The drive down to Bidor started at 7am. In a pretty hilarious mess of absent mindedness I forgot my handphone, hotel coupon and gels. Thanks goodness for Siew Swan who only departed at 2pm. Various family members had to make the trip to her room at Lam Wah Ee to pass her my forgotten items as I remembered them.
My car consisted of Hooi Fang, Gim May and Mei Har. Both Gim May and Mei Har are incidentally Lynn Guan's ex-classmates from secondary school and are currently my co-workers. Small world... We rallied up with Alan's car which was carrying Kenneth, Peck Yee and Chi Yuan.
The first stop of our journey was Ipoh where we met up with Lynn and her cousin, Mae. Breakfast a nice bowl of Hakka Mee with some fish/meat balls. Tasty! After that it was a mad biscuit buying spree where we bought all sorts of biscuits as souvenirs for folks back home. We also tried the Funny Mountain soya milk, which tasted good... but not that great, if you ask me. It had a lot of hype being featured in plenty of newspaper articles and all. We stopped Jusco just to dilly-dally around and enjoy some AC.
From Ipoh, we proceeded on to Bidor. Deciding upon saving money, we chose to drive through the trunk roads instead of through the highways. It wasn't such a good option as the traffic was slow and we were constant plagued by stoplights. Grrrr... thank you, Mei Har for taking over during this leg. My patience may not have lasted this long.
We arrived in Bidor about an hour later and headed straight for Pun Chun to indulge in the famous Bidor duck noodles. Unlike Penang's "ark tui mee sua", the Bidor duck noodles came with wan tan noodles. The noodles were nice and springy and the soup was tasty enough with the meat being quite tender. However, that aside, it was not spectacular-wow... but good.
After that we headed straight for Tukang Jahit Mexico to collect our bibs which went very smoothly. Met one helpful volunteer and asked him about the route. He was nice enough to offer us to take us on his bike. I politely decline but we found the route easily enough with his directions. We drove it and I categorized the gradient as gently rolling hills. The last part was a bit sketchy and we weren't sure if that was part of the route as we entered a narrow one way road that lead to apparently a waterfall. The last section of it was completely gravel and dust. We stopped to check out what the guy said was a waterfall although it looked like a very small stream.
We decided to use the highway this time to return to Kampar to check-in to our hotel, the Grand Kampar. We unloaded our 200 over bags (you would think we would be staying for a week!) and check-in took place slowly. Finally I got to my room and was hoping for a short nap which wasn't to be as we got a call from Siew Swan announcing her arrival. So I went up to collect my handphone, hotel coupon and gels. We were to meet up in their room to get ready for dinner.
The WWW running club from Penang
We ended up heading to Kampar Old Town for Claypot chicken rice. Somehow we amusingly split into a girls-only and guys-only table. The nine girls conservative ate two large pots of claypot rice whereas the eight guys liberally ordered three large pots only to have leftovers. Tsk, tsk, tsk...
Dinner was early and we return home to the hotel by 8pm. A couple of us chose to go walk around and check out the pretty amazing view from the hotel's roof. Then it was back to my room which I was sharing with Lynn and Mae. My knee worried me as it had been aching all afternoon. I applied plenty of NSAID cream. Some pre-race prep, some funny amusing moments with Snuffles and it was an early turn in at 9.30pm.
Snuffles with my race bib
I woke up at 3.30am and laid there in bed being really lazy. I complain some more about my knee still hurting and asked Lynn if I should just go back to sleep and skip the run. She said I didn't drive all this way from Penang to sleep in. So I begrudging got ready. Being stressed out about my knee, I overate and ate what I think was too much for breakfast. I did suffer quite a bit before the race as my stomach struggled to digest the food I had consumed.
My stomach was quesy even as the WWW met up to drive to the race start. I requested that Mei Har drove so that I could rest my aching knee. I was a bundle of nerves in the car. It was unusual for me to run any races without preparation and I had been out for two weeks.
Drive there was uneventful although we did lose Guan Choon's car but all was good as they found their way. Pre-race rituals were the usual toilet break, photos and light hearted chatter although I was still a bundle of nerves. Call to line up was at 6.45am and we all just pile into the line under the starting arch. I decided to really run my own race and stick to my own pace, no matter what.
So when the gun ran off, I let all the overexcited runners take off all around me while I slowly chugged along at a conservative 5:51min/km pace. By the km2, my pace had picked up to around 5:30 min/km but Siew Swan had taken off about 300meters ahead of me.
My pace would remain the around 5:30/5:30 min/km until the 12km mark. At that point, I sort had a pretty bad dip in my pace as my ankle had started to hurt really badly since 9km. And well, I had a short lost of focus where pain took over for about 3km. Pace at that point was about 5:50/6:00 min/km. I past Siew Swan at around 12km or so.
While running along I did make a point to observe the number of women who had turnaround so I had a good gauge of where I stood position-wise. I was very happy to see Lyn Holden in first place going hard with all the men. Way to go Lyn!
Lyn Holden powering to the finish!
At that point I was probably woman no. 12. So at that point no top 10 placing but I still had about 6km to catch up. At the turnaround I started to pick up the pace more to around 5:20/5:30 min/km. The markers were then counting down the end of the race but even with 5km more to go I stayed conservative knowing that if I pushed too early, it may be the end of the race for me.
With 3km to go, I hit the steep but short uphill over the bridge that crosses the highway. I would pass one lady here. She looked like she was struggling already. With 1.5km to go I would pass the second lady just as we entered the housing estate that would lead back to the Dewan Muhibbah. I barreled down the hills after that and as I turned the corner, I had caught up to Siew Swan. I would only pass Siew Swan at the last 300meters of the race as I charge like mad to the finish line. I was to finish 8th with a time of 1:58:29. Distance on my Garmin was 21.12km.
Tough woman, Siew Swan finishing strong!
Charging towards the finish line... I look pissed, I know...
Time was a bit slow and I felt a lot crappier than I expected to. When I stopped after charging past the finish line, I felt like throwing up.
Podium finishing for Siew Swan (8th), Lyn Holden (1st) and me
All around the WWW finished GREAT! Kudos to the WWW women! You all rock! Congrats to Lyn Holden for your spectacular 1st place finish. Thanks to Siew Swan, ever challenging and encouraging me! And constantly checking on my knee each time we meet during the race.
Most importantly, thank you Ribbit for being my support through this!
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