NUS Biathlon Relay

Woohoo! So happy. I did it! And I didn't come in last!

Ha! A comedy of errors, really. I'll put up some pics when I get them from Fd(thanks for shooting my shack face, again!).

Poor Sukaimi...I think he had to really push himself because I took so long to finish the 800 metres. He told me it was faster than what I did last week during the trial swim, but I thought I took forever. We don't know yet, our actual timing, but I think they should be posted on the website soon.

Had a very late night, slept at 5:30am coz I'm installing stuff for ct's laptop to get it up and running so she can finish her assignment. Too bad she couldn't make it, wished she was there.

Woke up around 7:15am, and while preparing to leave home around 7:45am, Sukaimi sms me. He's already there! He's worried that the carpark will be packed, like what happened during various events held at MacRitchie Reservoir. As it turned out, we worried too much. As most of the participants are still students, the carpark was not even half full.

Reached Palawan beach around 9:15am, and was slowly making my way to Tanjung beach, soaking myself in the sun and sight yawning away, when Peter Lim caught up with me from behind, good to see this superman again.

We were grouped with wave 8, meaning we'll start around 12 plus. By around 12pm, I can barely keep my eyes open, so I laid down on the ground and slept. 15 minutes later, Sukaimi woke me up. It is time! Man, I felt so lethargic. Feels like I've slept for years.

Being the very first organized swimming event for me, I guess my lack of experience shows. Thinking that I'll be relatively weak, I stayed at the back during the start. As the airhorn blows, I realized that I've made the wrong decision. There are quite a number of slow starters who didn't run fast to hit the water and started swimming breast strokes the moment they hit the water!

I was having lots of problems getting past them due to their very wide frog kicks. One young chubby girl caught me right smack in the middle of my solar plexus with her power leg. I got so winded by it that I too started swimming breast strokes like her. Well, as teh saying goes, if u can't beat them, join them, lor!

So I was alternating between freestyle(whenever there's room for me to go fast) and breast stroke(whenever I need to see where I'm heading and when I feel like it), and I soon re-lived their pros and cons.

Maybe I'm too used to swimming at the pools, relying on the lane markings. Whenever I swim freestyle, I'll tend to veer towards my right. Many times, I ended up hugging the rope which mark the lane.

I also found out the hard way, that I wrapped the timing chip strap around my left ankle too tight. After it got wet, it felt even tighter. On my way back during the 2nd round, my problematic left foot started to have cramps. As it is, my kicks were already inconsistent and weak. With the cramp, I'm practically swimming with just my arm propelling me. Sigh....

As I 'raced' toward the swimmer's exit line, Fd took a few shots of me and my shack face (as usual). Haha, I looked like I was crying (no wonder Pear was pointing at me and laughing as I walked towards him). I think I took about 22 minutes, according to Sukaimi. For those elites who trained for this event, they would've finished their swim 10 minutes ago and ran another 2km! Damn weak, me.

But, as promised (and hoped), I didn't finish last among the swimmers. I think there's a few behind me, among them the power-leg chubby girl(my solar plexus still hurts like hell after the swim and I almost vomitted), and a very big but cute chubby man (I wonder if he is ligo's boss?!).

I chatted with Pear awhile as I catch my breath, and Sukaimi ran so fast that we missed his finishing! I think he made up for a lot of my lost time with his run, well done Sukaimi!

Oh, all the usual faces were there. I also got to know who rainbow is (ct was trying to describe to me but I just cat match any face to the name). Well, she's this sweet little girl called rainbow! I think her chinese name is 彩虹, which literally means rainbow. Nice to finally meet you!

Despite my poor finish, and my shack face (heheh), I really really enjoyed this event. I know I'm capable of doing better. I just need to be more serious about it and put in more time and effort to get better. Who knows, maybe I'll take part in the full bi next year?