MINUM SUSU MEMBAHAYAKAN KESIHATAN

Contrary to popular belief that milk is good for thebones, it is BAD for runners especially when you down½ carton of really cold milk before hitting the sack.That was exactly what I did on Friday night afterwatching Malaysian Idol. It has been a scorchingcouple of weeks and I just had to have something cold.The only healthy drink in the fridge that faithfulnight was a carton of Mr Farmer’s Vanilla Milk.Confession time, I love milk. Given a choice I wouldchoose milk to any fizzy or isotonic drinks. Back tothe story, ½ a carton was downed and I went to bedfeeling nice and cool. Bad move!

I started purging in the middle of the night and mystomach was bloated. I visited the family doctor earlySaturday morning. Western doctors diagnosed thesesymptoms as food poisoning. Actually it was all thegas in the stomach that was making it bloated andextremely uncomfortable.

I could not eat anything the whole of Saturday. Eachtime I looked or smelt food being cooked, I would feelnauseatic. This is not good, I told myself. Whateverit is, I still have to get my Seremban ½ Marathonmedal.

I could not sleep well on Saturday night. I wasworried that I am unable to complete the race.

Sunday morning, I woke up at 4am. Still feelingdiscomfort and uneasy. Fortunately purging has stopped(what’s there to purge because I hardly ate anythingthe night before) and I felt very exhausted. And itwas raining heavily at my place. How I wished therewas no run, I would have continued sleeping till 8am.

Car-pooled with Jimmy Tong (ex-PACM Vice President).He arrived at about 5am. Traffic was smooth except fora little incident at the Kesas highway where a policecar skidded right in front of us. Whoa! That reallyjolted us. If we were a little faster, we would havebeen hit by that police car doing a 180 degrees turn.What’s more to say about our local enforcementofficers?

The rest of the journey was smooth. We saw manyrunners making their way to the run. The road was wetdue to the heavy downpour. It seemed like it rainedall the way to Seremban.

The rain has stopped in Seremban. Very nice weather torun, I told myself positively. I collected my bibsfrom Ryan (thanks Ryan for all the trouble!) at theTown Hall. I made my way to the starting point. Saw alot of familiar faces (Alden, Rohaizad, Kenny, Kelvin,Adam, Chen (I still owe you RM4 for the PowerGel etc).My stomach was still very uneasy. My plan for the racewas to complete by 2:30hrs. However, I was worried asthere were close to 400 participants for the ½marathon B category and there were only 300 medals tobe given. I was busy checking out the bibs. Ifeveryone complete the race by 2:15, it was a goner.

The race started approximately 7am. I ran feverishlyduring the first 10km of the race. Then it all wentdownhill because I felt my stomach became heavier,nauseatic and having difficulty breathing. I had tostop. I started walking. Familiar faces were runningpast me giving words of encouragement.

I ran and walked. At one point I totally gave up ongetting the medal.

Being my 2nd ½ marathon in Seremban, this was a newroute to me. My first was in 2002. The gradual hillswere challenging and I personally think it was betterthan Ipoh (minus the pollution and bad trafficcoordination). It did not help as well during the last5km of the race when the school children joined us.Most of them were not even interested to run. Somewere seen holding hands (pak toh) and some were havingtarik at the mamak stalls.

I made it to the finishing line in 2hrs 24mins andsurprisingly 193rd position. This has been my worsttiming for a ½ marathon. However, I must thank God andmy lucky stars that I managed to complete the race inone piece.

P/S : I know Ryan’s going to give me my nickname :SUSU MAN

Brought to you by Kevin Chow (PM32)