes and went to bed. Managed to sleep despite the ... (
jgn marah). Next morning, had a tank full of food knowing that no lunch for us. The spread was fantastic. I must have had about 3 rounds. ...
kenyang beb.
We went to have a look at the starting line and we were already sweating and
semua dah kecut ... We went back to the room and started our final
preparation. We had no worries on the mechanic of the bike as we had our
sifu. He took good care of the bike. More fine tuning ... and
dressed up and headed to the starting line.
Check in the bike and saw some familiar faces
arroud ...
Azim,
Aini & Mary (in person),
bacin, superstars
awea,
dino,
steph,
azwar etc.
Did my warm up in the blazing sun. The crowd was already building up. Not sure what they were thinking. They must be asking ...
kenapa diaorang lari tengah hari panas nak mampus ni ahhh???
Tak pe pakcik/
makcik ...
kitaorang semua tak betoi sikit ...
Anyway I was a bit happy to see some dark clouds circulating.
Tulung hujan ...
Sharp 1pm, the gun went off and off we went. I was doing my normal pacing and I felt good. Surprisingly, no stomach pain. But after only about 2km, my heart felt funny. I only got this feeling after completing a 15 or 20 km run. I really felt like stopping and taking a deep breath. BUT
NOOO ... I am not going to stop. I kept going with faster breathing. This became the routine for the next 50km.
Off course i abused every water i came across. At one station I just
grabbed the bottle from the guy who were pouring into the paper cups. Sorry dude ...
It was about 56
mins or could be 1 hour when I came into T1. (Somehow, I think it is more than 10k.) I ate whatever i could find in my bag (dates,
powerbar etc.)and exited T1. Thank god no problem with the
clipless. I was just spinning and was happy to see 30+ on km/h. It was the 10km I think when the first cramp hits.
DAMMM...
baru 10k. I had to slow down and started to
streach while spinning. It worked. I was again at 30km+/h. Then all our prayers were answered ... it RAINED and it was more than what we asked for. It was a very heavy rain and I don't think I slowed down, I should have actually.
I think I did quiet well on the climbing. I ACTUALLY OVERTOOK SOME DUDES ... I think I completed the first loop in about 1.10. The second loop started well. I fell "stronger"
hehehe ... Actually I was still playing with the cramp all these while. I started the final 15km also well. The rain was still playing on us and then the headwind strikes.
DAMM again ... I didn't know what would be the effect of a headwind
until that day. It almost
cut down my downhill speed to almost half. Therefore I still had to to spin my heart off in a downhill. so in a span of 2 hours we had a blazing sun, a heavy downpour, gushing wind and ...GOD KNOWS WHAT ELSE A HEAD ...
I must have entered T2 after 2.20/30 on the bike. I could still do it in 4.30 if I can do the run in 1 hr. But I had to do something about the cramp. So I had to spend a few minutes stretching and lucking I brought my "expired" deep heat. So
taruh &
gosok ... It relieved my pain a bit. Running after bike is NOT EASY. What made things worst was my shoes were wet and this will make the frictions inside the shoes worst. So as expected I can feel some blisters on my toes. I just tried to minimise my toes movement throughout the run. My speed was reduced a brisk walking. I was irritating slow ... As I reached the last 3 km, I could see some guys were already
lepaking ... some guys gave some motivational words which helped a bit ...
Finally seeing the finish line was relieving beyond words. I came through the finish line at about 4.40. The whole body screaming with PAIN but the feeling at that moment was
indescribable ... Never felt that GOOD in whole of my life.
That night, we all put on our finisher T-Shirt and went for the dinner.
