A word to seal 2012

Hello guys,

It's been quite some while since I last blogged, with numerous events and mishaps and what not.

I've always told myself as a kid: I don't want to be a politician. I don't want to do any sort of work that involves politics.

And so I football'ed, basketball'ed, Tennis'ed, and even spent a good energy on Table Tennis!
Eventually I fell into swimming and running, then triathlon caught on not long after.

Little did I know that as I continued breathing triathlon, I would become the core processor with all politics [windows 95 viruses] happening in Malaysia. The regular pop-ups that constantly appear as you deal with each, blocking you from doing anything you want and frustrating you to the brink.


But that's not what I am here to talk about.

I'd like to talk about the little (and major) things that have occurred to put me where I am, with a smile on my face.

During these past few long weeks, I had the opportunity that any young, ripe athlete would have begged on their lives for- to be able to have casual lunch together, live, train with, and watch the Pro's do their job. This all started just about a week before the Malakoff's wonderful event, Powerman Duathlon Asian Championships 2012 that was held in the scenic and iconic roads of central Putrajaya.


Harry come over to have a little training with us and not long after Radka Vodickova joined in, giving us a boot to the butt and also someone to be chasing most of the time. It was wonderful to hear what they had for say, to watch and also try to match the trainings sessions, and have a few good laughs.

During which Rob Woestenborghs also came over to stay over with us for a few nights prior to the lead up to Powerman.

It was a wonderful experience to be training with them!

I guess there is a fine difference between praising and kneeling before a picture of an idol mounted on the decorative wall, and actually bonding, having a close friendship with them. You learn that they aren't actually much different from us after all (Well, except some of us are just lazy farts, druggies and alcoholics), and that they still live with something the way we all have to. Life.

With the end of Powerman, Rob flew back to Belgium after an exchange of handshakes and best-of-luck wishes, while both Harry and Radka stayed a few more nights before heading off overseas to compete in various races (Including Hong Kong & Sanshui which I could not compete in).

I continued my training with the team and soon we headed off to Subic Bay Duathlon Asian Championships.

To cut things short, basically I finished 8th and very happy with, including some technical difficulties that cost me at least 1 placing and possibly a top 5 finish (if I had started the 2nd run out of the transition together with the entire pack chasing for 3rd place).
Having said that, I'm actually still jolly and don't believe it's anything worth stressing about.
In addition, 2 night before the race I had a bike mechanical tragedy and had a friends dad call his driver back in KL to pick up his extra bike, send it over to Steve's house for him to pack it up at 11pm, then get on the plane with 2 bikes at 6am and have it brought to me to set up and use for the race the next day! All that happened within 24hrs while "calm" was kept, continuing race prep'ing and what not (with a temporarily "Sponsored" bike) Can't thank KK Lee & Steve enough for making such an effort just so I could get on that start line.

New frame (Silverback Space). Sweet ride!

The following weekend I left for Phuket with the same luggage from Subic untouched. (Slowly learning to live out of a suitcase!)

I had a change of bikes within the few days in KL. Thanks to Megabike Asia for managing pull off a super hero move!


Firstly, may I just make a clear point: This was to most extraordinary trip of my life.

On the first morning after an evening flight, I happily crossed the line to place myself a winner of my very first and also very last Ironkids event. It was held in the incredible, spectacular grounds of Thanyapura Sports Center. The facilites were amazing and the campus was just "Ginormous". It was a perfect ground to hold a training camp and also have a good holiday.. Or both!

Even a beach volleyball court was available for use (for us to run in, and play in).

Though it is my last Ironkids, I'd definitely love to come back next year to watch how the event has progressed and also all the kids. Maybe even volunteer to help out as well if needs be, just as an excuse to be there to watch.


But what really caught me wasn't just the wonderful Thanyapura. It was what was held the morning after.


The Ironman Laguna 70.3.


It was a huge luck that someone was looking for a swimmer to go with their "fun" relay team to compete in the event and happened to stumble upon me as I was also looking for a reason to be at Laguna.
Thank you Barry Lee for helping out on that part.

Early in the morning as I headed down to the beach for a pre race warm up, I realised the atmosphere was one I had never experienced nor seen before.

Team FHL!

It's not easy to explain so let me just start by saying that there was a very strong smell of "70.3 and Phuket" to the environment. It was an incredible blend of the marvelous cultures and iconic sceneries of Thai together with the grand, adrenaline injecting atmosphere of an Ironman event.

Obviously, I'm not saying I now crave to do an Ironman starting next year or anytime soon.

They say a picture tells a thousand words. Well this "motion picture" showed me and taught me something that can't be taught from a book or overly exaggerated words of other competitors.

It showed me why these people loved the sport so much. It explained why they went all crazy about it, but could never really put it into words. You just can't. It reminded ME why I came and stayed in the sport longer than any other, through a very different way to the ITU environment.

You see photos and videos of people crossing the line and celebrating their victory, but it is just something else completely when you are standing under the pouring rain and deadly heats watching them for real and not through an electronic box. (I definitely can't begin to imagine the feeling of being the one to run across that blue carpet. The 30 second long jog that allows you to reflect and remind yourself what you have just achieve, while the audience standing behind the branded board pour their lungs out just to express their support). The parts that cameras don't record. The "not important" parts that they leave out (Which I've learnt more out of).

Allow me to sum it all up in just one word.

Experience.


Well, getting photo's with Macca, Chris Lieto, Ruedi Wild, Belinda, Melissa and Radka were obviously a highlight of the trip as well. Can't deny that.

Macca crossing the finish line to claim the title

I usually keep emotional experiences more personally, but I can't deny the bittersweet feeling that burns in my guts.

Bittersweet what?
Bittersweet, because the fun came to an end. Because I wont meet these wonderful people anymore, at least for now. Because a had taken a flight on sunday evening and missed the Laguna 70.3 after-party!

Bittersweet because I know that it was an unexpectedly amazing way to end the year, especially after the unfortunates throughout the year.
Bittersweet because I know that this is not the end, merely even the start, and that the season of 2013 and mabe even 8 years into the future will be filled with so much more.


So finally 2012 season has ended, and it's time for me to chill, re-manage myself, recuperate, catch up with friends, and prepare myself for the exciting mysteries to encounter next year.

I'd like to thank my sponsors:
- Athlete's Circle - for supporting my training this year with the aid of Polar HR monitoring and Nuun Electrolyte tabs to fuel my active needs.
- Megabike Asia/Silverback - for supporting my with an amazing bike for training and racing, as well as other numerous helpful equipments.
- Oakley - with their spectacular eyewear.
(I cannot thank you guys enough for your your help and without you, I definitely wont be where I am now)

Thank my family and friends for all their support and encouragements.

My coach Steve Lumley for guiding me to the correct path and fighting full-on single handedly for the rights of his athletes. Also to set up an elite team support us in vast aspects and prepare us for the challenges next year!

Merry christmas everyone and have a very happy new year!

Riki

Congratulating and sharing a few laughs post-race 

Photo with the Legendary Macca and lovely Olympian Radka

Chris Lieto

Politics unfolded

Politics here are going too far and here's what another triathlete with decent heart and dedication to the sport says about it:
http://tritwins.blogspot.com/2012/10/malaysian-triathlon-federation-polotics.html?m=1

The Star Article: Way to Go Rikigoro

Few weeks back I had an interview done by The Star on my athletic career. Thanks to Jason Thiang for the arrangment of it all!

http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?sec=central&file=/2012/10/8/central/12048227

Cold Storage Triathlon National Championships

Singapore hosted a triathlon again as they always had for the past few years under the same organisers at the same location- East Coast Park E2..
It was slightly disappointing that last year was their 10th anniversary (Was named OSIM ITU triathlon Asian Cup) and would be their final ITU year. I'm not sure of the reason it has stopped being ITU sanctioned. Nevertheless, it was still a race and one I wanted to give all. I did, and happy with that.

During my stay in Singapore I was accommodated by I singaporean friend- Joel Wong -and his family. It was lovely and they treated me to feel like home but with too much friendly service! Can't thank them enough for that.

Our race was held on a late saturday afternoon at 11am, after all the previous events had gone. The waters were calm and conditions were hot, but great. Well, it was definitely great compared to what I had gone through the weekend before in Desaru!
To the blow of te horn we sprinting into the sea with little beach/water running before 'falling' onto the water. It wasn't much of a hassle trying to swim around the crowd and soon I was leading the pack within the first 200m or so. The swim course was a 750m laid out in an upside down "L" shape. I got to the tip and made my U-turn to begin swimming back to the shore before noticing I was completely alone. It was worrying as I thought I had swum the wrong direction or something like that, and slowed down a little and even stopped to look back. I saw nothing but waves. It was the point where I decided I'd just keep swimming no matter what and try to ignore the confusion.
Exiting the water, I took a glance back to take a look at my competitors but there weren't in sight.
I swam a time of 9.49min with only mid effort on the middle sections of the swim leg!

The bike leg was ment to be non-drafting, but with so many people around, it was impossible. (The OD distance age groupers started 20min ahead of us, which ment all 400+ people were still out on the 6.6km thin, tight, technical coarse). It was a mess. I had many dead-stops on U-turns and held back a lot as people took up the entire roads and declined us any passage through. It was frustrating. halfway through I noticed i started to bleed from my nose (Again!) but kept going and it eventually eased of towards the end of the bike. I completed the 20km in 36min (According to the organisers, though on my computer it clocked 34min)

The run was where I really gave it all. Again adding to my frustration, the path was only one-man wide and it was blocked by OD age groupers the entire way. I was heating up badly and needed to splash myself so I grabbed 2 cup of water at every station I passed. At every single station I went, the cups were F*ing empty. To make matter worse the people filling it laid the cups out on their end of the large table. This resulted in runners reaching out far and many even having to stop to grab the cups. It added to the already congested roads. I held it in and towards the last 1.5km (and last station) I was starting to overheat and needed water badly. I took no chances and stopped at the station, grabbed the half-full cups then only carried on. It added a fair bit of time to my run. I eventually crossed the finish line with a run split of 20min and a total time on 1.06hrs. At this point I really wish it was ITU Sanctioned as that would have ment the Hong Kong boys and various other countries would have been here, and I could have been able to see where I would have been placed up with them, especially with the swim I had clocked at a comfortable pace!
Plus, the prizes for the winner was pathetic either ways..

Happy with my performance overall but disappointed in the organisation of the event this year. It could have easily taken a few minutes off my bike and run!
This got worse when we waited for 4hrs for the presentation under the sun, and they had a technical error and I was not registered properly. Basically, someone else got on the podium for the 1st place.
After another 1hr of wait and explanations and misunderstandings, it was finally sorted out saying that my timing chip had somehow skipped a checked point as "I didn't step right on the small red mat" but matters were resolved as I went through all important ones such as the halfway U-turn point.

My prize was depressing as well. I gold medal and an envelope including a $147 worth of Pilate voucher. It's basically like yoga.
Staright after, the organisers walked off with a box full of Soleus watches, other envelopes, and massive Maxifuel Goodie bags, all in the box clearly labelled "PRIZES"


It was a great race and I loved the race coarse, but I felt the organisation let me down a lot especially compared to last years race and years before that. The officiating was poor and volunteers were obviously not instructed and trained properly to do anything.
Lets hope they work something out and bring the race back to being ITU Sanctioned!

Riki

Desaru Long Distance & Sprint Triathlon

It's been a few days since I've come back from a 5 hour drive down to Desaru for a sprint race. We left on the Friday 21st September and arrive early evening to have out room sorted before having a quick munch and race prep.
My race was held at half past 3pm the next afternoon under the deadly rays of the sun. There was a short drizzle before hand which soon cleared into a super clear, pale blue sky. Normally that would be lovely, but the sun beamed on us heavily and standing for any longer than 5min broke more than just a trickle of sweat!

Our bikes were set up and while some did there warm ups, many others decided to avoid the sun under cooling shades. I went for a swim warm up through the entire 750m loop.

There weren't a large number of competitors but the fight for the buoys were nevertheless agressive.
We were set off by a horn into a beach start straight into the choppy waters. It was a quick start and very quickly the swimmers were spread out by their capabilities. I led for a short period before a singaporean passed by and I sat on him for the majority of the race. That was mistake.
being tossed around helplessly by the constant high waves, it was extremely hard to sight the buoys and to stop chugging down salty sea waters! And with someone else to block the view only made it harder. I kept my head to to focus on my stroke after passing the first of three buoys, but only sighted to realize I had been taken far off coarse. It took huge effort to chase down the singaporean and was not easy to 'stay calm'.
I finished the first swim leg half a minute down on the leader, trudging out of the water and recklessly trying to force the legs through the sand. I had taken in too much sea water by the end of the swim and my shoulders were falling off. My throat was stinging with salt and it felt awful running with my tummy slushing about.

As soon as I got on the bike I was met with a short steep climb before heading into the main road for a 20km loop. I took my time and steadily advanced towards the leader and before long I caught him. The road was straight and long, stretching out with long gradual hills. there was nothing on the sides but grey bushes, rocks, sand, and grass. It was dessert-like and seemed of something I would expect Kona Ironman to look like. We worked together on the bike (I worked most of it) and as we approached the 10km mark, my teammate from the back flew by. I had expected that and prepared to take off and work with him instead, but had over exerted trying to chase him down going 60km/hr+. It left me in the unrecoverable stage and I had to grit my teeth together to just pull through the bike leg. The heat did not help at all with my thirst and dehydration from the swim, and all I could do was sip and gargle my mouth with what I had. I couldn't drink much as I was already bloated with sea water, but still thirsty! I was on the brink and felt like pulling the the side and ending it. I let myself rest down a slope which only helped a little. But it helped.

Off the bike was straight into a 500m of sand running. I hate sand running! With not much power in me, as soon as my rhythm went, so did everything else. At the end of that part was straight into the short uphill that we had to climb previously at the start of the bike. By the end of it I acid had built up tremendously in my legs and stitches were buikding all over.
knowing the new leader was two far ahead (About 2minutes) and the third was just as far, if not even further back, I decided to just keep my form and get through the race. With that much taken out of me all I hoped for was the cross the finish line in one piece, and work on the race that was to be held the following weekend. I crossed the finish line with the time of 1hr5mins (I'm sure the run was short!)

Overall, great clear sea waters, wonderful bike coarse and run coarse (All long coarse), but all to the opposite to my liking!

I'm spending my next few days resting a lot and following Steve's "Short & Sharp" sessions before heading off the Singapore this time, further down than Desaru, to race in a short coarse sprint distance event (That, I like!), although it's non-drafting, the roads are very technical and flat, so it should not be spreading us out too much.

Riki

ASTC KL development camp

Just a few days back (Friday 24th-26th Aug 2012) Luc Morin of ITU and Mr.Kee of ASTC visited KL for just 3 days to help out us Malaysian athletes and Singaporean athletes, as well as the coaches in the technical tips and most importantly, the development of us athletes and coaches 'correctly'- Thank you guys very much for your time to teach us so much within such a short period! We appreciate it huge!

During the camp I learnt a great deal amount of what they had to offer- that included the body positioning in the water, or what Luc wanted, ON the water. We also taught on the arm recovery to "throw the ball", reach out far and keep a high stroke count. Kicking was just as crucial to keep to relaxed torso afloat, while the emphasis went on looking straight at the bottom of the pool.
Running side, I learnt how important it was to have a slight lean, with the arms up and right against my chest, "scratching my chest" and keeping the arms bent and "punching your chin" on the arm swing.
On the bike it was basically balancing skills that included dead still balancing, cornering, bottle pick-ups- I was pleased to say I absolutely nailed it! The fooling around during bike sessions have paid off!

We also had a 400m/200m swim TT and 1600m/400m track TT.
We weren't told of our swim results but I was pretty chuffed with my runs, clocking 5.07min and 1.07min.. No I wasn't anywhere near the Brownlees, but no hint of disappointment to do a 5min mile on my very first TT ever!

The final day came with a blink of an eye. It was a cool Sunday morning, which started off with the 4th discipline- Transition.
We worked mount/dismount, Helmeting, and manoeuvring around obstacles. I was glad to be able to go through them smoothly from all the transition training we went through in the past with Peter's aid.
Had a good swim later continuing the taught drills (kicking faced down, relaxing entire body till back and butt surfaced the water, small unforced rotations, "ball throwing" recovery, exaggerated high stroke count...)
The rain poured straight after and we were forced to delay the mini-triathlon. 2hrs later it finally stopped and we pulled our suits back on for the 100m-4km-1.5km super sprint race. My god it's no where near as easy as it sounds!! I put all my focus on what we had learnt (swim tech, transition, bike skills on drenched Tarmac, run tech) and it ended very well. I'm hoping it put a positive impression on Luc and Kee.. What a way to end the camp!

Another great part, which I'm sure was also part of the camp, was the get togetherness, socialisation and friendship we built between us, out teammates and the Singaporean buddies! Nick and Joel of SG were the 2 boys with who our relationship really blossomed.

It was very pleasant when Mr.Kee also kept a high interest in constantly coming up to me with a bucket of encouragement and wise words of his mind that I will be an Asian champion above Japanese and Koreans, as well as a future olympian. It was more than just cracking up a smile for me, to have been told such things by not only a coach of the korean national coach, but also an ASTC member/(I think) president..

All in all it was a very educational and great 3 days, excluding the few little problems that surfaced which were caused be none other that the ones who had the job of organising the accommodation and plans and some naughty naughty athletes (won't mention names!).

Got some pics up as well!

Riki

Joel Being Joel

Joel's personal request to use my new blog opening to advertise his beautiful face

Bright London Flames

Just to start off a more "official" blog..

So just recently the world had spent two weeks of their lives gathered and glued to the TV screen despite the deferences in time zones just to watch what I can't deny was one of the most spectacular sporting event in the world. (Yup, I was also having sleepless nights!)
From the very moment the Opening Ceremony began (3:50am where I was) I got up, rubbed the sleep off my eyes, got some toast and got right into it, before going for a hard morning training right after!

London Olympic Games 2012 was one of the most amazing events I had ever witnessed so far. Watching the worlds best athletes gather together and compete, as well as exchange and share culture and experience was such a spectacular thing and it really implemented a burning desire to reach that dream and do my country proud at the Olympics one day. I've also noticed the amount of tears of joy as well as heartbreaks which I guess you could say was the magic of the Olympics -A once in a lifetime event.
You could really see in their faces how emotionally involved the worlds best can be at such an event.
Listening to what the athletes had for say in their devotion in the lead up to the olympics, It really made realise the kind of discipline and inner strength (not to mention balls and guts of insane tolerance) I needed if I wanted a chance to live up to the dream.
It seemed like a long shot.
Don't get me wrong, I say it seemed like a long shot, but I also had a feeling inside me telling I could definitely do it, that as long as I put in what needed to be put in, nothing was impossible. I felt that 'highs' the olympians got as they crossed that finish line, broke that record, achieved that perfect somersault. It truly has awakened the Michael Phelps within me, and Chuck Norris Round-house kick of motivation to my head, especially after all the gutting and absolutely frustrating politics I just HAD to be the centre of.
Politics.. Something I guess you could say I'm lucky enough to know about and be smart enough to take in responsibly and ignore it when necessary at a young age like me. It's something you never want to be involved in, but at the same time just can't avoid for your own good.
It's been tough, but everyday I've been able to just ignore it and go on pushing myself hard, if not even harder in these past few weeks.
As I've been told: "focus on your performance, enjoy racing and training and try to ignore this bullshit as much as possible"
Not bragging or anything, but that's actually been relatively easy to do for me! (Well at least the ignoring bit)

Riki

Fresh start

My very first blog will just start with a little familiarization of how this works. Honestly, I have no freakin' clue how this works! been spending loads of time trying to work out how to set up a background, but no idea how to set up links, or anything else.. -at all.
On another note, may as well get on blogging my life and stuff going on while I'm at it.

Well, that's all I got for now.. Back to playing around with this blog page.

Riki