Run, Swim, and Hanchik falling

Started out not so early after I snoozed my alarm clock after so many hundredth time. I he thought of a 2-hour run, a day before scaling thousands of steps up the KL Tower is not that flattering. I figured, since we are doing loops at a Shah Alam park, I could join them anywhere in between.

The traffic was light, as much as I put up with my mellowness this morning, with overcast sky, lazy cloud, and weary head. It had rained the night before - a recipe for a good coiling under the warmth of the duvet, wake up late, heavy breakfast.

But what really woke me up this morning was the plan to swim at PADE, as I had a cold feet thinking the depth of the pool. I am reaching 40, and I have a fear of the water, whenever my toes can't touch the floor. Aquaphobia? Agoraphobia? Bathophobia? Regardless, the invitation to swim with the taikos never ceased to entice me, watching them drew laps like eating karipap sardin on a leisure Sunday.

There were Ian, Ziff (our Shah Alam host), Shyrim, Day-O and Che. We had 2 big laps and numbers of small laps (I had one, thanks to my tardiness), and my total mileage was somewhere around 8k+. My lazy target anyway. Lucky me.

We cooled off early, and headed out to PADE, while Day-O proceeded with additional lap/s on her own. She said it has been a while since her last outdoor run. Kes lepas gian lah ni kot.

Arrived PADE, only to turn around as the big pool was hosting the final day of MSSM's event. Weighing betwen Subang and KJ, we opted for the latter, and off we went, chasing our destiny. Kash (and Citra), TollDoll, Ziff, Ian, Shyrim and Day-O, all were at the pool in the scorching sun. It was blindingly hot, and I was running out of time. I had to be home early as friends are visiting. Damn, 1.5k swim was in grey cloud.

The pool is nowhere near as good as PADE's, but the crowd was OK. The pool is too shallow for me, which later Ziff told us that the pool has a deep end at the middle as it caught him resting between laps. The water felt a little weird, and I felt I had to pull harder to swim, as opposed to my local pool, or Bukit Jalil Aquatics. And since the pool doesn't put any floatlines, the water is what I imagine would be like if I were to swim in the open sea - choppy. With waves coming from the many swimmers around me, either dog peddling, breaststroke, front crawl etc, all the waves were like multiple tsunamis, and I was bobbing in the water and struggled.

I managed a 200m warm-up, and went on with series of 100s. Finished after the 1.1k swim, and rushed like mad home. The time was 11.20a.m.

I wish I could have done better. But we mortals, cannot win all. After all, these progressions make me realise that I am, not a pro, a normal being, and getting better is just, well, normal and acceptable.

It was after the guests have all gone that I received an SMS from Diket, with news that Hanchik had earlier crashed in Peres and broke his collarbone. Few SMSes later, and his blog entry with a pic of Hanchik lying by the roadside with an ambulance in the background, I understood half the story of him supposedly not clipping his right foot to the bike and lost his balance. Owch, indeed. I am just glad he's OK, and there were so speeding cars at that time, and other riders were experienced to avert bigger disaster.

In shower tonight, I held my collarbone and feeling fragile. Would have felt like holding a broken branch.

Double owch!

Get well soon Hanchik, and come back stronger! We'll miss you these coming months, and never give up!