Of Raining and Blazing the Trails at Genting

Saturday Morning Ride

I knew some people had to abandon their plan on Saturday morning due to the rain. The drizzling sound of the rain outside that morning made my mind ponder whether I would have to ditch my ride. My mind travelled back to the previous weekend where our brick session was called off due to the rain. My only consolation that morning, the rain started early and hopefully it would stop by 7.30 am to 8 am for the planned ride with the Bkt Jelutong Cycling Club (BJCC) to be materialized. By now, I had learnt from the senior riders that riding in a rain, though drizzling, is dangerous. A text from my riding colleague confirmed that, i.e. the team captain of BJCC decided that the ride will proceed if the rain stops by 9 am.

By 7.30 am the drizzling continued with an intermittent heavy downpour. The sky still covered with the grey cloud. Shoved my Merrie into my MPV and off I went to BJ. Along the way I received a text, which essentially conveyed the message, Rain=2, Diket =0. I knew exactly how the Langat Riders felt that morning but I could not help myself from replying back with a “poyo” message to the sender about the BJCC planned ride though at that point of time it was very much contingent upon the weather. In fact the ride was almost called off. The weather, with God’s blessing, stopped a few minutes before 9 am and it stayed that way till about 9.20 am whilst the group waited for another BJCC rider who accepted the lambong to join the ride.

As for the ride itself, no fancy stuff due to the late start. We completed 46km of GCE and the highlights were 2 punctures (of both the front and rear tyres) suffered by a newbie (what a bad day for him). Unlike my first 2 rides where I had no spare tubes, I donated my spare tube for his second puncture and made full use of my pump, which at the tail end of the ride got crushed by a lorry when it fell from my bike. So, the planned ride done and the best thing for the week had been reserved for Sunday, the next day.

The Genting Trailblazers 2010 - What a Blast!

Without any doubt, this was the much awaited event of the RBUs and many runners. With few earlier lambongs in blogs and FBs not forgetting the Team Clowns declaration of war, plan was laid out for this event starting from the travelling part. The meeting point was Petronas Taman Melati. For the fear of reaching there late, me and Zack made our move from Shah Alam around 4.35am and with a leisure drive reached the meeting point a few minutes after 5 am. Ray arrived shortly after that. Diket and Det were already there waiting for their orders at the counter of McD with a fierce or “mengelamun face” (u can pick and choose either one). One by one the other RBUs arrived, Ijam, Nik, Shuk, Syed and Shanaz, Syah, Jaja and her partner Mas. Done our breakfast and subuh prayers and we convoy up to Awana Genting Highlands like a scene of the “Initial D” touge battle with Shuk aka Takumi Fujiwara leading the pack.

Left - Sahur for puasa sunat or puasa ganti ni? (Pic courtesy of Ijam)

Right - Ready for the Tmn Melati - Awana Touge Battle (Pic courtesy of Diket)

With many RBUs around (Ian and secret tapi dah tak secret partner Yim and Che, who spent the night before at genting), the lambong and cam whoring sessions were continuing almost non-stop and lets just hope that you had not been caught off guard by some of them with camera in the hands.

Teams RBU (pic courtesy of Diket)

The Men Open category was the first to be gun off at 8.30am. My strategy was simple, to pace myself to last the course. Me and my team mate Zack, started with a comfortable pace and tried not to be sucked into the pace of the other runners. By the way, from the word GO, all the other RBU teams disappeared from my radar (sungguh mantop and power dia org semua ni). Not knowing what would be in store for us, I think we just did the correct approach by not trying to outdo our ability in attacking the earlier inclines.

I was not sure whether we were in the back pack or in the middle pack but my main indicator was effort level. Trying to keep pace with the front guys would be futile if it end up you bonk before finishing. When I went through the first HUGE climb, I was somehow relieved with the pace that I had restricted myself into at the earlier stage and managed to tackle it without stopping for long breather. It was a long que anyway and I was never “a podium potential” to ask people to move aside in those tight line of a single track inclining trail unless there was a clear room for overtaking.

It was during the second HUGE climb (after crossing the second stream) that I had drained out almost all of my energy. The slippery and steep track extracted all juice of energy that my body could produce. Along the way I sort of wish that I had brought along my power gel, in the hope of attaining the second wind. Looking from another perspective, I was at least had enough water for rehydration when some people did not even have a proper rehydration opportunity with no water station along the way save at KM11 (which I think was too far and too late). On that score I am not going to whine about not having the luxury of downing a power gel for this race.

After another substantial climb, came the obstacles stage of the race. This was where it tested not only the physical ability of the participants but their guts as well. Hence you could see some people hesitated to jump into and played in the muddy pools. We managed to finish the run at position no 80 of Men Open Category with a hand timed of 2 hr 22 minutes. Not too shabby I guess and most importantly it was fun….as someone has said before “sakit tapi sedappp (bila dah habis lah)” :D

The post race lambongs and cam whoring continued with the additional members of RBU gang specially driven from Klang to Genting, F1 style by our Kak June with Deo, Kak Justiffa and Azza in tow. Zarin @ Tsar was already there with us before the gun off. You guys should be at the startling line for GT 2011 OK :D. We were in full force cheering Jaja and Mas coming back to the base. Well done ladies!

After the Mud Battle (Pic courtesy of Diket)

The grand finale of the action packed day was the Birthday makan-makan party for the October Birthday boys i.e. Diket and Nik and coincidently they were team mates for this GT and finished ranking no.1 among the RBU teams. Congrats! My appreciation as well to those who had contributed the foods and drinks for the party. You guys ROCKS! (macam rambut Ray, rock kapak wa cakap luuuu)

Bagai Pinang dibelah Kapak, tetap manis hehe (pic courtesy of Yim)

It was an awesome race with awesome peeps having simple but awesome party for everybody to end the day with a high note. Now peeps, get back to training with PBIM and Powerman just around the corner ! :D