I know all you Band of Brothers fans from around the globe have been dying to hear about the latest saga in Adventure Racing in SE Asia. The ESPN/STAR/SKY/SUPERSPORTS coverage teams convinced us to enter yet again offering full sponsorship with Singha endorsements together with
ladyboyinc.com. For new readers and those not too familiar with the sport of adventure racing, let me inform you that it is not at all like puffy triathlons where everyone knows pretty well what they will achieve and can get quite excited, ooh la la, over a 15 second improvement in the 10km, flat as a ladyboys mammary gland, real tarmac run, and the courses are laid out maplike, on perfect roads, perfect weather, perfect shoes, totally uncontaminated water venues, with no risk of any fun whatsoever, so bloody boring, what`s wrong with you puffters eh?
Have a go at adventure in your life!! OK Did I go on bit? Well…………..
Well we did another one, our 3rd Samui race. Some people have said we are past it or at least I am and maybe they aren`t that far off . An interesting quote from the China hash annals in Fulong beach recently in Sept, a Dump n Run bikini run special, just before Samui and the scene of an epic Action Asia race in 2004 where Band of Brothers including now retired, partially alive drunk Tom Ashby, and bruvs Stephen and David McCormick took the grand overall prize, “Crocodile Dundee visiting from the hills of Tainan County looked pale, gaunt, and on the verge of death…..but then I realised that’s his natural look”
Say no more. Thrive on compliments. Thank you Dick with Ears.
However the weekend`s hashing in Taipei, chez Dump n Run`s place, was without doubt an ideal springboard for the adventure ahead in Thailand. Totally wrecked for 2 days was certainly adequate preparation for Samui. And I knew my teammate and bruv would have trained in like manner. One thing we can boast about is our total commitment to the cause.
Chose to fly with KLM as Air Asia seem to have disappeared, so arrived at Chiang Kai Chek International airport in Tao Yuan with my bag of assorted drugs, spare legs, testosterone vials, oestrogen just in case, viagra pills purely for pumping up the heart rate, fibrillator, lung machine and paraphernalia and a state of the art speedy carbon fibre rim, art deco ultra fast disc wheel which is lighter than helium and makes the box in which it is housed float. It has a negative mass, thereby defying Sir Isaac Newton`s 2nd law of gravity and even Einstein`s theory of relativity could be put to the test. I thought this might do the trick. Lance Armstrong in his heyday didn`t have this much aid. Again I put my total trust in long time friend and mentor Keith Richards. Here in Taiwan Craig Johns is our Guru.
Strode up to the check in counter, placed my bag and boxed wheel on the weigh scale. Well under the 23 kgs allowance. Then the young lady said “Sorry sir, you are only allowed 1 piece of luggage in inferior class” I enquired as to when this absurd ruling had been made as the previous time I flew with KLM it didn`t matter how many pieces you had , it was just based on total weight. So what was I to do? Tried my charms, offered a quick muff dive, to no avail. She said I could upgrade to business class, send the wheel via air cargo at twice the passenger ticket price and could arrive at my destination in about 2 weeks, just in time to miss the race or repack everything in 1 container. So I was forced to take option 3.
There is a packing company in the airport called Taiwan Pelican Express especially set up by KLM for this exact purpose, to extract more money out of passengers who didn`t read the small print in the ticketing policy document. So, I took my stuff over to them, paid the exorbitant fee for a cardboard box and they took out the wheel and all my clothes from the bag and heaved them all together, my Thai silks mingling with the grease on the hub. It was quickly sealed and I was then allowed to check in.
The flight took off fairly soon after and it was quite full. In fact so full that a number of passengers didn`t appear to have seats. And this included a troupe of entertainers from Valencia, ( Spain, for those geographically challenged ) who had just done a concert in Taipei. Well, of course, they being wine drinkers, and I, not being overly anti social , teamed up and started what is known in British circles as a session. We were all stood in the rear of the plane ordering KLM`s finest Chardonnay from the vineyards of Grimsby when the flight attendant, a striking looking woman, and I`m not speaking figuratively, struck out and told us all to be seated or we would be thrown off the plane. Hmmm. And there was to be no more alcohol imbibed the rest of the journey. Well……… According to the Geneva convention no such bylaw exists and so we were well within our rights to continue on our current course of inebriation as long as we didn`t flout standards of decency and décor according to new Euro legislation. Needless to say by the time we arrived in Bangkok there wasn’t a sober person in our troupe ( I was now a full member ) and it was touch and go if any of us would be allowed through immigration. Our fears were groundless as we all know the Land of Smiles. Sawadee krap.
The next day I arrived in Samui at my bruvs mansion on Lamai beach, he`s a rich tycoon, but friendly sort, the ladyboy butler patted me down as usual, nothings changed here thankfully and I barely passed security control and opened my newly aquired box. Lo and behold ………no wheel, no race gear, no joints, no nothing of mine. Just thongs, leather straps, handcuffs and marital aids with porno videos.
****ing wrong box. I thought those ****ing KLM ***tards have ripped me off. Of course contacted the local office. Sure enough someone else had had the same problem and were forced into repacking their stuff into a box, identical to mine. However she was in Bangkok and I was in Koh Samui. KLM would take no responsibilty saying I had taken the wrong luggage. After a lot of arguing and threatening to blow up the main terminal housing of KLM I had to pay for the box to be sent to Bangkok and in return the other party had to send my box to me. So, I was without anything to wear for 3 days, mind you, borrowed a couple of nice little numbers of let`s say
“ items” and found a fig leaf and a lady boy size 40 D cup bra to temporarily make do. Actually it fitted in quite nicely on Koh Samui, nobody noticed.
Now getting back to the reason I am writing this. I`ve forgotten now, keep getting this touch of Alzheimers.
Oh yes, another race. Well did a fair bit of training the week or 2 before the event, cut down on Marlbroughs to 2 packs a day and thought, to be on the safe side, to increase liquids in the diet, called hydration I think, so a combo of Chang and Singha seemed to be in order. The last thing you need is water. Don`t listen to all these so called experts who maintain that you have to keep imbibing H2O. Nonsense. I have a special liquid dispenser called a Camelchang which only accepts ethanol. If pure water is added it spouts it out ( safety feature ) Well worth the investment.
Race day : About 100 teams in 2 events. Adventure and Extreme. Of course Adventure is for pussies and ladyboys. Almost got in that event somehow!
Started with a short run to the beach and a 10 km kayak leg. As these Feel Free crafts don`t have seats they are extremely uncomfortable as you have to sit in a hole where the seat should be. like on a surfboard. So we had taken our own belts to attach to the boats and help us with back support, did it with success last year when we got the gold medal in the old farts cat. So defending our title. Anyway got in the boat did 3 paddle strokes and broke my clip. B***locks. My bruv at the same time was unable to attach his, he`s a bit retarded, did I mention? but not really noticeably so, seems perfectly normal til he speaks.
So we had the most uncomfortable paddle ever. We couldn`t get going and finished this leg about 10-15 minutes down, near the back of the race. It also included a nasty swim in the sea with a headwind both ways, huge waves reminiscent of Hawaii during a tsunami and a near fatal great white shark attack. However the shark didn`t seem to find me tasty enough. If it had bitten me it would most certainly have died. I was without doubt the very worst swimmer, my bruv 2nd worst, and the organizers were ready to pull me out of the water and apply mouth to mouth, but when they realized how much plonk I`d been supping they left me to it.
Out of the water, stiff as a board and a run along the soft sand beach to the bikes. Pure murder too. All to do now. No problem 5 hours to go, will catch them. Rode well on fantastic trails in the mountain, did bit and bit with teammate alternating the lead on the faster sections. Only fell off 3 times, 2 faceplants and a half twist. Some walking as too steep to ride. People falling off going uphill. Kept picking off teams one by one. I kept going off course, missing very well marked arrows, much to my teammates chagrin. Again, could be Parkinsons acting up or maybe not enough booze. Sorry bruv! More running sections and still catching up. We had 1 slingshot obstacle where we had to hit a target at 20 paces. The target was a cute ladyboy and he/she was moving. I shot mine and the bullet ricashaded. Still got the scar. But bruv Dave had been practicing, he knows his ladyboys alright if you know what I mean wink wink. 2 bullseyes. Moved up to the top 20 by then but maybe only 4th in our cat. And you don`t really know where you are overall. It was intermittent biking and running for hours, really great stuff. Hot as Hades and suited us. The city slickers from HK and Bangkok with fantastic Adonis bodies who only train in air con gyms, have skin the colour of ivory and wear clean shoes suffered badly and we overtook lots of young teams after 3-4 hours who were cream crackered. We kept the same pace ( ****ing slow) the whole race. It isn`t a sprint. Reminds me of the joke about the father and son bulls who looked down the meadow at a herd of cows and the young bull said to his dad “Let`s run down there and **** a couple of em.” The old bull said “why don`t we just walk down and ****em all”.
After 5 hours of racing we had overtaken all our rivals in our cat except one team. And they were 2nd behind us the previous year. They wanted it badly. But we weren`t about to throw in the towel. So stiff upper lip, we plodded on and caught them at the final transition, having gained 15 mins since the kayak leg. We headed off towards the finish knowing it couldn`t be too far but not knowing just how far it was.
Then with about 5kms to go they passed us on the bike and we couldn`t respond. Took a couple of shots of amphetamines to no avail, Mind you I felt no pain after that. But we arrived at the final swim to the hotel finish a few minutes down in about 5 ½ hours. So, a Silver was all we could manage this time. And we finished 10th overall. People said we did well considering we out aged everybody by about 2 decades , but that`s bullshit, it`s only GOLD we are interested in. Silver is for hosers and losers. Got to get that kayaking right next time or my bruv is going to let me go! Feel the pressure already……..
On a brighter note a gorgeous young lady from Oregon and I won the best costume trophy at the evening awards presentation.
Band of Brothers David McCormick and Stephen McCormick aka Crocodile Dundee
