Wilson's Adventure Racing, Multisport & Triathlon Sanctuary

I was watching the movie "Coach Carter". Carter asked one of his charges - and thus he reached out and asked me too - "What is your greatest fear?" What follows below is what i believe is the correct answer. By the way, Marianne Williamson wrote these words in "A Return to Love"....

Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God.Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.

It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

OK, cutting to the chase...

Taiwan Action Asia Challenge (1 May): Too expensive + no sponsors = no show

And that 'other' race in Langkawi...

Langkawi Wilderness Challenge (30 April): Too far, too tiring, too short a race for the trouble... net result - no show

But then, there is the W.A.R.! The moniker could not have been more appropriate. We will be bringing to bear a smallish GoLite presence in a confrontation with the large and market-saturation behemoth that is Salomon Singapore. To say that the race sponsors have made an offer of giving $200 of vouchers to the best-dressed team in Salomon gear just smacks of aggressive marketing, literally forcing the brand name down our adventure racing community's throat. You do not see this happening on the Salomon-sponsored Raid X-Adventure and World Championships, eh?

Right now i'm doing my best to ellicit a positive response from our staunch Red Wing Shoes Pte Ltd sponsors. Their shoes have really served me well, even as i've managed to trash my pair pretty badly within two months of first putting them on (two races and some about 50 training kms of running, most of it off-road). That reminds me: I'll go talk to Ben tomorrow to see work out my proposal for a GoLite-Vasque sponsored team, or teams.

Back to the W.A.R. It shall become a war. We cannot put it any simpler. This is one war, Greg, Ian and myself have all agreed amongst ourselves, that we would win. To the legions wearing Salomon out there, i salute you. Dress up if you must, but as far as legitimate competition goes - may the best team win.

Anyone out there want to sponsor us (Greg and Wilson)? Media Exposure on the Taiwan race would be really good. There is always the incentive to do well, but now we have the chance to promote whichever company is willing to sponsor us.

So much has changed since i first started this blog: Team members and race goals, training objectives and macro-cycle orientation. Guess i could call the whole thing one big 'unpredictable' game, but that would be cliched. When you're in an adventure team, you're pretty much independant as to how the team seeks out competitions, then orients itself to the requirements of each. Every race is different, so each approach must be tailor-made as well, according to the needs and demands of each race. Perhaps most pressing of all is the issue of money, something of a regular bugbear in the world of AR, our world....

Has it really come to that? Money woes? Take heart in the fact that the true spirit of AR transcends all boundaries. It was never really about the money for us.

Let me know about those air tickets, Greg. If it comes down to privateering (racing un-sponsored), we just gotta grit our teeth and say: Let's do it anyway!

And another race, we did indeed do. A second place finish was just pure bliss this time round, made even sweeter by the fact that we were only 30 seconds away from the overall first-placed team, with the inclusion of penalty times.

I could tell you more later... now i'm pretty much up to my neck in 'a few' things:

- last attempt sponsorshipp soliciting for the Taiwan AAC
- posting photos to all our friends from SAC
- compiling reviews + editing work for Togoparts
- getting photos done up for the reviews
- training for Taiwan
- talking shop with Ian... about the future of the sport in Singapore
- sourcing for new blood... female team members, that is
- running short of money & time
- searching for, waiting for, or otherwise longing for: replacement polarized lenses, a mirrored baseplate global compass from Suunto, photos from the Eco Xcapade, a Nokia 5140 mobile phone to call my own.

Once more, I scan ahead for any sign of CP8. We are not disappointed, for there
Avtar stands at a right-hand junction, waving us into the final checkpoint. “It’s a 2k run to the finish line, guys.”

And so, we ran the last two kilometers of the SAC in our bike shoes. Words fall short of describing the exquisite agony that emanated from the balls of my feet with each stride I took down the tarmac, with Qi Xiang on the bungee. As the endpoint drew nearer, the pain of each stiff-soled footfall was soon felt only as a continuous throbbing ache that seemed to reach to the very bones of my feet. The white Start / Finish banner finally pulls into view, and at that moment all discomfort seems negligible. It is a sight that promises relief from the heat of competition, cool shade, iced drinks, sumptuous food and swapping congratulations and stories with fellow racers. It is a moment we have been waiting for since we signed up for the race 2 months back.

To finish, just marks the start of another chapter in the adventure racing career of our team. From now on, we will be known as a team that completed the Sabah Adventure Challenge. Not so much a boast as it is a statement of our bond, forged through hardship (some, only some... honest!), sweat (lots), and blood (a little).

Finishers take swigs out of soft drink bottles passed to them on the last few metres before the end. A crate of beer materializes from somewhere aboard the bike transport truck. A couple of guys are smoking cigars. Bright smiles light up tanned, once-haggard faces. Race packs and helmets lie clustered unceremoniously by the roadside. The only things preventing exhausted finishers from sprawling on the verge are the lumps of dog droppings and the occasional larger, moist piles of cattle feces in the grass.

There is something special in undergoing an adventure race of this sort. Racers who, only a few days ago, offered little more than polite nods and quite smiles to each other, now cheered, chatted, high-fived and posed for the obligatory finish line photos like old pals at a reunion party. Looking around, a cold drink in hand, welcoming racers, now my friends, to the end of their tiring but exciting journey, I think to myself: “This is it!”

In a moment, everything is sweet. And yet, we acknowledge the inevitable post-mortem of the race that must follow. Now the hard part begins... preparing for our next race.

Barely 3 hours ago, the finish line was a scene reminiscent of a battlefield casualty collection point. To one side, a handful of athletes laid stretched on the grass, their legs wracked by cramps. Race officials and medical personnel attended to them, working the knots out of their muscles and plying them with cold drinks and energy bars. Avtar conceded, “To be honest, our estimates for the course duration have flown totally out the window. We’ll start tonight’s briefing as soon as the last team pulls in by eight-thirty pm.”

Now, everyone from our team has dropped off to sleep within half an hour of the conclusion of the race briefing. Out of routine more than out of fervour, I am at the maps once more, copying race instructions, tracing the route for the coming day, measuring distances. I am of two minds. One believes our team can finish on the podium, and to push all out for the third and final day. But the other comes to grip with the palpable reality: We have pushed too hard already, racing to the limits of exhaustion, almost resulting in a life-threatening emergency evacuation. I let my deliberations hang as I too eventually retire for the night.

Dragging ass: When you are thirsty, sweating profusely, and unable to ride, instead pushing your own as well as your team mate's bikes up the umpteenth loose gravel fire road under a windless sky and a blazing sun. Meanwhile, your team mate is bonking badly from a combination of mineral imbalance, low blood sugar levels, and the high temperature of the afternoon, walking on the layer of gravel debris just like you are - in cycling shoes - only with the help of makeshift trekking poles fashioned from tree branches. Did i mention the heat?

Exhaustion. Utter and unadulterated, but not complete - yet. There seems to be no other moment where I could have felt lower in spirit during the race. I stop walking, my head leaning against the handlebar of one of the two bikes I am pushing up the hill under a scorching sun. Taking a mouthful of warm, plastic-tasting water from one of the warm bike bottles, I weigh our progress. We are off the map with less than four km to the finish line, as per course instructions. Yet each curve, once cleared, reveals the gravel road inclined mockingly upward, with no end in sight.

“Come on, Qi Xiang!”

Carry on.

The title says it all.

We were hike-a-biking up a wide gravel road on Bukit Tankoyan, a 276 metre foothill somewhere before CP9, the afternoon heat beating down on us from a clear blue sky. Husband and wife duo Cornwall Extreme had just overtaken us, and Qi Xiang had been reduced to trudging up the rocky slope with the aid of two wooden branches as makeshift trekking poles. I was pushing the two bikes about fifteen metres up ahead when Qi Xiang yelled out: “You go ahead first, push the bikes to the top of the hill!”

Why not, I thought, and checked the altimeter. OK, less than ten minutes more of this confounded pushing, and carried on. Yet, barely five minutes later, I was glancing left and right at the trailside vegetation, desperate for some shade. If I was suffering like a sick dog, and needed to take a swig of our fast-dwindling water supply every minute, then my team mate must have really been feeling it. Bad idea to have left him behind - bad, bad, bad….

The bikes I left on the trailside, and retreated into the shade of a shallow embankment. I pulled out my half-consumed Snickers bar and finished it of, glancing back down the trail as I did. No Qi Xiang climbing up the hill. He must be hiding in the trailside bush somewhere below. I descend the slope to look for him and find him lying in a ditch by the road side, breathing shallowly, complaining of numbness in his extremities and feeling very dizzy. Delirium, a racing pulse, glazed eyeballs. This meant big trouble. Summarily, I had a case of heat exhaustion on my hands.

Eventually, Qi Xiang recovered, aided by Nature’s breeze, and with the help of the support crew from the Johor Parks team, who happened to be nearby. They gave us some water and the lid of one of their plastic gear boxes. This I used to fan Qi Xiang till he had cooled down sufficiently. Upon finally clearing the uphill, my immediate worry was whether he would be able to adequately control his bike on the big downhill that was coming up. He took the lead on it purposefully and with confidence, a clear sign that he had recovered. Nonetheless, the incident shook us, even when I think of it now.

There was the case of the bike that broke into half. A rock Lobster cromoly frame, to be precise. The ensuing hike that followed for the affected team was mercifully short - only 7 km to the next CP, most of it uphill - where most participants would have been pushing their bikes up on foot anyway.

I queried the China Jump guys as to the nature of their bike disaster. “I had just gotten back on the bike after the abseil when my bike just fell apart. We had a unicycle all the way to the next CP.” Greg Shand candidly recalled.

As to the general trials and tribulations of the first day of the SAC, we were at a loss, at least until our hunger was satisfied, just before the briefing for the second day commenced....

We are sitting – by the light of our headlamps - on plastic stools, together with other teams from Singapore, our transition box the dining table, eating a late dinner cooked by our support crew Kangwei. Maggi mee, instant soup, and an interesting mush consisting of baked beans, corned beef and sardines in ketchup. “Whack us on the mountain on the first day to widen the field, to sort out the Extreme and the Adventure teams.” Someone quips as we waited for the briefing to start. True enough - the 12 Extreme starters at Mesilau have now dwindled to 7 at Tambatuan. Lee Yung Ming of S&M 2 gives a more succinct assessment of the difficulties of the first day: “Siong-alingam”.

After days of introspection, deliberation, and of course down-right gut-spilling... the complete version of what can be considered our team's definiteive race experience has taken its final form.