Running plan - Week 1 / 16

Running

I ran 15km on Friday's evening in 1:38:56 with a mixture of road & garden route. This is the first time I hit 15K by running alone. And without running on the road, I don't think I can run that far.

With that, I have completed my 1st week of marathon training beginner plan by completing a total of 32.8k (8.8K more than the required mileage... lol). Reason: I run mainly on a flat roads. I am supposed to do some hill running in my plan. But I couldn't find any suitable route nearby my residential for the hill training.

Hiking

I was asked by MY to bring her and her colleagues to Gn Datuk 2 weeks ago. I asked around and see anyone wanna join us for the hike. Finally, I have few ex-colleagues and running fren wanna join this hiking trip. However, MY turned up only with her BF -.-|||

We started the hike around 8.30am and along the way, I saw some insects like spiders, antz and... centipede?

We reached the peak around 10.45am with some slow hikers. The weather is good although a bit cloudy.

We descended around 12.00pm and reached the base around 1.15pm. We left the park at 2.15pm and went to Seremban town to eat the famous roasted or baked crabs at Seremban Seafood Village :)

And today, I have a little bit of stiffness on my calf muscle and I don't feel like doing anything :(

New Camel Hiking Bag (48L)

My new Camel hiking bag with 48L has arrived yesterday. I redeemed this hiking using the UOB UNIRinggit Rewards program. Total points utilised: 63,000

I'm actually looking for a bigger hiking bag with a rain cover than my current ones. The ones that could bring out to a camping or backpacking trip that could last for 4 to 5 days.

As soon as I saw UOB gives out this hiking bag in their rewards program, I quickly made the redemption before they replace it with another product or raise the redemption points.

This Camel hiking bag comes with a rain cover, mini whistle and it was made from a water repellent material :)

The good news is that I have saved at least RM150 +/- ... i think... woohoooo....

Camping at Gunung Nuang

I went to Gunung Nuang for the 3rd time (2nd time for 2010) on 12 June 2010. There are 6 of us, 4 guys and 2 girls.

This round, we are not going to conquer Gunung Nuang in one day, but we are going to camp 1 night at Kem LoLo. I brought along a tent which I got from BonusLink using the points redemption.

We reached the Nuang entrance around 9.30am. After we parked our cars, we quickly get our stuff and get ready to start the walk - 'The Never Ending Road' - by 10.00am.

We took close to 2 hours to reach the last rest hut near the river. All the guys carry about 17kgs to 19kgs of loads. This has slowed us down. Some more, it starts to rain half way through The Never Ending Road. So, we got to take a rest at some of the huts. We expect it going to rain but not so early.

Some of our backpacks do not have rain cover. So, we got to use plastic bag as a rain cover. I'm using a huge rubbish bag as a rain cover for my backpack... haha...

We reached Kem LoLo about 1.00pm and we quickly setup our tents. At that time, the rain has stopped already.

This is my tent. The cover says it's a 2-people tent. However, it just enough for myself and my backpack.. lol...

Luckily Lew bought a tent, same as mine. Else, I really dunno how to share my tent with Lew.

This is a 4-people tent - occupied by the 2 girls.

After setting up all the 4 tents, we cook some sardines with onions and eggs. We ate it with breads as a simple lunch.

Around 5.00pm, we went to the river to bathe. The river is nearby to our tents, about 15m from our tents.

The water is very cold as it was raining earlier on.

We 'lepak-ing' at the river for almost 1 hour. Then, we went back to our tents and quickly prepare our dinner before it gets dark.

Here are our dinner - Choy sum, canned curry chicken, luncheon meat, potatoes, eggs and paku-pakis and rice off course.

We start eating around 7.15pm.

After we have washed and cleaned up our stuff, we went for a short jungle walk around Kem LoLo with our headlights. We even tried to setup fire. However, the branches are too wet. Anyway, we went back to our tents after it started to rain cats and dogs around 10.00pm. I didn't get a sound sleep probably because I don't get use to camping life... lol...

We woke up around 7.00am something the next day. We had sardines, red beans, fried eggs and bread for breakfast.

At 8.45am, 5 of us decided to hike to Kem Pacat and summit. The other one is staying back to look after the tents.

I took about 2 hours to reached the summit. We didn't stay long at the summit because we need to rush down as one of our friends got to rush home to attend wedding dinner. We rested about 15 minutes at the summit.

Luckily, I didnt wear my usual Admiral hiking shoe because we expect it going to rain. I wear my cheap and trusted... Kampong Adidas shoe.

After we had our late lunch - instant noodles - we quickly removed our tents and pack our stuffs to go back home.

Ninja's pose... =.=

Finally, we say bye bye to Kem LoLo and we left around 4.00pm.

Bukit Kutu, Kuala Kubu Baru

I recently did the hike up Bukit Kutu with my other hiking kakis on 22 Nov 2009 (Sun).

None of us had hiked Bukit Kutu before. So we just gathered the info about Bukit Kutu from the internet and blogs. We planned to reach Kg Pertak, Kuala Kubu Baru at 8.00am and start our hiking at 8.30am. However, the plan was delayed by about 1 hour.


Once we reached Kg Pertak, we parked our cars at the roadside. If you see those wooden + cement houses at the back, those are the orang asli houses, resettlement area. Some will call it orang asli bungalow houses.



We need to take about 10-15 minutes walk to the 2 metal bridges. There is a river on the right hand side along this road.



Top - 1st metal bridge.
Bottom left - 2nd metal bridge. The 2nd bridge had partially collapsed.



After the 2nd metal bridge, we got to walk again to the 1st river crossing. This time, we need to take out our shoes as the the water level is about 2 feet high.



After the 1st river crossing, we will come across 2 small streams and have to walk along the 4WD road. The road is a bit confusing as there is no marking to Bukit Kutu and many folks. So, always take the RIGHT road when ones see the trail folks out.


At first, we make a mistake by taking the left turning at the 2nd folk. We spent about 30 minutes walking on a flat jungle trail. At the end, I took out my phone to check the trail to Bukit Kutu using my GPS. Haha... we are indeed off-track from the hiking trail (pink color line). At the end, we have wasted about 1 hour by walking on the wrong trail.



Top - Another small folk. This time, got to take the left trail.
Bottom - Always look out for the marking along the trail.



Along the trail to the summit, there are trees of various shapes and sizes.



And various types of fungi as well.



Bukit Kutu is not difficult to hike for regular hikers. However, it will become challenging to ascend and descend if it rains because of slippery.



Some of our slower group took about 45 minutes to reached the big giant boulder area from the small folk point.


We rested about 15 minutes before continue hiking to the summit.



Be careful to check your both legs for leeches. And do bring a long salt or leech repellent.



There are plenty of bamboo trees along the trail to the summit.


The final stage to summit :P



At last, we reached the summit at 2pm after about 3 hours of slow walk and hike . We took the group photo in front of chimney.



If you read from the internet, the British built a house at the summit as a weekend break. However, the Japanese bombed the place during the war and now all that remains are a few wells and a chimney.



A further up from the chimney area, there is this little rock looks like the real 'peak'.




It was too cloudy at the summit. During good and clear weather, ones can see the Selangor dam and Kuala Kubu Baru town.



We left the summit at 3pm and reached the 1st river crossing by 5.30pm.

We will come back again in the future.