The Merry Running Convoy Batch No. 1 consisted of me and John hit the road South bound in John's car on Wednesday night as I had a medical appointment at Mt. Elizabeth Hospital the next morning while John had a business meeting. We set off from the house with approximately 8 loose luggages in the car. Two persons and eight bags, that's right. The plus point about a road trip is, you could enjoy the luxury of taking whatever you want with you without any hassle of check in luggage. Hence, we literally dumped everything into the car and sped off. It was a nice cruise as the traffic was smooth at night and I was enjoying the deejaying part in the car. The fact was, I packed a small bag of approximately 15 CDs to be played during the journey. The truth was, John disliked my 'oldies songs' - he did not find CCR's music magical like I do. The outcome was, after an hour or so he ended up listening to his Canto Pop while I plugged in my huge earphones and blasted CCR's classic rock. We find it anti-social after a while and compromised for some Kazuyoshi Saito's songs. We passed Gelang Patah around 12 midnight. We were optimistic about our timely arrival and thought perhaps we could play some Monopoly games with Elliot before we retired to bed. After the immigration check point, we went down to purchase the Autopass. I was busy filling up the form when suddenly the personnel came to us and said "Excuse me, sir, I think you did not renew your road tax." I darted a look towards John's direction and gave him an expression which delivered the message "Go and check". I continued to fill in the form and thought this must be a misunderstanding. 30 seconds later John came back and gave me a stare which spelled "She is right, the road tax has expired" and I gave him a look which could be translated as "You are so dead...I am so going to kill you, idiot!". Despite the uprising of the tumult in my stomach and the strong urge to strangle John on the spot, I managed to keep my composure. We did our feeble attempts to persuade the officers to let us pass nonetheless, but alas, Singaporeans are straighter than the ruler and there would not be any rules bending for us. The officer mercilessly stumped the stamp "VOID" on our entry pass and commanded us to make a u-turn back to Johor Bahru. At this point, rain started to pour like cats and dogs as if to make a statement to celebrate our dopey faux pas. We had to go through at least 6 (or was it 8?) manual gates to make the u turn back. I was struck in awe and unable to believe the mockery which just happened to us. However, there was no time to unleash my fury at that time as decisions needed to be made immediately. As we were at the second link and the only hotel I knew in Senai is Sofitel, the first decision was to drive to Sofitel to figure out the parking and the transport issues. A few phone calls were made to determine whether there were any other alternative plans. After some off-track wandering around a dark industrial area searching in vain for the hotel based on misconceived google map directions and after some panic attack ensued from Serena's sms which warned us not to stop even if any vehicle hit us, we finally arrived at Sofitel (which is now known as Le Grandeur). We arranged for the car to be parked at the hotel's parking lot for 4 days at RM75 and got a cab to pick us from Sofitel and send us to Singapore at RM250. Arrangements were also made for the road tax to be paid first thing the next morning and to be sent to Viki's house (who would be travelling from KL to JB the next morning) so we could pick it up from her. After transferring all baggages into the cab, there was a verbal exchange of only one word......"Seriously" ended with question mark and then exclamation mark. We finally reached Elliot's house at Eunos around 4 a.m. Exhaustion set in and by virtue of the exhaustion, John's life was spared.
After watching the Lion King on Friday, we followed Viki's car back to Senai to pick up the car (with the road tax this time of course) and drove back to Singapore. After passing the immigration and the custom successfully, we were thrilled that we had finally entered Singapore as per the original plan. By the time we reached Elliot's home, it was already 1.30 a.m. When we entered, some one leaped from behind the wall and surprised us. John's friend, Jamie flew in from Hong Kong to surprise him. Hence, Jamie (who never run before and never trained before ) was going to run the half marathon 'illegally' with John and Elliot. I sensed fun...lots of fun...
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| The orgasmic egg at Hide Yamamoto |
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| Carbo loading with Pork Back Ribs |
The Sundown Half Marathon was scheduled to flag off at 8 p.m. sharp. I intended to meet up with Jo and Noor at the starting point around 6.30 p.m. I had not been having sufficient sleep for the past few days and decided to take a short nap for one hour after I came back from lunch and tea at Ku De Ta and set my alarm at 5.30 without realizing that I had set the time as 'am' instead of 'pm'. By the time I woke up it was already 6 and we hurried out and hailed a cab around 6.15 p.m. Despite my repeating clarifications with the cab driver that we wanted to go to Changi Exhibition Centre and not Singapore Expo, the cab driver sent us to the wrong place i.e. Singapore Expo. By the time we realized it was the wrong venue, it was too late to hail another cab. We spotted some runners and followed them onto the shuttle bus to Changi Exhibition Centre. It was 6.45 p.m then. Well, there was more than an hour before the flag off time, everything would be fine...so I thought. When the bus moved in a snail pace as we neared Changi, an uneasy feeling crept up. When I saw the standstill traffic ahead, I began to panic. A fury of exchange of messages took place between the me, Jo, Noor and Yam. Some Lamaze-inspired breathing technique was also adopted in a futile attempt to keep my cool. When it hit 7.45 p.m and the starting point was no where to be seen, I was convinced that my ashen face was kind of intimidating which prompted John to ask the obvious "Are you pissed?". I started to do some warm up exercises on the bus and consumed my energy gel. The runners in the bus had became more agitated and suddenly one after another walked down from the bus and started running towards the starting point. We of course followed the bandwagon of panicked runners and started to slow jog, run, walk, slow jog towards nowhere in particular. After about a km walk we saw the distance marker on the other side of the road which said "19km" - which means there was another 2km walk for us. I babbled a splutter of vulgarity and cursing throughout the walk. We finally arrived at the starting line, deposited our baggage, went to the toilet and started off.....more than 25 minutes after the gun off time.
I was suffocating in the puff of fumes due to the emission of smoke, gas, debris and heat from the long queue of vehicles getting in and getting out of the starting line. The run of luck of having a downpour before the run like what happened at ENR escaped me this time around. The humid weather coupled with the evaporation of heat from the ground and emission of fumes from the vehicles drained me thoroughly. My body was steaming hot (so was my temper) and I was dying of thirst. Thank God that whatever Sundown lacked in the blessings of good weather, the organizer made it up with sufficient hydration stations every 2 km along the running route. God knows how many times I thanked Him when the volunteers handed me two cups of icy cool 100 plus at the first water station.
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| The 3 musketeers did it! |
I felt better this time compared to ENR. My ankle was not hurting that much and the ample supply of 100 plus and water helped tremendously. I was going on a comfortable pace without pushing my body and feet too hard. I rewarded myself with 1 minute walking after each water stations. I stopped and stretched my calves and left ankle. Perhaps due to the agitation earlier I seemed to have pumped up some reserve energy tank. However, when I reached the 18km mark, my left ankle was hurting badly and I was forced to stop and walk. Then, I saw a man in front of me doing brisking walking with two climbing sticks. I thought to myself, gosh, it would really look bad on me if I cross the finish line behind this man. No, the
kiasuness in me was awaken and triggered, I picked up my pace and ran ignoring the pain. At the last 500 meter, I sprinted with all my might!! My whole body was scorching hot and I was adrift in rush of adrenaline to the extent that I actually said "No, thank you." when the volunteer handed me my finishers' medal. Of course, I quickly took the medal when I realised what it actually was.
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Feigning victorious smile
despite in deep pain |
I found Noor and Jo and we waited for a long time for John and Jamie. Elliot had apparently finished but we only met him later. The typical camwhoring started but in a lesser degree as Jo was not feeling and the rest of us were exhausted and hungry. Jamie was limping all the way to the taxi stand. His facial expression was contorted in pain but nevertheless managed to pull himself together to stand straight and beam a victory smile when the camera was aimed at him. We waited at the taxi stand for a long time. Elliot was trying to call for cab but of no avail. Jamie and Jo were down and sitting at the side. I started to change into my dry clothes regardless of public viewing.
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| Soldier down |
We couldn't get any cab and finally squeezed ourselves into a sardine-packed shuttle bus heading to Changi Village. We thought it would be easier to get a cab there. I was however super hyper in the bus and started taking photos of everyone. We came down from the bus and within 5 minutes managed to get a cab. We let Jo and Noor go first as Jo was not feeling well. After that first cab which arrived by sheer of luck, there was no cab at all - all cabs were HIRED or BUSY or ON CALL. I was standing by the road side and jumping up and down frantically to get a cab. Few nice cabs actually stopped and told me they could not take us as they were on call. It was after more than an hour before we finally got a cab. Jamie, acting with his last wisp of strength literally threw himself onto the middle of the road and blocked a cab despite traffic behind. With relief, we finally climbed onto the cab heading home. We had bought some take-out and despite the burnt smell in the kuey teow, it was the most satisfying meal I have had in a long time.
The fun of making fun of Jamie began that night....and did not end there.....
It was a dramatic trip - with the road tax faus pax et all. But it was fun and memorable.
I suppose when you are surrounded with good friends, it would always ended up fun and memorable no matter what you have to go through. The 3 musketeers think running is boring and said that they preferred basketball. Maybe they are right. Running is relatively boring when compares with other sports like cycling, futsal etc. That does not diminish my passion and love for running. In fact,
it is the solitude of running which made me so addictive to it. It is a sport whereby your only competitor and enemy is yourself. You race against yourself and you want to come out a better person after each run. There is no team mate for you to point finger at and whatever accomplishment you attain, it is yours, all yours. And to be able to do it with a group of good friends, supporting each other at the starting point and the finish line, with good spirits and humour, make each running episode, a fun one filled with laughters.
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