The End is The Beginning is The End

I'm moving to Miri. I decided to take up an offer by a local giant GLC. To others, I took it because of the money. I don't blame them. The money is slightly better but I need some isolation. This is the biggest step in my career, to join new industry, still doing technical stuff at a very late age. I believe I still got the fire to move things around but wiser.

Some asked, is it the beginning of the death of my Ironman 09 dream? To be frank, I don't know either. The dream survived during the switch earlier this year, but next year new parameter will change, I won't be single anymore. Some else say, I couldn't have been nearer to nature. Oh yeah, when dive sites are just 15 minutes boat ride, great mountain and caves are just a few hours drive, I don't think there is one sided attraction. It does make me smile somehow.

My last great adventure was at PD on July 22nd. My unofficial time was 3:13:01'. I arrived late. I didn't managed to arrange my transition area, just unpack, grabbed my goggles and swim cap, and just waited for my category start which was the 2nd after the elite groups. The elite group was postpone from the earlier day due to bad weather. 33 minutes shore to shore swim was beyond my target. Perhaps the shallow water run that caused lactic accumulation at the beginning of the swim helped to reduced the time. During the swim, I experienced weird phenomenon where the water temperature was warm at certain spot and cold at the other. My theory is due to the marina water didn't flow into the open sea but somehow everyone complained about it. I'm not sure whether does that affect my swim but it really gave me a spooky feeling.

I spent close to 2 minutes at T1. Again my top is hard to put on. Cycling shoes were on the floor rather than my original plan to ready it on the pedal. My legs feel great as I swam totally front crawl compared to 70% breaststroke in Kenyir. I cycled and paced carefully not 'reach the wall' at the first half of the cycle. I avoided drafting for fear of gasping for air too early until after the u-turn. There was a 2-man train lead by a guy in Loius Garneau aero helmet. I jumped and drafted them. When they paced down, I offered to take the lead but they felt a bit behind only tochase me a few minutes later. So I believe they liked me to be on the train. I followed them only up to the only roundabout where I lighted my gear to pedal higher cadence and ready for the run. 1:26:46' bike time.

Remounting my bike was a problem due to the ATMA guy next to me really invade my rack. Anyway, I really need to catch my breath at T2. I was surprised to see my 2 bottles on the bike still not empty. I just grabbed the ORS and Powergel sachet and start moving my ass. I told myself, it's a long way, just take the time to let the lactic from cycling to dissolve. After about 2nd km, my stride extended and I felt a little lighter. When I reached the 5km U-turn, I checked my watch, 28 minutes!! It can't be seriously 5km. I got excited and elongate my stride but soon I started to feel my legs resisting. I gasped my spare Powergel in hope for some NOS or Warp speed but to my disappointment it never came. Once the muscle spasm almost catching me, I stopped for a stretch about 3km before the finish line. I took a deep breath then and take myself to finish line in my best time in 2nd attempt to do Olympic Distance triathlon.

Long after the race during dinner time I received the news of the death of a fellow triathlete, a PCC cyclist, former RMC Old Putra, 55 years old in his first triathlon attempt due to drowning. Some triathlete might not agree with me to finger point, but what I can't accept is why it took until end of the race when he did not claimed his bike only we realized he had drowned? Why our attendance whether or not we started the race at the swim was taken, just like normal run race? Where were the rescuer on jetski like last year? I don't like the bad limelight on the sport that I love either but I have to say the situation was not acceptable. No one can make death wait for him/her but how the death was treated is a big question to the people that still survived.

The race was won by a Hongkie in mens' elite and our star Kimberly Yap in women. However, the success wasn't followed by fellow Malaysian footballer. We fell short to be the most disgraced host nationed. We blamed everyone but us for the shame. What have we done to improve our level of football. We kept our kids at home with PlayStation rather than boots or gloves, we begged politician to lead football association rather than someone with football vision, we fed ourselves and our children with junk food rather than nutritious food where shorties japanese grow up, we just grew obese. Where were we when the our players were humiliated on the field? We were never with them but we demanded so much from them.