Completed, Tired, Satisfied

PBIM ( Penang Bridge International Marathon )

Comes the time of the year for this yearly event once again. I've been joining this event for several years already since long long long ago. However this time I think there's a slight change in the organisers. Usually it's being held somewhere in July in USM, but this time in November in Queensbay Mall.

I took part in the half marathon as usual. I haven't got the courage to challenge myself taking the full course. Even so, the half marathon this time is slightly more than usual. Even previously, the total route was 22.5km which was already more than normal 21km, but this time it went up to 25km. This will be the furthest I've taken part in. I did trained a little, just this little. Hehe. Well at least I did run. But still I fear if I couldn't finish the whole race.

Yesterday, I dropped by at Queensbay to collect my shirt and bib number. Then I went to shop for some Powerbars, Powergel and Redbull. Hehe, i need extra energy. Got my stuff ready, pin my bib number, shorts, vest, socks, shoes, that's about it, then went to bed early.

Woke up at 3am, grab some bread, coffee, powerbar, redbull for breakfast. A mixture of too many things will lead to a weird feeling in the tummy. Picked up HL then headed for Queensbay. We had to report ourselves. Hanged around a little and at about 4.30am off went the starting gunfire. Bang! The race has begun. The race on the whole was smooth going right until the last 5km. My left foot feels a little pain. It's not due to muscle cramp but some sort of internal injury i had these two weeks. I slowed down a little but keep struggling on. But it forced my to stop and I had to walk for a short while, while it relaxes a little before I slowly started running again. I try to take it slowly hopefully to struggle my way through. Luckily I manage to keep going at a slow pace but constantly until the finishing point. Completed in about 3hrs 15mins ( a little slow ). Tired, limping my way now. But SATISFIED.

The morning view

Queensbay Mall

Finally...

At the finishing line

ZZZ time.

p/s : back dated post due to exams

PIC2008 Update3

Last day of trip, we all slept late. Well not too late though. Get ourselves ready, packed all our stuff and took our breakfast. Then we had another beach cleaning activities to clear up the camp site and the surrounding area so as to have all our rubbish packed nicely so that the beach will still be clean. Then we had to break the tents and get everything back in place, waiting for the transfer back to the mainland.

Our camps

One last sight of the beautiful view

The beach clean up

Another one before leaving

We hopped on a ferry this time so it took us a little longer to get back compared to travelling in a speed boat. The seats were quite full, I ended up having a first class seat beside the captain. Hehe. nice view from the top. I see him handling the controls, GPS is one main component that plays an important role in navigation. Manage to chat with the nice friendly captain throughout the journey back.

View from the ferry

Co captain

The control panel

As we reached the jetty we went to enquire for direct bus transfer back to penang as we wouldn't want to travel down to kl and back to penang. Kinda redundant and also I wouldn't wanna sit upright back. We manage to get our tickets but we will need to get to Jerteh for the bus. So we took lunch at K.Besut and took a taxi ride to Jerteh. About 20 min ride. But our bus was at night. So we took our own sweet time just to pass sometime. We reached Jerteh at about 4pm. Nothing much there. It felt like Parit Buntar. No McD, only KFC, I wonder why. KFC seems to have wider coverage. And their shopping is EconJaya if i'm not mistaken just like our nice little Billion. We went into shopping to cool down for a while then we hang around at a hawker nearby. There's pretty much of local food there. They all looked tasty. So we grab some snack, little bit of this, little bit of that. And lekor is of course a not to be missed snack. I ended up having too much snack that I skipped dinner. We took a quick shower public toilet before getting on the bus. Little did i know that being at the last seat provided me with once again an upright seat. Damn!! Well had to bear with it. Lasted all the way till penang. My neck...

mouth watering

Well one hell of a challenge it was. We'll be back next year with a more well prepared condition.

PIC2008 Update2

Race Day. We were awaken by the morning call. I was a little early that morning as it was quite hard to get a nice sleep the night before as it was hot. Clean up myself and got ready for the big day. Vest, shorts, shoes, powerbar,powergel, sunblock, counterpain. Everything was ready to get going. We had our breakfast then headed on speedboat to the starting point which was at Kampung, on the other island. We could see everyone all geared up ready for the big race. We waited for about an hour for everyone to be transferred and waiting for VIPs to arrive and officiate the event.

At exactly 10am. The novice racers were being flagged off. Another half hour to go or less. We had our last briefing just before the race. Then right at half past ten, off we go. As we were being flagged off, everyone headed to their kayaks, which was our first event.

finding for our kayaks

We had to kayak to the other island. When HL and I got into the water I could see some of the racers were already way pass us. Damn I gotta catch up. An initial burst of energy with our good coordinations *grins* we manage to glide across the water catching up with the others. As soon as we landed on the other island, we jumped out, hauled our kayak up to the beach, grabbed a can of cold RedBull and proceeded with our race. It was a hike up one of the peak of the island. Little did I know that hiking was way much tougher than running of flat land. I've already start feeling the tiredness and strain in the muscles. Probably I've over exerted during the kayak, and also the little knowledge of me towards kayaking got me sitted there still got my legs all numb as we jumped out of it lead to the strain in the leg muscles. However, the race must go on.
Slowly we hiked our way through. I had to make several stops just to catch my breath. It was quite a struggle through the first loop up the hill.
As soon as we see the beach, how glad i was to be back on flat land. We were back at the point where we left our kayak. We grab some water and proceed on foot to the other side of the beach. A less straineous route but still taxing my both legs leads us back to our campsite area where we were required to get wet and do some task. The first was getting a 20kg sandbag from the sea ( about 5 ft deep i guess ) and a short swim to and fro the marked position. We did that easily as it was suppose to give us a short break to relax. Then we grabbed some 100plus and water and proceeded. On our way we met some participants we were having cramps and the little counterpain i brought along actually helped. We need to hike to the otherside of the beach at Awana and hike back to our kayak point. That was one hell of a hike. I had several cramps along the way but still manage to make it back to the kayak.
Without wasting much time, we got on the kayak and make our way back across the sea to the other island. As we landed yet again, we had to do some obstacle crossing before continuing. Another hike all the way up to the windmills. The view up the windmill was just breathe taking. We stopped for a few moment to catch our breath and enjoy the wonderful scenary. When we reach back to the beach we had to run in flippers along the beach. *giggles* It was funny doing that but I was already out of energy just to laugh at it. Then we proceed our way back to the starting line which was also the finishing line. The sight of it immediately give us an extra burst of energy. We came back in about five and a half hours. What a relieve it was, tired we were but satisfied with our completion. Another achievement to be added into the list.
We waited for the boat transfer back to campsite. Although we may be tired but as we reach back we headed directly to the water. Relax and enjoying the cool clear water till about 6 when we had to clean up and get ready for dinner at Kampung.

cool..

...clear water, see the fishes?

We were served with bbq dinner. That's fantastic, but having few hundreds of people bbqueing over 3 fire could be a pain in the S. We were already starved since lunch. Yet we need to queue for dinner. Yet, we still manage to fill our grumbling tummy at bout 9. Then there were prize giving ceremony and some entertainment by local artist and cultural dance. And the whole event finished with a 5mins long fireworks display which was just perfect. It was right above us, simply beautiful.

after a tiring day

we feast.. hmm which is my chicken i wonder

PIC2008 Update 1

Well, just wanna update my trip to Perhentian. What can i say? Extremely tired but satisfied.

Here goes. Me, HL, and Tim took a bus from Parit Buntar to KL at 3pm. Due to some accident on the way, we were caught in traffic and ended up in KL 8something. It was like a long long trip. Well, packed in our backpacks, as we arrived in Pudu, we make our way to MTC ( Malaysian Tourism Centre ). It wasn't to hard to locate it though. Hungry we were at that moment since we were rushing our way to MTC to make sure we don't miss the bus. On arrival we just look for some mamak stall nearby and grab some food just to fill our empty tummy.

Then we gathered back in MTC, many people were already there. Some were newbies like us, first timers, while some were all fully equipped. Later we can categorize the participants into 2 categories. Category one are those who were have been training for month, and are fighting for the finishing line. Category two are people like us, little training just wanna get pass the finishing line, and enjoy. Hehe. That night was a little havoc among the organisers, as there were lots of restless people waiting eagerly to be registed, get on the bus as we were tired, wet, and cold. After some hassle here and there, finally we got our bus number and hurried to the bus to get a comfy seat. There were like 10 buses, nice and brand new by the Terengganu gov. Very nice indeed the buses, but little did we know when we were about to enjoy our nice sleep we found out that the seat of the buses CANNOT be adjusted. Not even a little. Try imagine that, a nice comfy looking bus turned out to be the most dreaded bus anyone would ever wanna travel in. The buses were flagged of by the organisers at about midnight.

Horrible journey it was, having to sit upright for the whole 8 hours or so. Even before the race, I already had a terrible ache on the neck. As we arrived in Kuala Terengganu, the sun had risen. We could see the seaside and the some local views of KT. My first trip to the east coast, so a bit "sua ku". Everything seems fascinating even if it was just a sign "Keropok Lekor". We arrived at seaside which has a nicely built park. Toilet is what everyone was rushing for as the bus stopped. We were welcomed by big banners by the state gov and were provided with "wonderful" breakfast. Felt so honoured, like some sort of VIPs. We hanged around for breakfast for an hour or so. Then there were some speech by some BIG people of the authorities to welcome us. Then we were brought around to have a short tour around KT. We visited the Taman Tamadun Islam which has a variety of mosque followed by the State Museum.

Crystal Mosque at the back

Another view

us in the mosque in potter like robes

inner view

just another one

some other structures there

Terengganu state museum

Went travelling in the bus, i found out something interesting. The bus seems to be on the move all the time. I realised they didn't stop at traffic lights. Then i found out that there were several policemen escorting our convoy. They were there stopping all the traffic while we make our way through. Wow. People on the road were like staring at us like some sort of VIP. That's way cool. After the short tour we headed to Kuala Besut where we will be transferred to P.Perhentian.

Lunched was ready on arrival at the jetty.

After lunched, we waited for our turn to be transferred to the island. We went on speedboat which was fast as we could see them sort of floating in the air.

Speeding all the way

In the speedboat

The sight of the island were more and more visible. The sea water looked very clear. We can't wait to jump into the water. As soon as we step down on the island, registered for our tent, settle down and immediately we headed for the clear cool water. It was amazing. We could see lots of fishes swimming around.

Welcome to Perhentian

Our kayak destination

Kayaking with HL

At 4pm, we were served with some food, and briefed on the schedule. We had a little beach cleaning session just after tea. Then me, HL and some new found friends whom we met along the trip, went exploring the island a little. We went over to the other side of the island where there were more people. Then we rented kayak and went kayaking, just a little warm up before the race. Haha. It feels harder to kayak here probably due to the stronger wave here. We headed back to our campsite just in time for dinner and briefing for the race. We had Uncle Chan to reveal the race course and brief us on it. After dinner we sat by the beach chatting a little and enjoying the cool breeze as it was very hot in the tent. We jumped in to bed early that to get more rest and to prepare for the race day.

Some views of Perhentian

Discovering my limits!!

Here I am, blogging again. hmm. i wonder where all my luxurious free time went. Sneaking in in the middle of the night. I'm just rushing of some assignments and task before leaving tomorrow. I won't be around for the weekends. That's the whole idea. Getting away to Perhentian Island. Partially for the fun and relaxation, the rest of it is for the PIC2008 ( Perhentian Island Challenge ). It's a sort of physical challenges and brainteaser type questions to complete i think. But mainly the physical challenge may consist of swimming, kayaking, running, a little mountclimbing. The route is yet to be known. Will be revealed on that day itself or probably during the briefing. Something like that. The total time of completion 5 hours. I'll be partnering with HL in the team event. At least if i'm to tired to swimming, i can just float around and he pulls me along. And when i'm too tired to run, i can just hang on to him and he carries me along. I think that's a pretty good plan ain't it? Then during kayaking, I'll be sitting at the back taking some photos and giving him some morale support. Or will it be the other way round? Will find out when we comes back. Haha.

Training?? erm. that's a very good question. We did sports, mainly squash and some gym. I hope that's good enough. Fitness level ? not so to the max. I have a feeling i injured my knee during gym. and he injured his ankle during basketball. I hope it gets better on that day. Pray hard for miracle to happen. Hope our injury gets recovers fast if can give us extra boost of energy and speed and whatever it needs to win the competition. Gosh, I must be getting dreamy, I hear the bed calling to me. Well, just hope we complete within the required time, being in the top 10 would be a bonus.

Checklist : Hand gloves- checked

Cap- checked

Sun lotion- checked ( does it make any different? I wonders )

Swimming googles- checked

Water container, water carrying bag - hmm. just a bottle of water will do i guess.

Power Bar, Energy Bar, Power Gel, Chocolate- yup, got some of those power bar ( i just need those power coming in )

Sleeping bag - checked

neccessary personal belongings.... there's just so many things to bring, wondering what to leave behind.

Very well then. All set ready to go. Be taking the 3pm bus to kl, and from kl they provide transport there. PIC2008 here i come!

ponders over the theme, wondering if i discover my upper or lower limits

MidSem Break..

Just posting some past events. Summer Concert MITC. JC,Phang,Fei come down to malacca for the concert. So me and GY took turns bringing them out. That weekend was quite a tired one. I reached back home fri morn. Rested for a while then had dinner with them. Satay Celup, among the must try for those not from mlk. hehe.

getting ready

phang taking some shots

the secret ingredients *grins*

special request XXXL

irresistable

Then we headed to Jonker Walk for a stroll and see if there's any stuff to buy. It has a variety of handicrafts and cute little items. We even stop by for some local food.
Later that night, they went back to GY's place, while i had other plans. hehe. The guys called my over to beeb at first but it was about to rain so they switch to EQ lounge. My first time there. Quite a nice place to me. I ordered a mojito which seems to have the lowest alcohol content. It's sort off rum+lime juice. I liked it. Hehe. Then later the guys have not had enough. So we drop by at Pure Bar and had 2 buckets. It's indeed a great night with them.

The devil just got high @ Pure. KickAss buddies.

Bestest Buddy *cheers*

can't wait for the next outing *grins*

The following day, meet up with JC, Phang ,MFei again. Went to Cheng hoon Teng temple. Went for the famous Chicken Rice Balls for lunch which I will nvr ever go there for lunch. Cos the queue is always neverending and it's quite pricey. Then i drop them for shopping after lunch while I went home to get some stuff done. Then meet up with them for karaoke @the Jetty with some fellow campus mates. some locals some not. Seems like a little gathering in mlk.
Then came evening, getting ready for the concert. It's drizzling a little. I ask my dear sis who was so nice to drop me at MITC as i don't wanna get involve in the massive jam and problem finding parking. The concert started almost 830pm which was a little late. Various artists appeared in the concert, among some were local superstar winners, which none of them that is familiar to me at all. Then there were the more popular one like , Show, Jam, Energy, Rainie, Stanley and not forgetting Jolin. Luckily it didn't pour much. Just a little drizzle.

Some shots from the concert


Summer concert 2008

After the concert I was having a hard time calling out. Luckily still manage to get to my dad to pick me up. Arrived home safely at about 1am.
Quickly jumped into bed and caught a 2hours sleep. Got up at 3am, drove down to Seremban with dad n sis for the Seremban Half Marathon 2008. I didn't participate for the half though, just took the quarter as i didn't train much. The race started about 7am. It's a little tougher this time as they'd changed the route a little, more of hilly areas which was really taxing. Finished in about an hour. Sis was much better as she came back 4th placing in her category. *clap clap*.

View from the stadium


Seremban Half Marathon 2008

We headed back mlk and reached back about noon. Rested for a while, before i could actually enjoy my rest I need to get on the bus back to campus. Reached back campus at bout 10pm. Thx to lian who picked me up from the bus station that night.

Finally some quality rest? I doubt, had work loads pending waiting right on my desk. Sigh.. Tiring it mayb, but enjoyable is the most important making it worth the tiredness.

Paintball Fun!!

Seohli was recruiting ppl to go for paintball. I was hesitant at the beginning but after some thoughts I finally joined in. I wasn’t too sure of the location though seohli gave me the address there. I went over to the island before heading for paintball. I thought of probably meeting up with them somewhere along the Juru exit but somehow rather inconvenient. So o ended up wikimap the location and try my luck.

Permatang Tinggi

Wasn’t too bad though, get there based on the wikimap and when I’m almost there I saw banners of the paintball arena. I thought I lost my way when turning in to a narrow road which can only occupy a car at one time but glad I was when I saw the game field. I saw CS there being the first person and me being the 2nd person. While waiting for the rest I just stood by look around getting excited and can’t wait to play the game. It was something new for me though.

When the rest arrived we were all very excited to begin it. Before beginning, we actually need to fill in a form. Then seohli and choyyin busy were negotiating with the boss. He was quite a nice guy. The boss was quite firm with the price he offered. RM 280 for 2000 pellets. According to Pao whom I think was quite a frequent paintballer, said that the deal was pretty good. So we were satisfied and getting ready to start the action. 19 turned up including me. So seohli did her homework by dividing us into 4 teams. We were briefed a little on the safety of the games. We were provided with air guns, face mask, long sleeve army like shirts and vest for team recognition. We looked cool in those, but the smell was a little stinky.

There were few game fields there. One that we played has many obstacles like wood shelter, oil drums, trees which I think was pretty cool. We played among each team and tried our best to shoot the opponents down. It’s very exciting though as it’s real shooting and you will get shot unlike those in CS, where everything is virtual. Choyyin took me on the feet in the first game. *sob sob* So those got shot will need to move out of the field.

Another field is full of PVC type blown up tubes in various shapes and sizes. I find that field in harder and more challenging as you have less cover and more open to the opponent. So you really need to be good in shooting ppl down and prevent from being shot. Throughout the game Pao and Teng was really indeed very good shooters.
We finished our pellets but we still want for more. So another round of negotiating, purchased 1000 pellets and free 1000 pellets for birthday *kids*.

Towards the final game, everybody enter the field together. So it’s really madness with 20 person in it. Haha. Fun ! fun ! and lots of fun ! Shooting ppl is fun. Being shot is also fun. Haha. Some got shot on the head, on the face, arms, legs, and even close to *there* . That was close. I think the record holder for the receiving the most shot goes to Pao. He was like the undying Rambo always charge towards the enemy.

So all in we each had to pay RM 36 which I think wasn’t too expensive. After that we headed to Juru McD for dinner. Tired.

Guess who? should be an easy one. haha

HAve A bReak!!

Ok. I guess i need a break. N here i am in Penang island writing this post. Hehe. having a nice time here. Though i did study a little. Just this bit. Hehe.

So today i ended up shopping a little in Queensbay, Penang with my dear Agnes. At first we were just doing some window shopping. Checking out new stuffs, new clothings available, and the newly opened Forever 21 outlet. If i'm not wrong this is the 2nd outlet in M'sia. The first was in 1Utama. Correct me if i'm wrong. Pretty nice shop though.

Then we went to take our dinner, wondering where to eat. McD? KFC? Foodcourt? Boring... So we ended up in Old Town Cafe. So we took our orders. I ordered the curry chic rice n cold white coffee, while Anges ordered tom yam siam with crabstick n a cup of hot xi mut tea, i guess it's spelled that way. Whatever.

Here come the food, hmm. the curry chic rice was great. It's full of thick coconut milk. Although after the meal felt a little guilty. Hehe. It would take days to burn it all away. On the other hand, the tomyam taste more like the maggi mee i cook in hostel. It was just okie. One different of this is that it has dried prawns in it. Err.. One of its kind. Which doesn't taste as good. Just doesn't match the tomyam taste i guess. The coffee n tea were great anyway.

Then we went to check out some sports equipments. Cause i was planning to get a badminton racquet as i broke my current one. i just dunno how i did it but the frame just broke. I must have hit on someones head. Hehe but no one admitted. (just kidding) It cost me a hundred for that but it looks pretty durable to me. i seriously hope so. As i'm broke now, just waiting for the next deposit from ptptn. Anyway i can't wait to bring it back to try it in our next game. Guys, anytime free tomorrow?

Lastly went jusco to shop for some food to be brought back to hostel to prevent me from dying of hunger in my room. some maggi mee n instant campbell soup. I guess that's for the day. Be heading back tomorrow to continue my preparation for the exams AGAIN.. Time to sleep now. G'nite