Promise to run for..

"Do you know what I like most about mountain hiking?"

"What?"

"Every step you make, you are one step closer to the peak...." I looked up and turned to Fatma, gave her a smile..

"NO!!!" Fatma disagreed, "..Every step you make, you are one step FURTHER away from where you started off, " she protested, "...AND ONE STEP FURTHER away from where you need to return to!!!"

I looked at her. Said nothing, hopped a few steps up then turned to her, "C'mon Fatma. We're almost there..."

**********************************************************

Out of frustration towards the organizer, Daus, Wan and I decided to quit the race. And that triggered the disappointment from the rest of the KOMA racers. Huda came to me and pleaded, "Look, you guys don't have to do that -- quitting the race is not going to solve anything... "

I looked at her and the rest of the ladies team. Our Ms Sunshine Fatma had been so quiet since just now, Nurin and Uyun did not cover their disappointment towards three of us. And Farid our team manager -- I know he's pissed off.

"Ke garisan.." The Men's Open racers were about the be flagged off. Ijol, Coco and Zahir were behind the flag-off line..

"C'mon Man, sempat lagi nih..." Huda pleaded. I muted.

"... if the rest of the KOMA members were here, they must be very disappointed with you guys.." Huda left me alone with her last sta

tement.

"GO!!" Followed by the thunderous roar of Men's Open racers stepping on the mountain after flagging off.

..and I was still sitting beside, in my hand was my bip number for a Men's Open category, pondering Huda's words.

**********************************************************

I met Coco at near-peak of Gunung Datuk where he was about to shoot down to the finishing line. Snapped a picture of him then I quickly passed him my water bottle -- this guy had been so confident and he'd never considered of bringing water for the race -- and look at how quickly he finished my water, I knew he's just drained out by his own arrogance.

I need to shoot back to check out those who were still behind.

PapaJai said, "A true Mohawk is the one who leads in front, and also the one who will run to the last person in the troop, and making sure everyone in the troop is taken care of.." -- and I'm still learning.

Way up: Fatma -- checked; Huda -- checked; Uyun -- checked; Nurin -- checked; Zahir -- found him sitting aside resting, but checked; Ijol -- steady, checked; Coco -- checked;

Way down: Ijol -- still steady, checked; Huda -- She's building her speed, checked; Uyun -- I was expecting to see Nurin, checked; Zahir -- found him sitting aside resting again, checked; Nurin -- found her in pale, but catching up her breath, checked;

Fatma -- not checked.

I just had to run faster to look for Fatma -- Zahir and Fatma were considered as rookies in racing while Coco, Ijol, Huda, Uyun and Nurin were relatively more experienced in racing. And YES, my biggest worry was Fatma -- NOT because I didn't trust her stamina, but because she said something that really annoyed me before the race.

She said,"Well, I'll try -- but most likely I'll turn back before the peak kuut..."

Well Fatma, this is not going to happen, I promise.

**********************************************************

I made a promise before. I remember.

There's one day when PapaJai the KOMA Otai sat in front of me and told me about his hope of seeing a true Mohawk in me, I nodded;

There's one day I ran all the way down from a peak of a mountain and left all the troopers behind and being scolded by some disappointed faces after that, I nodded;

Right after the flag off of Men's Open category, the Men's Teen category's racers were all set to be flagged off, it will be followed by Ladies' Open. I looked at Huda, Nurin, Uyun, Fatma and Farid. Same disappointed faces.

I nodded.

"Farid, give me the camera --" I turned to Farid, then to the girls, "aku teman diorng naik."

**********************************************************

"FATMA!!!"

It was indeed such a great relieved to finally meet our Ms Little Sunshine, making her step hard upward..

"You're not thinking of turning back right?" I approached her.

'Seriously, yes for a few times already.." She looked surprised s

eeing me, I guess -- or it was just plain a face expression of regrets.

"Let's go, we get to the peak together."

******************************************************

4 of April, 2009. The troop of KOMA arrived Negeri Sembilan's Gunung Datok to take part in the "N9 Sirkit Gunung Challenge" where the participants are required to race on 3 mountains in 3 months (Gunung Datok @ 4 April; Gunung Tampin @ 16 May; Gunung Angsi @ 27 June) in order to complete the circuit.

The KOMA racing cast consisted of Daus, Wan, Ijol, Coco, Zahir, me myself, Nurin, Huda, Uyun and Fatma; Shah Farid as our team manager -- and hey, it was the biggest racing team from KOMA after the ever-happening The 6th Perak Iron-bound back in January this year, and with the debut of our very eye-catching KOMA Tee, it was SUPPOSED to be another exciting adventure race for KOMA but, I just have to say this, the lame organizer insisted on 'flirting' their VIP with all the non-sense 'protocol' that triggered frustrations among the racers.

Nevertheless, we're still hyped up by our debutants like Fatma and Zahir who join

ed a race for their very 1st time; Farid made his debut as our Team Manager (Wa respect sama lu brader!!); and Nurin grabbed the 10th placing in Women's Open category!

We thank those who supported, logistically and morally; and we apologize to those who got disappointed, heartiestly and sincerely.

*******************************************************************

Ps.. Yes Fatma, every step we make, we are one step further to where we started off -- but who cares? Being adventurous is all about getting out of our comfort zone, right? Congratulation girl, you made it! And to Zahir our new geng, welcome to KOMA!

The hum of a lonely soldier..

Life is too hard to become good.. I'm too weak to become strong..

Sometime we thought we cried because we can't love,

but the fact is .. we cried because we loved;

Sometime we thought we don't deserve the despair right now because we've fought,

but the fact is .. it's the despair that made us fight, till right now..

Life's too hard to be good.. I wish I'll be tougher to stand strong..

Battle on, soldier..

-- 29 March, 2009..

D'River Cafe, River Front KB..

among one huge group of Muay Thai fighters, gather here for International Muay Thai Challenge.

less.on me -- Sg. Pisang camping trip

I splashed some water on the big-enough-to-cover-5-tents flysheet, crawled onto it and started
cleaning off the dirt. My neighbours peeped on me from their window. I know I looked stupid doing this crawling-on-a-sheet stuff under such a big sun.

I still have my buff on my head -- yup, the one I wore during my stay in the jungle of Sg Pisanarea. Just came back from the 2-day-1-night camping, a rather light 'KOMA' outing, but definitely not light in its significance.

..and it was the strong feeling that pulled me straight to this house-keeping tasks, even not a seconds of rest after I reached home from Sg. Pisang.

A kid of neighbourhood came nearby me and looked at what I was doing. He was wearing a Spider-man T-shirt, and in his hand was a 'Spidey' weapon. Yeah adik Spiderman, I know I'm occupying your playground now -- please bear with me -- and BTW, it's 3 pm, still early for play-time.

The big warm sun over my head reminded me of the storm and heavy rain pour during our stay in Sg Pisang a night before. 8 of us hided under this big fly-sheet, with our ground-sheet was all-overly wet, plus my LAFUMA tent got soaked with heavy down pour, and flooded inside.

Ground sheet is a lil bit tricky to get it cleaned. I needed a rag to wipe off the dirts. Some details needed to be taken care of. The kid was still looking at me. "Besarnyerrr.." I heard he whispered. I smirked. Yer dik, besar dan berat. It's huge, and heavy.

I just realized a shameful fact about myself for being a mountain hiker -- I've never looked seriously at the importance of fly sheet nor ground sheet, and I've never cared enough to carried these sheets up to a mountain or entered a campsite -- all until this trip to Sg. Pisang. What a shame.

..and realizing this shameful fact made me remembered some names in KOMA -- PapaJai, Fariz Angah, Zana and Amir -- They are the true backbones of KOMA, the real spines of every adventure outings, and in contrast, I'm just a playful kid who only look for fun out there.

I'm just like the kid watching me doing all the dirty works but knows nothing, except waiting eagerly for his playground to be cleared...

It's time to grow up, and to bear some responsibilities -- this message stroke me when PapaJai expressed his hope on me in the Sg. Pisang jungle. "Being the strongest doesn't mean being the fastest to reach the puncak.. A true 'Mohawk' doesn't only stay in front.."

'Mohawk', is another term for Run-Leader. He leads a troop together with Sweeper and Back-Marker. PapaJai introduced the 'drop-off' system for hiking -- the convoy system designed for bike riders originally, "a true 'Mohawk' shares his energy throughout the troop, and holds the right attitude for the troop -- you have the strength, Man, and we now need your attitude.."

Attitude.

I hope this is not too late for being a more responsible me -- responsible to my hiking hobby, responsible to my promises, responsible to my friends, and responsible to my troop.

I stood up. Smiled to the kid. The warm sunlight shone on his face, and obviously he was excited to think that I was going to clear up his playground. I smiled again -- Hey adik, I still have my LAFUMA and my sleeping bag to be washed, and I'm going to leave the sheets HERE on your play ground before it's totally dry -- and hey, your play time is 5, right?

I rubbed his head before I left him, caught a glance at his T-shirt again. Spider-man. Hmmm... I smiled.

"With great power comes great responsibility.." -- I was speechless but shook my head with smirk, cuz all of a sudden I kinda saw PapaJai standing in front of me, wearing the Spider-man T-shirt, sengih.

..and in his hand, there's a lesson to me.

back to basic..

Pathetic enough, sometime we just need assurance and reassurance from somebody else, to tell us that we are doing fine for being ourselves.

Our world crumbles and we groan and moan when people around us fail to give us any assurance. And sometime we lost faith to friendship, to family-hood, to kinship, to brotherhood, to loveship and all good things in life when we thought those who supposed to understand don't understand us.

..but hey, how well deserved are we to ask for full understanding from somebody else, and more, to receive assurance and reassurance on our own life's value?

Things hit me lately and it made me ponder. And when I started to get unsure about all I believed in, an old 'K-I-V' message from a stranger reassured me.

The message is an offer. One of my photo in Prague of Czech Rep. was chosen to be included into an online travel guide. I don't consider this as an achievement but it's an assurance to me at this point of time -- an assurance that at least help to revive my confidence, at the point of time when I'm feeling I'm the biggest looser in this world.

Feel free to got to these links to view the travel guide:
Golden Lane
www.schmap.com/prague/sights_malstrana/p=160527/i=160527_38.jpg

On iPhone/ iPod touch:
Golden Lane
www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=prague&sid=sights_malstrana&p=160527& i=160527_38

Blog widget (shown on my panel):
www.schmap.com/guidewidgets/p=14355408N00/c=SJ1911811

ps.."Back to basic" is something keep on flashing in my head lately, and together with the phrase, I have a strange vision seeing each of everybody is actually a planet in this universe -- I know, weird, as the rest of my illogic visions -- and I'm not going to talk about it here. My point is, the basic of our pursuit of happiness is all about feel good about what we're doing, minus the outsider factors.

Like a planet shines because of the life's growing in it and all the buzz and fuzz happening on it -- not about how its orbit cross cut the others in the universe, not really.

How about individual?

15 February, 2009. Milo-Power-MSSMKL-POAWPKL Lake Garden Cross Country Run. Koma Runners team 'Run, Koma Run' 1st ever individual race.

I was worried. As a beginner, I trust the power of 'team motivation' so much, and realy couldn't imagine how I have to race against my buddies.

Being involved in many (many many) running events, Daus seemed composed as he also be, and indifferent toward runnig individually. Wan and Adam, by the way, have diffrent says on individual race, but both led to one same conclusion.
Wan said,"I feel relax to think of running on my own pace.." he thinks he's going to enjoy the run without peer-pressure;
while Adam, feeling worried about his leg's condition, claimed in relief, "I feel no-guilty if my leg has to slow me down.." he thinks he's going to take his time struggling with his condition, without holding back the rest of us.

-- well, it seemed like I was the only one who was worried like a kindergarten school kid entering classroom for his first time. And whatever it is, flag-off there was, and almost 400 runners in Men's Open category rushed for the next 8km in Lake Garden.

I still could recall the moment just before the flag-off, Wan, at his usual optimistic and high-spirited tone, announcing something about our ultimate target for this race: The finisher medal.

"Hey you know what? Only FIRST 100 finishers will receive the finisher medal," and he added, "well you guys just go ahead....Hehehe.."

Now, again, the scenario's back to 'individual'. wan was obviously quiting from the hunt for the Top-100 Finisher Medals -- in fact, he managed to switched his new target to 'Finish the 8km within 1 hour"; while Adam was still worried about his leg's condition, at the same time announcing that he'll be following me (that's creepy..); and Daus, according to his blog after the race, he was mentally disturbed by the limited finisher medals; and me? I looked down to my left back-hand, where 5 disordered letters written on: 'f' - 'o' - 'c' - 'u' - 's'.

--- but I seriously did not know what to focus on right then.



The 8km distance covers more than 3 uphills and a little part of crossing a forest in the midst of KL (that made the race qualified as a 'cross-country' race I guess..) -- And most of the time I was running with my buddy Daus. OK, fair enough, individual race, my pace setting, my breathing, my mental, my focus -- all elements during a run -- were all on myself, but I still choose to keep my pace up with Daus'. Hey it's always good to have someone to run with, at least a standard for me to recheck my own run, right?

I thank Daus for the moral support and the talking PLUS the 'on-the-run' jokes whenever we ran side by side. I lost him everytime we approached an uphill portions but soon enough he caught me up again, then he continued his talking and jokes. I think he became part of the reason for me to start chill out during the run.


***************************************************

OK I quit using my usual dramatic tone in writing this post if you noticed. Recalling this race somehow reminds me a very leisure and relax afternoon, perhaps having a cup of coffee with good friends. Probably it was the smooth and good feeling that smear.

The race in Lake Gardem, my 1st individual race, ends up become my best running race so far. It was not due to the 'me running individual' factor, instead, it's about 'many individuals running together; and running for our OWN target.

I finished the race at 59th, Daus at 69th. Wan managed to finish his run within 1 hour, and Adam had to slow down his pace to really deal with his not-so-good leg condition.

We thank Ijoi and Nurin for coming with us and helped out here and there. It's always good to know that there's somebody waiting at the finishing line when you are on the run -- like always. :)

Oh yeah before I end, 'Run, Koma Run' has a new member: Adam 'Charming' Naughty.Thank you for joining bro -- dah cukup quota dah utk lari relay empat orang.. hehehe!

muted in silence.. (I would say..)

Hold on, hold on -- You sure you are going to tell them all?

It has been left.. untold.. for such a long time...

Yes. I'm going to reveal it -- not all of it, but most of it --but it's still up to them to pick it up.

Hmmm... so.. which one are you going to start with?

Hmm.. start from recent, shall we?

It's up to you....

OK.. let's start.. I would say "I'm sorry. The joke was on purpose. I wanna see how you care about me, as I don't trust myself was being really cared about by you... I was just being unsecured, and less-confident... please forgive me.."

To who?

To a text message that said "It's not funny n u shud know wen 2 stop dat stupid joke"....

Why did you leave it untold?

...cuz it sounds like a looser.

Well, indeed. And that's a lousy start. What's next?

I would say "I'm not fine, not at all. I'm struggling with my past and I keep on loosing; I hate myself for being indecisive, and being a big looser in standing up for what I really want for myself....."

Sounds fuzzy.. and this is to ..?

To a bunch of good friends who witnessed how I crumbled and fell apart into fragments..

..you should just let them know how you feel -- that's good friends for.

It was untold -- cuz it sounds like a promise, and I don't want to promise something that I can't even promise myself....

Hmmm.... next.

I would say "Please help me to lock my courage and my strength and my optimistic vision that I gained every morning, let me have all of them until mid day, until night; let these hopes guide me in making the decision, and taking the ultimate move.."

OK -- now this is fuzzier and confusing.. to whom you wish to reveal this to..?

To God.

Why didn't you just tell then?

..cuz I'd never know whether he's listening...

Don't cry.

No, I'm not.

You bet. Ok go on -- what's next?

I would say "Don't worry.. Nothing will change, I promise; My love to you, my devotion to you -- all will stay the same like before.. I promise.."

To..?

My family..

Then why you'd never said it?

Cuz it's painful.

Don't cry.

Hey stupid I'm not.

Fine. Next.

..............

Ting Tong.. Anybody home?

We'd better stop here. *sign out*

*sign out*

On my bended knees

I'm on my bended knees, thanking, and praying for the bridge to come....

I wish I could see how it built, so that I could stack some bricks. Across the strait, I see my dearest brothers and sisters waving -- my dear whom they could always make me calm from fears, my dear whom they could always make me calm in tears.. 

I wish I could see how it built, so that I could prepare myself for the day to come. The Azan calls from the west bank, I'm standing east. The sun rises and my shadow is already there.

I wish I could see how it built, I wish I could see how it built; cuz I see my path laid out after the bridge, cuz I see the little town of my life lit up with every lights, across the strait.

I'm on my bended knees, thanking -- to my brothers and sisters who help me to see, to listen, to perceive, and to pray...

I'm on my bended knees, listening to the fear of letting them down, wishing for a strength to raise myself up, 

I'm on my bended knees, praying, for the bridge to come.... 

~~ to all my best friends ~~