Perhentian Race Final preparation

Date: 25th September 2004

Time: 1400Hours - 1730 hours

In Attendance:
OP Asfani @ Upak
Op Azly @ Bandit
OP Hisyam @ Doc
OP Riza @ Mat Gan
OP Amir @ Amir
OP Ee-Van @ Stupe
Padzli @ Bacin
Azman @ Man


It was raining since 1pm on that day. Since plans has been made days before this rehearsal, it is all system go. Rain or shine.

As expected, everyone met up in Universiti Malaya's bus parking. From there, the swimmers part ways with the bikers. Swimmers headed towards the 5th College swimming pool for the compulsory 1.5km of swim. Upon paying and entering the pool area, we were dumbfounded. Not only there isn't any lockers to place our valuables(then again, thre wasn't anything valuable anyway, but that's beside the point, no?), we were required to wear swimming caps before we are allowed to enter (but there wasn't any sign to ask us to SHOWER before entering the pool...kinda defeats the purpose of the cap, isn't it?). I've come to the conclusion that any UM students wishing to swim in UM's pool will come in their bathing suit and towel and swimming caps and googles ONLY. Hmm...but i do not recall seeing anyone riding motorikes or driving topless or in swim suit also?

Guess that would be the last time we will swim there. The only saving grace is that this place was deserted, each swimmer could have 2 lanes for themselves. maybe it was raining still and the students are still comfy in their bed/bunk/room.

The cyclist went cycling from the parking space passing 5th college, up the major hill, passing through 8th College and following the one way street back to the parking space. The did 3 laps totalling about 15km....

Time taken for 1.5km swim and 15km ride running concurently : 45 minutes max - a very good indication.

After all the initial huffing and puffing and Bandit telling the cyclist that he lost his balls (to numbness), the 8 of us went for the 7km run. Following the route, against traffic from the parking towards the UM's KL gate and towards 5th college and up the big hill and back through the same way, it took some of us a good 50 minutes to accomplish this. Doc was on steroids that day and went on to give a few of us lil prep talk while running to psyche us up. Bacin was like not adhering to the 35km/h speed limit while going uphill. Amir was running with Azman, this was also the first time that these two heroes trained with each other. A pretty lethal mix, if you ask me, as despite the last minute *aye* for this race, Amir showed tremendous spirit and improvement (he claimed he can't do 1.5km of swimming, but he did 2 km consecutively on two continious days!).

Time taken for 7km run : a leisure stroll of 50 minutes.

We then move on towards the lake infront of 2nd college. This also marks the first time that all of us are exposed to tandem paddling using those old type canoe (those with 2 holes la, not like those canggih ones in Putrajaya). Azman parted some knowledge to us all, about paddling and techniques and everyone listened attentively.

We did about 20 laps around the lake enclosed area, totalling circa about 2km max. It took us about an hour to complete it.

We all felt that if there is an event that we could gain some position in this coming race, it will be the kayaking, as triatheletes are NOT exposed to kayaking compared to running, cycling and swimming. Furthermore, with the depletion of possible kayaking ground in KL/Selangor, our *intelligence* report stated that no teams has actually went to anywhere remotely possible for any kayaking, except this 6 teams that will be in Perhentian this weekend, to create some impacts...

Wish us lucks guys and girls.

bonus pics: