Banana Fruit Twice

Do you guys still remember when I blogged about the U-Nik-ness of my full name? If you've forgotten, you can revisit it here.

I thought only in primary school that people would mistaken me for a girl, based on my name. Tak ku sangka-sangka, pisang boleh berbuah dua kali rupanya...

And this invitation came from the secretary of my very good old friend, who just called to ask for my email address.
Now I wonder if people still get confused of my gender even after hearing my voice?
Urgghhh!!!

Note: "Puan" in Malay means, "Mrs."

My First Bike Crash

Now I know how easy it is to break the collar bone when we fall down from the bike, i.e. bike crash. And I now also know how important it is to always wear a helmet while riding a bike.

Because it happened to me last night. My first bike crash.

Wednesday night is our normal weekly riding night. There were seven cyclists altogether last night. Together with another duathlete, he and I came early to training site to do a 6km run prior to riding. The weather was nice, with a very little drizzle at the start.

Done with the slow run, we went for cycling. I paired up with another triathlete who’s doing a last minute training for Desaru, and side by side with him I shifted to my heaviest gear (to do quads power training) and started the cruise. And paddling with heavy gears means cadence is within 65 to 75 rpm, perfect to be in aero position all the way comfortably. On the flat, or while climbing inclinations.

The first loop was ok. On the second loop, I almost hit a fallen tree branch lying on the tarmac, under the tree shadow. The road was actually well lit by the street lights, but there were some dark areas where the lights were blocked by the shady tree branches.

It happened on the third loop. I was still in aero position (i.e. hands are away from the brakes), followed by my friend at the back who was also in aero position. While riding pretty slowly up the incline (I reckon it was around 25kph or less), I suddenly saw the tree branch one meter ahead in the darkness of the shadow and there’s no way I could maneuver my bike away from it.

“Kayu!!!”, I shouted to my friend.

I went straight onto the fallen tree branch on the road. In a split second, I swerved to the left as my front tire lifted up from the ground when it hit the branch. My hands were still holding the aerobars and my left shoulder took the first impact, followed by another impact on the left side of my skull onto the tarmac. At that particular microsecond after the impact, all I could think was “luckily I was wearing a helmet”.

I think I rolled myself on the tarmac to avoid any other hard impact to any other bones. And the next moment when I re-opened my eyes, there I saw my buddy also fell down. He said he didn’t manage to avoid hitting my tires. Luckily there were no vehicles coming close from behind. Or else it will be a different story.

My aerobars were dislocated, with a bit of a scratch at the ends. The right hand side shifters were badly scratched, but still functioning. There was also a bit of dislocation on the back wheel, and no other major damage on my bicycle. My buddy were much luckier, both him and his bike survived the accident with injury free.

I stood up, checked my body, bones and skins. I felt a big pain on my left shoulder, blood were coming out from the big laceration there. There were also some other lacerations on my left knee, right elbow and on my left and right hand fingers.

We then picked up our bikes, and continued riding back to where we parked our cars. My left shoulder was tingling with pain, but I could still paddle. Once arrived at the car park, I quickly threw in my bike inside the car and told my buddy I need to rush to the clinic before it closes. Time was showing 10.30pm when I reached the clinic and luckily the doctor was still there.

The major laceration I had where I first landed on the tarmac.

Getting the ATT jab (Adsorbed tetanus toxoid).
The young doctor asked why I took the picture.
I told him, “Because I’m a blogger” (cewah, poyo)

The nurse helped to clean up the lecerations.
She also asked why I took the picture.
I told her, “Because I want to make you nervous”. Aahahaha.

Fortunately, the only thing that was broken is my water bottle cage.
Not any of my bones, not any of my spirits.
Syukur Alhamdulillah.

Anyway, the morale of the story are:

1) Always wear a helmet when you go riding. No matter how slow or short your cycling session is going to be.

2) If you see obstructions on the road, e.g. fallen tree branch, big stones, potholes, etc., please notify your cycling buddies and if however possible, stop cycling for a while and remove the obstacles away from the road.

3) Always bring along your ID and insurance card if you have. You never know when you will be needing them desperately.

4) Well, this is not really a morale of the story. But it would be good to have at least a phone with a camera along with you, especially if you are a blogger like me who likes to write drama. Ngeh ngeh ngeh.

Trail Temptation

The thought of going out for another trail run was so tempting that I brought back my trail running shoes during last Raya holiday. The sad news is, they never get worn. So, to stop having this little guilt feeling in my kidney, I quietly made a plan to join Ian's 3rd Progressive Outdoor Run (POR) at FRIM, last Saturday morning, with a mileage target of 15km doing one loop.

Plus, I wanted to test out my new CamelBak, for the first time.

I arrived at the agreed meeting point 15 minutes early. Geared up with my 2 liter hydration pack and I did some warming up while waiting for the remaining gang to arrive. Although it was my first time using it, the CamelBak didn’t give any much hindrance towards my running. The initial unfamiliarity having something on my back was quickly easing off as I finished the warming up run.

There were Ian himself, Peter, Daniel, Zaki and Syah on the scene by 7am. After a short warm up and stretching session, we hit the trail.

Now we know how the MacamBagus do their secret handshake.

Ian led the stretching session, as always.

Our Hong Kong superstar librarian runner (mak aih banyaknya pangkat dia), Zack Yui Chong Abdullah (I made this up, hihi) sedang meng-skodeng anak dara orang bulan.
On his left is Daniel and Peter.

The last time I went for trail run at FRIM was last year, and this time Syah took us on another route that I’ve never been to before. After a few minutes running on the tarmac, we started the trail portion from the entrance of Jalan Bukit Bujang.

Where the trail begins.

Syah was the group leader this time around.
And if you want to do tempo run, follow his ‘easy’ pace.
And if you want to vomit while running, try following his ‘moderate’ pace.

The first portion of the trail started off with some moderate inclinations, a bit of a flat and followed with some undulating courses. Its width reduces as we get deeper into the woods, making the trail run much more enjoyable and tactical at the same time. I tried my best to stay in pace with Syah, but I slowly got dropped off. It’s a clear indication of my lack in fitness.

Not long after, we get to the first regroup point. Something funny happened here. Since it was raining the night before, the damp ground where we stood were full with leeches. Tiny little ones, like babies. I started to notice one of two leeches on my right and left shoes and picked them out. Then, everybody else was busy picking out leeches from their shoes. If I’m not mistaken, I got 9 leeches, Peter got 10 of them, and the winner of the day was our Hong Kong hero, who got the highest number of leeches visit on his shoes. 12 of them altogether. The lesson learnt, do not stop for a break for more than 3 minutes.

You can’t see it from this photo how panic Zaki was when he first discovered the leeches on his shoes.
I should have taken a video shot instead. It was hilarious.
Anyway, an opportunity to grab his ‘betis gebu’ photo like this shall not go to waste.

We continued our run before more leeches get onto our shoes. I was on a familiar route now and the undulating up and down was a true pleasure to run on. There were a few other occasional hikers and walkers along this track on the lovely morning. The fresh, clean and oxygen-rich air in the morning that we can get here is something we seldom get nowadays, especially for us who live in concrete jungle.

This was the only time I went ahead of everybody else.
And I almost puked (oh, drama again).

Some portion of the trail gives you long steady climb, to which I was forced to start walking to ease off my breathing and heart rate.

I killed some time by taking a self-shot while waiting for the last runners.
It took me seven tries before I get this one in the frame.

After reaching the junction nearby The Tea House, we took it further into another portion of the trail which later leads us to the Steroid Hill. We made another quick break stop for regrouping before proceeding up the Steroid Hill.

The start of Steroid Hill…

… and what you see here is not the peak yet.
And if you are interested to know, only three persons here managed to run all the way up to the peak without any walk break.
And surely I was not included as one of them lah.

One of the many beautiful sceneries you can enjoy while being on the top.

I stopped taking picture from then onwards as I was feeling so much fatigued. Perhaps I was hallucinating as well when I thought I saw Daniel from afar taking a wrong junction while he tried to follow Syah and Ian upfront. I stopped to wait for Zaki and Peter, just to make sure which junction should we take (since Zaki ran this route before). I told them I saw Daniel taking another junction so we started calling Ian and Syah to check whether Daniel was with them. To my delight, everybody was OK. Yup, I guess I was hallucinating.

The return route was much easier on the foot as there were more down hills. Out of a sudden while I was running with Zaki, Yip came by passing through like a bullet train. He slowed down for a quick “hi-hi bye-bye” to us, and then blasted away. He’ll do well in the upcoming solo 100km run at TNF race. All the best Yip!

Yip is surely one of the most hardcore and fast long distance runners we ever have here in Malaysia. He’s also an Ironman triathlete.

When we get back to The Tea House, the run on tarmac towards the car park was really torturing me. The sun was up high and blazing too. I was so fatigued that I can’t even run straight for 200m without taking any walk breaks. We finally reached back to the car park and I took 2.5hours for the whole journey (including break times). I only did one loop of 15km, while Syah and Ian continued further with another loop, making it 30km.

Squatting L-R: Daniel, Ian, Syah.
Standing L-R: Peter, Zack Yui Chong Abdullah and EnAikAY.

There will be another session of FRIM trail run this Saturday. Details can be found at Ian’s blog.

And for the sake of Coney Dog, I’ll be there insyaAllah.

P/s: Next, my Newton 25km race report will be filled with photos (and quirky captions). If only I have more time to start writing about it lah. I have a nasty busy week.

Steroid Shot

It happened to me once before, on my left leg. It was perhaps four or five years back. The acute excruciating pain just above the heel is also known as Achilles tendinitis. This time I had it on my right leg. And one of the famous reason for getting this very painful ‘gift’ revolves around the word “overuse”.

Yes folks. I did a mistake. Well, not really a mistake if I want to put it in another perspective.

Yes I did overuse my leg muscles when I put them on the mileage shock test run on both Saturday and Sunday (see yesterday's entry).

But, I also managed to kill some stubborn M-bugs which have been happily invading my brain since a couple of months ago. The success of that little back-to-back experiment gave me a sense of confidence that, “Yes EnAikAY, you can do it!”

Anyway, I started to feel the pain on Monday. The slight pain in the morning slowly grew into much distinctive pain, to which I surrendered into a resting day (i.e. no training). On Tuesday morning however, I cannot take the pain any longer and finally paid a visit to the doctor to get some treatment.

The Achilles tendon.

You may not be able to distinguish, but my Achilles tendon is swollen.
(I know you’ll find it hard to resist, but please ignore my bulu kaki ok.)

The pain was so bad that I can’t even touch the skin there. I was limping when walking to the clinic, though fortunately I am still able to drive my manual transmission car. When the doctor squeezed my leg and the tendon (to check whether the tendon is torn or not), I was shouting loudly (I don’t care, it was very painful!) and kept on holding his hand back.

Perhaps, upon realizing that my pain was not a fake one, the doctor decided to give me a shot. And it was not just a normal pain killer shot in the butt. This time, it was a steroid shot on the tendon itself. So, what started with a mileage shock, ended with a steroid shot. Hambek kau, rasakan!

Cleaning process.
(Yes, I brought my camera along to the clinic. I knew there will be some drama)

The steroid shot was given on my Achilles tendon.
No, I didn’t scream.

The assisting nurse even asked whether I felt pain or not when the needle pierced my skin to which I told her, “Kak, the pain I’m having is twenty times more painful than what that little needle can do to me.”

Luckily I don’t have needle phobia.

And then, when I asked the doctor whether I should rest and not move my leg a single inch, he said it was not necessary. The steroid will start giving the effect after a couple of hours and the pain and swell would slowly dwindle down. But, he (and another good doctor friend of mine) recommended me to do ice treatment. So, I went back home to pick up my ice pack and headed back to the office to continue my work.

An ingenious method I invented to hold the ice pack.
Hands-free, EnAikAY style! Hihihi.
(And if you wonder, yes we can wear jeans to work everyday if we wish).

Although I rested on Monday without any workout, I managed to go to the gym for another hour of upper body workout on Tuesday. While my motivation was still up high (no, I did not get high from the steroid), I did a mini duathlon training on Wednesday night (4km run, 30km bike, 2km run), and another 50min turbo training on the trainer last night while watching Transformers 2 on DVD.

I’m back in action guys!

And guess who’s going to be the first commenter this time?

Mileage Shock

If “trying something new” can be categorized as a hobby, then I can say it is one of my many newly created hobbies.

And by saying “trying something new”, I am talking about doing long runs back-to-back, over a single weekend. I never did this before. And the reason why I did it this time was to give a motivational kick-back booster in my fitness program after a long hiatus from doing anything hardcore. Cewah, hardcore konon.

Don’t you agree?
If you do, then you are a hardcore.

So, after the solo 1.5hrs long run I did last Saturday, I made myself available at Bukit Aman the next morning to join Jaja and her group for another LSD. Combined with another few reason to be at Bukit Aman (i.e. to collect Newton’s race kit, and my CamelBak), I decided to say sorry to the invitation of running at Kinrara for the route test run. Furthermore, doing long run with the Bukit Aman-Hartamas route will only give me 20km max, instead of the 25km torturous hilly route at Kinrara.

There was nothing much worth mentioning during the run from Bukit Aman to Hartamas. I was just running slowly while chatting with the few of them. But, once we arrived at Petronas Hartamas, it was like a running event because there were more than 20 runners at that time taking a breather and refueling. And our break time were slightly extended, everybody was catching up with each others latest update.

Sofian, AJ and his buddy were already making their ways back to Bukit Aman when I approached the Petronas.

Fadil (left): “Eh, siapa pulak minum air Gatorade kuning aku ni? Shuk, kau eh?”
Shuk (middle): “Aku tak. Tengok ni haa, aku ada oren punya. Kau minum air dia eh Hanchik?
Hanchik (right): “Ntahlah. Aku teguk sikit je. Aku tak tau itu Fadil punya. Aku ingatkan harta wakaf”

L-R: CK, Fadil, Hanchik, Ramlan (Ketua Reban CAR), Shuk King Poco, Jaja the Tri-mom vogue, and another buddy which I didn't get his name.

The atmosphere that morning at Petronas Hartamas was just like a small running race event. Amazing.
(‘Someone’ from Andalas would be saying “Cinya amazing” instead.)

Time to start the home run.

When our sweats were almost dried, we continued our journey back to Bukit Aman. I opted to run with Shuk upon understanding that he also lacked the training for Newton run. Our main gossip for the day was about how hardcore one of our running friends is who has been clocking quite a big mileage, even during the fasting month. The thing is, it showed to us all that when you put in some hard work, you earn the benefits later.

CK, Ramlan and Fadil enjoying the downhill.

Shuk and Meor pacing each other, looking strong.

When we ran passing by the Tijani area, my breathing started to increase. If I were running alone, I would have already started walking. Luckily there was Shuk by my side. At least, we secretly felt shy to be the one who started the walking first. So, with the hard breathing and two pairs of tired legs, both Shuk and I managed to get back to Bukit Aman without any walk breaks. I was smiling when Shuk showed me some short cuts. Hehehe.

So, I completed that 19km distance in 2h8min. Ok lah tu for a kick-start, right?. Plus, it was my first back-to-back attempt.

The famous Hartamas undulating running course.

Once back at Bukit Aman, there were lots of other runners who were there to pick up the Newton race kit. It was like a gathering of runners, and especially for many Muslim runners, perhaps it was the best time to catch up with each other after a long silence during the fasting month. It was also the moment for me to do some little hunting (with my camera lah).

“Eh, tadi aku order nasi lemak lapan bungkus. Kenapa mamat ni bungkus karipap pulak ni?”, said the handsome guy in his Raya shirt, with the shades on his forehead.

Fadil: “Weh Hanchik, lu dah dapat no tepon awek baju kuning tu?”
Hanchik: “Ada, ada.. kosong satu empat, tiga empat empat, actually aku pun tak dapat”
Shuk: “Wey, korang tak takut bini ke?

Rais: “Eh sayang, tengok tu diorang dah datang nak serbu kita la tu.”
Kash: “Ha'ah la honey. Sibuk betul la paparazzi ni, takleh tengok orang senang sikit. Ni yang I malas jadi glamour ni.
Rais: “Takdelah, I rasa diorang nak mintak roti you sikit kot.

A Quick Survey

Dear readers,
I just want to do a very quick survey in order to improve this blog. I highly appreciate if you can leave your constructive comments here. You may sign in your name when giving the comments, or you can choose to be anonymous. I don’t mind.

1) What do you like to see more on this blog?

2) What do you see lacking from this blog?

3) What makes you re-visit this blog?

Please help me to make this blog better by answering to these three survey questions.

Thank you very much.

New Gear On My Back

I always wanted to have a CamelBak since the first time I saw people using them. Although it is not yet widely being used for long distance runners or triathletes, this water container + mini bag pack has been widely used by most mountain bikers.

And yesterday, my dream came true. Thanks to a good friend of mine, I managed to get myself a CamelBak Classic model, with a wonderful (read: affordable to my standard) price tag.

Soon, you’ll be seeing me using this.
A sip from EnAikAY’s Mobile Teh Tarik will cost you RM0.30. But, since you are my lovely blog readers, I’ll give you some discounts. Three sips for RM1.00. Amacam?

All this while, I am only dependent on my two 300ml Fuel Belt bottles which I’ve used since 2007. I’m planning to start using the Camelbak which enables me to carry 2ltr of fluid (max. capacity) for my long rides and runs. Plus, I can also carry my camera, cell phone, gels or energy bars, maps, compass, mini pump, spare tubes, car keys, wallet, bike tools, lemang, ketupat, lontong, satay, dodol, Almond London, tart nenas… eh, eh, tersasul la pulak.

On another note, I had a bad pain in my right ear since yesterday morning. The doctor said there might be some kind of infection in my ENT department, since there’s also a little lump developed on the right side of my throat. I’ve been prescribed with antibiotics and some kind of eardrops. The thing I hate about having to take up antibiotics is that, I have to complete the dose in timely manner without any miss, three times a day.

And the reason I came up with this entry, is because I just remembered I should be taking another antibiotic and the eardrop now.