A-Farmosa Triathlon - a spectators view

The journey to A-Farmosa in Ariff's car (11:30 to 2:40pm)
A must get is the Garmin GPS Muv which though nagging as it is, is a useful tool. Late in arrival due to highway congestion and we took a detour via old road to Rembau/tampin via Seremban. memories of journey - SLOW.

Registration and check in (2:40 to 3:30)
Slow and chaotic, Triathlon check was ok, but lodging was quite slow. Went back to pick up dinner vouchers as we forgot them at the club house. Muahahahah

SPRINT event (4:00 pm to 6pm)
My first view and experience of the Famed A-farmosa (monkey) lake. Famous quips about the lakes:- "its nutritiously better then PowerGel", "You can go in with white triathlon suite and come out brown","The smell is something like dead fish" and a few other which cannot be repeated on this blog. The kids gets a 5 minutes start while adults start at about 4:05 pm. It was fast race to say the least.
The bike route is a bit sandy in parts but nothing to shout about and so is the 3km run. quite easily doable if urs truly can swim.

Dinner at Cowboy town is interesting (7:15pm to 9:30pm)
had some nice food, and get to meet a lot of friends. Its a good bonding session.

Race Day (6:30 am to 11:30 am)
Race day at monkey lake saw many newbies there, frightful experience for many who have never "smell" the lake and those who were eager to go into the water and had to thread water 5-10 minutes before start. By the time the race start, many are left cold and frantic. nevertheless, the race went on smoothly with very minor casualty. Its amazing to to see people like Mok and Schubert out of water in less then 25 minutes.
On bike leg, the pros did it in about 1 hr and 5 minutes and the run was completed in less then 40 minutes.
What was interesting for me in volunteering as a photographer is this:-
a) To take note of frens timing so that I can get the sequencing of photos right
b) To know where are the critical points so that I can take photos of my frens when they are on swim, bike and run
c) To position myself properly at finishing line to capture their moments of joy.

Lessons learnt and takeaway:-
a) Photography can be tiring if done alone and trying to cover as much grounds
b) Doing relay is not as satisfying as doing it alone, be it sprint. Its better to do sprint, and u have the whole SBR all done by u and ur own effort then to participate in a Triathlon as part of the relay team, though I wud still participate a relay team if there is opportunity, since i dont swim. I have to start learning to swim now.
c) At present moment Duathlon is more my scene, and will do more if opportunity presented itself.
d) I really respect the race with people who races with oneself as oppose to racing with ur buddy, it breeds better character.
e) My hats of to all my triathlete frens who completed the race.