My second training session. Better than the first, in terms of achievements, but at the end of it, I feel a lot more worse off comparatively. This time around, I packed up approximately 6Kg+ of simulated gear and walked the same 11Km.

Now I’m feeling the terrible aches on my shoulders. It hurts, but man, it sure makes me feel alive!

10 Km in 2.5 hours with a 5 Kg load. That was our first training session. Pity only half managed to make the time. Still, it’s better than none at all.

My target is to hit the 10 Kg load and clock the 10 Km distance in under 5 hours. Theoretically, it should be possible since it’s effectively doubling the load while at the same time, halving the walking speed. All this will have to be reach by end May, in time for The Trip.

Now my shoulders are aching like never before! Man, it feels good!

50 marathons in 50 days? This is not just crazy, but on the verge of being just insane! As Muggs have stated before, “runners are never normal”, or something to that effect. I have yet to even run an entire marathon, and this guy runs 50 on them, in 50 consecutive days! What makes it even worse, is that he runs “200 miles just for fun“! My goodness, how much more blunt can you get? But seriously, I really have to take my hats of this guy for really showing what a person is really capable of achieving. Then again, it’s probably more like what a person is really capable of achieving, provided his body is built for such abuse. I just feel that some people’s bodies are built for running, while some just arn’t. Just like mine – with my ever recurring knee pain, I doubt I’ll be able to run as much as a marathon, let alone even a triathlon, or even the Ironman! Still, you just have to respect the guy for what he is doing, somehow.

There are even tips on how to achieve his brand of success. I really like point #6!

6. SHOW YOUR BODY WHO’S BOSS
“The human body has limitations,” Karnazes says. “The human spirit is boundless.” Your mind, in other words, is your most important muscle. As a running buddy told him: “Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!”

I guess that’s probably quite how I’d like to be leaving this place. Well, maybe not so used and worn out from all the running, but worn out and exhausted mentally and physically, from all the touring and trekking.

A nice motivation for the start of the new year? I hope so. Take it from the Ultraman!

This is almost amounting to pure insanity. For two weeks in a row, I’m making myself wake up at an ungodly hour of 4am. It’s not the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, thankfully. This time around, it’s the Safra Avventura Race. Something new this time. My first time taking part in an adventure race.

Was supposed to be smooth sailing. However, it wasn’t meant to be so. Well, I suppose crap happens, and I too don’t know how in the world it could have turned out that way. Suffice to say, out team, Got Milk? almost didn’t even get to start the race. Thank goodness for a kind soul out there.

Frankly speaking, it wasn’t a very good first time effort. Then again, it depends on how you look at it. Firstly, I didn’t really train for it at all. Secondly, I appeared to be short of one of the mandatory item. Oops, guess I should state it here, less someone from the organising committee stumbles into here and discovers my little secret! On the other hand, I asked my team mate “Do you want to win, or do you want to enjoy the race?” Enjoy it was. But for myself, all I wanted to do was to complete the race within the allocated time. In my mind, it can be better to go for the race without sufficient training and aim for a finish, irregardless of the time. At least for future race, self motivation can come in the form of “Hey, if I can even complete the race without training, imagine what I can achieve with proper training”. Compare this to having proper training, and end up not being able to complete for whatever reason.

The one thing I dislike but cannot be avoided are the wet elements. They make you, your attire and equipment wet. Which isn’t a good thing since their side effects are that icky yucky feeling of wet clothes stuck to your body, abraisons and blisters. these are the things which remove the enjoyment from the race too. I even brought home a big blister on the arch of my left foot. No idea how am I going to walk properly, but I guess I’ll have to find a way to do so.

Heck, even without the blister, I doubt if I could have slow jogged for the remainder of the race.

The rope elements were fun, especially the absailing! My team mate elected to do the climb, so I had to do the rope ascend. In my mind, I played back the different possiblilities of different sling lengths and methods of ascending using minimal strength. For the first half, I think I used too much brute strength. Sure I went up fast, but by then, I was quite tired and had to rest. As I went up, I somehow figured out how to keep my body straight, but it was a little bit too late. Still, I managed to overtake another team during the rope ascend.

Like I said, the absailing was the most enjoyable part of it all, even though it was the shortest. From the top, the rope was noticably heavy and I had difficulty lowering myself down. It think I had probably passed one third of the wall when it got easier. I pushed off from the wall, brought my locking arm up above the descending device and just flew down. I think it was probably 2 m/s or something around that area. Sadly, even before I could feel the adrenaline rush, I hit the floor! I want to do it again!

From there, we made a final effort and slow jogged to the finish line. We clocked a total time of 7 hours and 31 minutes. The cut-off time was technically 7 hours, but since we had a 1 hour waiting time due to the bottleneck at the rope ascending station, it worked out to under 6 hours. Great!

On a final note, you may be wondering why such a … weird team name? Well, I wanted a team name which was funny. Got Milk? sure sounded funny to me. In the end, it served it’s purpose. The girls at the registration were amused by our team name. In fact, most of the volunteers were pretty amused by it. Heck, when I complete the absailing station, the station master even asked us “why Got Milk?“, to which I replied “We forgot to have our glass of milk this morning”. She had the guts to even reply “well, some of the other girls say that they have … !” Erm … ok, this was getting a little bit out of hand already!

I think I shall carry on using this team name in future! It’s funny and hilarious! Yeah!