Friday, February 8, 2008

Threesome...

standing (l-r) Bach, Meself, Shahrul,
squatting (l-r) Ayol, Syah, Shaq




Me (right) as the Bendahara of Malacca in MSSCF's Festival of Diversity 2005



Left; Lenoq (he has no trouble running long distance as he is super light)
Right; Ms Izrin Irina ("Lenoq! i nak u habiskan donut-donut ni..")


I have always enjoyed playing contact sports like football, rugby and hockey. I have been playing these sports since schooling days. Although I was never good enough to represent my school let alone district or state in football, I had my lucky share in rugby and hockey. Hence, I played more hockey and rugby in school.

When I was in Cardiff, I enrolled myself under the Athletic Union of University of Cardiff to play cricket only to realize after 2 sessions that I sucked big time. I can't bowl properly and even if I managed to bowl it in a straight line, the speed of the traveling ball will make the batsmen have enough time to adjust their helmet. I shall not even say about my batting skills. I thought that having the base of field hockey will make it easy for me to try new sports ie cricket. But it turn out not to be the case. Being a BOY myself, we all have a big self respect which most of the girls in town label it EGO. I followed my ego and left the cricket club.

Wednesdays have always been half day for school. We are normally done by 1300. The rest of the day are normally for University League for games like football, netball, rugby, hockey etc. I normally play football with my flat mates in parks. We just play for fun since we are not that good to be playing in the Uni League. I enjoyed playing football probably because of the weather and the condition of the pitch and parks. And football boots and balls are relatively cheap in UK. So, it was always easy to start kicking a ball.

I continued playing football even after i left the Halls of Residence. We would gather together mostly on Saturdays to play together among the Malaysian students nearby. Wednesdays were occupied with the Malaysian Students Society of Cardiff University (MSSCF) Festival of Diversity, an annual cultural, musical, theatrical performance by MSSCF members in which in 2005 was directed by Ms Izrin Irina.

I enjoyed football very much and sometimes would go and participate in Games organised by Malaysian Students Society of other Uni such as Nottingham, Warwick, Bristol etc. However, one fine Saturday I twisted my right knee badly and ruptured my anterior cruciate ligament. I was told by a Doctor that I will not be able to compete in contact sports until the knee is fixed. He proposed that I sign up under the NHS to go for ACL reconstruction. Until the date is set, I was told that I would have to go for physiotherapy sessions and advised not to gain weight. Haha..what an advise. After about 7 weeks of therapy, it was already in the middle of spring. It was an almost perfect weather to run. And guess what, that was how I started running. The first 2 weeks I was running with my tennis shoe. It was not nice running in those. I got a running shoe through the internet and continued running. My house mates (Fairul,Farhan and Syah) and few friends (Shahrul,Shaq and Lenoq)would also join me running. Izrin did join us a couple of times but she did not enjoy it to much not because she could not run but she was more concerned with dogs roaming freely in the park.










NHS waiting lists normally runs for months and years for surgeries. And I did not get my knee's ligaments reconstructed in UK, I had it done here in General Hospital in KL. The surgeon told me that it will be a year until I can play contact sports. In the meantime he suggested running or cycling which is fairly forgiving for the knee provided the quadriceps muscles are strong enough not to give way while running especially. I joined the Subang Jaya 10k run in 2006 and it was fun. Later on Azman would tell me stories about this friend of his whom later I got to know myself. His name is Hairul Azwar a.k.a Lord Monyet. He writes about triathlon and how fun much fun it offers. I got myself a suitable bicycle to join the group ride with fellow friends who indirectly persuaded me to pick up triathlon. I participated in my first Olympic Distance triathlon in Port Dickson last year. It was long, painful, tiring and 'wished I did not sign up in the first place' feeling. But, I enjoyed myself throughout the whole race. I felt good even a day before the race since there were so familiar faces at the registration, race briefing and dinner. I kept telling myself to just enjoy the race the next day and not to do anything stupid or trying to showboat. It worked well for me. I survived the race and managed to finish it without getting disqualified and within the cut off time. But my finishing time does not reflect the speed, agility, strength and technique most of my triathlete friends have in them. But it did not matter much in triathlon (unless you are a pro triathlete) if you finish first or last in triathlon. During a race everyone is a winner by racing and competing in the first place. You offer support for each other during the bike leg and running to your friends by telling them that we shall all finish the race and become eventual winners by overcoming the mental obstruction that will easily destroy someone's will power and belief that he/she could finish it. That is what I like about triathlon, it is a healthy race and it gives a lot of moral victory, self belief and satisfaction, not to mention the pain, sweat, suffering,cursing you name it.For me, triathlon is about challenging yourself, having fun and making new friends. This year I hope I can join more races and runs. Oh...and to improve my swim. I never thought that I could manage to swim,cycle and run all in one day let alone to do it back to back. To achieve that felt really great but tiring for obvious reasons. But it is all worth the pain and suffering. The feeling when you are pushing yourself and to discover that your limit is actually more than you expected is wonderful. You'll keep telling yourself that if I can try and keep this sport close to myself, with God's will, you shall have a healthy and long life. A healthy and strong heart goes a long way. Categories of most common triathlons: Sprint: swim 750m, cycle 20km, run 5km Olympic Distance: swim 1.5km, cycle 40km, run 10km Ironman 70.3: swim 2km, cycle 90km, run 21km Full Ironman:swim 3.8km, cycle 180km, run 42.195km

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