Flashback 2009

Few days ago as we were approaching the end of this colorful year of 2009, I spent quite some time refreshing my memories by going through my own blog. Indeed, 2009 was a beautiful year for me, with the opportunity to venture into more endurance events (either official race events or the group training sessions), making and meeting new friends who share pretty much the same interest. Though some portion of my life was not as cheerful as much as I wanted it to be, I’ll take that as a learning curve in achieving a better life and becoming a better person for the future.

Allow me to bring you back to some exciting portion of my journey in 2009. These are some of the interesting stuffs I found worth remembering (for my own self), as well as to serve some key notes on how I progressed throughout the year.

JANUARY

I kick started my 2009 triathlon training season with some running, trying to build better base and putting a little bit more effort to run much further. It was a period where I tried to expand my endurance envelope, little bit at a time. I knew, the journey was still a long way to go.

GE 30km – I did not participate in it, just went there to grab some mood and to support some friends taking part. I did not know many of them, except for very few which I get to know through reading their blogs. Towards the end, Aini put the poison into my brain to do the 30km run next year.
OK, at least now I’ve registered for my first 30km run in January 2010.

It was also the time where I first run for 2 hours, by running 6 loops around the garden as my LSD (truth is, I didn’t even know what LSD meant at that time). It was so mentally torturous to run 2 hours alone, plus having to circle around the same loop many times. But, I was glad I did it.

FEBRUARY

February saw me doing lots of long distance rides, three to be exact. It was fun to be riding with a good bunch of cycling buddies, as some of them were finalizing their IM Langkawi training. I learnt a lot about the term ‘bonking’ too. And I can easily testify that long rides can make you cycle stronger afterwards. Oh, I miss those long rides!

Tour de Ayer Baloi

Tour de Pendas

MARCH

OK, March was the start of our local triathlon season, if I’m not mistaken. I participated for the first time in the toughest triathlon even, as some said. The Kenyir Lake triathlon. It was tough indeed, as the heat and the crazy steep short climbs surely taught me to train harder.

During the Kenyir Lake triathlon.

APRIL

Perhaps, with the shock that I had after doing the Kenyir Lake triathlon, I got bitten with the M bug in April. Going for training felt like being forced to get into a prison or some sort. I even felt sick for running.

Browsing through my photo album, I now remember I did one long ride to Kukup, which I did not put up any entry for it.

MAY

If I can remember correctly, I started preparing for the KLIM marathon in May. Together with Kash, we did few LSD run at which I for the first time broke my 2 hours running time barrier, as well we going beyond 30km and peaked my marathon training with a 35km LSD. I thought I peaked too early, as I still got at least three more weekends before the marathon.

Other than that, I also remember started doing few long swims as a preparation for the longer distance triathlon event I wanted to take part. It was great to be able to see how far we can take our body to. But the training was not easy, as it took lots of effort and time to go beyond something big for yourself. I blogged about it here and here.

JUNE

At the start of the month, some friends in JB organized the first eco-challenge event in the town. Yes, JB City Eco Challege was held for the first time and I had great time being with the organizing committee.

Behind the scene.

JB City Eco Challenge.

June was also such an important month for me, as I was going to attempt my first ever running event, which was to run 42km in the KL International Marathon. Not really sure whether I could survive it, but I gave it a go and how glad I was that I crossed the finish line. This was my first biggest achievement of the year.

My first marathon.

JULY

It was the month when I re-visited PD for the OD triathlon. I remember about the massive wave at PD beach, but I had great time during the bike and running leg. Felt pretty strong, and I almost clocked sub 3 hours.

And having met new friends at the event in our little local triathlon society made my PD race one of the most enjoyable ones. I hope they will always hold a triathlon event in PD for much more years to come, as it is relatively close to KL as well.

I can't remember why I took so less picture during PD triathlon.

AUGUST

Another big target for me to achieve this year, was to compete in a Long Distance triathlon event – at Desaru. In fact, my whole year training was focused for this particular event. I did not have a big target, just want to see whether I could survive the event without having any injury. It was another fun race for me, especially during the run. Plenty of friends around too, which was always a pleasure to meet them all.

I finished it!

And almost as usual, after a big race, it was easy to be bitten with the M bug. Especially when Ramadhan was approaching.

SEPTEMBER

Apart from the beautiful Aidil Fitri we celebrated in September, I had my first taste of what they call trail running. I even bought a pair of trail shoes, as I could feel that I will venture more into trail running. Together with 6 more friends (they call themselves the Geng Bas Sekolah GBS team), we run up Gunung Nuang up until Kem Lolo. It was fun.

With GBS, running up Nuang.

OCTOBER

I did another trail running in October, as there were no other events on the calendar.

We ran up inside FRIM.

Also, I volunteered myself for the Young Endurance Athlete (YEA)

NOVEMBER

I pirated the Genting Trailblazer upon a difficult-to-reject invitation from Syah and Ian. Perhaps this was when I got hooked into becoming a runnergrapher, or photorunner? I don’t know, you decide.

The pirate in red.

And maybe some of us were addicted to trail running, we organized another group trail runs, where we went to Kiara.

In preparation for Salomon trail run, we did a dry test at Kiara.

DECEMBER

OK, the last month of the year. Let see what happened.

Started off with Salomon X-trail run.

Then we also did the final group trail run at Batu Dam.

And finish it off with the last event I took part in 2009, the Malakoff Run.

To all of you, thanks so much for keep on coming to view this blog as I ramble through what came across my mind. My sincerest apologies if any of the contents in this blog ever hurt of disturb your feelings or emotions, as I never have any intention to do so. I hope you too had a wonderful year in 2009 and I hope I can continue writing in 2010 as it gives pleasure to me seeing comments from you. With each entry I put up here, my only wish is that, for a smile to be blossoming on your face. Hope you had fun at this blog.

May we all have another wonderful year in 2010.
Happy New Year!