City 2 Surf / Malay and Brain's birthday

Yesterday was the City 2 Surf. Had done next to none training, apart from those two days where I did a lap of the park. Malay met me at my place and we caught the bus out. Once we got there, we scavenged for safety pins to stick our bibs on. I noticed that Malay was on the lookout for safety pins for Thai, but made no mention of Shuing.

We waited near the fountain for a while before we found Thai, then Shuing. We headed off to the race area, and as like last year, there were thousands of people so it took a while just to walk to the start line. Even then, there were a few minutes of walking before people were dispersed enough to start jogging.

I was surprised to see Malay and Shuing take off early on a pace I thought was faster than necessary. Thai trailed behind them and I jogged behind him. Pretty soon we managed to lose each other, though I stuck with Thai, and I assumed Shuing and Malay were together.

We only really stopped at the water/Gatorade stands, but probably around halfway Thai did stop a few times to walk. I didn't think it was too big of a deal since last year Malay stopped at the toilets for like 20 minutes, so I figured not stopping for a toilet break would surely ensure that we beat last year's time.

Also around halfway I felt pins and needles in my feet and lost feeling in my legs for a while. But I told myself to keep going. I looked down at the asphalt and thought about Victoria and all the sadness that it entailed. I thought about all the bad wrong things I had done in my life, and they motivated me to keep running.  Like I said above, the only times I stopped was for drinks and Thai. At times I wished Thai wouldn't go so slow, but I didn't want to leave him behind either.

From time to time I'd talk to him, but largely he ran behind me and my mind wandered around to Victoria, gambling and my past.

Around three quarters of the way I felt pain in my right knee. It was enough to make me want to stop, but I thought, damage be damned, I'm doing this. And I kept going.

Eventually we reached the finish line and I jumped up and down for the cameras. To our surprise, Thai and Malay had already finished. I couldn't believe it. Later I would find out that we had a worse time than last year, although Malay got the same time as last year. I'm still trying to make sense of that. Thai said I probably could've gone faster if I didn't wait for him. I didn't say anything, but he was right.

After that we went to the shopping centre nearby and had KFC and Brain joined us. Part of me wondered if Victoria would be around.

Brain drove us home and I had a shower and ended up lying in my bed, drifting off to a short nap. I woke up with serious pain in my right knee, causing me to limp. What made it worse was that my mother forcefully told me to bring the 25kg bag of rice up from the car. I had decided not to, but out of frustration, I did it. One step at a time.

The pain in my knee was familiar. It was similar to the pain I had when I would train shortly after my surgery. I couldn't really bend it. So I had to walk down the stairs one step at a time.

Later on, I picked up Malay and Brain. Then we went to Shuing's place to get him. When he came out, he was sick. Not really sure from what, but he said he had a headache and felt like vomiting. He was standing outside my car. We told him to forget about the dinner and to rest at home. As soon as we said that, he said he could come and got into my car. I knew it. He just wants to defy whatever we say. We should've said the opposite.

We went to pick up Thai from Central. Shuing was annoying me because he kept mumbling shit in the back of my car.

We arrived at Chinksford and met G there. We picked a Malaysian restaurant, and shortly after sitting down, G and I went out to get the presents. We gave Malay the fake PS4, and he fell for it at first until we told him to open it lol. Brain really liked his fishing rods.

Shuing annoyed me further by being a total dick. I told G and Brain that I had passed my exams, and G was like "so now you can open up a bar". I looked at him blankly and said that joke had been done like 10 years ago. That immediately prompted Shuing to say "actually I thought that was pretty funny".

WELL THEN WHY DIDN'T YOU LAUGH??

To my surprise, he acted like a dick towards G as well. G came up with a suggestion for his own birthday party, and Shuing sarcastically said "that's a great idea".

Later, I showed the guys a photo I had edited with photoshop, showing the current me standing next to myself about five years ago. I asked them if it looked real and Shuing again sarcastically said "yeah, who's the other guy?"

Then at the end he deliberately pretended to be sick by asking "where's my laksa? I ordered a laksa" Malay thought he was really sick, but I knew he was playing games, so I put my cross-examination skills to the test. I asked him "what laksa was it?" and he paused for a while before he said it was beef. I asked him if it was a male or female who took his order and he stopped to think before he said "I took the order". Ok, alright mate.

Then when we left the restaurant, I asked G to drive Shuing home, and Shuing refused, saying he got his "second wind" and would come in my car. Uninvitedly, he got into my car, and so I dropped him off first. I was annoyed at his attitude, and I was afraid he would throw up in my car. Luckily,. he did get out without any difficulty.

I drove us to drop Thai off and he was complaining about how his wife raised his kid differently to how he wanted to. I thought he was at least lucky to be married.

I then dropped Brain off, then Malay. All in all it was a good day and night.