Splash Eco X-Treme Selangor 2002

Sixxis One and Two Reporting…Still Alive

Cluck! Cluck! Cluck! The Mother Hen Strikes Again......

Never knowing what actually cross our insane minds but somehow, we all got conned, deluded, duped, hoodwinked (you get the idea!) into joining the Eco Most X-treme series for the year, the 12-18 hour challenge at Kuala Selangor!! And since being the Mother Hen that I am, I'm once again relegated (actually maybe I self nominate myself) the duty of getting everyone together for training, preparation, logistics, registration etc etc. And since I was having such a hard time splitting the 6 of us into 2 groups, I decided to come up with the great idea of having all 6 of us training and racing together instead. Sure, it might cause us some delay and such but what the heck! Just thought it'll be more fun as the saying goes, the more, the merrier, and that proves to be true.

Anyway, I set out a training plan for all of us to train together once a week, in the hope that all of us can get together to 1) train up on the different disciplines involved in the race and 2) to foster camaraderie amongst all of us so that we won't get a shock seeing the "Mr Hyde" in all of us on the actual race day. And for this race, we have the honour of de-flowering a virgin adventure racer, none other than the oldest member in the group, Ronnie Ng. At a proud age of 44, he can still beat most, if not all of us, in our 2.4km timing so go figure how fit he is! Also, he'd raced in 3 ironman triathlons in his lifetime and since that's something that I'll never do in my lifetime, my kudos to him.

Anyways, here was the training plan that took us to the race day :

Training Session 1 - Pengerang Bike Ride + Orienteering Training

Our first training was biking at Pengerang. Was trying to put some mileage into our biking legs as well as to tune up our orienteering skills by getting ourselves lost in the oil palm plantations and trying to get ourselves out in one piece using a GPS.

We had good fun getting really lost and getting badly cut while bashing through a big field of tall lalangs. And we were getting quite desperate after a while because we were really stuck and wasn't able to find out way out. However, good that our sense of humour kept up with us and we could still crack silly jokes and laugh the whole time.

However, the return journey on the road wasn't so funny after all as I ended up with cramps and Ling unknowingly cycled a total of 10km on a flat tire without realising it.

Training Session 2 - Night Run at Bukit Timah Bike Trail

The second training was for us to try trail running at night (since most of our race will be in the dark) at the Bukit Timah bike trail on a weekday. It was quite an awesome experience, trying to avoid twisting our ankles and falling over stones and pebbles. At the end of the 8km run, Ling developed really bad blisters from trying to break into her new Salomon shoes for the first time while I twisted my ankle slightly. However, it was quite a hilarious run as everyone was afraid of the dark and was trying hard not to get left behind (encase kena catch by pontianak). And with all our torches swinging to and fro, half of us got really giddy at the end of the run looking at the lights. We all then ended the session with a big Teochew porridge dinner for some team bonding.

Training Session 3 - Stairs Climbing & Kayaking at East Coast

The weekend training is followed by stairs climbing and kayaking. We decided to torture the residents at Marine Parade by climbing up and down their point blocks...hee!hee! Who tell them to have the best view in Singapore??

We scaled the 25-storey block for a total of 6 times (thanks to the sadomasochistic suggestion by our Superman Swee Haw!). We took turns to lead the pace and by the end of the 6th climb, I'm completely drenched in perspiration and my legs were wobbly and giving way beneath me. We then had a quick drink and proceeded for our kayaking training.

Colin and myself tried our best to give some pointers to Swee Haw and Ronnie and we practiced some drills like forming a raft, capsizing, rescue and the basics of effective kayaking. It was refreshing being in the water after such a hot day and the capsize drill was fun, though SH might think otherwise.

Training Session 4 - Pre-Dawn Mountain Biking at Bukit Timah/

One With Nature/ Mandai + Climbing Bukit Timah Hill

The next crazy idea that I came up with for the team was for us to try mountain biking in the dark (just in case we have to do it during the race).

We met at an ungodly hour of 5am and started biking through Bukit Timah trail. It was quite tough for me as my mini-light wasn't enough for me to see where I'm going and I ended up taking some falls and even broke my lights. Ling was smart enough to bring the Night Rider for herself and she tried her best to light the way for all of us.

Dawn started to break when we reached the One with Nature trail and we had a scary encounter with the fattest and biggest snake I've ever seen. We are still debating whether it's an overweight python or a boa constrictor. Good thing it had it's meal before it met us (a tortoise) or else one of us might end up being inside it's stomach instead.

We then trudged along happily once more and met up with Seung (who was sane enough not to join us earlier) in Mandai and carried on from there. While negotiating this little tricky single track trail at Mandai, both Seung and Ronnie took a pretty bad fall and Ronnie even did an endo and ended in the bushes. Sueng ended up with pretty bad scratches (to be continued at the next ride in Penang) but still we went on.

After about 3 and a half hours of biking, just when we were about to end the biking leg, disaster struck! Colin, not used to being on his bike since he only rides like once a year?, suddenly developed bad cramps in his thighs. He had to stop and tried to make the cramps go away but it wouldn't! He had to slowly push his bike to the end point and all of us tried to massage him and such but still do no good. Oh...oh....doesn't bode very well for the race and was hoping that he wouldn't suffer the same during the race.

Despite all that, I still had to do the dirty job of forcing everyone to climb up the Bukit Timah hill even though I'm facing huge resistance and temptation from the rest. I literally had to shoo everyone to get on their feet and start the climb. As Colin was still cramping up, we decided to let him take his time to make his way up while the rest of us carried on.  

Halfway through, another disaster struck and this time round, it's Ling with cramps! This is the first time I've seen it happened to Ling. Maybe it's due to all the hard cranking that she does when she bikes. But anyway, she also decided to take an alternative route up while the rest of us suffer the long stairway to heaven to the top. At the top, we waited for everyone to re-group and had a long chit chat before we made our way down to a hearty meal of Johnson Duck.

Training Session 5 - Ropes Training at Holland Grove Longkang (or canel for the uninitiated)

As some of us were desperate to train on our ropes skills since the race demanded us to do so, we then set up another session to learn our abseiling and traversing. Ling managed to borrow a set of ropes from her kind friend and after checking out several area, we decided to conduct our rope course at the huge canal near Ronnie's place. We did this in the dark, which made it more challenging for all of us.

After everyone had their turn and had sufficient refresher on the ropes, we were greeted with great hospitality aka green bean soup by Ronnie's lovely wife at their lovely abode.

Training Session 6 - Penang Jamboree Weekend Ride / Powerman Race

Ling, Rebecca & Yap decided to train more on our biking by making a weekend trip to the Penang Jamboree Epic Ride while Ronnie decided to torture himself at the Powerman Race at KL.

We had a lot of fun though it was really tough but I seriously thought that the ride actually gave me a lot more confidence on my bike, which definitely helped at lot during the race. I found my strength back once again on my bike and was glad about it.

Anyways, for more details of the Penang Jamboree ride, please refer to write-up at the Team Absolut website (free advertisement). Not sure what the rest of the team members did during that weekend but we shan't go there, should we?

Training Session 7 - Ropes Training (Again??) at Holland Grove Longkang On Halloween Night

And no! It wasn't meant to scare anyone but we were 'kan-chiong' when we read about the requirements of the ropes testing and realised that we've forgotten to do a refresher on climbing. So once again, taking the opportunity that Ronnie was having his Halloween Party at this place, we all made our way there for some yummy ghoulish food before proceeding to our beloved longkang for more training. Ling arrived, trying to dress up for the occasion (as a guerrilla terrorist?) only to be pissed to learn that she's been played out by the rest of us who didn't.

Sorry about that......