RIFLE RANGE BOY

With the year-end malaise and festive mood, not to mention the sinful over-indulgence and the mounting of unnecessary calories and pound, the desire in partaking in the Newton 25km Challenge started waning as the days got nearer. With many casualties as well as other pressing commitments in the rest of the members of the running gang, I became the lone, lonely lifeless representative. The thought of scaling the slow gruelling ascends of Puncak Bukit Jalil just send shivers down the spine. It ain't no bed of roses and no pleasure cruise! The wild west adage kept ringing in my ears, "a man got to do what a man got to do!" "For what?" asked my horned red-eyed inner demon friend. "For the glory of motherland or bragging rights as you smoast on the social media?". The tussle continued with my haloed friend retorting, "For health, to ensure smooth laminar flow of blood in your vessels, for strengthening the inner fighting spirit of the soul, to s...

That is exactly how I feel right now! Feeling on top of the world looking at my conquest of successfully completing the Newton 25km run yesterday in 2h 53m. The timing seems nothing to shout about but if you look at the terrain that we ran, you would be equally mesmerised. It was organised by Triathlon Malaysia who are passionate about extreme sports, pushing the body to the limits with events like Ironman and finds pleasure in inflicting pain! So, you can imagine how the course would have been. The run was flagged off 6.30am as scheduled from the recreational grounds of Bandar Kinrara 5. Basically the whole route was ‘T’ shaped. If you consider the lowest point of the vertical line on the ‘T’ as the starting point, the 12 km runners had to complete one half of the horizontal line of the ‘T’ whereas the 25 km runners had to finish the full length of the bar and run back. The problem is the horizontal line of the ‘T’ is nothing but horizontal in real. The course was wavy with uphill an...