Kinabalu Climbathon Project - part 4 - Descending Toru style

Marco reached Kinabalu peak in 1hr37min. 5minutes behind him are Kilian, Toru, Luis and the Nepali climber (I forgot his name).

At the spot (around 6.5km) where I recorded this clip,  Kilian literally flew down, the lead Marco built on the climb has been reduced to 3min.

Eventually Kilian caught up with Marco as they exit Timpohon gate. Marco was unlucky cos he had a fall coming down and the final 4.5km sprint was affected.

Kilian however, gave all he had, sprinting to the finish line in 2hr41min48secs , with Marco 40secs in 2nd place.

Luis was 3rd, Nepali Sudip Kulung 4th, Japanese Toru 5th and the fastest Malaysian, Safrey Sumping  in 6th.

These skyrunners are simply amazing!

They have finished 21km distance and 2,300m elevation up down but I still can't see the peak!!

Kinabalu Climbathon Project - part 4 - Descending Kilian & Luis style

Kinabalu Climbathon Project - part 4 - the skills in descending

Here you can see how Marco De Gasperi does it. Looks like coming down home stairs.

Kinabalu Project part 3 including Nepali's way of climbing

cRAzYtomatoman Kinabalu Climbathon Project - part 2

Part 2

At Layang - Layang hut with crew on duty. Many thanks to them! God bless them!

Kinabalu Climbathon Project

This will remind you of the movie Blair Witch Project.


Only now, it's cRAzYtomatoman Kinabalu Climbathon Project

Still feeling high like the world champions!

I'm still astounded on what took place over the last weekend. Still smiling. Trying to relive every moment of it!

So so happy to meet International Skyrunning Federation President, Marino Giacometti and his ISF Team at KLIA on my way to KK, Sabah. We happened to be on the same flight! Lucky me! :)

We are going to the 25th Mt Kinabalu International Climbathon, 22-23 October 2011

Marco De Gasperi was there! Yes, the Kinabalu climbathon record holder! Wow! I could hardly believe it!!

Last year, he broke the Mt Kinabalu climbathon record set in 2003 by 3min! Amazing speed! 21km of mountain climbing and descending with elevation of 2300m. He did it 2hr33min. The 2003 record was set by himself as well!!

This year, it's a blast. Why? Marco will be defending his title and Kilian Jornet, winner 2007, 2009 will be battling it out for 2011 champion. Not only that, this year is also the year of Super Cup. It is a title for the Champion of Champions.

Apart from these top 2, let me introduce another 2 elites. Luis Hernando, winner of 2011 Skyrunner Series and Brandy Erholtz, member of USA Track & Field Team, in trail running.

I'm so happy to meet them in person. Can't describe the feeling really... :D

Thank you Lord!!!

Kilian,Toru and Luis at km5

Marco De Gasperi near km5

Running makes you look good!

KLIUC 10km run was by far, my personal best. I was pleasantly surprised with the time. 40:46. The actual distance measured by some runners' GPS watch was 9.8km. 
Route was not all flat. It included a couple of long hills. Gentle slope it seemed but with racing pace, you'll be zapped dry approaching the top.
It's also the first run I got a prize! Well, I was lucky. KLIUC was generous enough to award top20 runners in each category. I managed 12th in Men Open.

The last 2km I tried to overtake or 'sayur' a Kenyan lookalike but he didn't let me. The moment I got close to him, he fired his turbo to hold me back. Final 200m was sprint to the finish. Boy it was tough but fun! Still couldn't 'sayur' him though.  :(


Look at his shoes. Amazing ya. Leather without much padding.

In adidas King Of The Road 16.8km, I was 13th. Just a few more to be top10.Pace I have but not the speed endurance. Seriously need more training.

 30seconds...the time I needed to shave off to be 10th. 1 day...I'll be there :)

Photos below shows the difference I look in 2007 and now, 2011

 Skin colour...hair style...some fat...anymore differences? Hahahahahah!

What I dare to say is RUNNING MAKES YOU LOOK GOOD!

So come, let's run! You'll like it and it's addictive!!!

And it makes you feel good too...no doubt about that. The release of endorphin in our body does the trick.
 If you feel down, sad, depressed, go and run it off.

If by any chance it doesn't help, let me know. I'll buy you laksa...or...kolo mee...the magical Sarawak hawker delicacies! :P

The last race to Kinabalu mountain peak

This year marks 25th year of Mt Kinabalu Climbathon and it will be the final year runners will run up to the peak of 4,095m. Organisers changing the race route next year. Sad...

Two years ago, I tried but failed to scale the peak in given time of 2hr30min for Men Open category. I only managed just below km7. Peak is at km8.72
I was hoping the event will go on till I'm a veteran...hahaha! Cos then, i'll have another hour, yes, 3hrs30min to scale the peak. But no...it's now or never...
will try my very best but I doubt so...so just try to go as close as possible to the peak in that cut off time.

Believe it or not, I dislocated and fractured my finger in 2009 event. :P

http://crazytomatoman.blogspot.com/2009/11/kinabalu-climbathon-2009-day-3.html
http://crazytomatoman.blogspot.com/2009/10/kinabalu-climbathon-2009-day-1-2.html

It'll be a 50/50 work & play for me this time. Yes, work. One of the sponsors for this event. But I'm taking part...haha! Won't missed it!

An action packed event with so many elites...the leading world skyrunners.

Kilian Jornet...Marco de Gasperi...these 2 are among the best in the world. They will battle it out for the Super Cup.



Below are the sites for this event:
 http://climbathon.sabahtourism.com/2011/
http://www.skyrunning.com/index.php

Deemed the World’s Toughest Mountain Race, the Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon is the ultimate challenge to take for those who are game enough to test their endurance by running up and down Mount Kinabalu for a total distance of 21 kilometres.
The first climbathon was inaugurated in 1987 when Sabah Parks decided to scout for people to be in the rapid rescue squad, who are a team of rangers who are able to bring down injured climbers in minimal time especially during times of bad weather or when helicopters are not available.
The participation for the climbathon was restricted to Malaysians only, until a year later when it was then opened for international participation. Starting 1995, the Sabah Tourism Board took over to organize this annual event.
The Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon is now very popular among the European mountain runners. The Climbathon Organising Committee has been working closely with the International Skyrunning Federation since 2004 to promote and expand professional mountain running together with the tourism destinations. Through the years, the Climbathon was a part of the Skyrunning World Series but this year it has become the Skyrunner Supercup.
Skyrunner® SuperCup
A new sports title has been introduced by the International Skyrunning Federation, where the world’s top skyrunners will contend for the prestigious Skyrunner® SuperCup.  The competition will be held every two years as the final event of the year in which the European Championships are held.
The title this year has been awarded to the Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon in Borneo, Malaysia, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on October 22 and 23. 
This extraordinary 21 km race up and down the 4, 095m of Mount Kinabalu, boasts a gruelling vertical climb of 2,300m over a mere eight and a half kilometres.   Mount Kinabalu is South East Asia’s second tallest mountain and is set in the splendid tropical Kinabalu Park, a World Heritage site.
The world’s top athletes will participate, including the Championship winners, those of the Skyrunner® World Series and past Climbathon winners and record holders.  The outright male and female winners - the “champion of champions” - will be awarded the prestigious Skyrunner® SuperCup.

SuperCup star line-up

A star studded line-up is preparing for the Skyrunner® SuperCup which will award the “champion of champions” title to the winners of the 25th Mount Kinabalu International Climbathon on October 22 and 23 in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.

Ready to take on the challenge are skyrunning giants Marco De Gasperi, course record holder and  Kilian Jornet, 2007 and 2009 winner.  Italian De Gasperi set the record here last year, bettering his own time set six years earlier:  2h33’56” for the 21 km round trip and summiting Mount Kinabalu’s 4,095m in a mere 1h35’29”. 

Other top names include Spain’s Luis  Hernando, recently crowned 2011 Skyrunner® World Series champion;  Japan’s Toru Miyahara, 2011 Mount Fuji winner;   Britain’s Ricky Lightfoot and Malaysian Safrey Sumping. 

Potential podium contenders in the women’s field are New Zealander Anna Frost, second here last year;  Russian Zhanna Vokueva (ranked 14th);  American Brandy Erholtz, two times winner of the Pikes Peak Marathon, (ranked 16th);  Japan’s Naomi Ochiaki (second on Mount Fuji);and evergreen local runner, Danny Gongot.

In celebrating 25 years of the Climbathon, the ISF has awarded the new biannual Skyrunner® SuperCup title to this long time favourite skyrunning venue.  The extraordinary race up and down Mount Kinabalu’s 4,095m boasts a gruelling vertical climb of 2,300m over just eight and a half kilometres.  Last year, as the final of the 2010 Skyrunner® World Series, 669 runners from 40 countries took part.

The race slogan, “Are you tough enough?” is the question many of the participants will be asking themselves next weekend.

Do everything , learn everything

In the past year, I've done...

Business1
1. rented shop
2. layout for office, production room, store room
3. local authorities for approval
4. applied phone, fax, internet lines
5. selected contractor for renovation works
6. office workstations, store room racking
6. transfered and setup production machines
7. shipped in raw materials
8. designed label
9. produced packaging materials
10. run production
11. list products in retail outlets
12. sell
13. brand our products
13. make $$$

but this is not my own company!

I'm working for a company! Boss say "Do it", so I do...

On top of that, I've got more...

Business2
1. scout for products to import
2. select companies to do business with
3. import
4. sell
5. make $$$

 Business3
Provide marketing, research & development, new product development support to a subsidiary company owned by the same boss.

Throughout my career, this job I'm in now is the most complex. I have to do almost everything. A lot to do!
But on the bright side, I must say I'm fortunate to have this opportunity cos I learned so much!!! So so much! And yet, I've got time for my outdoor hobbies...or passion...to swim, bike, run, hike, climb, and more...

And I really thank God for answering my prayers. Amen!

Have no fear for TomatoMan is here!!!

I don't call myself crazytomatoman for nothing...muahahaha!! 

Read this very interesting article...

 

Tomatoes and Skin Protection

Can tomatoes protect your skin?

There is a magical component in tomatoes that research is beginning to show could protect our skin from UV damage from sunburn. It’s called lycopene and it is a very effective antioxidant.
About 85% of lycopene in the western diet is obtained only from tomatoes and the best place to find it is in tomato paste.
Our test was to establish whether eating tomato paste could help protect the skin from UV damage and UV-induced reddening. We took 23 women who were used to burning merely at the sight of the sun and asked half of them to eat 55g of tomato paste every day for 12 weeks (giving them 16mg of lycopene).

"an unbelievable 30% increase in skin protection"

As a defence against UV rays, the body tans when exposed to moderate levels of radiation. This helps to block UV penetration and prevent damage to the vulnerable skin tissues deeper down. In order to test the efficacy of tomatoes on our guinea pigs we tested the lowest dose of UV needed to provoke a visible response on their skin. Then we exposed them to a range of UV radiation and compared the damage done to those who ate tomatoes and those who didn't.
After 12 weeks of rigorously following the tomato paste diet we brought our women back to the lab and burnt them all over again. Was it all in vain? When tested again our volunteers on the lycopene diet had a 30% increase in skin protection.
This doesn't mean that you should stop using sun block but it's good to know that simply by increasing tomatoes in your diet you can help protect your skin from the daily sun damage which happens without us even realising.

Source : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/young/tomatoes.shtml

Getting there...

September 2011 was a good month, achievement wise, personal best improved although it can still get better :)

Salomon X-Trail Run
Distance : 10.5km
Time : 46:05
Pace : 4:23
Position : 7th
Prizes only for Top5...sob...sob...sob...

Happy to know I finished Top 10

h

Is was more cross country/dirt road run rather than a trail run. Organised in UPM cattle farm by PACM, title sponsored by Salomon. This is my best Top10 position so far for this year. Started fast, kept 3rd half the way before the elites overtook me with ease. The route was slightly slippery with cow dung to avoid, not mentioning a couple of hills to tackle.

After so many road runs, this run was a good change! Something different. Hope they will continue to have more of these cross country runs.

Many thanks to photographers - Yap, Weng Kai, Moey and those whom I can't remember who :P for these awesome action packed shots!

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish: Steve Jobs' famous speech

NDTV Correspondent, Updated: October 06, 2011 11:39 IST

Click to Expand & Play

New York:  I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky - I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents' garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me - I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/technology/stay-hungry-stay-foolish-steve-jobs-famous-speech-139029&cp

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

You can call me a gadget dinosaur cos I just bought (finally!!!!)  a smart phone after almost everyone around me had been poking their smart phones day in day out, month in month out, year in year out.

Yes, I'm a really slow bugger when it comes to gadgets...sigh...

So last month I signed up a 2year RM79 per month contract with Maxis to be eligible to purchase iphone 3GS at RM199. Yes, I did it. It's worth it!!! Where else can you find an iphone3GS in bolehland for that price?

Now I have a smart phone and it is an Iphone from Apple Inc!!!! :D

The first few days was stressful...very stressful...in finding out how this iphone works! I'm not a gadget or phone freak and I'm getting old. So I'm a slow tech dinosaur. But don't let me catch you running in a race ya! I'll smoke ya!!! Hahahahaha!!!

Today, I'm a bit sad to read in the news that Steve Jobs, former CEO for Apple Inc has passed away :(

                                                           1955 - 2011

Your legacy will live on, Steve Jobs!

We will try to follow your words... Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish