DAY 3

Got up early at Day 3. Beautiful day. Not so beautiful legs. Unlike the previous day, my feet are all blistered up and the soreness is there to stay. The usual morning routine: clean our tent, shower, gear up and breakfast. The 10 minutes walk to the breakfast hall is hilarious with people limping, some literally waddling or shuffling their way to breakfast.

We had absolutely no knowledge of what we’re about to face for Day 3. Tristupe shared with us during breakfast that if its like the previous years we’ll be hiking up to Langanan waterfall, followed by a short ‘treasure hunt’ sort of challenge to differentiate the timing of faster runners vs the more navigational savvy runners. At the starting point the race director informed us that today’s race will not exceed more than 10km and the day’s cutoff is 4 and a half hours.

We started off with a 500m run down the tar road in front of Poring Hot Springs into the trail head leading to Langanan Waterfall. That’s where the nightmare begins. After 2 exhausting days, the SAC organizers made us hike up a hill with 600m elevation gain. It is really a test of endurance, and many racers started to slow down to a crawl, myself included. I knew going into this race that my legs were not ready for hiking. I’ve only been doing road races for the past 4 months. Strangely, WaiHong looked fine today and in fact was going faster than the day before. We’ve stuck to our plan of going together for the past 2 days and I knew I’m just holding him back, so I asked him to go ahead and don’t wait for me.  It took me about an hour to do the 4km hike up to the peak.

Sign says Langanan Waterfall (1,500m head). Bollocks lol.

We climbed this all the way to the peak.

Sign says “Bat Cave”. Hello Batman? You home? Need some help here man.

At the peak we’re awarded with a magnificent sight of the Langanan waterfalls. I took about 10 minutes break to absorb all the beauty of this waterfall before heading down. Right before I left I overheard a racer asking why there’s no water to refill their hydration pack? Common sense buddy, its so tough for you to hike up, who could carry water for 200 racers to the peak of the hill?

The beautiful Langanan Waterfall. It was totally worth the hike up.

It took me another hour to descend the hill. I’m almost completely drained by the time I reached the bottom of the hill.

I may look cool going down the hill in this pic (Photo credits: Fadzlee)

But it ain’t that easy lol (Photo credits: TriStupe)

But then the next challenge awaits. Checking into Poring Hot Springs we’re given another map, this time with 12 points on it. As ultra runners, we’re required to go to at least 5 of these points  in any order and direction as you prefer. No instructions as to how to get there. Each of these points have some sort of bottle with message in it. Once we have all 5 we’ll head back to Poring Hot Springs to end our race. Runner will be given 30 minutes penalty for each point less than the 5 mandatory ones.

We’re only given this map with 12 points. It’s all up to our navigational skills to make it to 5 points and back.

I took about 10 minutes to study the map, plus some measurement. I decided that I’m going to to go points 5 – 7 – 6 … backtrack to the starting point and go points 9 – 10. Head out quickly and I overshot the turn towards point 5  and went into a path that was not EVEN ON THE MAP! With me were 2 other competitors, 1 of them turned out to be the eventual winner of the ultra race. We searched high and low and found nothing. Finally the race director, Claus told us that this path is wrong and not even on the map. Cursing our luck, I backtracked and eventually found point 5.

The message in a bottle. I forgot to take pics of the bottle, but Kian Chong did. (Photo credits: Kian Chong)

Proceed to the next few points. The sun was blazing down on us again, and I felt it was a hotter today than the previous 2 days. I met Yew Khuay along the way, and he shared with me which checkpoints were closer and which to avoid. The journey to point 10 felt very very long and I’m almost dragging my feet. At the back of my head I was sort of concerned that I might miss the cut off time too. When I reached point 10, with 45 minutes left I knew I can still make it in time. Mustered whatever energy to jog whenever I can. I have to point out here that at least 2 groups of racers asked if I wanted to share the point keywords with them, which is against the race rules and should be penalized.

Running back to finish the race. (Photo credit: Nasier Lee)

I finished Day 3 in 4 hours and 2 mins… the distance, a whooping 18km. So much for Day 3’s distance not exceeding 10km. It was indeed a good race, a very happy feeling when I completed my first multi-day adventure race. In total I’ve covered 36 + 40 + 18 km = 94km in 3 days. Yew Khuay, Wai Hong and Hong Lan were already at camp site busy packing up when I arrived. As we needed to clear the entire race site by 2pm, it was an absolutely mad rush to clean ourselves up and pack our tent.

Finisher lunch. Joyous lunch. (Photo credits: TriStupe)

At lunch, the mood around the table was all joyous. Laughter, jokes and discussion was all up in the air. Right after lunch the finisher medal and tee was presented. The medal for this year is HUGE, the size of your palm. The long sleeved finisher tee from 2ndSkin is unique too.

Finisher tee and medal.

We boarded the bus at 2.30 pm and left for Tg. Aru which is almost 3 hours away from Poring Hot Springs. And with that ends SAC 2014. Great awesome memories and counts as my BEST race experience so far. I have to give kudos to the organizing team. They did a fantastic job in taking care of all of us and giving us a good experience. I hate to harp on the race cost thing, but again at RM 100 I have no idea how the organized pulled off such a high standard race.

With my race buddy WaiHong in the bus

Hong Lan and Wei Min on the other side of the bus

Until 2015’s edition, I hope this race report has given you a glimpse of our experience. But nothing really beats the experience of being there and doing it yourself.

DAY 2

5 am and the first alarm in the tent starts buzzing. Being a light sleeper myself, I got up and immediately noticed a hive of activity at the camp site. People were getting their morning showers and last minute packing done. Breakfast was served at 6am. Again I have to praise the organizers, they’re not skimping on breakfast: toast, porridge, eggs, sausages, fruits, juices are all served to us.

By 7 am the competitors were already waiting at starting point for Day 2 flag off. I did my last minute bag check to make sure I didn’t miss anything this time. I forgot my salt sticks for Day 1 – a critical mistake and I’m happy it didn’t get me into any serious problems. Such an error should not happen for long distance races. Thankfully its a multi-day race so I get to repack my gears/nutrition for the next day but I won’t be so lucky the next time around.

Day 2 flagoff. Yes we can still run after a day of racing. (Photo credits: Kian Chong)

7.30am and we’re flagged off. The first 500m is on a tar road heading towards a lodge. Surprisingly my legs weren’t that sore from day 1 and we decided to run until we reached a trail path. From the lodge, the 7km gravel and mud trail path ascended for about 400m elevation gain. Path was straight forward and there’s no chance to get lost. But it was clearly a much steeper hill than anything we’ve seen in day 1. We trudged along with the morning sun glaring down at us. The heat caught all of us by surprise considering its only 8.00am in the morning!

Ascend up the first hill.

When we’re nearing the peak of that hill, we came across a logging camp. It was quite a sad sight to see the destruction of the forested area around the camp. Trees felled and lying around, reduced to saw dusts. We walked through the thick layer of saw dusts while weaving in between wood blocks on the ground. Quite dangerous because there’s no way of knowing the depth below the saw dusts and our legs could get trapped in between the wood blocks.

Destruction around the logging camp Sad sight. (Photo credits: Kian Chong)

Soon we reached the boundary of the Sabah National Park. For this phase, we’re required to follow a trail with thick vegetation along the boundary of the park. This phase provided some much needed shade from the sun. It was clear that some runners are stronger in forested trails, they just blazed past us running up and down the trail with so little effort.

Trekking through Sabah National Park

Ain’t as easy as it seems. Here’s where you really understand mother nature’s glory. (Photo credits: Kian Chong)

Things got out of hand once we exited the park. We came across a junction with 3 branching paths. The instruction told us to look for a Sabah Parks signboard and take the right hand side marked trail. WaiHong and I never even come across any signboard and spent quite some time looking for it. Fortunately we saw a pair of adventure racers walking confidently on a path past us. Had a quick conversation with them and they told us we’re in the right path. The skeptic that I was didn’t trust them, but WaiHong said they looked like locals with confident stride. Left with no choice we follow them. (We later learned that many runners were lost at this section and spent almost 2 hours going into the wrong direction before scrambling back).

Apparently this was the signage we’re supposed to look for. We completely missed it. But thanks to Ee Van I finally know how it looked like 😛 (Photo credit: TriStupe)

About 2km in we finally saw the team of organizers (Dr. Dev Sidhu, Claus and Nasier) with their cameras waiting to capture our shots. We descended the gravel and mud path until we reach Kg. Nalumad where CP 1 is located. The icy sponge water was a blessing. Many runners jumped into the river behind the CP to cool their body.  10 minutes of rest and off we went on our way.

Running down from Sabah National Park towards CP1 (Photo credit: Dr. Dev Sidhu)

CP1 with the river behind.

The instruction for the next phase is simple – “proceed on gravel road to Kg. Perancangan”. Just 1 simple line right? But on the map it shows one hell of a long journey. 8km to be exact. And its not exactly a gravel road, but unmaintained concrete road with broken blocks. WaiHong and I thought … are we gonna be walking this route the ENTIRE 8km? What made the journey worst, there’s almost no shade in sight, just a road with open skies above us. The temp was hitting almost 40 C. We walked the entire journey.

Endless gravel road to Kg. Perancangan. I will remember this route forever.

We reach our next destination at Kg. Perancangan at around 12 pm. In the middle of the village is a crossroad and its the most confusing thing ever. We saw runners walking along ALL 3 of the roads at the junction. Which to follow towards our next destination Kg. Debut Langsat? Misery was made worst when we asked several locals and they all pointed to different route. Finally a biker came along and told us that we should go straight as all runners on foot are heading that direction. We trudged along that path until we saw a hanging bridge over a river and what sounds like people having a whole lotta fun.

CP3 with 15 minutes of mandatory break.

We’ve arrived at CP3, the BEST CP in the entire 3 days race. Robert Blake told us that we’re to take a mandatory 15 minutes rest at the river and if we’re thirsty, there’s a ‘kopitiam’ about 100m down the road. I went and got us some Coke then proceed to jump into the river. The cooling river water is such a blessed relief from the soaring temperature. We almost didn’t wanna continue anymore, but a race have got to continue. 15 minutes to the dot, we left the CP.

BEST THING IN THE ENTIRE SAC JOURNEY. Coke in icy cold river water. Heaven!

We ain’t the only ones having fun. Other runners took the chance to dip in too.

The next phase was ironically the MOST difficult throughout the entire race. In 40 C temp, we hiked up a hill past rubber plantations. Even after dipping our entire body in the river, our clothes were completely dried within 15 minutes. Every 300m or so we came across some runner under a shade, just to avoid the heat. The 2km journey took us more than an hour, that was how bad it was at that point of the race. Arriving at CP 6 in Kg. Napong, the first thing we looked for was the icy sponge to cool our body. Surprisingly we were offered 100 Plus isotonic at this CP (surprising because throughout the entire race we’re only given plain drinking water). Apparently its sponsored by another racer who arrived earlier. Thank you whoever you are!

The sun and the elevation turning everyone into zombies (Photo credit: TriStupe)

Next phase, we’re supposed to cross a main road and follow small gravel road to river. Turn left at the river until you reach a bridge. Follow river upstream and turn left into marked path. WaiHong and I did exactly as the instructions. Cross main road (checked!), follow small gravel road (checked!), reach river (checked!), turn left (checked!), see bridge (checked!). But after walking along the river bed we realized we’re actually at ANOTHER river running parallel with the actual river we’re supposed to follow!! There we bumped into Blake Peugh from Hong Kong. After discussing with her and reading the map, we realized that the river we’re at will eventually lead us to CP 7. We had to take the chance and follow this path because it’ll take us at least an hour to backtrack to the actual river. It’s not fun walking along the dried river bedrock. Large boulder like stones are along the path. While crossing the river, I lost count how many times I slipped and fell.

Walking along the river bed with boulder like stones ain’t fun.

Finally after about 30 mins, I saw Iris from Singapore at another end of the river bank. I kept shouting at her, but the gushing river flow was so loud it drowned my voice entirely. Fortunately she looked at our way, and we started to communicate in crude sign language. Some confusion ensued and finally she pointed us to a marked path. Blake, WaiHong and I finally trekked back to the right path. If it wasn’t for Iris we would’ve followed the river forever. I thanked her for saving us. Going into CP7 I’m secretly proud that we stuck to our guts, took that ‘modified’ route and still managed to get back to the right path. The path is actually shorter than the actual one, saving us precious time.

Iris from Singapore who saved ALL of us from following the river forever

As we left CP7 we stumbled into Eric from Penang, who started as one of the top few competitors for the day, only to be beaten by the route and getting lost so many times. At the end of the day Eric told us he actually did 10km more than all of us.The route back was straight forward and we mustered whatever energy we have left and jogged back to Poring Hot Springs to end Day 2’s race in 9 hrs and 27 mins covering 40km.  Surprisingly we ended the day ranked no 10. I knew right away many runners were lost and hope they’ll arrive before darkness falls.

The same camp routine as the previous day: we cleaned the tent, washed ourselves and packed up for the next day’s adventure. Dinner is served at 7pm with the same nice spread as the day before. But it was obvious to me the camaraderie among racers were stronger today, many shared their stories of getting lost, the tricky route for Day 2 and battling heat exhaustion. Among our friends, we’re worried for Wei Min who have yet to arrive even after sunset. While waiting for Wei Min, we tended to our blisters for the day. The SAC medic team is amazing and very friendly. One even asked me for advise because he’ll be doing the TMBT 55k and his first marathon this year. I asked him “even after seeing all these blisters, you still want to sign up?”. His reply “this is where human spirit is tested”. You know immediately he’s meant to do this. I wished him all the best.

Medic doing a goob job in torturing… I mean tending to our blisters and wounds.

Just for the record. Our feet after day 2. Mine at the bottom. YK’s at the top.

Wei Min finally arrived at 8.45 pm, but in high spirits. We heard the last 5 runners arrived together at 10.00pm after almost 14 hours on the road. Really respect them for pushing all the way and not yielding to their weary bodies.

Wei Min finishing with a few other runners way past nightfall.

There was no briefing for Day 3 as the race directors want to keep it as sort of a surprise for us. Maps and information will only be given out early that morning. So it was lights out for us at 10pm.

Click here for Day 3 report —>

Before I start my rambling post about the race, let me first warn you that it’s going to be a long long blog post. I mean come on, what do you expect from a 3 days adventure right? This is my Day 1 report. You can jump to Day 2 (click here) and Day 3 (click here) reports too.

About the Race

Sabah Adventure Challenge (SAC) 2014 marked my first foray into multi-day foot race. The race promises 3 days of adventure in remote West Coast of Sabah covering about 75-100km ultra trail marathon (the footrace category) or 120-150km adventure race (the biking & footrace category). All competitors are given topographic maps with checkpoints. Competitors are expected to have basic orienteering and map reading skills to navigate through unmarked paths and trails to reach each checkpoint.

This year’s SAC marks the 15th anniversary of the race. Founded in 1998 by Danish engineer Claus Pedersen, Australian Pilot Captain Taz Lawrie and New Zealander Martin V.Rijwsk as a race that they can compete in to earn bragging rights for the rest of the year. Started with a humble origin of 8 teams, it is now considered one the oldest multi-day race in South East Asia.

Pre-Race

I signed up for this race wayyyyy back in August 2013, before I even completed my first ultra. This race reminded me so much of my Scouting expeditions back in my schooling days. We used to walk 40km for 2 days to reach a camping ground and spend a night there. It was tough doing that as a school kid, but it was the best memory I carried from back in the day. I was very surprised when the organizers announced that the early bird fee for 2014 edition of SAC is only RM 100. With race prices soaring rocket high these days, I have to give kudos to the SAC organizers for keeping the race fee low.

The biggest headache for this race is the endless preparation and gears required for a multi-day race. We had to camp out in a field at Poring Hot Springs for 2 nights, so we needed to get our camping gears with us too.  Luckily for me I’m sort of experienced in orienteering and topographic map reading so that was something I didn’t have to get my head in a jam. About a month before the race, my brother decided to pull out from the race because he didn’t have any leave from his new job. So our supposedly first race together had to be delayed to another time I suppose.

Race gear all packed. May look little, but that’s 20kg of stuff right there.

Fast forward to the day before the race, we arrived at Sutera Harbour KK to register ourselves and attend course briefing by the team of organizers. The registration process was fast and we got our documents submitted within 10 mins. Aman warned us of the dry spell that Sabah have been experiencing in the past few weeks. The dos and don’ts were laid out for all competitors. What is made clear to us during the briefing is that unlike other races, SAC is not really a competitive event but more for camaraderie and friendship. Course race director Claus Pedersen briefed us about the route that we will be traversing for the next day.

Participants registering themselves for the race.

Course director Claus Jansen briefing us on the race route for Day 1

DAY 1

We boarded our bus transport to the starting  point of the race at 5 am. Total travel time was about 2 hr and 30 mins and most of the competitors in the bus tried to get some precious shut eye before the race. We hopped off the bus at Kg. Marakau in the Ranau district. This place really reminded me of our starting point for last year’s TMBT. I could see most of us were eager and excited to get things moving. We gathered at what looked like a small school for a short briefing by Aman before flag off. Wai Hong and I quickly agreed that we should stick together to navigate through the checkpoints as a team. Day 1 will have us go through approximately 35km mix of gravel road and off road trail.

All smiles before starting the race (Photo credit: Nasier Lee)

We were flagged off while staring straight at a gravel road climb on a hill. What the hell I thought? This is the first time I’m flagged off in the middle of a hill! Most of the runners took the right choice to walk up the hill, saving their energy to chase the downhill sections. 4km and about 400m climb later we finally reached the peak of the hill. We ran downhill after that and finally reached CP1 after 9km. There were quite a number of runners at CP1 just refilling their hydration bladders. Guess this is a popular strategy used by many to reduce the load of their bag by not carrying too much water in their bladders for the first 9km of the race.

That’s a hill alright

HEY! I see Checkpoint 1!!

We check out of CP1 pretty quickly and went on our way through a path that leads under a traditional wooden stilted house. I chuckled as I ran under this house, thinking it’ll never happen in KL. Can you imagine letting 100 runners through your house in KL? And you standing there smiling as each one of them trample through your lawn? Yep, it happened in Sabah alright.

Hi Uncle, we don’t have to pay toll to pass through your house, do we?

The first river crossing of the race

3 river crossings later, we arrived at Kg. Sedul. I knew from my TMBT experience that whenever we pass by a village, those cheerful village kids will always run along with us. Sometimes even leading us to the right path if we’re lost. I took one candy that I have saved up from downtown KK and gave it to a little girl. That girl gave me the sweetest smile and I knew I’ve made her day. A short uphill run and we arrived at CP2. We were originally briefed that CP2 was not supposed to be a water station. But somehow we’re given water for refill and cold wet sponges to cool ourselves. Temperature at that time has risen up to 38 deg. so those cold sponges are a welcome relief. Here we met with Robert Blake which is such a friendly character throughout the race.

Stunning mountain range

Wai Hong with Robert at CP 2

We continued through that gravel road and were met with a stunning view of the mountain ranges on our right. Soon we reached CP7 and it was evident that heat exhaustion were starting to play tricks in the minds of some runners. Many runners were crowding into the CP7 tent for a temporary reprieve from the scorching sun.

Checkpoint 7. Very very hot at this point.

Things started to get interesting after CP7 whereby the road ends here and we’re supposed to follow a riverbed to CP8. When we reached the river, I knew the instruction was to follow the river upstream (on our right). But there were a group of 8 runners turned towards the left, going downstream. Confusion ensued and after rereading the instructions, Wai Hong and I decided to go against popular opinion and go upstream. True enough 100 meters in race photographers were stationed there. I warned the photographers that some of the runners have gone downstream and may be lost. Further upstream we met with a fork in the river. Again instructions clearly asked us to turn left, but so many runners took to the right. I told myself that from now on I should not blindly follow the runners in front and read, reread the instructions to be sure myself. We soon reached CP8 which is just a check-in /check-out tent.

Walking along the riverbed (Photo credit: Kian Chong)

The road to CP9 was interesting as we passed by many interesting landmarks along the way. An old wooden bridge that looks like it couldn’t hold on to its weight anymore and would collapse anytime.

A village built entirely without wires. As the name says Kg. Tanpa Wayar (translated to English as Wireless Village). I wonder if they have WiFi for us?

A dusty stretch of road that kicks up a hell of a sandstorm whenever a vehicle passed us. I had to shield my nose and eyes a few times to prevent dusts from getting to them.

CP9 was a lively checkpoint with plenty of volunteers. I started to realize that my energy was slowly sapping away from me as we’re heading towards this CP. Been neglecting my nutrition thus far in the race and I felt its a good time to spend some time eating before things turn bad. My choice of nutrition for this race is Hammer’s Cranberry bar. Tastes awesome as its made up entirely of fruits.

With the awesome volunteers at CP9

We found this village hall with Coke!! I’ve always said, you can never find any Coke like a Coke in the middle of a race. 🙂

What we didn’t know was the route to CP10 would be a tough uphill climb made tougher with the scorching heat of 40 deg. No shade could shield us from the burning sun. We trudged slowly uphill along with many runners Whenever there’s a hint of a shade, surely another runner will be there taking a quick break from the heat. Things didn’t get any better after the climb. The route looked the same every which direction we turned. At one point I even asked Wai Hong if we’ve actually been walking in circles when I thought we’ve passed the same route 2 km ago. Luckily for us, we bumped into 3 villagers who very kindly pointed us to the right direction and even walked about 1 km with us just to be sure we arrived safely at CP10.

With the villagers who helped us to CP10. Yes that elderly man is holding a machete walking around 😛

We quickly continued on our way to the camping ground which we will end the day’s race and rest for the night. Along the way we were surprised to find this little water fountain in the middle of the jungle spouting cool, refreshing water. HEAVEN! Absolute heaven. Against the heat, anything that can let us cool off is a good thing.

I can never explain why such a thing exist in the middle of a jungle, but its an oasis for us lol

When we finally reached the camping ground, I was relieved that the first day’s ordeal is over. Finished Day 1 in 7 hours and 17 mins covering about 36km. Surprisingly my legs weren’t really sore and no blisters at all. We had the tent quickly set up and took a LONG nice warm shower. At 7 pm we head out towards the cafeteria for a scrumptious dinner. Everyone had a good time catching up with each other on the day’s adventure. At 8.30 pm, Claus briefed us on the next day’s route. Some runners were evidently tired as they snoozed through the entire briefing session.

First scene from campsite, YK snacking for recovery lol

Day 1 feet damage. Mine at the bottom, top is YK’s

Setting up camp for the night

Friends around the dinner table

We’re really spoilt for 3 days with good buffet meals

Day 2 route briefing by Claus

We packed our bags, checked our gear and went through the route map one more time to be sure what’s facing us the next day. Lights out at 10.00pm and I fell into a deep sleep.

Click here for Day 2 report —>