It’s the 3rd year for me, the 2nd time for Esther in joining the Genting TrailBlazer. As like the previous year, all categories uses the same route totaling 14km of flats, hills, obstacles, rivers and of course plenty of mud.
We took the Adventure package offer which was around RM300+. It includes Awana 1 night stay and 1 buffet dinner + the run registration itself. The goodies this year was slightly disappointing as there were less 'goodies' in there, the thing that we found most interesting was the 2 return tickets for the Skyway and 2 entrance tickets to all the theme parks in Genting. We took the opportunity to be a child for the day and headed to the top by using the shuttle bus, which was FOC. Every attraction were loaded with crowds, the lines were freaky long. We wanted to ride on the roller coaster but it was closed for the day. Then out of my curiosity, we took a ride on the Space Adventure. To my horror the ride was so dull, you can actually sleep in there, the entire ride was just rocking chair and the 'alien' doll in the middle pops its head up every 10 secs. Then we headed to the Flume Ride, lined up for like 1hr+ and when we were just 1 step away from the ride, they closed the attraction due to rain. Deng..... We headed to the bumper cars instead, lined up for 20mins and had a great time crashing our heads off at every car we see.
We headed back to the shuttle bus and had a great chat with an old couple while waiting. Esther wanted Starbucks ice blended chocolate so off I went to purchase it. Just when I put my orders, the bus arrived, I hush hushed the barista, and my drinks was completed in less than 2mins, albeit having inconsistent crushed ice feeling. We had a good laugh all the way down taking about how I 'forced' the barista to hasten up my order.
Race day - We woke up at 7am, had our breakfast and off we went to the starting line. I told Esther that I do not want the bib on my back the night before, so we left it in the room. What do you know, the marshal insisted I have the bib, else we would be disqualified, the race was commencing in another 15min, off I ran back to the room and had it pinned. The distance from the room to the starting line was not near, mind you. We started from the last section of the crowd.
The new pairs of Kampung Adidas were way better in flats compared to the previous year we had, as flat be our strength. We took the opportunity to push ourselves to the middle of the pack. We kept on overtaking groups even on the muddy terrain. We were more daring this time in taking routes which the majority does not want to use. The steepest mud section right after the river was a breeze until nearing the stairs section. As usual Esther was already hyper from her caffeine added Powergel while I just ran out of breath. Just when we reached the top at the long house, both my quads suddenly seized up. We rested for few minutes then continue our journey. Just a few hundred meters later, it seized up again, this time rendering my entire body down to my knees. Thanks to the comradeship of other participants, they came to my aid and offered me their deep heat rub. Soon after, we were running again, to the obstacles section.
The first obstacle was knee deep mud, then countless small hills and descending into the water mud pit, the changes this year was the military rope wall then the military crawl to the finishing line. We completed in position 75. Would I be back next year for more bruises, bleeding and of course the pain of looking up to the long stair section? HELL YEA!!!
*picture grabbed from PMTey. Thanks Tey.
