Endurance Weekend - 12-hour paddle + Century Ride

Tweet and Ribbit turned 2 years old on July 14th. We celebrated it by embarking on an endurance weekend. The first was the Penang Forward attempt to enter into the Malaysian Book of Records by paddling a dragonboat continuously for 12 hours and raising RM100k for charity. The second was to attempt our first ever 3-digit cycling event, the KRI Century Ride in Ipoh. You will need to ride a 160km in 8hours.

Ribbit came back the night before on the 8pm bus. She tried to sleep as much as possible on the bus as she only arrived at 1am and we had to get up by 4am to be on-site to start paddling at 5am. I tried to grab as much sleep as possible myself knowing this was going to be a gruelling weekend. I didn't sleep much and when I awoke at 4am, I felt as if I hadn't slept at all.

When we arrived in front of Queensbay, it was still pitch dark. We unloaded, got the car nicely parked and waited for instructions from our teammates. Some history before I get into the event. Ribbit and I used to be part of this dragonboat team in Penang, called Penang Forward. We quit the team about 2 years ago because they didn't have enough women and the training schedule just got a bit too intensive for me. I no longer had that much time to spare.

Donation boxes for Paddle For Hope

However, we decide to volunteer our paddling services for the sake of charity. There were three other teams volunteering; Chung Ling High School, Anak Malaysia and Penang Island Paddler's Club. The idea here was to have each team paddle a 11km course and then switch up. The whole thing can be tricky as we had to switch up in 5minutes in order to qualify for "continuous paddling". Our team was the first team up so, we rushed to get things in order for the 6am paddle off. We managed to get everyone into the boat and we were off at 5.59am. The first part of the course was to paddle from Queensbay towards the Penang Bridge, to go under the bridge and continue on to the island on the other side. Upon hitting the island we were to turn back and head down until Agilent and then turn back towards Queensbay. There was a competition for the first round, where best time will win a special trophy.

The 11km course mapped out on Google Map

The first round actually went by easy enough but a bit challenging for me as I had to paddle on my left. My left side is not my strongest side but in order to balance up the boat, I had to do so. It was nice and dark and it was over in 1hour 6minutes. A lot faster than the initial prediction of 1hour 30minutes. We switched up and it was a 3-hour break before our next session. I anticipated the next session to be very challenging as it is going to take place at high noon. We just bummed around and take lots of pictures and chatted with friends. The next session came soon enough. As I lined up with Ribbit, our captain counted too many right hand paddlers this time and ask either Ribbit and me to sit out one session. I wanted to paddle so Ribbit could rest but Ribbit said she would rather get it over and done with so she can rest more later. I was fine with that as I most definitely, wanted her to rest more.

Ribbit the champion superwoman who paddle 3 sessions!

Ribbit came up from her second session with a time of 1hour 7minutes. VERY good time considering the unforgiving heat! Kudos to you Superwoman! We celebrated with a nice lunch at Dome inside Queensbay. Next up was my session at around 4pm. As I lined up for my turn, my captain counted not enough paddlers for the right hand side. He said he had to field Ribbit again. Oh no! I didn't want Ribbit to paddle again. She was tired! Her back was sore but we had no choice. In order to paddle to hit the goal, we needed her in the boat. I reluctantly had no choice but to see her back in the boat. By this time, everyone was very very tired already. I can feel the drag of the boat with each stroke. My paddle was starting to splash water, a sign that my arms was tired. We took almost 1hour 30minutes for this round but I was glad as we got out of the boat as I knew it was already our last session.

Still standing after the event

Ribbit and I showered and waited for the closing ceremony where we received our medals. The we waited for Ribbit's mum to come pick us up. It was then a quick dinner and then we were off to Ipoh at around 8pm. I was sharing the back seat of her mum's Vios with my bike. Ribbit's bike had gotten a lift from Shih Ming and San who drove in from KL.

The drive to Ipoh wasn't long but I just could wait to get there as I was really really tired. Ipoh just couldn't arrive soon enough but finally we arrived at the hotel around 10pm. Thanks to Shih Ming and San for checking in on our behalf and for staying up to wait for us to pass us the keys. We finally moved all our stuff from the car into the room and it was time to crash at almost 11pm.

I didn't sleep very well at all and both Shih Ming and San made a comment about me looking really tired the next day. Now, note that my new baby is less than a month old and I had only rode only one 50km ride on it. Ribbit's new baby is also about two months old and I'm pretty sure even she has ridden it more than me, it was probably not by very much. So here we are two crazy people about to bike a 160km.

We had some hiccups in the journey to Bukit Kinding Resort, the start of the Century Ride thus we arrived quite late and by the time we setup all our bikes it was almost time to start as I started to bike into the resort to the starting line I can see a mass sea of bikers headed toward me. It was a total moment of panic for me seeing that I wasn't very steady on the bike yet. I wobbled quite a bit as I tried to avoid them. A few of them yelled at me to just turn around and started pedaling but I needed to use the loo!!! I disembark from the bike and started running with it only to trip and crash with the bike. I got my first knee bruise/cut here but it wasn't a bit deal.

Some really nice and empty road to bike on

(Pic courtesy of Frank)

By the time we were done with the loo break, everyone had gone off and as we exited the resort we were greeted by a mass of support cars. I had to bike really carefully to avoid them. Shih Ming sped off ahead leaving San, Ribbit and me to pedal together. Not too long after that we were to make our first wrong turn thanks to really lousy signage. Thankfully a marshall chased after us and got us to turn back.

After biking for maybe about 20km, San decided to take off to chase after Shih Ming as seeing that we were both okay. She sped off. I don't remember much of the route since I was very focus on the road because I fear I would fall off my bike or picked up a flat. All I remembered that the first stage we hit Kuala Kangsar and the route was either flat or downhill. It was pretty nice and I was keeping at 23km/hr which would be on target to hit a 7-hour finish. The first 50km arrived pretty quick enough and it was somewhere after that in which we met up with Frank. It wasn't too bad when we hit 80km. Ribbit was obviously the stronger biker of us two as she normally biked ahead and stop to wait for this slow poke. I guess if it hadn't been for me she may have taken off much faster.

After the second water station at 77km, the route started to rise uphill gradually. The rolling hill terrain would continue until pretty much the end. I felt myself slowing down after 80km to about 20km/hr. I started to get very frustrated as I couldn't figured out what was going on. It wasn't the terrain that was getting to me but I just couldn't get my cadence up and no matter how hard I stepped down on the pedals, my bike wasn't covering enough distance. I was getting grumpy and I complained to Ribbit about the challenge. I was suffering due to the lack of speed despite a lot of effort to pedal hard.

The 100km mark came very painfully. After that I really bonked pretty badly for awhile having not eaten anything for the past 5hours. My speed was dying after 100km, I told Ribbit I wanted to quit very badly but she kept urging me on. I struggled on simply due to her urging and finally 120km came. Together with that came the final water station where I refueled and tried my best to carry on. I overheard that this year the cutoff time was 8hours 30minutes. So Ribbit told me that we now need to beat the clock and with that in mind I did start to pick up my speed more. I must say I pedal very very hard the last 40km. As usual, Ribbit was at my side urging me on as the kms drop. With about 20km more to go my Garmin died. So I relied completely on Ribbit for speed and time.

Finally I had just 10km to go. I see Lynn and Frank start to speed up. I cranked up my own speed and prayed that the ride ended fast enough. As I near what I hope was the road back to the resort, a marshall on a motorcycle rode by me saying that there was 10minutes left. I started to pedal like crazy and hope that there wasn't too much left to cover. Finally I saw the signboard that pointed to Bukit Kinding Resort. Thanks again to poor signage, I almost missed the turn into the resort but a couple of nice bikers yelled for me to turn and I did. I arrived at the finish line in 7hours 59mins 33secs. Only 27 secs shy of the cutoff time.

Still standing after the rides with our new babies

(Pic courtesy of Frank)

When we arrived Shih Ming, San and Lynn's mum had gone back to the hotel to check out for us. We would have to wait around the finish area for another 2 hours before they came with items for us to shower. And finally at around 6pm, we had dinner at the food court near Wolley's.

By the time we parted ways it was 7pm and I dropped exhaustedly into the car for the drive back to Penang with Lynn's mum.

Things I like about the Century Ride:
1. Ribbit and I had our own team manager in the form of Lynn's mum! Thanks so much for driving us all around.
2. Waterstation people, marshalls and organizers were super nice.

Things that could be better:
1. That they didn't run out of bananas for the slower people.
2. BETTER signage for all those tricky turning points.

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