Kuching Marathon – Repeat Performance

2015 Kuching Marathon with Jason and Justin

You would think a second marathon would be easier to run than the first, but last year, I was so naïve.  I over-estimated my abilities and under-estimated how much time it would take a normal person, let alone a writer who hardly trained, to run 42.195km, or 26 miles, 385 yards.  Unlike last year, I knew firsthand the pain that awaited me.  The aches and pains during the run, the post race cramps, the bigger pains climbing up and down those horrible stairs at home, not to mention the various blisters and losing three toenails.

After last year’s race, I did buy a better pair of shoes with an extra thumb width for the toes.  I also vowed to train harder, but well, alas, it’s hot over here in Borneo, and if you don’t run first thing in the morning, chances are you won’t run before sunset either, especially since I rotate cooking duties with my wife, look after the boys, and, by the way, doesn’t that look like a torrential downpour a brewing?  I know, excuses…

When I told my brother Bill two weeks ago that I was running a second marathon but I wasn’t really ready for it, he scolded me.  “I would be training!”  That’s what he did when he ran his marathons in the 90s, but then he was living in Southern California where the weather is nice and often breezy, so he could run at any time of the day, especially on weekends.  I know, more excuses… 

Still, I took the scolding albeit pep talk in a positive way – I mean he is my brother.  So the follow­ing week­end I ran to Quop, my wife’s village, and back in one hour and twenty minutes with­out stopping.  I found that encouraging, despite the two dozen roadkills, includ­ing three snakes, a scorpion, some birds, frogs, you name it, and a freshly killed white-breasted water-hen.  Unless I wanted to be roadkill myself, I needed to take these marathons a little more serious­ly.  I’m not as young or as fit as I was twenty years ago.  Then again, who is?

I sneaked in a second, shorter run before supper one evening, but the following day my left knee felt iffy, if not a little painful.  For days, I applied generous doses of various muscu­lar salves and kept my fingers crossed that the knee would hold up.  What didn’t hold up, on the eve of the run, was my running watch.  Who remembers to change the battery before a mara­thon?  I added that to my checklist for next year.  Instead I had to wear my regular watch, a present from my wife, and watch it get doused in sweat.  Then I found out that the organizers had changed the cut-off time from seven hours to six and a half!  That meant my time last year (6:42) would not have qualified.  So now I had to focus on running a new personal best just to get a darn metal!

Maybe that was why I couldn’t sleep, despite trying all afternoon and evening until about 10:30 pm.  Then it was rise and shine at 1:40 am!  Last year, I got up at 1am, but I knew I needed that extra sleep.  Did lack of sleep bother the Kenyans or the 3am starting time?  Naturally the Kenyans swept the first six places in both the men and women’s races (and half-marathon, too).  The winning time was 2:26.39, or about four hours faster that I needed to run.  The winning time for Veterans (my category), also by a Kenyan, was 2:56.50.

To make up some of that time, I made sure I started near the front.  Last year, stuck some­where toward the back, with thousands of runners ahead of me, it took us about 10 minutes of inching forward just to get to the starting line where we could finally run.  And run I did, determined to get off to a brisk start.  Unfortunately, weighed down by a pair of bananas that I couldn’t finish and didn’t want to toss, my shorts started slip­ping, so I slipped between a pair of parked cars and tightened them.  Those who saw me assumed I was taking a leak.

Compared to last year, gone were the hordes of spectators at the beginning of the run and along the way, cheering us on.  There were some, but the party-like atmosphere, the first date magic, was not there.  Sort of like a second date.  Gone were the roadkill, too, since they had recently paved several of the roads.  However, there was a crashed car with the driver’s door left wide open; no doubt the driver had to be helped out.  I hope he or she survived as I kept on running, counting my blessings.

I also counted Water Stations (16), grateful for the volunteers who provided us cupfuls of water or isotonic drinks and kept us entertained by bang­ing empty bottles and chanting, “Faster, faster!  You can run faster!”  Every three kilo­meters, they posted the kilometer markers.  I thanked each one as I passed by.  At 15K, I told myself only 6K to the half-way mark!  At 24K, only 6K to 30K!  Playing these mental games helps.  At 27K, I played a different game by announcing I was winning 9-5!  9 kilometer signs down, 5 more to go.  At 30K, 10-4; 33K, 11-3.  In my mind I was winning the race.  Not against the Kenyans who had long since collected their prize money and gone back to bed.

Running has always been more mental than physical, especially once you pass the 36K mark.  By then, many runners were hobbling more than running; not a pretty sight as they willed their bodies forward, almost crablike, their necks jutting out, their arms or elbows flailing, their hands twitching, hoping their wobbly legs would follow so they didn’t fall flat on their faces.

I knew I was well ahead of last year’s pace and thought for sure I could break six hours.  Of course, had I properly trained like you’re supposed to (like my brother told me), this wouldn’t be a problem, but, alas, fatigue set in, compounded by lack of sleep.  I woke up laughing when I spotted a runner’s t-shirt that asked, “Where the f**k is the finish line?”  I knew that feel­ing.  Having run in last year’s marathon, I also knew I could finish this one, too.  That’s what mara­thons do; they give you that extra self-confidence.  No matter how bad or painful things look, if you keep at it, putting one foot in front of the other, and vow you will never quit, you will make it.  I apply this to writing novels, too.  Success was merely waiting for me at the finish line.

    

Also waiting was my wife and sons Jason and Justin.  The boys kept asking her, “What’s taking Daddy so long?”  She didn’t know, nor did she think, I was going to make the cut-off time based on my lack of training, lack of sleep.  But then she saw me rounding the cor­ner, looking like her sweaty, exhausted marathon man from last year.  To me, she looked like heaven.

“Did it rain?” the boys kept asking me, since I was thoroughly drenched.  “No,” I replied, but it did several hours before the race began, cooling down the temperature and providing us a nice breeze throughout the race.  A runner from Kuala Lumpur told me the Kuching Mara­thon has a great reputation for running your personal best time, since it’s mostly flat.  I flat out agreed and ran a personal best time, 6:14.55, nearly half an hour better than last year.  With a little more training, I might even be able to compete with the Kenyans – I know, in my dreams…

Other than some bleeding around one of the toenails, I was fine.  No blisters!  No lost toe­nails!  I was even spared those dreadful cramps.  More importantly, I had once again sucked it up (my mantra from last year) and persevered.  This repeat performance will surely come in handy next year.  The question is…will you be joining me?  Just add running a marathon to your bucket list or your New Year’s Resolutions, then you can happily add it to your list of achievements.

I know, in your dreams…

Here’s a link to my first marathon. (2014 Kuching Marathon)
And to my third marathon (2016 Kuching Marathon)

        —Borneo Expat Writer

Here are links to four of my author to author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

Season’s Greeting…Season’s Cleaning

It started with a rat . . . . A rat visited us last Christmas, too, came up through the drain in our bathroom, but I caught that one.  This is a relative that lives in the ceiling and ate its way through a couple of wires, thus darkening our kitchen.  Since we needed to call an electrician, we thought, well, what else can the electrician do?  The boys ceiling fan needed fixed or replaced and my wife has been hinting (for years) that our living room is too dull, so when the electrician arrived we asked for a quote on some down lights. 

While shifting furniture to make room for the electrician and his ladder, I noticed a lot of dust; then the electrician created a mess under each down light, so I furiously swept and mopped the living room and the dining room for good measure (the kitchen, too).  Just in time for some Christ­mas carolers from my wife’s village in Quop. 

After wishing us a Merry Christmas, the carolers left and moved onto the next house, and my wife hinted at the next project . . . . We really needed to do something with our wall that separated our property from the neighbors.  The lower half was fine, but the upper metal grille was rusty and looked horrible.  We had it painted two years ago by a contractor friend.  His bid was rather unfriendly, so we asked the contractor who recently completed the back wall at my sister-in-law’s house.  We’re glad we did. 

Impressed with their work, I got the idea of turning our upstairs balcony that we rarely use into a separate room for our exercise equipment, since keeping fit is one of our resolutions for 2015 (as is running a second marathon).  After doing some furious tape measuring, I could see the possibilities, so I got a quote.  It was reasonable if we opted not to knock out the wall separating it from the master bedroom since that would affect the ceiling, the floor and substantially increase the cost.  We’ll remove the door and shift the existing window out to the balcony and leave the windowless space empty, giving the balcony room a sense of spacious­ness and making it easier for my wife and me to talk while the other works out.  (Good for encouragement!)

As soon as they finished plastering the back wall (and the front, too, since we were at it), they got to work on the balcony.  Initially I had agreed to paint the back and front walls to save on costs, but the more we talked to the contractors about that, we thought it might be wiser to let the experts do that, since they knew how to seal it properly before painting (something I never considered) so the paint won’t come off during the first torrential downpour.  (We live in the tropics.)  Besides, my wife wasn’t convinced that I would get around to it as quickly as she wanted it done.  While we were at it (famous last words), we had them paint the side walls, too.

While rearranging some furniture in our master bedroom so nothing got damaged, my wife noticed that our ceiling fan was dusty.  Once we started cleaning that, it naturally led to other things that were equally dusty like our floor, our curtains, so before you know it, she has me vacuuming the curtains in every room of the house including the living room drapes, some­thing we haven’t done in years.  Who has time to vacuum curtains?

In the midst of vacuuming, my wife asked me what I wanted to do with the door that they removed from the balcony.  Knowing it’d come in handy the moment we tossed it, I thought of storing it in the back room where we do our laundry.  But first I had to move every­thing out so it wouldn’t be in the way of everything else.  Then I swept, dusted, mopped and tossed stuff; while I was at it, I did some serious rearranging to make it more pleasing to the eye.     

Once the balcony room is ready, we’ll call the electrician again to add an outlet and replace the light.  Before he comes we’ll take another look around the place to see if anything else needs repaired or replaced.  In the meantime, we’re taking down the Christmas decorations, but before putting it back into storage, I’ll clean out that storage room, too, since it’s looking fairly cluttered . . . . That happens when you have children, boys especially.

Hopefully, that will be the end of this year’s Season’s Cleaning, so I can finally relax and get back to revising my novel . . . . But already my wife is eyeing the boy’s room and subtly remind­ing me about my promise to paint it.  So for 2015, I see more work in my future, though I’ll probably procrastinate until another Christmas rat comes around . . . . By the way, when I was a kid, they were called Christmas mice, but everything back then was smaller.

Now on New Year’s Day, when many people around the world, including our neighbors, wake up with a hangover, we’ll be waking up to a clean, uncluttered house with a new exercise room and freshly painted outer walls . . . . Not a bad way to start the New Year.

And how is your own Season’s Cleaning coming along?  Good luck with that, or perhaps wait until next year . . . . Cheers.

              —Borneo Expat Writer 

Anthony Brooke, the last Heir to the Throne of Sarawak, Dies

Anthony Brooke was an heir to the throne of Sarawak, the last link to the power of the last White Rajah of Borneo.  So much has been written about the 100-year dynasty of the Brooke rule in Sarawak, but yet there was always that confusion after the war, the wrangling of the British government, the increasing lack of interest of the third Raja, Vyner, and the intrigues surrounding Anthony Brooke, who as designated heir to the throne, kept falling in and out of favor, and how the rights to Sarawakians was rather underhandedly usurped in favor of the British.

Here's the link to the article in The Telegraph with a brief overview of Sarawak's rather romantic history and the demise of Anthony Brooke, but it barely scratches the surface.  I do know that my wife's family and the Bidayuh community were extremely grateful when James Brooke stepped in and saved them from both tyranny and persecution. Every night they risked having their village raided, their heads taken, their wives and children used or sold off as slaves.

Yes, I also know that it all smacks of colonialism, but there are many perspectives to consider, to write about: the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Men are still men, and power in the wrong hands, no matter the race, can be bad for everyone as despots have proved time and again.  Someday I plan to write more about Sarawak; already I have a couple of novel ideas, but for now my work is still mostly Penang based, rewriting novels that I started before moving to Sarawak. Sadly, so far, I've only written one feature article about Sarawak, mostly about Kuching, for a US publication, a couple of blog posts about my walks with Jason in Quop or 7-Mile, in addition to what I wrote in the Sabah and Sarawak section of Spirit of Malaysia.  Then there's the section I wrote about ten hotels including the Royal Mulu Resort in the soon to be released Guide to Sarawak.

I will definitely write more about Sarawak.  Sarawak is such a huge story to be told and countless stories lie within each story, but the more recent ones, about the ongoing logging battles, rain forest destruction, and land rights disputes, is not a pleasant one and does not bode well for the future of Sarawakians living in the interior.  Hopefully, like colonialism, that too will come to an end for a better Sarawak for everyone.

Here are links to some of my author-to-author interviews of first novelists:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize.

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey.

Preeta Samarasan author of Evening is the Whole Day. 

Chuah Guat Eng,  author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change. 

Plus:

Five part Maugham and Me series

Beheaded on Road to Nationhood: Sarawak Reclaimed—Part I 

Two Sides to Every Story: An Encounter with a Spirit – Part II - The Shadow Spirit

This is a continuation of an encounter with a spirit  that my mother-in-law is convinced that she had that I wrote about yesterday.  She has not fully recovered and seems to be getting worse, a concern for the family who are now looking to find someone to care of her during the day until she recovers.  

The incident, whether a spirit was involved or not, reminded me of my own encounter with a spirit that took place at my mother-in-law’s house about 14 years ago, during my first visit to Quop, which I recorded  in my journal the following mornings and then wrote about ten years later for a non-fiction writing workshop that I was presenting, a significant personal experience, for illustration purposes.

THE SHADOW SPIRIT

by

Robert Raymer

            While visiting Benuk, a mostly abandoned Bidayuh longhouse in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, where some of my fiancé’s relatives used to live, my fiancé and I were about to enter the head house, a ceremonial room where we could see suspended from the ceiling a fishing net containing more than a dozen human heads.

            My mother-in law tried to convince us not to go inside.  She didn’t want us to disturb the spirits.  Even though she was a Christian, she like many Bidayuhs, still practiced animism.  She believed that spirits haunted everything—caves, rivers, large boulders, and, particu­lar­ly, the nearby jungle.  We shrugged off her concerns and went inside.  The room felt eerie though, and knowing that the heads were dangling above us from the rafters didn’t exactly help.  Still, I took a photograph of the heads.

            Later that evening, I went to sleep using the single bed that had been set up for me in what used to be the living room, upstairs.  Downstairs, a room had recently been added in front of the house, which was the new living room.  A wire had been strung across the room upstairs and a blanket hung over it to give me a semblance of privacy.   My fiancé, who opted to sleep with her sisters in her former bedroom, kissed me goodnight.  The blanket, having been taken out of storage, smelled strongly of mothballs.  At times I felt like I was suffocating.  It was fitful trying to sleep because of the smell, the mosquitoes biting me, and the strange noises outside that sounded what I assumed were frogs croaking. 

Around midnight, still half awake, I saw a shadow presence come in by way of a locked door that led out to a small balcony.  The shadow, the size of a large animal, floated toward me.  As it hovered over me, I could feel my body arching, trying to resist it, yet I felt powerless, as if a force were holding me down, pinning my shoulders to the bed.  As the shadow spirit entered through my chest, I screamed – the loudest, blood-curdling scream that I could muster.  But nothing came out of my mouth.

            The following morning I told my fiancé what had hap­­­pen­ed.  I wanted her to know in case anything happened to me; in case I started to act weird or “possessed”.  I wanted her to monitor my actions, keep a close eye on me, and if I started to act strangely, to get help.  At the same time, I hoped the spirit hadn’t stayed inside me.  That it merely visited me and left.

             “Don’t tell my mother,” she urged me, a concerned look on her face, worried what her mother would say.  We both knew she would blame it on our visit to the head house.

            My fiancé then admitted that she had heard similar accounts of the shadow spirit before from some of her Bidayuh friends in the village, right down to the suppressed scream.  So had her uncle who lived next door.

My fiancé also told me that no one had ever slept in that room before.  She asked me if I wanted to sleep elsewhere, but there was nowhere else I could sleep without incon­veniencing someone else, so I opted to stay where I was.  That night, before I went to bed, she retrieved a cross made from palm leaves that had been saved from Palm Sunday and put it inside my pillowcase.  She then suggested that I sleep with my head away from the balcony door and that I pray before going to sleep.  I agreed, though I felt silly saying a bedtime prayer, which I hadn’t done since I was a child repeating my nightly, “Now-I-lay-me-down-to-sleep . . .”

            Now I prayed for my son from a previous marriage; my fiancé and her family; my father and stepmother; my mother and brothers and their families; and for my own safety from any harm­ful spirits.  I tried to go to sleep, but then I heard some­­­­thing, or someone, rattling the handle at the balcony door.  There was no way to reach that door from the ground.  When I heard it a second time, I thought, what the hell is trying to get in!

I stared at the door, willing the shadow spirit to go away, afraid that if it entered my body a second time it would stay.  I prayed, feverishly, over and over.  The sound even­tually stopped; exhausted, I ­fell asleep.

The following morning, I remembered the photograph that I had taken of the suspended heads and vowed to destroy it.  At the same time, I tried to imagine the Bidayuh warriors carrying the dripping-with-blood heads back to their longhouse after doing battle, and also the massacre that took place in Quop in the early 1840’s at the hands of the Saribas and Skrang Ibans.   I dreaded to think what might have happened to me had I not followed my fiancé’s instructions that night in Sarawak.  Nor will I ever forget the shadow spirit that had entered my body and, thankfully, left.

#  #  #

Two Sides to Every Story: An Encounter with a Spirit-Part I

Living and writing in a different culture gives you the chance to experience the world from a different perspective.  Of course, it’s what you do with that perspective that matters.  Either you try to understand it, learn from it, or you dismiss it entirely.  Two nights ago, my wife took her mother, a Bidayuh, home after visiting us for most of the day.  Before they even arrived home my wife suspected something was wrong because her mother, who was riding in the backseat, didn’t respond to a couple of questions.

Then when they reached her village in Quop, her mother, who was clutching one of her hands, had no sense of balance; it was as if she had suddenly gone limp.  While helping her out of the car, which she never had to do before, they both fell.  She was also speaking gibberish; my wife couldn’t understand anything that she was saying. With the help of her brother-in-law they took her to the hospital where they conducted several tests, including ct scans, cardiovascular tests, ex-rays, and blood samples.  After several hours she finally could speak normally again.  The doctors concluded she had a mild stroke, but it wasn’t severe enough to admit her.

The following evening my wife was chatting online to her cousin in Kapit; her cousin’s mother was on the phone talking to my wife’s mother at that very moment. My wife’s  mother was telling her cousin’s mother that she had been attacked by a spirit.  She said her hand suddenly started to hit her so she had to clutch it tightly to prevent it from hurting her. She was also trying to speak but the spirit wasn’t allowing her to speak.

Now before you start rolling your eyes, I asked my wife, where did her mother feel this ‘spirit’ came from, since she had been at our place. Our place, as far as I know, doesn't have any spirits.  I hope not.  As it turned out, late that afternoon, they had visited a sprawling nursery that sells flowers and plants.  The owner was telling my wife’s mother how she hurt herself.  She said she was out back when a spirit shoved her from behind.  She said no one else was around.  She insisted she didn’t slip or fall; she was shoved, and when she landed, she broke her wrist. 

After buying some plants, leaving some in the trunk to take back to Quop, they came back to our place, had dinner, and my wife drove her home. By then, she was not looking herself, as if she had been wiped out.  I just assumed that she was tired since she's in her late 60's.  Did this spirit follow her from the nursery?  Did it enter her body?  Then before they even reached her place, just a few kilometers away, she had this “stroke”.

Was it a stoke or did a spirit disturb her?  Or was it a combination of both?  After hearing of this other "encounter" at the nursery, and being highly susceptible herself because of her beliefs that these spirits really do exist, had she worried herself  into a stroke? Again, this is all about your perspective on a different culture.  My wife’s cousin’s mother, by the way, does have some experience in this area. She has a son who was found trying to strangle himself by a huge split boulder not far from my wife’s family home, close to St James church, the oldest Anglican church in Southeast Asia, and the adjacent graveyard.  Spirits have been sighted by that split boulder; people still go there to seek four-digit numbers.  Her son was taken to a bomoh, a witch doctor/healer, before he was taken to a doctor. The family and relatives concluded he had been possessed.  Why else would he try to strangle himself?  The doctors, called it a seizure. After that incident, he has never been the same, in and out of trouble.

Whether you believe in spirits or not is not the point.  If you are familiar with the Bible, and you take that as the word of God or as the truth, well there is ample evidence in the Bible where demons and spirits were driven out of people in order to heal them.  The Chinese here celebrate the Month of the Hungry Ghosts. There are two sides to every story; even doctors don’t always agree.  Again, it’s a matter of perspective from a different culture.  Learn from it, or dismiss it.  As a writer, as a person who has common sense, it’s your choice.  

As a follow up to this, while I gather more facts/opinions by interviewing her mother when she has fully recovered, I’ll relate my own personal encounter with a spirit in her mother’s house that took place 14 years ago.  Up until then, I had off-handedly dismissed such stories.  You can be the judge.  Again, I live in Borneo and many people have been violently killed here, on headhunting raids.  170 years ago Quop was nearly wiped out in one such raid by the Saribas and Skrang Ibans.

Here is the link for Part II, the Shadow Spirit.