Our contingent consisted of Wong, Amirul Ali, Shamsul, Lau and Kar Sing in University Individual category; Me, Afiq and Tiang in mix team, and Kak Jiha in Open. By the way, Shamsul is a UTM masters student that we met at Malakoffs UTM duathlon clinic; Lau and Tiang were Mr. Blacks sports science students; while Amirul Ali was a jelajah Malaysia cyclist currently studying at Johor Poly.
Departed from UTM at 8 something with Lim (Chee Hiong) who was hitching a ride to KL. Stopped at a rest area and asked for a sample at baskin robbins without making a purchase (This is a kakithon tradition, it's good for training thick-skin). Continued our journey and reached the hostel in the middle of the night.
Morning found us in front of UM sports complex waiting for the gun to go off. Omar(masum 5000m guy) was the first one back to T1, with Wong, Afiq and Kar Sing around 200-300meters behind. Had some issues with the race belt, wasted some time but managed to wear the shoes on the bike, caught up to Kar Sing and rode most of the way with Wong up and down Bukit Cinta (Do them hills get taller each year?). Came into T2 with Wong and relayed to Tiang. Amirul was a great cyclist but had just started running, so he alternated between getting overtaken on the run and overtaking on the bike. Congrats to Shamsul on finishing his first MUDS, and good job to Wong on his 5th place finish and Jiha for her first place in women's open.
In a nutshell, it was a relatively simple and hassle-free trip compared to our previous MUDS (None of that stuffing-bikes-into-a-bus-and-then-a-car crap), yet the response was poor with only 5 new participants from UTM, further more we would not have a single university category medal if not for Wong, which is a shame, because it's logical that we should perform better after being sponsored.
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