Ok, Team Grrrrrrr comprises Chiku, AhmatChi and Chi-B** (a multiple personality team).....(that's him on the left, and Lopez on his left....photo taken by Janice)....It didn't take much persuasion to get this one-man team to take up the challenge of the solo Nomad Adventure Sprint category for the Eco-X race over the weekend!
Amazing thing was that he drove all the way to KL and back, ferrying the Angels, their race gear and their bikes! To think that one of the things on his mind while struggling back to the finish line was none other than "oh no? How will the Angels get their change of clothes? I have the car keys?" Awwww......how thoughtful of ya, Chiku! You truly ARE our bossley!
Team Grrrrrr reporting
The air horn goes off and the Kiasu category (Excapade) racers disappeared off into the distance at the start of their mountain bike leg. The Sprinters were then turned around to face the other way and without much fanfare, we headed off towards our first CP, some walking, others jogging, and one little lady pounding along.
I started jogging and fell into my natural rhythm of what I figured would be a sustainable race pace. Govinder, a Navy fella introduced to me by Ming and Ken, joined me and we were about 5th from the lead. Slowly but surely, we caught up and became the first two sprinters. Learning from previous experience, I knew that the bottle necks would be at the waterfall, abseil and rafting sections, especially if you start having newbie sprinters in front of you, and if the Excapade teams caught up.
The plan was to stay in front so that we could clear these sections without much of a queue. As Govinder was a much faster runner, I asked him to go ahead while I kept to my pace. When I reached the car park, I saw him gesturing that he had found the path to take.
Mistake number 1 - I assumed that he had found the right path and followed him without checking my instructions.
So we head off into the jungle, attacked by leeches and getting ever further from the river. I called a stop to it after about 15 minutes citing that we should be right next to the river instead of heading away from it. We turned around and headed back down to the river. We met up with a group of 3 women sprinters who were lost so we took them under our wing and attempted to find the path.
This was quickly done and by the time I reached the waterfall, there were more than 10 sprinters in front of me! So much for my plan of staying in front. These sprinters were mainly beginners and watching them try to ascend the waterfall was painful. It was wet and slippery and people were sliding all over the place banging themselves silly on the rocks. I was impatient to ascend but the marshals would not let me cut the queue.
There was a lady who was stuck at a section for 20 minutes before she relented and moved to the side so others could pass. As the minutes ticked by, I kept glancing at my watch figuring that the fastest of the Excapade teams would reach us within 1 hour and 45 minutes. If I wasn't already on the waterfall by then, the hopes of climbing it would fade pretty quickly as the Excapade teams came fast and furious.
Mistake number 2 - There was a gap in the Sprinters where I could have gone up because they had run out of slings and prussicks. But only if I had the right equipment on me! Unfortunately, although I had a harness and 2 crabs, I was missing the slings and prussick cord.
Since I didn't, I just sat around listening to some girl scream about leeches attacking her butt yelling, "Take it off! Ahhhhhh! Help!" I was disappointed when I saw the first male Excapade team turn up as I knew that the others could not be very far away. True to form, Team Slack soon turned up and so did Team Angels. I knew then that the Angels were the first women's team to reach the waterfall. It was great seeing them but at the same time, I knew that I was not going up that waterfall.
Soon enough, after about a 1.5 hour wait, the nice ang moh lady came around and took away my slings saying that they were needed at the abseil site. Damn, I had already reached a point where I was fourth in line to go up the waterfall! I got a No Go written on my passport and headed for the abseil section with Govinder. As I left, I saw Team Slow Smurfs make their way up towards the waterfall CP. I shouted out some words of encouragement to them. I told Gov to go ahead and after two "no lah, I'll wait for you," I would not see him again until much later in the jungle hike.
So I jogged/walked until I reached the start of the jungle hike. It's lonely racing alone because you have no one to push you on. Singing to myself just didn't cut it.
Before the jungle track, I caught up with and passed the 2nd male team to reach the waterfall. Unfortunately, they weren't interested in chatting with me. By the time I reached the jungle track, I had caught up with another group of women sprinters who had skipped the waterfall climb. I chatted with the last one named Joanne. She was from KL and had been persuaded by friends to join this. Wee little girl so she needed help with getting up that slippery muddy slopes from hell.
Bamboo and thorny palms everywhere. Steep. Off camber path. Mud, mud and more mud. At least the conversation was interesting. This never ending hike was a real pain. I left Joanne to the company of her friends, overtook them, and bumped into Gov hiking with two other women sprinters, one of which was cheerfully screaming about bugs, thorns, mud and other stuff. I needed the peace so headed to the front and stayed ahead.
Pretty soon, Team Slack caught up again and passed by. They looked strong and were going pretty fast. A little later, I was passed by a team of 4 Frenchmen. I didn't know you could form a team of 4? Or maybe it was two teams of two?
I reached the abseil CP and submitted my passport for the Sprint abseil. I was well out of water by then and was getting dehydrated. Luckily for me, Gov had water in his hydration pack that he hadn't drunk from and had kindly offered it to me. He must carry that just for training.
I started filling my water bag when Team Angels turned up looking none the worse for wear. We talked and I gave them a few packets of rehydration salts. The effusive sprinter lady, who had turned up, started screaming her head off about a leech. I think it was Rebecca who asked her not to scream so loudly as it was only a leech. Her calmer friend took aim with a can of OFF and sprayed enough to make the leech fall off. Soon, the Angels were off to do their abseil while I waited in a queue for my equipment.
When my turn came, I climbed to the abseil point and quickly finished the "ho hum, move along, nothing to see here" abseil. Really boring compared to the abseil in the Perak race.
Once down, I collected my passport and dashed off towards the rafting point. By the time I reached it, I was stuck for another hour because there were no sprinters or rafts to be found. There was another women's team there and I ended up chatting with one of them named Pauline. She mentioned that she knew Rina and Rebecca from before. One of her team mates had taken a spill off the bike and had some major road rash. Out came my first aid kit and after a short while, with help from another member and an all male team, her wound was all dressed and she was ready to raft.
Time passed by quickly because in addition to chatting with Pauline about her future ultramarathon attempt in Chile, I was discussing with the all male team about the techniques of mountain biking. They were from Singapore and had told me that they sucked at mountain biking.
By the time the rafts arrived, I was teamed with another two sprinters and we started down the river on our raft. I sat at the rear while the guy sat in front. Another girl sat in the middle. I have been called bulky by some who shall remain nameless but I can't believe that it was because of that that our raft kept getting stuck on the rocks. Exactly beneath where I was seated. :-(
As we made our way down river, the guy in front lost his stick. I threw mine to him and we continued for a little while before getting jammed sideways in a rock. It got a little dangerous at this point because during the manoeuvre to free the raft, the force of the water on the raft was so strong that it forced me under water for a while. Upon surfacing, the raft was well and truly stuck.
The three of us working in concert could not budge it. It took a guy from another team to come and help us dislodge it. In the process, we lost our steering stick. Luckily, I saw one stuck vertically in the river and grabbed it managing to free it. My male rafting partner also nearly got decapitated in another incident. Too much excitement for one day.
I decided to head to the front and steer. It was much better that way as I had more body weight (ahem) to use to steer the raft. We helped another team get free before getting stuck again due to the actions of a race helper who was standing in the river. He reached out to grab our raft and in the process, turned it enough to get it wedged sideways in some big rocks. This was a deep area of water, at least up to my neck and the other two could not stand at all. I pushed them towards the bank while the race helper called three other Malay men to help. In the process of getting the raft freed, they broke one of the bars that held the raft together at the back.
Back on the raft, I was now in front, girl in the middle with the guy at the back holding the raft together by straddling it with his legs. As we floated down river, I felt the raft slowly giving way. I did not know why until I turned around and saw the guy wincing in pain as his soft bits got caught in the ever widening bamboo poles. The girl in the middle was also getting pinched and she was falling through a split in the middle of the raft. I decided then and there to abandon the raft so as not to risk any unnecessary injury.
I told them to jump off when it was shallow and we watched the raft tear itself into two pieces joined at one end and slowly spin down the river. Having no idea where the end of the rafting section was, we made our way onto the main road. I decided to jog the rest of the way back to the finish line and left the other two to walk back. They looked tired and a little sore from the experience. Before leaving them, I told them what landmark to look for to do a right turn towards the end CP - the Tenaga Nasional power substation. As I started jogging back, it was about 1.5kms before I passed another two male teams who appeared out from a side road. That meant two more kilometres left.
The two thoughts in my mind were that the teams that I came up to KL with (Teams Angels, Slack and Smurfs) might be a little worried about my wellbeing, and that I had the key to the car with the Angels' clothes and shower stuff in it! That made me move from a slow shuffle to a faster jog.
I arrived back to a warm welcome from Team Smurfs, Max, Gov, and the rest. First thing out of my bag was the car key so that the Angels could go shower. I was tired. Mostly from the event, but also from having to wait at the bottleneck CPs for quite a bit of time. I think the waterfall route could have been better for the Sprinters if there was an easier alternate route that the Sprinters could switch to once the Excapade teams caught up.
Would I do it alone again? Probably not. Too effing boring. Would I ever do another adventure race? At this moment, I think not. Too hard on my body. But that may change once the body has recovered and my memory of the pain has faded. Maybe I should write it down so that I don't forget. Like what I'm doing now. I dunno about you people but I can barely keep my eyes open today and walking down stairs hurts my quads and glutes. Oww oww oww.
The end.
[Merciless : I'm sure we ain't seen the last of Team Grrrrrrr yet.....post race aches might be a little daunting, but he'll be back for more! Muah hahahahaha!
Check out Janice's race report and album too! The Angels are compiling ours so look out for it!]
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