Above : Moi and me teammate, Mingloid, scurrying down the prickly edges of the Big Durian (commonly known as the Esplanade) during Action Asia Challenge 2004 held here in Singapore! Photo taken by a talented photographer by the name of Sehsuan.
I still remember my first race as if it happened yesterday. Twas that fateful day in 2001 when Rebecca asked if I wanted to form an all girl's team for the Adventure Quest! It was the first adventure race ever organised in Singapore and no friggin way were we gonna to miss this one!
Little did I know what lay ahead...
This spawned a whole series of self-induced training sessions, organised by the Dominatrix (Rebecca's nickname)...the most memorable of them all being the long march from Serene House along Bukit Timah Road at 4 am.....to Changi Seasports Club more than 4 hours later! Xiongalingam, as Ming would have remarked! Walking past Orchard Plaza before sunrise was something else! We were cheered on by some transexuals as we marched by...."one, two, three, four....one, two, three, four..."...wait til we get to Changi!
My all-girl teammates then were Cassie (the Belgian from KL, otherwise known in her biking circles as "Armageddon" or "Death to all mankind"), Rina (one of the strongest athletes I've ever met!), Rebecca (the torture babe) and moi (half-past-six, happy-go-lucky, jack-of-all-trades-and-mistress-of-nothin'-much)...
LESSON NO 1 : Hold on to your race passport for dear life! I dropped my race passport at the first checkpoint in my state of gang-joingness whilst overturning the kayak to let the water out....and enroute to checkpoint 2, only realised it when a support boat beckoned for Team 51 to "gostan" and kayak back to checkpoint 1 to retrieve it! @#*&!(#*&!# There's more to this story, but it'd take several blogs to pen the whole ordeal!
Next bunch of races I joined were organised by Nomad Adventures! These people really know how to show you a good time! Difference between Singapore and Malaysan races is that our neighbour has countless of terrain to offer, whilst we have probably trampled on ours to death!! But I still enjoy the great outdoors in Singapore! The longest Nomad race came with 17 hours of pure, unadulterated TORTURE! The SPLASH Eco-Xtreme held in Selangor was something else! We didn't even finish the race, but I wouldn't have missed it for the world! Brings back fond memories of my late ex-teammate, Swee Haw....
Needless to say, during our next race, Rebecca refused to let me carry the passport. Turns out, she dropped the race passport few tens of minutes into the race! Since then, we've polished our passport carrying skills test and am glad to say we haven't lost a passport since.....only our sense of direction! :P
LESSON NO 2 : Do not give the map to the 'Togo King"! Not having gone to the army, we've learnt from our Mingloid, one of my regular teammates, that when choosing a reliable map carrier, NEVER EVER chose the guy who's been labelled "Topo King" in the army! However, being in an all ladies team has its disadvantages if you don't know how to read maps or are not technically inclined!
Races with clues, no maps.....we can handle! The first "Angels" race had a prefix by the name of "Olaf"! We were great at solving riddles, but we sucked big time at the technical tests! Read our account of the Togoparts Challenge in 2004 to see the true extent of racing with bimbos!
Oops. gotta run. Will finish this later.
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