JB - Malakoff Race Report

Saturday
I turned up bright and early at pm11's house on Saturday morning, ready for the trip down to JB. Unfortunately pm11 was still sound asleep, recovering from his work the night before. After convincing the family of pm11 that I was not some crazy person wanting to break into the house, I was let in and put in charge of babysitting duties...

Eventually pm11 rose from his slumber and started getting ready. By now the team manager pm1 and his boss pm21 had arrived too. After convincing the youngest member of the team, pm11's little daughter, that JB was really an interesting place to go to and she would be rewarded with shiny stickers, we were ready to set off. Only to be delayed again because pm1 had to spend a long time in the toilet. Finally, after making sure that everyone was on board, bike securedly fastened to rack and all bags were in the car, team Der_Pacemaker was ready to rock JB.

Team Der_Pacemaker was well prepared for the third and final MMDS of 2004 with a professional setup which was the envy of many other teams. Besides the two runners and a cyclist, we also had a full support team consisting of team manager, team mechanic, psychological coaches, timekeeper, photographers, map readers and team mascot. Yes it sounds like a lot of people but we still managed to fit everyone into a Proton Wira. With the bike on the roof and a boot full of luggage.

The long journey down to JB was punctuated by 2 rest stops and a domestic argument in the pm11 family about whether Skudai and Kulai were the same place. After over 400km we arrived at the M-Suites hotel for the collection of race numbers and the pre-race briefing. This was also a chance to check out the competition in our men's team category. The first name to appear was Krishma, the runner for the winning team in the past 2 MMDS races. Immediately we knew that that was likely to be the winning team. A more detailed check reveal a team from sunny Thailand - they must be very confident to come all the way to JB (unless they worked in Singapore!) so we suspected they would be pretty quick. After the race briefing and video from MMDS2, the hordes descended on the buffet table, being particularly quick at clearing the mini-cakes from the trays.

Having satisfied our stomachs we had a quick scout round the course (oh no there are two big hills!) before heading back to Kulai where pm11's sister lives. The 30-odd km took quite a while due to the heavy traffic - must be all the S'poreans out shopping in JB. We were treated to a nice big meal when we got there. This was certainly more than enough carbo loading for the following day. Not that we really needed any for the short distance. The team mechanic started work on the bike after dinner to get it into top form for the race. The brakes were adjusted, gears were tuned and finally the riding position of pm11 was also optimised to make him go faster on the big day. Everything done, we went to bed, dreaming of the prizes on offer.

Sunday
Getting up early in the morning is always difficult, even if there is a race to go to. Loaded everything into the car half-awake (remembering to put the bike on the roof) without forgetting anything was quite an achievement. Particularly so for pm11's little girl who probably didn't really want to go and watch people run and cycle for several hours. Got to the start of the race about 1 hour before the start of the race, thanks to pm11's fast driving.

After talking to some of the other competitors - Azwar (pm3), Krishma and friend, Cecil, Goh, Don, Thomas... it was time for a warmup. I jogged round for a bit and went to check out the hill with pm11 on his bike. We had to make sure that we knew how long and how hard the hill was. The hour of reckoning came closer and closer. Pm11 parked his bike in the transition area and joined the rest of the team while I proceeded to the start line which was now full of people. After a few customary photos, it was time to get down to business...

Bang went the gun and off everyone went. Round the corner past the traffic lights and the first hill started. Going along the outside, I got into my rhythm and started floating up the hill, overtaking many people in the process. However, the front runners were too far gone. I noted that Krishma did not have a particularly fast start and it was only on the hill that he started moving through the pack. A brief respite in the form of a little downhill, then left at the traffic lights and a bit of a false flat before the second climb. By now race order has been established, at least around me, so there was far less overtaking going on.

Still managed to get past a few people on the twisty second hill but just couldn't catch a tall Caucasian ahead of me. This situation remained the same for the rest of the race with him hanging in there, so near yet so far. On the long home stretch, I had to concentrate on my stride pattern and breathing to block out negative thoughts that invariably strike me during certain part of races. Think light steps, think floating along the ground...

Finally the padang came into sight so I quickly checked behind to make sure no one was trying to sneak up on me. Upping my tempo, I made a final last ditch effort to catch the runner in front (not easy if you are also trying to smile at the photographers dotted all over the place!). I was extra careful to physically step on the timing mats (actually this is not required - RFID should work as long as you pass over it) going into the transition. A quick swap of the leg tag and pm11 was off on the bike. Leaving me to walk slowly to warm down and rejoin the support team. My time of 32'15" definitely meant that the course was less than 9km.

The support team was working hard. Pm21 had already noted down the finishing times and time gaps between all our major competitors. It appeared that we were over 2 minutes behind the two leading teams but still well ahead of the 4th team in our category. Pm11 was told to take a conservative approach during the 1st cycling lap to familiarise himself with the undulations of the route before going all out in subsequent laps. When pm11 came round for his first lap, we noted that the Thai team was not pulling significantly ahead of him while Krishma's team with a Singapore national rider was nowhere to be seen. I decided to walk up along the Lido for the second lap to have a better idea of how the race was going. Seeing pm11 flying down the seafront, on his way to finish the second lap, I reminded him to eat to keep his energy up for the second half of the ride.

By now we had a fairly good idea about where we were likely to finish. The cyclist in the first team was taking massive time out of the Thai cyclist (3 minutes per lap!). The Thai cyclist was only a little bit faster than pm11 but they started around 2 minutes ahead of us so we were not going to catch them. Our main concern, the fourth placed team who started their cycle section over 6 minutes behind us, was not gaining any time on pm11. Therefore, unless something unexpected happened, we were going to be third. So the last two laps were a matter of holding our position and getting to the finish safely. What was particularly amazing was Ben, the eventual winner of the men's individual race. He did the first run in 29' and managed to keep up with the Singapore national cyclist from the 1st team nearly all the way until the final lap. Very very fit racer!

After a quick warmup (pm1 did not realise that pm11 was already on his last lap!), pm1 set off on the final leg of the relay after pm11 arrived at the finish after a great ride, having been fighting with a strong headwind down the seafront for the last couple of laps. It was very hot by now and the runners were fairly spread out. After overtaking several people in the first half of the run, pm1 found himself running on his own with nobody in front who was within target distance. We forgot to remind pm1 that we had a huge gap to the fourth team before he started on his run. Therefore, he valiantly tried to push hard despite the heat. Subsequently he did mention that it was nearly impossible to go fast because he was cooking under the sun.

As the last runner, pm1 had the privilege of breaking the tape at the finish line and getting his photo taken under the digital clock. 2:52:15 was our time, though I must say that the photo looks very much like a marathon finishing photo with pm1 having done sub-3 hours. Der_Pacemaker team was euphoric, this being our first ever podium finish! We had several photographers taking photos of the team, many of which had big expensive cameras so we assumed they must be official photographers. After our moment of fame, we retreated to a shady spot under the tents to have some food, drink lots of fluids and waited for the official prize giving ceremony...

Two hours later, after lots of cheering for other competitors finishing in the blazing sunshine, the time came for our moment of glory - the men's team race. "Fifth place....", "Fourth place....", "Third place..." - eh why not us? Must be because one of the top 2 teams got disqualified. "Second place..." Hey that's the Thai team. Where are we? Have we been disqualified? That is when the world collapsed all around us. This cannot be! I have actually seen a list at the finish line where "3rd" was marked against our team name.

In a state of traumatic shock, we searched for answers. After grilling a few officials, we spoke to Melody who checked the hand written results sheet and noticed that team 312 Der_Pacemaker had been missed when copying results over to the listed used for the prize presentation. She was very apologetic and promised that we will get our prize money. Unfortunately as we later found out, the list used for the prize presentation was already handed out to newpaper reporters who used it in their report the following day.

So we missed our chance of glory on stage and also the chance to see our names in print. The rest of the story as they say is now history and the correspondence between us and the organisers have already been posted. I have to emphasize that the organisers on the whole (especially Melody) have been very helpful and very open about their mistake. Der_Pacemaker team will be back to rock MMDS. Maybe even two teams... Hope I get the chance to do it all again.

Note: Photos will be put in later today

Location 3°N 101°E

Life passing me by,,,

Haven't updated this thing for a while. Life has been really hectic for the past 2 months. Moved countries (or more accurately moved back), started a new job in a new field, quit the job (but still working out the notice period), finding out lots of useless information about various things, writing and rewriting countless reports, doing valuations of many companies, working 50-60+ hour weeks, getting up just before 7am every morning and often not getting home before 10pm, getting up even earlier on Sunday to go training (only 1 day in the weekend, have to work 1/2 day every Saturday), spending around 3 hours commuting every day, did two races with more to come, ran hundreds of laps round KLCC park in the dark, met a great group of runners & cyclists, tried but usually failed to get to Kampung Pandan track on Tuesdays and Thursdays for track training with coach Chan, ate countless Rotiboys after running, discovered that drinking coffee can cost more than lunch itself, flashed at many middle / fast lane hoggers in the car, drove far too quickly for the speed limit on highways, didn't do a lot of photography (pity...), read many many books (and research reports, yawn!) on the train, slept a lot on the train, still practising how to squeeze onto the LRT and KTM Kommuter in a big crowd, caught the 9:18pm train with seconds to spare too many times to count, failed to email my dearest often enough, made hours and hours of international phone calls to the same, tried most of the food courts in the buildings around KLCC, haven't had any real dark chocolate for nearly 2 months......

Location 3°N 101°E