Endurance sports is a dirty sport.
I remember famously stepping on mud-like substances in a toilet in East Coast Park during one triathlon race.
I was barefoot - I had surrendered my shoes along with my bike at the transition area and then I had the urge to purge.
No choice.
Also, my friends never fail to remind me that the sea is filled with all
sorts of other substances - including ashes of corpses scattered there.
Nice.
And every year, I take the rare opportunity to pee alongside hordes of
other men with bursting bladders, along scenic marathon routes.
Don't ask me how we keep our hands sanitised. Let's not go there.
And even if you do your best to stay clean, there's always the chance of
getting your arm swiped by another sweaty runner whose talents are
obviously not in the department of giving others personal space in a
race.
Which is why I thought I would be the cleanest, non-sweaty person at the recent Zoot TRI-Factor Triathlon race.
I was there for work - so that meant I didn't have to step on mud-like
substances barefoot, or immerse myself in the ashes-filled sea, or whip out
my favourite appendage in public while staring at blank space ahead of me.
Or so I thought.
So there I was, standing at the finishing line in my slippers, waiting
for my interviewee to finish her race, when I felt someone spilling
water on my right foot.
As I turned to investigate which idiot had thought of celebrating Songkran Festival in Singapore, I gasped.
A woman was kneeling before me, at my foot.
And not in a good way either.
The lean athlete who has obviously pushed herself a tad too much to finish her race had been puking at my foot.
I never knew I had such an effect on women.
But there was no time to ponder on such mysteries - our athlete is busy reproducing her carbo-loaded breakfast for all to see.
From what I could make out, Ms Athlete didn't really chew her food to death since the morsels were all quite bite-sized.
There were some dough-like substances - likely to be bread - and traces
of noodles in her pool of breakfast but I couldn't quite put my finger
to what sauce base the noodles had been cooked in.
Maybe if I sniffed robustly enough, I could tell but I didn't really want to solve the puzzle.
What I did want to solve though, was her vomiting problem.
Her body must not like being punished by the gruelling distance
and was quite apparent it was returning the favour by punishing her.
Every three seconds, Puking Princess jerked forward and with the
momentum of an agile athlete, flushed out liquefied food, fast flooding
the gravel path of our lovely East Coast Park.
I immediately proceeded with the all-important task of patting her on the back.
Her body must have taken that as a literal encouragement because it went on to puke even more food.
When the body had exhausted all its strength and purged out the
offensive morsels, she looked up at me gratefully and whispered, "I'm so
sorry."
Ok, please don't speak. I've seen it happen in movies. Please don't puke in my face. Please.
Instead, I said with cheerful assurance, "it's totally fine. Really. And congratulations on completing the race."
It's true.
Don't get me wrong - I'm hygienic.
But I seriously didn't mind being Victim Vomit.
I thought about it later that day, and figured I had probably morphed into athlete-mode.
You see, those who race would agree with me that there are sporty samaritans around.
When the going gets tough, quite often, athletes would mutter words of encouragement to his fellow racer.
Once, I witnessed how a runner stopped suddenly by the road, clutching his cramped leg.
Almost immediately, three runners flocked to his side to help him stretch.
Nobody seemed to mind that the fella's leg was glistening with sweat, like it was a shimmering turkey made for a food photo shoot.
On another occasion, I experienced the same kind of encouragement from total strangers, when I tripped and fell during a run (nobody rushed to me to start massaging my leg or caress any of my body parts, but their verbal concern was most touching).
And I crave such humanity seen mainly at races.
I spent my entire morning last Sunday, witnessing - and soaking in - that sporting energy.
There were cheers and applause from spectators.
There was such vibrancy among participants - some paused for a mini-second just to say hi to a familiar face.
Others made funny remarks at friends who were slower - like, my grandmother can cycle faster lah dei! Hurry up!
I also saw complete strangers pacing and challenging each other towards the finishing line.
I saw how they shook hands and congratulated each other for completing the race.
And it was from the point of view of a spectator that day, that I realised for the first time in my racing life... that there's one more thing I love about endurance sports.
The encouraging, brotherly care athletes have for fellow athletes, brought out in such an environment.
So the next time you need to puke at the end of the race, just let it go, let it go.
There's a lot of love at races to take your vomit - or any kinds of shit, for that matter.
