Earn For Tricks

One random day during OG lunch, Jon asked if I wanted to join Commando Challenge with him, Jaryl and Chang Horng. They needed 1 more person to form a team (actually you can form a team of however many you want but forming a team of 4 or more gives you a team discount. 

I was thinking "waaaa commando leh! OK ONZ!!!" hahaha :D

So I went home and signed up for it. Only to find that I didn't get the stupid early bird discount so I spent $100+ on it. I wanted to check exactly how much I paid but UOB online banking doesn't let you check transactions that happened more than 1 month ago :/ lame. 

Ok so from the time I paid up, I decided that I have to train for this shit! We signed up for the Elite category, which is supposed to be a 12km course with obstacles that commandos go through. I mean, it is planned by commandos, seems quite credible.

Btw, both Jon and Chang are regulars... And all 3 of them are older than me. HAHAHAHA!

Our team name... Sigh. Jon came up with it. It is not something I identify with but maybe the 3 of them do? But whatevs, we are a team! And I'll say loudly and proudly that our team name is HUM SUP KIAS.

Training 

So I tried training for it. I increased my training distance cause I specialise in 10km and 12km is freaking long please!!!! So I ran 8km a few times a week, starting 3 weeks before today. Oops. I started training a bit late la. 

LTA Jon Teo said that the obstacles confirm need arm strength one, so I did damn many push ups. Ok fine I didn't. I downloaded an app that encourages you to do push ups and used it once. My max rep was 15X8=120. I was quite proud of that one ^^

Yup, that's about all the training I did. Not too proud of my lack of training. I was supposed to train pull ups but it's super mafan cause you need a pull up bar. And the closest pull up bar is... Downstairs, in my brother's room. Freaking mafan!!!

14th Dec 2013 Night

Wa my gosh I was SOOOO crazy nervous and excited that I couldn't sleep!!! Plus I ate damn a lot so I was too full to sleep. You know? So uncomfortable that cannot sleep, not the 'full until food coma' kind. Shouldn't have eaten so much...... But I guess that's where I got my energy for the actually challenge from :D

I was also super nervous cause of my lack of training. The running part, I was quite confident I can keep up. But the obstacles.... Monkey bars will kill me. And if you don't complete all the obstacles, you're no longer in the running for the prizes!!!!! 

I don't race to lose.

Ya so I was quite scared I'd be a freaking burden to my team, my fellow Hum Sup Kias. 

I was so scared that I dreamt about it. Apparently there is an obstacle/are obstacles that require full immersion. In what? I don't know. But anyway, I dreamt that it was this huge swimming pool and there were CROCODILES in them!!! Wts! Damn scary!!! But the crocodiles only swim and attack straight. So just move out of their way and you'll be fine. But there was so damn many of them that you might move out of one's way and get eaten by another one straight away. Freaking scary. I didn't know how I was going to tell their gfs and families that they were eaten by crocodiles while trying to complete the commando challenge :(

Pre-Commando Challenge

Our flag off is supposed to be at 10am. So we decided to meet at Commonwealth MRT at 9am so we can drop off our bags and all. 

I woke up at 7am and decided that I needed more sleep. So I went back to sleep and when I woke up at 8.15am and checked my phone, Jon was freaking there already!!! HAHAHAHA!! He stays damn far in the east. 

While I was still getting ready at 8.30am, Chang reached also. Seriously man, I don't know what's with these guys.

But cause I RAN out of my house to the bus stop, without even having tied my shoe laces, I managed to catch the bus and I arrived at 8.50am, before Jaryl - our detachment commander (DC). Muahaha!

Surprisingly, no one was late!! Jaryl reached at like 8.58am. Yes, I'm really quite amused about it. Hahahaha!

The commonwealth mrt station was filled with people going for commando challenge. The start point is damn close by so yeah. But it's obvious that they are going for it cause of their dressing. Some dressed until freaking pro!! Like 2XU full tights, bandanas, muscles, sunnies, sports bra only etc. And there Jaryl and I were, dressed in clothes that we planned to just throw after the event. I really planned on throwing everything except my $500 insoles. But actually they are quite old alr, I might have to go change them soon.

From left: LTA Jon Teo, Jaryl Too Rich, Chang Sir and me.

We took a photo before dropping our bags under a random tree. Hahaha! The bag drop was really random. But it's ok cause they were going to transport all our stuff to the end point at Tanjong Pagar.

After we dropped our bags off, we then walked over to the start point where there were many people. On the way there, we met our first obstacle - a trench. Must jump over one ok!!

There are supposed to be 25 obstacles. 

From the map, it looked like it was just start, run 12km then do the same obstacles that the Sprint people are going to do, which would be damn lame. 

It's held along this thing called the Green Corridor that I never knew existed :/

Anyway, it wasn't the case!! There were obstacles at the start!! :D:D and there was this thing called the BOTTLENECK!! Jon or Chang said they didn't study Accounting I or IT or Biz Ops. Seriously. Poored (this term was popularised by and might even have been coined by LTA Jon Teo) man.

I met Jiang Hao there. Hahahaha freaking hall 14 team of 12 people?! And no girls. Their start time was supposed to be 9.30am but they hadn't started and weren't even queueing yet when we met them at like 9.20am. So my goal was not just to win commando challenge but also to catch and overtake them. HAHAHA!

Our race supposed to start at 10am right? We started queueing from 9.45am and we queued for 1 hour and 35 minutes. It was freaking 11.20am when we finally got to start!!! Omgosh. Poored. 

By the time we were nearing the front, the queue became 2.5 times the length. Those people at the back could have gone home or watched a movie or went to eat breakfast or went to malaysia and came back before it was their turn. It was THAT bad.

Commando Challenge 2013

When we started, 2 of the 6 obstacles at the beginning were closed already because they were spoilt :/ that's 1/3. Wts?! 

So our first obstacle, which was actually the 2nd one on the course, was this mid-height wall (please forgive my lack of proper terminology when describing the obstacles) with rope loops for you to hang on to. It was almost vertical. Or was it vertical? I kinda forgot. All I knew is that I was DAMN FREAKING scared I won't be able to make it and I'll be a freaking burden to the guys :( 

But this is why the commando challenge was damn fun. You don't have a freaking choice (actually you can skip the obstacle but wts?! You pay $100+ to skip obstacles?! You can pay me half the amount and I'll help you skip all the obstacles you want.) so you just have to eat up all your fears like it's a freaking creme brulee cheesecake from Cheelicious (refer to my previous post on my trip to JB if you don't get the reference) and do the freaking obstacle.

Throughout all the obstacles, the guys were damn nice!! They helped me, waited for me and encouraged me! :') I wouldn't and couldn't have done it without them.

So yeah, I had a boost for the first obstacle and like proper arrangement of the rope loop so that my foot could fit in properly. Disclaimer: other GUYS also needed help with the rope loop OK!

The 2nd obstacle was this wooden inverted V shaped things that you've to climb on, over and then on the next inverted V shaped thing and repeat 4 times. I couldn't find a photo of what it is but it's something like the boards companies (like 100 plus) use to line the finishing line of an event.

I edited a photo so show what it kinda looks like. 

But it's wooden. And without the advertisement on them. And there were 4 of them.

It doesn't seem like much but they are quite spaced out and when you're on the top on one, the "valley" looks damn deep and treacherous.

After the first 2 obstacles, I already cut my finger. But it's a small matter so I just didn't bother telling anyone.

Then the 4th obstacle was closed cause there was this MASSIVE jam there. So our 3rd obstacle was this rope ladder with solid, wooden rungs. You climb all the way to the top then climb down the other side via this rope chessboard.

It was something like that but only 1 side.

There were damn many rope obstacles and my conclusion is that it's cause rope is cheap. So just whack rope. Why would they not want to maximise their profits?

The 4th obstacle was just leopard crawling under a net. The grass wasn't very muddy so it wasn't much. But leopard crawling is damn tiring!!!!

5th obstacle: carry a tire and hop through more tires :D hahaha! The ground under the tires were muddy so people were losing their shoes and all. Hahaha it was funny.

That was the end of the first part of the obstacles. Unless you consider jumping across a small drain like the one leading to the park at my old house (all the way in the east), crossing a road and sliding down a hill into a muddy area, obstacles.

That marked the start of the running. The green corridor is actually really nice! But mega ulu?! I was sure they were either 1) leading us illegally to malaysia or 2) leading us straight into a shipping container so that they can ship us off to the rich people who bought us.

Jon had a severely sprained ankle that had yet to recover so he led at a pace that I was super comfortable with also. I'd say it's like a 6min/km pace? Chill one. And at that pace, we were overtaking walkers. Oh yeah! On our way to winning the freaking commando challenge!!!

BUT! Not everyone trained for this ah!!!! >:( hahhahaha!! So we walked here and there. Ok fine we walked like half the way. That sounds really sad but it includes the last part where the obstacles were ok!!

On the way, there were many parts with huge puddles (I've no idea where from cause it didn't rain during the night) and some SUPER MEGA slippery, muddy grass. There were many Michael Jackson moves in all sorts of directions going on. Hahahahah!!

It's also super duper fun to just jump into the puddles and try to get the mud on the people around you. But most of the time, it all just lands back on yourself...

We walk and ran for about 50 minutes when we reached the next obstacle! It's just some poles laying horizontally, making them steps. the gap between each is quite wide la so you end up about 1 storey high? When you reach the last pole, you're greeted with another pole. But this pole is vertical. So it's like a fireman's pole thingy that you've to slide down.

Yup it looks something like this. 

Now imagine wearing curve cut fbts less than HALF the freaking length of those guy's shorts and sliding down with your thighs holding you in place. Yup, that was my story. Freaking abrasions man!!! Hahahaha! I didn't do it the right way and it hurt but that's ok. What's not ok was the screeching, freaking mega embarrassing!!!!

Ran some more then we reached another obstacle course where you just climb more horizontal poles, jump across this gap and then jump down the slightly-less-than-1-storey-high structure in 2 jumps (there's another platform in the middle). After I jumped down the platform, I thought it was quite bad for the knees and Jon said that should roll to make it less harmful. So since we had to double back and do this obstacle again, we had a pact that if I rolled, the rest of them will roll also. HAHAHAHAH!! 

So we entered the area that was supposed to be where the sprint event was held - the main obstacle course. 

The first obstacle was this really high inverted V wooden thing that had holes in them for you to crawl/climb up, across and down. Lame, so easy. 

Then I can't remember if there was another obstacle but there was A LOT of walking. You can't really run cause it was super muddy and mega slippery. It's quite retarded cause you kept having to double back and then walk past the obstacles that you did just now but in a different "lane". So many cheaters just crossed over the lane lines since there weren't obstacles or checkpoints at the ends anyway. But we were there to complete the course, so we did.

I saw Eileen manning a station! It was the leopard crawl station with a super muddy pit below! The 4 of us decided that it'd only be fun if we REALLY leopard crawled across all the mud. Almost everyone else was just either walking on 4s or bending down and walking across. How is that fun???

So when we reached the station, there were orders to make sure that the numbers on our race bibs could no longer be seen by the time we were done with the obstacle. Hahahaha!! Obviously it was damn fun and Chang was being an ass, throwing mud at me! I ate some mud. I heard it's good for health. Hahaha!!

Anyway, mission accomplished, all our race bibs were totally covered in mud and we were officially the dirtiest people in the entire course!!! Hahaha freaking fun please!

There was this barrel obstacle that was not that difficult.... But it was slippery? Not sure what the tough part about it was.

It looked like this but made with metal barrels and much wider.

Oh ya, the course was very open so you can see the people at the end all the way from the start. But I couldn't even find JH! Wts. Means they were actually quite fast. Damnit man.

I can't quite remember the order of the obstacles anymore. 

At least 2 of them were spoilt. 1 was this see saw thing that I suppose you just have to walk across. But when asked, the person guarding it said that it was closed cause it was too dangerous.... What??

Another obstacle was closed cause the mattress under it exploded. WHAT?!?!?! Hahahahaha!!! Thank God that was the monkey bar one!!! If not I'd not have been able to complete an obstacle! And then I'll not be able to wear the finisher's tee with pride.

There was this obstacle that required you to walk across the tires, like at the beginning. Just that you didn't even have to carry anything this time :/

There was also this one where you had to climb over and across this metal frame. It's not that hard, it's just that the intervals are kinda far apart so you either have to have really long legs or very flexible. Thankfully I'm really flexible.... Hahahah!

There was a spider web thing that looks like the above but you're allowed to touch the ropes and there are many, many, MANY more ropes. 

It really wasn't a difficult obstacle. It's really just an obstacle there for the sake of slowing people down... Ok I guess that's what obstacles are.

Then there was another leopard crawl thing. Not too creative I must say. And seemingly low budget.

Then we spotted this obstacle that required you to run up this slope then balance your walk across this beam that was above a huge container. Chang was like "if there's water inside, I will just jump in man!"

Turns out? There was NO water. Whuuuuut?? It was just an empty container that made you really NOT want to fall in cause it'd just hurt... Hahaha!

From here, it was just running back to the obstacle that we said we wanted to roll from.

On the way, I met Yong Jun! Hahahah! He was still excited and running and all. Little did he know that he still had to go through the sprint obstacle course that took us 1 hour to complete...

We also met this crew guy who wanted to encourage us by telling us that there was a huge cold swimming pool of water at the end!!!! Omgosh we were so mega excited!! Not that it was very hot (the weather was PERFECT!!! No sun, no rain. P.E.R.F.E.C.T!) but we were covered in dried mud. So yeah whooooo!! That was where the 'fully immersed in water' part was!!

Hehehe! We reached back to the obstacle and Jon went first. He jumped and rolled, FREAKING COOL! Hahahah!!! Then it was my turn. I actually wasn't sure what I was doing but I just anyhow rolled over. In my head, I did Jon's ninja roll but I can't be sure that that was what actually happened. Hahahaha!!

When I got up, Chang also got up!! So I missed his roll :( but he rolled. Jaryl, on the other hand, DID NOT ROLL!! RAWR >:( hahahahahah!

We then ran past the people who were queueing for the sprint event! They were scheduled to start at 2pm. Siaoooooo.

We turned the bend to reach the last stretch with 4 more obstacles when we spotted Shernise!! She's so nice and so supportive!!! I want to be like her when I have a bf ^^ hahaha.

So she took a post-mud-bath photo of us!

We were standing in the exact same formation as our pre-start photo! Cool!! Hahaha! Our numbers can be seen here cause we decided that in order to tag us or send the photos to us, they need to know what our race bib numbers are! So we cleaned them. Smart right!! ^^ it's mainly because we took this shot of us walking damn cooly in the mud. Hopefully the photo(s) come out really nice :D

Then? Woohooo!! The water bath obstacle!!

I didn't see anything at first but I think Chang and Jon went ahead of me and they were shouting about how freaking cold it was!!

I looked into the huge container and IT WAS FILLED WITH ICE!!!!! I.C.E. There was also water, enough for you to be fully immersed in. Omshit. 

You don't realise it until you step in. IT WAS FREAKING MEGA BLOOODY CRAZY INSANELY MAD COLD!!!!!! Freaking freezing!!!!!

As you can see, we were scrambling across the 3 or 4 containers cause it was damn bloody cold!!!

I've no idea what the shit Jon was laughing at cause it wasn't funny. 

Maybe cause at the start, it was still quite fun.

Thank God for the breaks in between so you can defrost for a split second and you will have to use some energy so you can heat yourself up.

When we were out, omgosh our legs and feet were a bit numb already! It was THAT cold!!

Then??

THE NEXT OBSTACLE WAS EVEN WORSE!!!!!!!!

It was the same thing just that YOU HAD TO GO BELOW THE BARRIERS!! They were so low that you really basically had to be flat and walk with your hands under the water.

This is everyone's face when they finally managed to get the freak out of that container of torture! Hahahaha!

Hahaha Chang!!

This is the I-CAN'T-FEEL-MY-LEGS-AND-HANDS face! Hahahahaha! It was really SUPER bad.

Jaryl flying out with style siol! Hahahaha!

And me still stuck in that torture chamber.

I took a while to get out not because I liked the cold but because I was FROZEN. 

Jaryl so nice, coming back to help me!

Bloody hell, one of the crew members kept pressing my head down from outside so I'd have to go lower into the water!!!! Ok he could have been doing so cause I was going to knock my head on the barrier but IT WAS SO FREAKING PAINFULLY PAINFUL!!!!

But actually he just came back to ask me to hurry up. HAHAHAH! Just kidding!!

I literally couldn't feel my legs and feet. I was screaming that out the whole way to the next obstacle. It's quite embarrassing cause there are a million people watching but there and then, that was the only thing I could think about!!! It was damn painful!!!!!

I was so glad the ice was over, the next obstacle required super good hand, feet and eye coordination.

Such coordination was necessary cause you can no longer feel your feet so it had to be tackled using them eyes.

Some people's is better than others. Jaryl was damn nice, he just waited for me to be done, no pressure :)

Chang and Jon :)

Just when you thought "we are done!!!".....

THERE WAS ANOTHER ICE BATH THING OMGOSH OMGOSH OMGOSH!! ANOTHER CRAWLING ONE!!!!! WTFREAK MAN! WHAT. THE. FREAK!!!!!!!!!!! Omgosh :'(

Just before going in, you look up and see that the finishing line is really after this last obstacle. Filled with adrenaline, you jump in and you realise...

F.R.E.A.K   T.H.I.S   B.L.O.O.D.Y   T.H.I.N.G!!!!!!!!!!

You really step in, feel the froze bite biting your leg off, slam the rest of your body into the coldest teh bing ever and crawl/swim/wriggle as fast as freaking possible! Then you look up in anticipation for the end where you haul yourself up and find that you are not even half way there!!!!!! HELP LAH! (another phrase popularised by LTA Jon).

You also see what's ahead of you. TONS and TONS of ice and the mist from how freaking cold it is. It's actually quite scary cause then you wonder, am I going to make it? Then you relax when you realise that you'll be so well preserved that your family and friends will be able to identify you and if medical advances reach such a point, you might be able to be brought back to life in a few hundred years while looking as young as you currently do.

When I climbed out that that black hole of coldness and endless misery, I was so so so cold I was shouting all sorts of things I can no longer remember. I highly doubt they were in hokkien though. 

There was ice freaking hiding in my sports bra!!!!! I was already so damn cold and the ice still hid in there?!?!?! I am fully aware that what I did was very UNglam but it wasn't a choice. I had to get rid of the ice!!!! The spectators were laughing at me and there were cameras pointed in my direction. I just hope that nothing was captured on film :/ hahahah!

Then the 4 of us crossed the finishing line with arms around each other :') 

The sense of achievement I feel is really quite great! It was so much fun!! None of the obstacles were crazy difficult but each required some strength of some sort - patience (the waiting is an obstacle, we are sure of it), strength, agility, endurance and resilience.

CONQUERED COMMANDO CHALLENGE!!!

I'm really happy I got to go with the 3 guys :) they were so much fun :):):)

Huge thanks to Shernise for the photos!!!

And for being my role model to be a good girlfriend! Hahaha :):)

I can say with gusto that I completed the Elite Commando Challenge!

Thank You Lord that I didn't die and I didn't give up. Thank You for the awesome weather and for the friends I went with! It was an amazing experience and I wouldn't have wanted to go with anyone else! :) thank You that none of us were eaten by crocodiles. For You, Lord :):) <3