The Lust To Punish; The Reluctance To Forgive

This lately I'm seeing a fair number of posts on facebook about Edi Rejang, the man who's become famous because of the "Beer Incidence". I'm seeing all the good people just itching to punish Edi because he's a racist, and they are tired of his bullshit.

Edi has since admitted his mistake and apologized to the female beer promoter in the hypermarket. However, the story did not end there. The criticisms against him had intensified. What's more, he has been fired from his job. Way too many people are of the opinion that he deserved the punishment; he had it coming. There is no place in Malaysia for a racist like Edi.

Now this may come as a big surprise to some of you, but actually we have many, many people in Malaysia who're racist. They come from all walks of life including highly educated people, even political leaders. Yes, you better believe it! But not all of them have received the same punishment as Edi.

Whenever we see someone doing something bad, there is the tendency to punish; and the strange thing is that sometimes it seems like no amount of punishment will satisfy us. No amount of admitting to his mistake; no amount of apologies from him will be acceptable. All we want is to strike back really hard, because the wrongdoer needs to be taught a good lesson, you see.

I suspect that many of those who're punishing Edi are convinced that they have never made any mistake in life. But I hate to break it to them—none of us are immune from making mistakes. Sooner or later, we will make at least some mistakes, and those mistakes will one way or another, hurt other people, perhaps even our loved ones.

The err is human, the forgive is divine

The thing is that when we take on the role of the punisher, we try very hard to impose the worst kind of punishment that we can think of; and there is that peculiar reluctance to forgive.

Truth be told, because all of us are liable to make mistakes sometimes, all of us deserve a second chance. If we deserve any punishment, let it be quick, and then get over with it. Forgive and forget. I have always said that it takes a great courage to admit one's mistakes and apologize for them. But it takes an even greater courage to forgive others. How about we try to be brave, and forgive him for his mistake. After all, he has been punished; I think he gets the idea.

I know that many people are unwilling to forgive. They do not realize that one of these days, their turn will come to make mistakes, and they will be the ones seeking forgiveness from others.

Ironman Malaysia 2018 (IMMY)

One fine day, a little over half a year ago my friend, Pamela Fletcher, invited me for a yam-cha session. She arrived fully equipped with a notebook and a laptop like a journalist. Gave me quite a surprise, she did. She was seeking my advice on racing the Ironman in Langkawi, and I spent a good hour or so sharing with her what I knew about the Ironman. The truth is that I'm not an expert; but if you are just an average person with a full-time job, attempting your first Ironman race, it's not such a bad idea to seek advice from a person like me.

The advice that I can offer will most probably suit people like Pam, because I myself am not a professional triathlete—I have a full-time job and constantly struggle to juggle between work commitments, family and social life and my training programme. Way too often professional coaches come up with the kind of training programmes that are just impossible to adhere to for ordinary folks like us. But I have always been a firm believer of the fact that any average person can finish an Ironman race within the cutoff time of 17 hours. The two main ingredients are 1) time and discipline to carry out the training; and 2) mental strength on the race day.

I've known Pam for many years now, and I must admit that I had my doubts of her making the cut for the Ironman. I had no doubt of her mental strength, of course, but I wasn't sure about her discipline when it comes to the training. I somehow had the impression that she's perpetually full of interruptions when it comes to her training, but I guess that's all she could do.

We arrived at the start line of the Ironman Malaysia race in Langkawi, i.e. the swim of 3.8km comprising 2 loops of triangular-shaped course. I met Pam shortly before the flag off. Mia was also racing, although she was only racing the half distance, 70.3. I've never been a very good swimmer, and I took about 1:35 minutes to finish the swim. But about 500m before the finish, there was a storm, and the sea became very rough, and it was much more of a struggle to reach the shore.

Another friend, Marzuki Nasir, was racing his first Ironman, and before the race, every now and then he'd ask me about this and that. He trained very hard for the race, losing perhaps over 10kg within 4 months. He improved his swim substantially. But of course, as in the case of most triathletes, there is always insufficient run training, I don't know why.

Marzuki was asking me about Transition 1 (after the swim), and I told him that it's just a huge enclosed tent where the whole crowd would be. Yes, some people would change into fresh dry clothes after the swim, and there is no privacy; they will just strip off everything in full view of everybody else. I told Marzuki not to look, of course, because otherwise he would lose his appetite for weeks after that.

As I was putting on my shoes, Quentin was there shouting something about me not telling the truth. But it was a noisy crowd, and I didn't bother to find out what he was saying. I calmly put on a cycling jersey and ran out to my bike. There, my heart sank as I saw most of the bikes were already gone, thus indicating that I had a lot of catching up to do.

Shortly after I left T1, I arrived at the hilly Datai section of the bike course. It was still raining cats and dogs. I remained true to my game plan, which was to pedal uphill slowly. Just about halfway up the first hill, I saw Anslem coming down from the opposite direction. I'd estimate he was probably about half an hour ahead of me by then.

Later that morning, the rain stopped and then the sun came back with a vengeance—it was scorching hot until I could feel the heat biting into my skin. After a long sector of mainly flat and mildly undulating roads, I finally arrived at the 3 hills. From the foot of that hill, I saw the procession of cyclists pushing their bikes uphill. I merely shifted to my lightest gear, and took my time pedalling up the slope. Then there was another hill, and another. As I was just reaching the top of the third hill, I saw Samantha Lee pushing her bike. Just a quick "Hi" and then I was enjoying the downhill portion. But then we had to repeat the entire loop to make the 180km.

As I progressed further and further into the bike leg, I felt increasingly tired. But I had expected that anyway. You see, before this race, I did the 70.3 Bintan; and then Ironman Taiwan. These were tough races to me, and they're just weeks apart. I felt like I had insufficient time to recover. Accordingly, I felt my bike getting heavier and heavier all the time. But actually, little did I know, I was losing air pressure in my front tyre. I didn't realise that there was a very tiny puncture.

At Transition 2, as I was changing my shoes, Quentin was there again. I had the shrewd suspicion that his main reason for joining the race was just to stalk me, not to finish the race; I should hire some thugs to beat him up one of these days! He was shouting from across the changing tent, "Why so slow?". I was waiting for him mah!

It was still very hot when I embarked on the 42.2km run. It wasn't really a run; more like a very slow jog. At roughly 6km into my run, I saw Anslem coming from the opposite direction. At that point, he was perhaps about an hour ahead of me. Since the beginning of the race, I haven't seen Marzuki and the rest of my Sabahan friends. But later I saw Bonaventure. He was at that point fast catching up with Anslem.

As I was approaching the turning point at Cenang, I finally saw Marzuki coming from the other direction. But it took me perhaps another half an hour before I finally overtook him along the road leading back to the MIEC. My legs felt very heavy, and I was getting very exhausted. Somewhere along that stretch of road, I saw Pam running, evidently she has survived the bike leg of the race!

Before long, it was already nightfall, and on the second visit to Cenang, I finally caught up with Anslem. He was already walking then, and I slowed down to a walk too. We walked together for some distance, and he suggested that we should just keep walking for the rest of the distance. But doing some rough calculations in the head, I was horrified by the thought that we would have to walk for 2.5 hours to reach the finish line. Accordingly I resumed my slow jog again. Counting in my head, 1-2-3-4-5....I kept going up to 500, before I rewarded myself with a walking rest of 60-70 steps. Then I repeated the whole cycle again and again.

The last few kilometres of the race was the most punishing. I felt like there was nothing left in my legs. By then even a slow jog of a mere 50m needed a Herculean effort. I began to wonder if I would even reach the finish line.

Ordinarily, I would run the last homestretch to the finish line. But on this occasion, I was just too exhausted, I could hardly walk, let alone run the final few metres. I merely walked unsteadily; I looked down to the ground and had to struggle to stay on my feet.

It was the ugliest finish of all my Ironman races, but my main priority then was just to cross the forsaken finish line. In the end I did it in 14:47. After receiving my finisher medal and towel, I sat on a plastic chair to catch my breath. And oh boy, I felt like I was having a heart attack—my heart rate was over the roof, and my legs felt like jelly. It was just pathetic, I tell you!

After a long time, Anslem arrived at the finish line with his brother Victor. It was then that I found out from Anslem that Quentin had abandoned the race after the bike leg. I must admit that the thought of quitting did cross my mind too, because of the extreme exhaustion. Marzuki did it in 15:10, a very respectable time for a first timer, especially in a course like Langkawi. I was overwhelmed by exhaustion that I didn't have the appetite to eat. After a long rest, I had some soup and an icepop. Then I collected my street bag and finisher T-shirt. 10 minutes later, I reached the hotel room.

Mia had hours ago finished her race, and actually achieved a huge PB. She would usually struggle to beat the cutoff time of 8:30, and she's had several DNFs too. Even if she did beat the cutoff, it would be just by a matter of less than 5 minutes. But today she finished in 7:50, an improvement of more than half an hour!

I had a shower and got ready for bed. It was way past midnight, and I was dead tired. And then it suddenly occurred to me, what has happened to Pam? Accordingly I grabbed my cellphone and launched the tracking app. Pam was still racing out there and she had a few kilometres left to run in the dying minutes of the race. As the minutes ticked away, my sleepiness disappeared, and my heart rate began to shoot through the roof again. Come on Pam, you can do it!

The tracking app kept loading new estimated finishing times for Pam. At first, the estimated finish was a DNF (did not finish). God dammit, run faster lah Pam! Then the estimate changed to just barely making the cutoff. Then it changed back again to DNF. And again to making the cutoff. Oh for heaven's sake, don't do this to me, Pam! At long last, the official result was that Pam did it within the 17 hours cutoff with a little shy of 4 minutes to spare. For the second time that night, I almost died of a heart attack; all my finger nails were gone by then. I had the right mind to run to the finish line to strangle Pam to death, maybe at least break her leg or bite her nose, but unfortunately I was just too exhausted to do all those.

 Speaking of the devil...

In the end, all Sabahan participants in both the full and half distances finished within their respective cutoff times. Congratulations y'all, especially to the first-timers. It was in that sense a victorious day for Sabahans, and I bet this will spur on many other Ironman wannabes to attempt the Langkawi race next year.

After all the months of training and race day excitement, it all boiled down to this medal.

I have done 3 Langkawi Ironman races, and I shall keep the option open for next year. It's been such an exhausting year from me. Time to take a 2-week break before resuming training for my next race.

The Wrong Reason

A friend told me the story of her friend, a mother of 3 in her late thirties. I don't intend to dwell on the full detail of her life story, not that I know very much of it anyway. But in a nutshell, what I know is that her husband divorced her for a younger and sexier woman after about 10 years of marriage. Apparently, she started gaining weight after having her first child, and the pounds kept adding up over the years.

After the divorce, however, she was determined to teach her ex-husband a good lesson. She started exercising regularly and watched her diet, and over a period of almost 2 years, lost all the weight she'd gained to become a slender woman once again. I neither know her nor have met her in person. According to my friend, when the ex-husband saw her recently, he seemed to have regretted divorcing her. I wonder if his second wife has also gained too much weight by now? I don't know the truth of this story, but I can't help thinking that it sounds a lot like something that has been extracted from a book.

Anyway, I suspect that this is the kind of story that many, many women would love to hear; there is that sense of triumphant ending for the woman. But while I'm happy that she now has a healthy, lean body once again, I'm rather sad that she's having that healthy body for the wrong reason. I mean, it's obviously the right reason for her; but not to me.

The story reflects what's going on in the heads of many women. I said "many", not "all". I just feel that the reason for wanting a lean body should be, first and foremost, for the health benefits, i.e. with the hope of keeping diseases at bay for as long as possible. All too often women go through a lot of pain and sacrifice by dieting and exercising mainly because they want to look pretty and sexy. But once they are married and the "hunting season" is off, they no longer take care of themselves. There is no control on food intake, and there is very little time spared for exercise, if any. The most common excuse is that they don't have the time to exercise, and they always eat more because they need the extra energy, especially if they have children. So it is inevitable that they would gain weight sooner or later.

Yet, in the case of my friend's story above, she was able to take steps to reduce weight, thus indicating that if she had really wanted to maintain a healthy body weight, she could, but chose not to. Why only take the trouble to lose weight to teach the ex-husband a lesson? Why not do it for herself? For if one keeps a healthy body weight for oneself, one is likely be able to keep off the pounds for good. But if one is only doing it for others, sooner or later the dam will burst, and it will be downhill thereafter—the weight will just keep adding up.

Being fat or obese is usually the starting point of many health complications including diabetes and heart diseases. But that is usually not the main focus when women keep themselves slim, although of course to some people, the reason is not as important as the result.

Ironman Taiwan 2018

After a few months of roller-coaster training, my friend, John Kok, and I finally arrived at the start line of Ironman Taiwan in the island of Penghu last Sunday (7th October). Looking back now, I can't remember how I ended up registering for both Ironman Taiwan, as well as Ironman Malaysia this year.

John and I didn't train together prior to Ironman Taiwan, until just a few weeks before the race; and even then our joint training sessions were mainly during the long weekend bike rides. He spent quite a lot of time working on his swim, and as in the case for most people, he trained the least for his run. I'm not sure why, but most people just don't like running as much as cycling.

I'm not forgetting to mention here that we had a few days of insane carbo-loading sessions before the race. We had had beef noodles, beef rice, beef burgers, and more meals containing beef. The Taiwanese just love their beef, you see. Prices of food in Taiwan are perhaps at least 50% more than in Malaysia; and in some cases about double. However, each meal is generally big enough to make you feel like you're three months pregnant.

So anyway, let me get back to the race. Now, where was I? Ah yes, the start line of the race. Fate would have it that at about half an hour before the flag off, it was announced that the swim distance had been shortened to a mere 400m. Just in case you're wondering why that strange distance, let me quickly explain that the swim course was originally made of a start from within the lagoon and all the way out to the open sea. But because the wind condition was quite severe that day, the sea was deemed to be unsafe, and the organiser wasn't taking chances, thus opting for the safety of the participants. The swim was confined to within the lagoon only. Hence the 400m.

The Swim

As soon as I heard the announcement of the shortened swim distance to 400m (it was supposed to have been 3.8km, by the way), I decided to take off my wetsuit. For the few days that I spent in Penghu before that, I haven't even tried swimming in the sea, and I was therefore unaware what was the water temperature like. But I have had several swimming sessions in our Likas Sports Complex here in KK, and the water there is ridiculously cold; it can cause a heart attack for the faint-hearted. Looking at the water from afar, I reckoned that it'd probably take me 15 minutes to complete the 400m. Since I'm a lousy swimmer, I was among the last few participants to enter the water. Although the swim was in the lagoon, it was still very rough; the current was also very strong. Once I was in the water, I sprang into action; the usual kicking and elbowing, and I was surprised to emerge on the other end in just about 10 minutes. In Malay, we have a short expression to sum up the 400m swim of this race—alang-alang!

Transition 1 (T1)

And then the amusing run to T1, which was longer than the swim distance! I took my time, passing through the shower and I stopped a few seconds longer to pee while I rinsed off the salt water. Then, at T1, I took my time putting on a cycling jersey, applied sunblock lotion, drank a can of Red Bull. By the time I took my bike off the rack, I have spent about 10 minutes in T1.

Although John and I started the race at about the same time, I wasn't really paying attention on his whereabouts once we were flagged off. But I did catch a glimpse of him when I emerged from the swim, as it's easy to spot him in his pink trisuit. I'm thinking maybe one of these days I'd be brave enough to wear a pink trisuit too?

Bike Leg

For a few months before we even set foot in Penghu, we spent a lot of time discussing about the wind condition in Penghu through our Whatsapp chat group. You see, Penghu has the reputation of strong winds all year round. Any cyclist will tell you that winds are the biggest enemy. The wind speed for this particular day was about 35kph-40kph; and they came from all directions. Those who're not so good in bike handling may find it extremely hard to ride in such a condition.

The 180km bike leg was essentially made of 2 loops that saw participants crossing bridges that linked a few islands together. The course was mainly undulating in nature, and at the back of my mind, if it were not for the wind, this would have been a fast course.

I saw John twice during the bike leg; in fact, I shouted out to him from across the road. On both occasions, I thought John looked very steady, and he did not seem to be overly tired. But of course 180km is a long distance, and one way or another, at the end of that ride, one is bound to be tired.

I noticed quite a fair number of participants drafting despite having been informed that this was a non-drafting event at the briefing the day before. I also saw several bike accidents along the way; and sounds of ambulance sirens along the way, transporting injured participants.

Transition 2 (T2)

After pedaling for about 6 hours 49 minutes, I finally arrived safely at T2. Although I was very careful to control my exertion levels during the entire bike leg, I was still quite tired when I eventually finished the bike leg. T2 was in a different location from T1. After racking up my bike, I grabbed my T2 bag and ran to the changing tent. There, I sat down on a plastic stool. The first thing I did was to down another can of Red Bull which I've left in my T2 bag earlier. Then I took off my cycling jersey, thus leaving just my sleeveless trisuit. Bike shoes off; running shoes on; and I spent a bit of time applying sunblock lotion. In the end I spent a total of about 11 minutes at T2.

And then, to my surprise, I saw my friend, Quentin a few feet away. He shouted out to me, asking me what was I still doing there at T2. Both of us visited the toilet and eventually started the run leg together.

Run Leg

The run leg of the Ironman has always been a big mystery to me. Although I can ordinarily run a 4-hour marathon, when I run the 42km in the Ironman, the best that I've achieved in my 5 previous Ironman races so far was about 5 hours 40 minutes. For the life of me, I just did not know where I went wrong. I was determined to at least run a sub-5hrs30mins for IM Taiwan.

Then a few months ago, I started working on my running efficiency. It's quite an irony that although I've been running long distance for over 10 years now, there's still something that I could learn to improve on my running efficiency. It's like learning how to run all over again!

The 42km run for this race was made up of 4 loops around the harbour area, and running the first loop was a bit confusing. It was still quite hot in the mid afternoon when I started my run, but it's nowhere near the kind of heat that we have back home in KK.

Although Quentin and I started the run together, he was lagging behind, and the distance between us began to grow almost immediately. Later, I saw John coming from the other direction when I was about 7km into my run, and he was perhaps about 3km into his run at that point. I called out to him, but he couldn't hear me.

Aid stations were located at regular intervals, so much so that I merely passed some of them without stopping. But in the later stages of the run leg, I found myself stopping at every station to fuel up. As a matter a fact, perhaps it's not really a matter of fueling up. Rather, it's a good excuse to rest my legs! There were an assortment of fuel choices, but I helped myself mainly on the chocolates and cola. I crossed paths with Quentin and John again a couple of times; and I saw Yee Tee and Felix Tan too.

By the time I had finished the third loop of the run, it was obvious to me that I'd be able to run a sub-5hrs30mins marathon. The only question was by what margin? It was also about sunset then and I was beginning to have a bit of trouble seeing beyond 30m-40m, as I don't have my powered glasses when I race.

My legs were becoming heavier with every step, and I began counting my steps some time around mid 30km of the run. It's just a little trick of  mine whenever I run long distance—I just close my mind from my surroundings and just start to count "1, 2, 3....", and reward myself with 50 steps of walking rest after every 500 steps of running. Step by step, in the end I was approaching the finish line, and the excitement grew. Suddenly I could run sub-6min/km again!

After what seemed like an eternity of torture, I finally crossed the finish line in a total time of 12 hours 37 minutes and 41 seconds. Regretfully, however, there is no personal best for this race, as the swim was shortened to 400m. But I'm thrilled that I ran the 42km in about 5 hours 16 minutes, which was a huge improvement from all my previous Ironman marathons.

Well, the few months of training and the long day of torture in the Ironman Taiwan, eventually culminated to this medal which goes into the cabinet of hundreds of medals at home.

Who knows, one of these days, I might have a chance to tell my grandchildren how silly their granddad had been, spending months and months training hard, and paid hard-earned money for the expenses, and finally suffered for the whole day, just so that he can get a piece of medal, and the title: Ironman!

Free Pass

My wife was studying for a law degree over 20 years ago, and I can still remember the daunting task of memorizing tons of sections and sub-sections of numerous statutes. She was dealing with a chapter on criminal law one day when the subject of "temporary insanity" came up as a possible defense. 

I was fascinated by the idea of how an accused person can escape punishment on account of a "mental blackout" temporarily; meaning that he was not acting with intent. Now I'm sure there is a better way to express it—in a lawyerly way, if you like—and of course I'd imagine that there are several very strict requirements to be satisfied first before one can rely on the defense of "temporary insanity".

There are of course many other circumstances when one is not in full control of his acts, such as when one is under the influence of drugs or alcohol; or when one has some sort of mental issues; or conditions such as autism. 

In the case of autism, however, it's not really a matter of not having control of one's acts; rather, the behavior or mental capacity is that of a mentally-underdeveloped person. Such is the case of Ahmad Ziqri Morshidi, an autistic man who was arrested for allegedly molesting a woman. According to the article, Persatuan Child Sabah has launched a petition, calling for "Ahmad Ziqri to be treated fairly", and that it has received over 17,000 signatures.

I can readily accept that an autistic person should be treated like an autistic person, but it shouldn't just end there; I'm afraid it's not that simple. If he is liable to act in a way that can cause harm or disrupt the enjoyment of freedom to others around him, then preventive measures should be put in place to minimize the possibility of that from happening. If he needs to be put under counseling, or even strict supervision when he is in public, then I suppose that's what needs to be done.

I honestly sympathize with Ahmad Ziqri, it's not his choice to be born with autism. But the reality is that there is no such thing as a "free pass" on account of mental or medical disorder, because fairness is a two-way street—while we want fairness for Ahmad Ziqri, we should also not forget that we must be fair to all those people around him too. It is entirely possible that one of these days, Ahmad Ziqri may end up molesting one of those people who've signed the petition, or their loved ones. It is very easy to sign petitions when we don't know the victim, but I suspect maybe we might think differently if we ourselves are the victims.

Ironman 70.3 Bintan 2018

I can't remember how I got to know about the Ironman 70.3 Bintan race. Perhaps some of my Whatsapp friends mentioned it, and I ended up visiting the organiser's website. It must have been about half a year ago when I decided to register for the race. Mia decided to join too, but of course because of habit, she almost never do things early. No, she would wait till the very last minute to register, and even that was because I was nagging and reminding her to do it on a daily basis.

As soon as she registered, I embarked on making all the arrangements, i.e. flights, hotel reservation, ferry tickets etc. I had to be the one to make all those arrangements, because if I leave it to Mia, she won't do it till the day before we fly, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, it was then that I found out that practically everything about Bintan is expensive—astronomically expensive. There were some other friends from KK who've registered for the race, i.e. Ahmad Syuaib a.k.a. Peechee, John Kok, Anslem and Amy. Some west Malaysian friends were also going, i.e. Quentin and Felix.

In the months prior to Bintan, I bought a new trisuit, i.e. a single piece which I wore without any underwear (please remain calm, ladies). I also shed about 2kg as I heard that the bike course elevation was 700m. I used to believe that losing weight is very easy, but actually it's extremely tough if you eat like me; and have an obsession for ais kacang.

The journey to Bintan was quite something, to put it mildly; from KK, we took an approximate 2-hour flight to Singapore last Thursday. It was an afternoon flight, and it was about 6pm when we emerged from the arrival hall of Terminal 4 of Changi Airport. We then took a taxivan to the Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. After checking in our bike boxes and luggage, we had dinner at the terminal while we waited for the departure. The ferry ride was just about an hour, but although I thought the ride was very smooth, Mia was at the verge of getting sea sickness when we disembarked on the other side.

The next morning we headed down to breakfast at about 7am; and oh boy, we ate like there's no tomorrow! It's so easy to get carried away with the concept of carboloading. The athlete check in wasn't till Saturday though. Having set up our bikes, we took the shuttle bus to the race venue. We checked in and got our ID tag. We spent perhaps 5 minutes to ride our bikes to make sure that all's in order.

The race day was on Sunday. We took the 4:45am bus from the Bintan Lagoon Hotel and arrived at the Lagoi Plaza at about 5am. Then we went into the transition area to set up our stuff at the bikes. Soon, it was the flag off for the pros—first the males, and then followed by the females. After that, the so-called age groupers were flagged off in waves, and I was among the last to be flagged off.

The Swim

It was low tide that morning, and we probably had to wade in the water for about 70 metres or so before we started to swim. And the swim was as always very chaotic despite the calm water. The kicks and elbows are something that I can never get used to, and for the life of me, I can't quite understand why some people would grab my feet from behind; I had the right mind to just give him a good kick. But I remained calm. It must have been about halfway through the swim when Quentin came from behind, and we swam abreast for a couple of minutes before I lost sight of him. I was tempted to swim faster, but I'm not a fast swimmer, and I knew that trying to swim faster would mean a higher energy cost for me. Accordingly, I decided to just swim my own pace. The tail end of the swim was again an approximate 70 metre's worth of wading, and I was pleased to see that I did the swim in about 45 minutes. I took my time to make my way to the transition, stopping by at the shower for a moment to rinse my body.

The Bike

What can I say, the bike leg was akin to a nightmare to me—hills, hills and more hills; and then winds, winds and more winds. Some portions of the bikes course were also quite technical as we had to make sharp turns and make our way into some villages where young kids would rush out to the road to ask for sports bottles from the cyclists.

I had recently bought the Garmin Forerunner 935 which is equipped with a heart rate sensor. I tried to keep my heart rate within 140 bpm, but I went beyond that whenever I was climbing hills. The head winds were something to be reckoned with. The rest after each climb was hardly any rest, because just a few seconds later, it's another climb! I caught up with Quentin again about halfway through the bike course, and swiftly overtook him. I caught up with Mia too, as she was flagged off about 20 minutes before me.

As I was climbing a big hill just a few kilometres before the end of the bike course, I caught up with Amy. She was also struggling up the hill. So far there was no sign of Anslem, John and Peechee. But I wasn't even expecting to be able to catch up with them, as they are strong cyclists.

The Run

When I arrived at the transition for the second time, I felt like my quads were just at the verge of seizing up. I briskwalked for a good 50m to test my legs, and after a while I started jogging. Soon enough, I arrived at the aid station where I grabbed iced sponges to cool myself down. As I had expected, it was an extremely hot day, and there was no shade at all.

And then to my surprise, about 3km into the run, I caught up with Anslem. In my mind, he must be running his second loop. But making some calculation in my head, if it was his second loop, then that would mean he's extremely fast! Shortly later, I saw Felix coming from the other direction. Felix is perhaps about 2 years younger than me, but his body is as strong as a teenager. I'm not sure if he's got the genes of either Edward Cullen or Jacob Black of the Twilight Saga.

A little further down the road, just shortly after the turning point, I overtook John who was obviously melting in the hot sun. But little did I know, Amy had caught up with me by then. From that point onwards, Amy and I took turns taking the lead, but my main focus was on keeping it steady till the end of the race. Sadly, by the second loop, I started to run less and walk more! If only my legs could speak, I can imagine what they'd say to me! The sun was brutal, but thankfully there were aid stations approximately 1.5km apart.

Just as I was approaching the finish line, I saw Mia running very slowly, and she hadn't even finished her first loop. I can never get used to seeing my wife suffer. Just a brief advice to say "take it easy" as I was overtaking her, but I knew it won't be easy in that ridiculous heat.

Soon, I was already running the homestretch on the red carpet towards the finish line.

And I finished the torture in about 6.5 hours. It was a big relief...

After I had crossed the finish line, I went to the tent for participants. There I sat down on a plastic chair. Oh it was such a joy giving the rest that my legs deserved. After about 10 minutes, I collected my street bag, the finisher T-shirt. I had coconut water. I had Indomie and some chicken. I had some ice cream too. I walked around a bit. I sat down. I walked around some more...

A little over 2 hours later, Mia arrived at the finish line, and I became a little emotional seeing her making the finish line but beyond the cut off time. She did get the finisher T-shirt though. Well, she has a few more months till November before attempting to conquer the same distance again in Langkawi; whereas I only have approximately 5 weeks' worth of training before I attempt the full Ironman distance in Penghu, Taiwan, in October.

In the end Peechee finished a few minutes faster than I did. Amy finished in about 6:49. Anslem, due to lack of training suffered cramps during the bike leg and eventually finished in about 7.5 hours. John did a 7:18. Decidedly, it was a tough, tough course.

So the diet continues for me. Have to maintain an optimal weight for racing in Taiwan, which I heard is a tough race. Bring it on!

The Measure of Success

I recently made a comment on a facebook post, and I used the word "success" in it. Without touching on the rest of my comment—which is characteristically long-winded—I concluded my comment like this:

"Just remember that if you want success, not just in this profession, then you must make an effort to achieve it. Don't just complain all the time, because you just have to trust me—complaining very rarely can guarantee success!"

However, the trouble with that word "success" is that it is a relative term. Success to one person may not be success to another. Someone from a very humble beginning, say from having nothing to his name and living life with very little luxury such as having to travel by the public bus, going to school with no pocket money, frequently having to skip a meal or two because he can't afford it; when he ends up having his own house, his own Kancil to drive around, and enough means to support a family of his own, he might consider himself as having achieved success.

But on the other hand, for someone born into a rich family, having the above may not fall within the definition of "success" at all. I dare say perhaps to him that is not even an average achievement in life. He may even become disappointed if he can't achieve more than that.

A lady friend has been under medication for a long time for depression. I once had the opportunity to have a long conversation with her. Basically, I was curious to know what was it that she's so depressed about to the extent of needing medication. There were many, many reasons which to me were petty, but to her they were obviously major issues in her life. She was depressed about her job, because she felt like she's trapped in her job; she felt like it was a struggle to get out of bed each day to go to work. She was depressed that at her age (about 40 then) she hadn't a house of her own; she hadn't a lot of savings in the bank. She was also depressed that she was still single at her age. She was depressed that she's been driving the same car since 10 years ago. 

The funny thing was that I was then in my twenties, and I practically had nothing to my name too. No house, no car. I had a motorbike, but even that was stolen in the end. I had a lot of disappointments in my life, but I wasn't depressed; certainly no need for medications to treat depression. The one thing that I was determined to do was to find ways to improve my life and be proactive about it. I knew even then that complaining and grumbling about my situation would do very little to help me achieve anything better. Today I'm not anything like Bill Gates or Michael Jordan—far from it. I'm not a multi-millionaire, unless of course if you're calculating based on the Philippines Peso, or the Indonesian Ruppiah. I just have enough with not much more to spare. But that, to me, is at least a partial success.

I've noticed that too many of the young people these days are spending too much time complaining and grumbling about their lives, but the irony is that they're unwilling to put in the efforts and sacrifice to improve their lives. They spend their days blaming their luck; blaming the many obstacles that they're facing; blaming the competitiveness of the job market. The list goes on and on. They forget that they have the power to make a difference; yet they're not using that power!