The processor never stops....

How can you say you love me and then you sleep with someone else?

2010-09-23T02:11:00.000+08:00

This blog entry, really, is not as it says. In reality, what it means is that I have been very upset this week because I cared for a specific outcome, but yet, the beneficiaries of the outcome, has acted in ways I believe just undo all the work I did to help them, and probably not with that intent too.

But you know, I learned something, and from the land of happiness of Philippines. That talking about it helps, and at the heart of all matters, genuine intent always prevails.

Yes, it is the time of the year when I am philosophical again.

Manny Pacquiao - The best pound for pound fighter in the world

2010-08-30T12:20:00.000+08:00

Also known as the 2nd richest athlete in the world, waiting for Tiger Woods to fall off his first perch.

This guy is modest, he is not so well known but all the filipinos love him. But when he fights, wow, he is a tiny dynamite in action. So my message for my client team building exercise is that, if you want to fight, you got to fight as a heavyweight and across all divisions - you have a local hero you can emulate, the challenge now is to step into the ring, and get knocked out a few times, but come out standing, and one day, you will be able to not just say I want to be, but I am.

Six months has passed

2010-08-30T11:57:00.000+08:00

How time flies.. always when one starts writing again, it tends to be difficult, in tidal waves initially and then the same "I don't feel like blogging" happens.
Why have I not written for the last six months?
I am not sure. I am not sure if anyone reads my blog, or my intention was for no one to read my blog so that I can then move on to blog for people who really wants to know about me.

My last blog, I had suffered a ligament partial tear injury in my right ankle. Today the ankle still aches a little when I start jogging or running, and I continue to happily walk around in flat shoes. I've bought myself some heels for work, to appear more professional, but it has never come to me wearing them.

I am still in the Philippines more time then I am in Malaysia or any other country. I am going to be here for at least until mid of next year. I say at least, and I admit it now, no point of being in denial - because the project I partially oversee will be on until at least May next year, and not including post production support. The project is a series of implementation, and I strongly believe we will continue to be required to implement the following stages.

I have really gotten to like a lot the people of the Philippines. There are some days I feel frustrated because things cannot be changed, people cannot be changed, processes remains rigid, things do not get done, but my frustration has never been about the people, culture or the processes. My frustrations has always stemmed from me. The me is my emotional side who wants to do more more more, and is pushed to do more sometimes by my bosses, and a career in limbo does not help. I have to say, if and when I leave this country at the end of my "assignment" (the longest one in my career so far if you consider the point I step foot in Philippines as the beginning of the journey), there will be a part of me left behind here. I will write more about this in later blogs.

I wrote at the beginning of my blog this year, this will be year which I will achieve 1000kms of running. Running continues to be my passion because when I run, I am free of the aches, pains, stress, and all that is associated with who I am when I am working, etc. It also gives me a chance to interact with different people and people who like pain, speed, and who from all walks of life, champion a common cause of achievement of the most modest kind. Finishing a race with sweat!

I have at some point in the last few months, had a lot of headaches which caused me to question if I am well. I avoided going for a brain scan. I do not think I need a brain scan now. I believe I am well. Age and state of mind is indeed a factor of how much rest, relaxation and emotional and spiritual well being a person is. This may sound very philosophical, but I've always believed my interest in running and competing drives me to overcome many possible health and mental illness I would've probably succumbed to for a person with the type of challenges I consistently push myself to at work.

Friends alike, thanks for your patience and please welcome me back!

Flowers from the land of Avatar

2010-02-27T01:08:00.000+08:00

Avatar flowers!!! To all ironman competitors tomorrow, all the best. As for me, I need to learn how to walk again tomorrow... I am determined to try because it is so damn boring sitting in front of the computer and tv and eat and sleep.

A humbling experience

2010-02-25T17:12:00.000+08:00

My series of bad luck is visiting again - and all this probably to punish me for winning some small amount of $$ during the recent chinese new year break. During the first week fo chinese new year, on two occasions, the two visits to open houses has resulted in fair to good luck for me on the gambling table, albeit small amount of winnings only. This led me to believe.. wow, this is going to be my good luck year (fyi, I never win any money or get any free rides - all my gains has been really tough hard work - this over every aspect too!).

Yesterday morning, I had a bad fall, I slipped on a step in front of the client's back door entrance enroute to a contract negotiation meeting! On hindsight I blamed it on my shoes - this was a new pair of heels and the heels were smaller than the ones I was previously used to, perhaps it was just that, things on my mind or just forces preventing me from closing the deal!

Regardless, the moment I fell, it was excruciating pain on my right ankle. I really could not stand up, even with help, it took me a few minutes to edge my way to sit down on the ledge near the wall. This was early morning, when there were many people nearby. The kind souls who helped me onto the wall must've been surprised at my pained look.

I sprained my ankle - badly too. I sat down for a few minutes, the guard looking concerned and kept mumbling to me in Tagalog whether I wanted to go to the clinic, he was going to call the emergency medical services. I said, no, let me sit down first. I tried to get up, but I definitely had almost no feeling on my right ankle. I called my Filipino colleague who was at the nego meeting. Thankfully she answered, and she wisely asked the client's EA Rhoda to come down to look for me and bring me to the clinic.

I somehow magically managed to shuffle to the clinic which was 20 m away, on another client building, clutching to Rhoda's hands, whilst she carried my handbag and laptop bag. I had heard of this clinic, the client actually owns Makati Medical Center and was famous for employee care, they had a properly equipped clinic on the office building with even a small operating theatre. At the clinic, amazingly, Rhoda told me that the docter can see me even though I am not an employee.

After waiting for 5 mins, I limped into Dr Limjoco's office - he had an office, and was not in white like a docter. I showed him the golfball at my right ankle, and he promptly (smart docter!) asked an orderly to bring me to an xray room, in a wheelchair! That started my wheelchair experience. The orderly wheeled me to a xray place, the xray dude immediately xrayed my right ankle (err, where is my protecting sheet?) and then wheeled me to a operating theatre? Before I started to think the worst, the docter came in and applied some anti infection on my left scraped knee (which was fortunately not bleeding). Phew (I thought I was going to go into some big examination...) - the operating room was a small place anyway..

Anyway, there I go back to the good docter's room, and then he pronounced me ok "no fractures" smiled at me, and gave me cerebrex (I remember mum takes this for anti-inflammation), and a small prescription sheet and ok, sayonara. I was wondering - huh? The guy is not going to even bandage up my golf ball ankle and how the heck am I going to get home from Philippines to KL when I still could not feel my ankle ?

What then ensued was a series of getting back to my hotel, getting a wheelchair from the hotel to my room, making requests for wheelchair assistance for my flight back, and then wheelchair to taxi, shuffled in pain for 20 feet, wheelchair from entrance of airport to aircraft door. Kind help from kind strangers to get me food, and wheelchair from KLIA airport from aircraft door to the exit before I got on my transport home.

Safely back at my parent's home in KL, suffice to say I had indeed a humbling experience yesterday. God was telling me to slow down, and I am still going about in my bullet train speed. One day life stops and you wonder whether all you are doing on the side was living. I have not learnt that lesson still, and yet, it was indeed a humbling experience for me. During the race at putrajaya, I never wondered what would've happened if my knees were wiped out - I would be in a wheelchair for months - it is not a joke to have the ability to walk or run taken away from you in one instance, and with the same thought I really got to appreciate the courage of the disabled to be in such a situation all their lives. How thankful I am that I had not broken my ankle, my knee or anything.

When you have difficulty walking, you wonder why everything seems so far away, why people stared when you limp for a few steps, and why people just could not understand how difficult it was to walk two steps, but when you are seated, everyone could not prejudice you against your disabilities, because in the mind of the walking disabled, they are the same powerful individuals as all of us.

The ankle is swollen like a real hard puffy piece now, and walking is more inconvenient but at least the swelling is subsiding along.

I cannot wait to run again, but indeed I will look at wheelchair bound people with a different level of admiration the next time for their grittiness to tackle the challenges put in their way.

Congratulations...

2010-02-20T15:16:00.000+08:00

.. to ML and Mick ... for your upcoming marriage registration. I thought it was a simple way for me to say how happy I am for both of you..

ML, my dear friend from university days - cold room, stairway 6, ski trips, d&ds, st kilda, games, work, shanghai, amsterdam, facebook, skype, your brothers, mum, dad, nephews and nieces, crushes, high standards, being angry, being at peace, finding michael, deciding ... a long long long way and maybe 20 years, more than half our lifetime till now. I wish you, the best life forward, and a lifetime of friendship, family (your own), and success in your own definition.

ML, congratulations once again.. marriages are happy occasions for everyone, and I am sorry I cannot be with you and Michael on this occasion. I will as promised stand by my word to be your organizer for your wedding reception (and will delegate effectively!)... regardless of where we will each be.

Flower Power

2010-02-20T15:04:00.000+08:00

Happy Belated Valentine's Day, Happy Chinese New Year! (More flowers failed in loading process due to my being cut off from streamyx due to modem failure, ie... accidentally "POTONG", and full time using my P1 wiggy now!)

Bareno Run

2010-02-11T23:16:00.001+08:00

I went shopping at Brooks @ Curve yesterday.. I signed up for Bareno run and bought a Brooks Adrenaline GTS 10 pair of shoes..!

Today I found out Bareno sells toilet bowls (in addition to kitchen sinks, taps, etc)! So, should we expect...
a) Ample supply of jacuzzi baths at the end of the race
b) Lots of well equipped toilet bowls for toilet stops along the race
c) Tap water supply in a row at the refreshment station
d) Winner collects free supply of toilet bowls for house
e) Medal in the shape of a .... "toilet bowl"!...

Heheh.. no bad mouthing intended - I think it is great for a product company to sponsor a run - frankly people don't really care who organizes the run, it maybe even a great way to reach out to people... and introduce your product. It would be really cool, if they even attempted one of the five ideas I listed - they would definitely have won the "product marketing" award from a runner's perspective!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Announcing, runner number 34...

2010-02-11T01:20:00.000+08:00

I am placed number 34 in my race category ... woopee!
But guess what, number 34 is 3rd from LAST!!!! ...

As a result of this dismal race, I have decided to punish myself with retail therapy, and bought myself a....
...
...
PAIR OF RUNNING SHOES...!!

There is something wrong with me.. I am slowly transforming to become a species known as hardcore social runners who cannot improve.

Anyway, hope everyone has a great break during the upcoming chinese new year, and practice RICE, and then we are back on the run. See you at the next race!

The night eludes me..

2010-02-07T21:34:00.001+08:00

Once again, the night eludes me.. the Putrajaya Night Marathon 6 Feb 2009.. this race was indeed one of my worst race in my marathon history.

Lots of people attempt marathons when they are adequately prepared and trained for it, and is willing to move onto the next stage. I attempt marathons because sometimes I just wished to challenge myself. Running can get pretty boring when you have no definitive milestones - yes, I do wish to better my time for 10km and 21km, but sometimes that additional planning and trying to achieve that plan a couple of months ahead can sometimes be a great test of determination and faith in the sport.

I knew I could not make a good time, and also doubted if I could make it about 10km + into the race. I felt sluggish, blame it on my poor psycho, the rest for two weeks when I found my right knee creaking and clicking when straightening - and a stoppage of "training" regime - all this put all my efforts since October to waste.

The most difficult part of the race was actually the humidity and the rolling hills. The humidity caused me to become very sluggish and heavy, I actually sweated so much in just the first 10km that the loss of fluid made me a bit dizzy and really fatigued.. despite gulping down lots of 100plus and water (thank god the organizers did a great job here!). The rolling hills physchologically killed me as well as physically - the stretch on the lebuhraya timur was never ending and it was never ending when I drove it during the day to check the course and on foot in the dark with streetlights as companions.. it was a long way home..

The most revealing part of this race was actually how mind over matter rules in races, besides the ample preparation. Not only did I need to have the ample preparation, my mind this round was dubious on my own performance, and even at the "pen" I saw only people who were going to be ahead. Every official I passed after the turnoff of 21km and 42km runners I wanted to ask if I was the last. Every refreshment station I felt urged to not only drink but also look for the famous "transport" bus.. this mentality I could not finish a race with. So when I finished, honestly I had a bit more left in the tank as physically I was fatigued, but mentally and legs wise, I could do a whole hour better I do believe.

The most thankful part of the race was that I was not injured further, in fact, I forgot my injured knee and gave it a go at times. It was also a great thing that the organizers did a great job to leave behind the water folks and the marshalls even for the last few. This has never happened before in history of malaysian races. One has to be careful about Malaysian races - the lack of participants especially in Marathon categories inevitably means you have to learn about how to be last or last few, and in this case, place faith in the organizers for supporting the last few.

The most enjoyable part of the race was indeed the fact that I finished a marathon, personal worst or not. I finished it, in the deserted midnite when only a few souls were around, I jogged past the finishing line, and I had a few foreigners clap for me, and Boon, Peter, Brion around waiting. Thanks guys - I had been rehearsing in my last 1km what kind of apology I could tell you guys for waiting so long for me, but I forgot those words when I saw the finishing line.

I could blame no one but myself for the disappointing time. Maybe in a couple of weeks time I could tell myself, at least I finished the race - and the amazing thing is that within a day I convinced myself I will run another marathon this year, possibly the one I have signed up for already.

Perhaps this year should be a year to enjoy and to push for consistency and also stamina. What I need is willpower, time, and good health, which thankfully all three despite the poor timing on yesterday's race, I still have some left.

The next race is a vengence on the night.. it will be me against the energizer bunny with 21km and a time factor in between. If I can crack this in a personal best, this will restore my faith in night races...

Footnote : I am so glad I was not last. After I finished, took my medal, banter with the gang, took some photos and finally hobbled to my car, changed shoes and drove off - and I ended up in the same last 1km stretch -there were still people walking the last 1km - amazing, tabik guys, and thanks for making my day that I knew I was not last.

I run to you ...

2010-02-05T23:39:00.000+08:00

I bought this CD in Philippines last week, and just loaded it to prep my ipod shuffle before tomorrow's run. There was this song, called I run to you by Lady Antebellum - a grammy nominee.. I have no idea who it is, but the song and phrases were timely..

D-day tomorrow. First marathon in 2010. First time I am on verge of injury before a race. First time I am thinking of running with a knee support. I have almost stopped running for a week and slowed significantly last week - and bought a knee support, been on doses of glucosamine (wow I think this thing works...). I hope the knee support works, but more importantly, I hope to have a good race, and enjoy it.

Not the first time I am so nervous before a race...

I run to you....

I run from hate
I run from prejudice
I run from pessimists
But I run too late

I run my life
Or is it running me?
Run from my past
I run too fast
Or too slow it seems

Serendipity

2010-01-25T23:59:00.002+08:00

I discovered this word in the Astro Wah Lai Toi series - The Gem of Life. I did not understand the meaning as was expressed by one of the main characters - when she had met the man of her life but kept spurning him because her younger sister just married the man's father... well one of my greatest enjoyment of soap operas on Astro's chinese channel is its complexity :-) heheh.. anyway, it is a nice word. 5 syllable and meaningful, rarely used...

serendipity

–noun
1. an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident.

2. good fortune; luck: the serendipity of getting the first job she applied for.

1754 (but rare before 20c.), coined by Horace Walpole (1717-92) in a letter to Mann (dated Jan. 28); he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale "The Three Princes of Serendip," whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of." The name is from Serendip, an old name for Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), from Arabic Sarandib, from Skt. Simhaladvipa "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island." Serendipitous formed c.1950.

1000km in 2010

2010-01-24T23:42:00.003+08:00

This weekend, I finally broke my own momentum - every weekend I have been training at least 10-30km in either races or runs since October (a few weeks before Penang Half Marathon). This is the first weekend, I just felt too lethargic... anyway, it was no consolation that my feet were heavy and I had another long evening at a great wedding dinner of a lovely couple (congrats to Wes & Aor!!!) and was on those 3.5 inch heels again.

In any case, I am still committed to doing the Putrajaya run, regardless of how ready I am...

Anyway, just to motivate my ownself I decide to commit to 1000kms and a sub-6 marathon in 2010.

Training

2 x 5kms weekly gym

10km weekend

=36 weeks = 720km
(3 out of 4 weeks in a month!)

Races

17 Jan = NB 30km

7 Feb = Putrajaya 42km

27 Mar = Energizer 21km

25 Apr = Bidor 21km

16 May = Pacesetters 15km

29 May = Sundown 42km

13 Jun = Phuket 21km

27 Jun = KLIM 21km

21 Nov = Penang Bridge Marathon 42km

5 Dec = Singapore Marthon 21km

12 Dec = Malakoff 12km

=288 km

== 1008 km!!

I think it is a reasonable goal!!!

Summary
++1000km
==6hr marathon, 2hr 30 half marathon, 65mins 10km
++ 100hrs of strength training (8hrs + per mth of strength training)
--5kg of weight

NB 30km - my maiden 30km run ..

2010-01-17T22:25:00.004+08:00

After approximately 4+ years of running races, and three "bad" marathons under the belt, I could not believe that I actually felt nervous on the eve of this race. Anything above 10km still makes me feel nervous..

Truth #1 - this was my first 30km race. 2006 when I first started joining the GE race, my first 20km race then, I clocked my best 20km time and then 2007, deteriorated (but still 20km), 2008 even further deteriorated (and still 20km), and 2009, DNS because too busy with work.

Truth #2 - this was really the most prepared longer distance race (longer than 20km) I had ever been - I had done a slew of end 2009 races - from Mizuno 11km, Klang 12km, Penang 21km, SCSM 21km, Malakoff 12km (hilly), Putrajaya 12 hr walk and at least 3-4 double hills and also last three weekends Hartamas 20km. In my history of running, I have never been so focussed.. and it was not even for this race. It is for the upcoming Putrajaya Night Marathon, and the "goal of the year", at least try to get under 6hr decently for a marathon. The only part in all these "training" was that I never made it past 20km.

Truth #3 - I even managed to sleep before 10pm the night before to get plenty of rest for this race, but I was nervous like hell - it was after all, almost 3/4 a marathon.

The day started pretty well - I managed to get a few good hours of sleep and woke up early as intended and drove to Bukit Aman at aroun 425am, getting there just in time to find a pretty good car park, it was almost full, another 10 more cars it would be full. Managed to walk to Padang Merbuk, had a chew of half a free Power Bar (this was probably a life saver also).. and made the loo before managing to at least meet Claire, who was running her first race after SCSM 21km.. thumbs up to her.

The route was horrendously hilly, but I had a newfound realisation - I actually sucked on downhills and did decently on uphills because of the increase in Hartamas runs meant my knee was sometimes more stressed during downhills and through the LSDs I also acquired a better appreciation of running up hills without walking. Because the route was a warped version of everything the Pacesetters team could throw at us, it was quite hard to determine the km distances.

For the first 10km, we ran through the palace through to Tugu back to Jalan Parlimen, and then the usual Pacesetters route to Hartamas took place. The first water stop was at the start of the Bukit Tunku hills, near the Arabic school, after Lanai Kijang / Bank Negara little hill. I'm glad I took some water at the first water stop, because it would be until almost 10km before the next water station. The next 2kms up to the crossover of Jalan Mahameru was very creepy as usual. I had only gone through this route in the dark with Per-li on one of the LSD runs when we were there before 7 and it was still dark. The thing about being dark was that this route was PITCH DARK. You could not see the runner probably 20feet away, and if you try to do so, to watch for the runners ahead, you will be straining your eye and it becomes dizzying after a while. The good thing was that all the way till Jalan Duta, it was like automation for me, because this was my regular training route (wow, I can actually say regular now!). With us having done about 2km upfront, the Jalan Duta point became approximately 7.5km, which was good news.

Meng ran past me at the istana, so I thought I was doing good, since the IM guys are all taking it slowly, but their slow is my really fast. Running through to Hartamas and at approximately 10km mark, Keat Seong said hi across the road. I was surprised because this meant I suspect they were about 5km ahead, which translated to me being very slow. By this time, I suspected that the water stations were not really ample, and actually contemplated stopping by Petronas for gatorade. It did not help that at least 4-5 people passed me with full bottles of gatorade on their hands, and I had to labor up to 10km to have a gel.

For 10-20km, it was rather uneventful, except that the 2km loop reversed did not deter me in circling hartamas, it was actually quite pleasant. At approximately near the new Istana, Boone overtook me and I joked to him this was sap sap sui compared to Klang Penembak run. The untaken route around the square was new, but relatively ok, so was the one around the lembaga peperiksaan. At the corner of the downhill from the loop, Chee Hon overtook me (he was running 20km) and nicely told me that the 30km route has additional loop .. heheh .. I chased him away ..

The first time I stopped to walk was really at the double hill, when I realised that in turning to the double hill route, there would be no water for a long long while and I was incredibly thirsty by then, having the last drink about 10km away. Displaying a lack of respect for double hill, I tried to run, but only managed to "slog" through up till the turning back down the hill, when again I got annoyed because the power bar guys gave away free gels , but there was NO WATER in sight. So in annoyance, I ran downhill a bit, every corner looking for the final merge and the water station.

So, down we went, got some excel isotonic, gulped my 2nd gel, and then felt an immediate stomach cramp so could not run for another 1km+.. which was ok because it was tijani 1 and then more hills..

To cut a long painful story short, I managed to jog the rest of the way there onwards, from 24km onwards.. I knew the race brings us back to Jalan Parlimen for another loop around bank negara.. and by then, I was just interested to come in before 4hrs 15mins qualifying..

Finished the race .. and guess what? No more finishers tee and no more milo. The no more milo annoyed me more because the 2nd loop around Jalan Parlimen I was dreaming of sugar boost of milo..

Halfway through the race, I was thinking of postphoning my first marathon for this year, Putrajaya Night Marathon. Finish of the race, Chee Hon reminded me via SMS that I could logically make it for a sub 6hr race if I could finish another 12km in under 1hr 50min. Which is indeed do-able...

Post race, I had the most amazing recovery - I was actually in more pain than 20km LSD runs, but recovered in less than 2hrs to feel really good, and up and about walking happily much less time than the LSD runs. What is the reason? I believe it was a few possible combination - having enough rest, a better dehydration the day before, and after the race (despite having little water during the race), my 2XU decompression shorts (maybe), the carbo load the night before, the power bar I ate before the race, and maybe even just adrenaline.

Whatever it is, I need to repeat this for another 12km in 3 weeks time or pull out...

PS - one interesting thing, I am beginning to appreciate the beauty of beautiful lights more during running. A few great photo-opps:
1) Bangunan Matrade - this building in the rising sun is just too pretty
2) The masjid up the first hill in route to Hartamas - this building is always awesome with the morning lights
3) Ray of sunshine along Jalan Sultan Salahuddin, between the crossover to the route through to Tugu. The sunshines through the three is usually split in rays, and if taken with a filter, it will come out magical
4) New- amazing leaves falling during the run just before tugu - the leaves being golden reflected the light nicely - just like those falling leaves in Avatar movie..
5) New- morning red clouds across the new istana negara, if only the construction can be avoided...

Pretty Lights

2010-01-12T22:08:00.003+08:00

Over the 20km route to Hartamas last weekend, my third consequetive weekend of LSD (and third different running partner!), I was huffing and puffing with SCH over camera's and the flash class he had attended.

An irony was that I had just come back from a great dinner the night before at a long time friend's house - mr gadget - and he had loaned me his DSLR flash - the SB900 .. "under utilized"...

So huffing and puffing up and down hills, SCH actually managed to update me on the greatest on lights, nikon classes, SB commander modes, and why he wanted to buy my friend's flash to have more flashes, to take great photos!!!

For me, I remember the one piece I read - to see and enjoy photography of pretty lights, one has to find the scene, wait for the right time, and be prepared.

But first, one has to have the right timing and the right opportunity to see the great light.

Twisted Fate - A wet day ends with a meeting with a new friend

2010-01-03T20:47:00.003+08:00

Welcome to 2010 with a 20km run from Bukit Aman to Hartamas with Perli, luckily we started early at 630am (EARLY? this is late already!) - and pushed off in a rain respite. Halfway across at 5km mark, the rain drops started to pour and another km, we were fully drenched.

The rain however did not dampen my spirits - in fact, I actually loved it! Strange conditions but I do believe the rain separates the dedicated and committed from the safe players. Dedicated and committed meant that each person you pass by drenched to their toes deserves a nod of respect, especially along the Hartamas route.

Perli is a great pacer - she runs at her pace but slows to match mine when she needs to, and she does not push too hard if she sees I am slower than I need to be. In any case, we were rewarded with one 100plus at Hartamas drenched wet with a camaraderie of runners, and then back at Bukit Aman, when it finally stopped halfway, with a Tropicana Twister mixed with 100plus.

Incidentally, as fate would be I met with Ija and her husband the first time - Ija is the stranger I offered some cash near the heart of KL for a drink during the KL Marathon. Twisted fate or whatever, she called out to me in bukit aman today, she too had done the Hartamas route in the rain, and I was again carrying a Tropicana Twister (she remembered me with the twister in the KL Marathon).

My next runs will be a 25km, followed by a 30km in New Balance 30km race on 17 Jan - I need to push to meet the cutoff - what happens without the cutoff? I think I may not get the medal.. but 2010 - great start to running...

... and good meeting with the rest of friends today along the route.

Happy 2010

2010-01-01T15:10:00.004+08:00

Happy New Year 2010.

Simple resolutions. Headlines : 2010 = 20 races, 10 deals and 2010 kms.

Sub-headlines :

a) Enjoy blogging. Reactivating all of my blogs which is why I write.

b) Learn cooking to supplement my running (heheh~)

c) Photograph thoughts, emotions and sensuality. Photographs which brings meaning to photo tells a thousand words..

Photo - Photo Booth product - thinking of my new year resolutions (and still thinking) whilst waiting for the rain to stop so that I could run!

Intensity

2009-12-29T23:36:00.004+08:00

Many years ago, I said this to someone :
If we meet each other once a year, for one hour, and we live another 20 years, this will only be 20 more hours in our lifetime.

What I did not say at that time was :
I would rather lets just spend the 20 hours now.

It is an irony that I was reminded of this today back by the same person I said it to - it kind of means that we have very little time, if we just spread them over a number of years and waste it, it will be meaningless, whereas if we spend the time within the right frame, all at once, it is worth a lifetime more than it being dots in the ocean.

It is like making an agenda of people you would like to spend time with before you die, except that you are in control, and when it is all done, you get to be free...

I thrive on intensity.

Last Race of the Year 2009 - Malakoff 12 km Run 20 Dec

2009-12-23T00:31:00.004+08:00

Photos excerpt from Tey's album, thanks bro...

I have race fatigue over the last 3 months! This was a really interesting race as it was a new route - Jln Beringin x2 = 12 km!!! Ever stampeded across the millionaire row early in the morning and doing the 3-4 hills?

I could almost imagine Yong Sun and Lum stepping out of their house to have a laugh at how I'm pushing myself. But hey, this is my personal goal. I am ALIVE!

Great race, fun to pant up the hill (FUN??), and really run down the hills, and my 2XU helped a lot with the compression... 1hr 23mins - nothing to shout about time, but I did push myself a bit here and there...

After the race, met up with many fellow racers - thanks for 2009, and I will be back with a bang in 2010.

Alumni nite .. 11 Dec 2009

2009-12-23T00:06:00.005+08:00

Excerpt photos. Probably the event I look for every year.

Among some of the people who played a big part in my career. Enough said.

HKS - the person who hired me, and in my mid-career assignment in Taiwan, you were one of those who stood firm with my capabilities when I was nearly a casualty

JH - dont know you as well as I wanted to, but your level headed-ness, and diversity leadership inspires me

MST - did you remember you met a young university student in Melbourne many years ago, and asked - what is wrong with you, when I wanted to understand what I was getting hired for?

MYS - not in picture. taught me that anything is do-able in crafting a deal.

LP - not in picture. smart. balance. shrewd. can't describe you better.

MXH - not in picture. got me into the phone business and cannot forget my singapore trip to meet the boss instigated by you. changed my alignment.

CT - clients respected you because you could get them to program. even when they are already way past their prime.

LBC - you have your teachable point of view indeed.

The rest, not in photo - my fellow journey men, its like an unsaid fellowship. May we have many more such ring gatherings in the future...

Buy you a beer, coffee or dinner anytime. I have a lot of unsaid respect for all of you and more.

Celebrating Dad's birthday at SCSM with a 21km redemption race - 6th Dec 2009

2009-12-19T23:25:00.010+08:00

Very late post - 6th December 2009 was my dad's birthday. Happy belated birthday dad, despite my old age, I do hope one day I can be as "amiable" as you are - I know you will always look at your youngest and only daughter with pride for what I have achieved over the years, by what you compared yourself to, but also you do not know what I feel about what I have not achieved. I am thankful for those rare quiet drives when I drive you and you listen to me rant because yes, I need to express some things, and yet, there are still so many things unsaid.

I took my parents to a trip in Singapore for a break, a holiday they could not afford now with the higher price per exchange for Singapore and also the expensive hotel room. Coincidentally it was also the weekend of the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2009. This year, I signed up earlier and signed up for 21km. I knew after KL Marathon I had no capability to train and run a full marathon and I was just tired of failing to run a better race. Two weeks earlier, in Penang, I had run a terrible race, and it resulted in me really very upset with myself for the poor timing. In the weekend in between, I powered up two 10km double hills and I felt I was ready for a better timing.

Arrived in Singapore on Friday morning, and collected the race pack at Singapore Expo - waited for Boone & friends, but was very tired waiting, because their flight was delayed, I was severely dehydrated, and tired from the early morning flight. Went back to hotel after meeting with them briefly, and started feeling the onset of a sore throat. By night of friday, I felt really uncomfortable, and ate the Tony Romas (a must do) with my parents in significant discomfort.

As such, the next day was purely about resting. I passed out on a trip to visit the singapore zoo, and instead opted to shop and visited the Singapore Flyer. The flyer was a really peaceful ride as I managed to take photos, have a relaxing spin and also appreciated the route I ran on the next day, although singapore is sorely messed up with the construction of a million and one things.

Race day, I got up early, for the 645 start time, and the walk from the hotel to the starting point was less than 5 mins about 100-200m, how cool is that!!! The race atmosphere was electrifying, and after visiting the loo and warming up, I was ready to go... As strange as it is, the races in singapore has always been me against myself, even though I seem to come with or know people who would run. I fault myself for being so crazy sometimes, but running... has given be a new perspective on peace... and something I - an ordinary girl who was once more of a brainy nerd than a sports person can claim fame to and enjoy as well...

Race route was very friendly, even though I was really surprised there were so many people at the 21km... I will definitely never run the 10km race - it must have been worse!!! I was not used to having so many people at the 21km race, that it was completely crowded all the way from start to the end. The route went passed the marina sands building, suntec city, then onto nicoll highway and turned back, came back through the f1 pits, the floating field, etc. The last 5km was a common finishing for all race categories, so the split start times suited very well, at least I did not hit too many 10km racers, as it was too slow for the men, and almost too fast for the women. Heheh...

It was cool that my company's singapore office managed to get us some adidas vests for the race, but it was really strange that they opted for the standard Stan Chart colors, which made me miss all the photos... so the photos above are from someone's iphone..

And though not a PB, redemption was 15 mins off Penang time, and a good comfortable run.

To next year's SCSM - now I itch for the 42km again... where you get roasted but at least treated well !!!

You Raise Me Up... (Putrajaya 12 hr Walk 12-13 Dec 2009)

2009-12-16T21:57:00.004+08:00

Josh Groban, "You Raise Me Up" in the middle of the night, and I was walking and walking...

You Raise Me Up to More Than I Can Be

This is such an up song!

When the time to sign up for the Putrajaya 12 hr Walk first came up, I remembered this was my new year's resolution post last year. In hindsight, as I sit down to blog this four days after the all night walk, I have to say this was the most extreme endurance event I did this year.

One week after 21km in Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, I have to admit this was no mean feat. Having said that, I raise my hat to the 42km marathoners in SCSM who continued on this event, some having known since last year that this was indeed an endurance event.

The day started with having to get to Putrajaya by 7pm for collection of the bib, and the race started at 8pm to 8am the next day. I liked the way the banner printed Dec 12-13 - it was a great pleasure to say that I have walked across two physical days!

Drive to Putrjaya was smooth - I was wondering during my drive there how it would feel like to drive back 12 hours later. Not knowing what to expect, except that there was buffet and imagining I was going to meet and chat with the whole town, I was very enthusiastic. Bib collection was smooth, and a while later, I met up with Boone and his colleagues - a very big hats off to him also for having managed to persuade a whole group of people to turn up for the race. I only managed myself, despite having claimed to be the sponsor for the company running club..!

After picking up the bib, I was slightly worried seeing people brought tents and camps - I was not sure if these were regular campers (?) or actually walkers who were smart enough to bring their own sleeping mat! The turnout and the carnival like atmosphere was very encouraging.

I had before the walk started, targeted to walk 42km - the distance of a full marathon. I realised how foolish this target after the first 6km, when I found out happily that I managed to do the first 6km in 1hr, but it also meant I had to walk a freaking 7hrs at the same pace!!!

My pace dropped significantly after I made my first stop approximately 2hrs after the race started. I made a mistake and ate some of the dinner buffet, after grabbing a banana initially. The dinner at 10pm sat really badly in my stomach for almost 3km. Who really takes a long walk immediately after dinner, and also walked another 30km after dinner!!!!!

I have to say, the highlight of the middle portion of my walk was the distractions - from talking to people, from Tey and Chee Hon taking pictures, Chee Hon bringing us delicious Krispy Kreme donuts (which settled much better than the dinner), and just from walking and not walking. 11-2am was perhaps the most difficult of the middle distance portions. After 2am, I think it was just ploughing through the 30km + portions and trying to just do 3-5 km each time I had rested.

Finally, just before 10hrs, I believe I managed to make 42km, and I stopped. Not sure if its really I managed to make 42km - its either 40 or 41 or 42 or 43 km, because guess what, you cannot count after 15km, the mind numbs itself! I did not however make it to 12 hours, I made only 10 hours because they were giving out medals at 10hrs, for a min of 20km / 26km for women/men. I took my medal and left, from 35km-40km thereabouts I was thinking - people train for a marathon, and this is a marathon distance, what do I think I am to attempt this without training !

Let me pause a moment and do a Haruki Murakami - what do I think about when I am walking (running)...?

- I was thinking about happiness and was deliriously happy just enjoying the night air and thinking about nothing for the first 3-4km. It reminded me of the "nothing box" - a metaphor used to describe a man's brain when he is watching TV..

- I was thinking about what lap to do the food when the food first came out at 10am. I was also disappointed with the food when it came out - it looked very "dinner bland".. or rather a bland dinner

- I was thinking about how soft someones arm was ... (don't ask me who)

- I was thinking about when Tey and Chee Hon was going to turn up to take our photos

- I was thinking about disco music and how I would dance all night long when I was younger (ahem), giving myself a skip in my walk ..

- I was thinkng if it was possible to change into my 2XU shorts in my car, and not lose so many laps and still manage to do it in the dark of the back seat. I was wondering if it would be worse or better than my shorts

- I was thinking about people holding hands during walking or running competitions

- I was thinking about how many hours of sleep I would need to do the next day to get up for a friend's wedding

- I was thinking about how big the thighs were of one of the foreigner ladies who walked so well

- I was thinking about how good a husband John was, who accompanied Wai Mun all the way (1st runner up) (I've been seeing these two around pacesetter events)

- I was thinking about who else I would talk to - for the record, besides Boone and his colleagues whom I spoke to and I knew before the walk started - I spoke to Haza (a couple of rounds), Sook Ying, whom I suddenly recognised after a few rounds as Pacesetter committee, one indian man who was from putrajaya (who asked me to take powerbar to match the top walker!), one chinese lady who was walking with her son, one red dyed hair lady who was walking non-stop until almost the whole night on and off, said hi to Weng (KC's brother) and to my amusement also listened to a lot of funny banter from the familiar faces..

- I was thinking about 42km every km I walked after 30km.. and how it resembled a marathon - hey I walk during the marathon as well on and off after 30km...

I told Boone that walking was a very solo thing, I am wrong. It is a very personal mind over matter thing - if being solo focusses you, then be solo. If having to chat with people focusses you, then chat with people. I found both of those and a great amount of determination is what it takes to walk all night.

One day, I will do the 24 hour walk. This will be my biggest mental challenge...

Footnote - I suffered in 3inch heels the next day at a colleague's wedding dinner - it was pure torture for me but strangely on the joints of the knee. Normally walking takes it out on the calves but not sure why I suffered on the joints... The next few days, 3 days later, my body was fatigue beyond any feeling I've ever encountered. Not easy....

Photocredit - first 3 photos - Chee Hon - lonely walk to nowhere, reminded to Buat Kerja every round (and fed like an inmate!)

Penang - KL - Manila - Clark in 15 hours

2009-11-27T00:01:00.015+08:00

My surreal experience continued the next day after the Penang Marathon - suffice to just summarize the unreal experience Penang - KL - Manila - Clark in 15 hours :

- Nov 22 Sunday - Left Penang at 5pm, reached KL at 6pm, left KL for Manila at 120am, reached Manila at 515am, left Manila at 545am, reached Clark airforce base / freeport at 830am (with 1 hr stop in between)

- 645am, Nov 23 Monday - I was eating pancakes for breakfast on a highway stop (2 pieces + sausage) north going to Clark with my colleague Ambe. The place was filled with people in less than 45 mins, which included COINCIDENTALLY 6 people we knew who were going for the same workshop!!

- 830am, Nov 23 Monday - I arrived at Clark airforce base, only to find a small cute hotel in the middle of a long road to no where, we did not find the hotel because they were constructing a casino in the front!

- 930am, Nov 23 Monday - the client offsite workshop started with a PRAYER.. this is the first time I actually stood for a prayer before a workshop .. wow

- fast forward 9pm, Nov 23 Monday - we had nothing to do at night and I was watching Amazing Race in a room in Clark in remote nowhere, with my colleague Ambe - I had missed the last 4-5 episodes of this show... and to be watching it in remote hotel... unreal... slept before 11pm, dead tired from the LONG weekend

- 6am, Nov 24 Tuesday - client invited me to run at 5am, I got up at 6am and felt crossed with myself, and still remembered my poor Penang time - stepped out in my Puma sneakers and ran almost 10km in the middle of a damn straight road to no where - luckily I avoided the airforce base heheh

- Tuesday whole day workshop, busy like hell, and 330pm, back to Manila, then 855pm, back to KL... what a whirlwind two days

Penang Bridge Marathon 2009 (22nd Nov 2009)

2009-11-26T23:20:00.008+08:00

Pic 2 - B Suite Hotel welcomes all runners!! Peter and Boone in front of the hotel, Peter holding up the jco doughnuts Chee Hon bought for us... :-)

Pic 1 - Kangaroo courier delivers ... (though the pack a bit filled with useless stuff..) (little did I know I needed the poh-chai pills then...)

I have had a whirlwind of a week and barely had enough time to sit down to write this, and also I did not feel compelled to write it... this is the most surreal experience of my running career.

8pm Sat 21 Nov - we got back from dinner, driven by Chee Hon. We had gone to a Red Roof Inn hawker stall area at Jalan Penang (or something like that) and I had consumed my 3rd plate of Char Kueh Teow. That itself was a surreal experience... since I just arrived the night before and I was nursing a diarrhea case the week before... my knowledge of the methods and quality of char kueh teow had improved over that weekend by 1000% thanks to Boone, who could literally recite all the best CKT places in town in his sleep..

10pm Sat 21 Nov - just managed to get to sleep after arranging all my things...

220am Sun 22 Nov - Boone comes to eat a jco doughnut before we rolled off from B Suite. In the lift, the runners were dead serious in the middle of the night, we went to the lift where waft smells of deep heat filled up and Boone joked lightly but everyone was dead serious as though we were aliens from outer space...

230am Sun 22 Nov - My way or the highway - we took the highway ... walked from B Suite to Queensbay mall.. on the road, my fears of the highway taking all my energy out eased when I saw a stream of runners walking the route there, since B Suite was the Kenyans place to stay (!!!) - actually we coined that because we saw some kenyans there, but then later I realised KC and Running Mom was at the hotel too. This has got to be the most surreal experience in my running career - to be walking to the starting point, crossing a highway, seeing streams of people walking at 230am, and wide awake and excited... unreal...

300am Sun 22 Nov - we reached the starting line, despite halfway walking, we realised we were on the wrong side of the road, and only one other chap (was it Zahri?) was with us, and we consoled ourselves that we were hopeless dumb runners from KL attacking Penang grounds on foot on a highway in the middle of the night. Along the overhead, we saw the front runners of the full marathon passing through the road below, heading from Seagate to the bridge - that was a adrenaline sight...

330am Sun 22 Nov - The mens half marathon was flagged off - Boone, Chee Hon and Tan went off with this group. The women were told to not cross the line by a stern MC who told us we will be punished if we did by the greatest sin of DQ if we crossed the line..

345am Sun 22 Nov - Was flagged off the starting line, together with Su-Ann and Claire. A few cheerful Malay ladies in front told us they were from KL and we helped them take pictures before the soundless gun went off. I did not manage to catch Lim Guan Eng.. I was told he was driven up to the Full Marathon in his Merc... like moses parting the red sea...

0-10km - the 10km marker was the turning point on the bridge... this was quite a relaxed run for me.. I really loved the whether this year, clear skies, no construction on the bridge, cool breeze, passed a troupe of lion dance drummers on the middle span of the bridge and ran to the momentum of the drum beat. Just passed the mid-span, going down, I heard a person shouted my name across the barrier - realised it was Say Kiat, but I had no way of verifying as the slits were slanted the other way.. but I was motivated as it got me running faster in the dream of catching him... at just about the 10km marker, Running Mom Haza caught me (once again!!) and passed me, and I remember checking my watch 1:12 at the tracker - hmm, this is a fast 10km... at that point I actually felt I was about to get a personal best from this race

10-21km - don't know what happened, but from the turn all the way to the end of the bridge, I was much slower in pace, despite the ups and downs, I still felt very very good. I was still running strong, where typically when my watch showed 2hrs, I would've been drained. All the way, off the bridge to the turnoff where the IJM runners are, and then back to Queensbay mall to the finishing line. Realised in the last 4-5km that I was no where near my Personal Best, but actually it is a Personal Worst!!!

What happened?? I think I ran the second half of the race not as motivated as the first, and tried to focus on running without injury downhill and also running continuously when I should've paced and walked if I was tired. Instead I slowed down completely, and when almost home, met with the 10km runners, quarter marathon, I actually was slowed by the traffic as they stampeded the majority of the road, and the back of the mens 21km who walked blocked the rest of the way, despite I still managed to shuffle through.

Still, its no excuse, but a very mixed feeling, I loved penang, ran a great race feeling very good and ran all the 21km for the first time in my 21km experiences, and had good food, good company. I just wished I had run faster, but it was not to be. Maybe next year it will be blazing hot, raining or even poorly managed, but I will be back, and grab that personal best, marathon or half marathon category.

It was the most surreal experience :

- Walked to the starting point at 230am

- Race started at 345am and finished when still dark

- Ate 3 CKT over two days BEFORE the race

- Flying to-fro Penang for a race

- Clear pretty peaceful run on the Penang Bridge at 4am+ in the morning

- Met a marathoner (Peter) who could do a 3hr 39mins and still eat more CKT than me before the race (tabik)

- Stayed at the "runners" hotel

- Took public buses Rapid Penang and to the shock of my friends, did a serious concall on the bus.. (sorry guys I could not avoid it)

- Being offered doughnuts jco as a pre-race meal and declining it (only to have it for lunch later!)

- Feeling so unreal about a race because I did a personal worst time in good feeling (!)

- Asked to jump across a drain after the race to walk home which I did not dare to test the stiffness of my legs, so I chickened out (and we took a longer path which led to a cab)

There was a finishing line, I reached it, and I want to run more... to the next finish line...!

Back to Penang - and discovering good food and no finishing line...

2009-11-21T20:45:00.002+08:00

I am back at Penang after one year away from the Penang Marathon. There is a certain feeling from running .. that level of anxiety mixed with excitement, nervousness to step on the starting line and also the can I really finish this race feeling.

I cannot express the moment, but running to me after two years of being in Penang, ran 22.7km, I will still get to the starting line tomorrow at 345am, and all nervous to run another race.

It takes a runner to understand what a runner feels, and even though I do not really class myself as a serious runner (yet!), I am very glad this time to continue to have the camaraderie of friends to be at that starting line with me.

The feeling - butterflies in the stomach for a 21km race?

I am in love with this feeling just purely because it tells me I still have a long way to go, a great level of appreciation for running, and to discover this tells me most importantly, I am very much alive and hope this self discovery will continue for many years.

There is no finishing line.

The Sun Motor Hunt 2009

2009-11-09T20:10:00.006+08:00

This has got to be the only type of activity in life where you never want to get promoted.... Do you know what it is?

Treasure hunting!

I am not sure how many hunts we did this year, but it probably has to be less than 3 - I think I participated in all of them - Australian Alumni hunt, Uncle Chong's Economy Hunt and this one - the creme de la creme of all treasure hunts - the Sun Hunt. We got a decent 28th position for this hunt - from 57 in 2007 to 83 in 2008 and now 28!! It seems the lesser we participate in the better we are! Some highlights :

- I no longer believe in outsourcing - we outsourced one treasure question to our fifth man CG and he got a decent answer - except that the outsourcer -ie. us in the car, did not spend enough time thinking about the answer, if we had, we would've gotten the right treasure!!!

- We have a great team - WY, JS, NY, myself, CG, JS2 (backup) - this is 5+1 persons, but somehow, we could never make the same event, so we are all pretty happy with the 5 person thing. JS could not make some of the items last year, I could not this year and last year at Damian's wedding for mensa hunt, and WY when she was away, JS during the christmas hunt too.

- What I really love about our team was the great spirit of team work - we never duplicated each other, we lived with each others strengths, interchange thoughts and in general have a great time at each hunt - with lots of jokes and humor. I used to be the anchor for the team in figuring out the questions, but we have grown so adaptive nowadays (and me a bit degenerative too) that we all know we are all capable of solving the questions and treasures, and we work together well - yesterdays event was such - team work made everyone solve some big questions, even the driver whilst driving!

- I am easily satisfied to believe that we have a long way to go before we are masters, but we do have the potential of a great team. It is my honor to serve with great people.

Back to the reason why you never want to get promoted - the Sun Hunt is indeed the most punishing of all reasons. The Sun Hunt has gotten so big that it caters for up to 270 teams in the open category and a limited masters category for 20 cars. This is itself a major logistical nightmare every year, for the sponsors and organisers to manage traffic, the wrath of the non-hunters and in general, organise a full day event - hunting for 6 hrs and then a dinner because you need a couple of hours to mark at least 270 papers! The poor masters had a tough time - the questions were tough, and all of them got rewarded but what is usually a top 3-5 position is now a 15-20 position for some of them and after a tough day, only a miserable mp3 player, and the whole dinner is dedicated to questions for the open category!!!

Happy Birthday

2009-11-01T12:22:00.005+08:00

Happy Birthday!

Pic1 - Having my cup cake and eating it too

Pic2 - Pretty cupcakes from my sis-in-law

Pic3 - Halloween Candies... (fingers, thumbs and RIP chocs)

Pic4 - The hand makes its appearances on my guests..

Today, Nov 1, is my birthday. I am rarely so self appreciating, but this time I thought I would go all out to celebrate, even at minimum, if not, write myself a celebratory blog.

I will do one of those ala facebook style of factual about myself for my birthday :
· My name in Chinese means everlasting beauty. I look in the mirror and most of the time I don’t see the beauty. But I see beauty sometimes in my style, my persistence, my love for the simpler life or what I call simple enjoyments. Where does beauty end in the exterior and where does it start in the interior? Is it true that in order to be beautiful, and to have everlasting beauty, one has to be able to see that beauty themselves more?

· In Philippines, Nov 1 is a holiday every year. It is All Saints day. I am a saint!!! I have never been called a saint before, but then I realized today that saints are DEAD people! I do not want to be a saint! All Saints day is like All Souls day in Chinese – they celebrate by going to the cemetery!!!! This is so sad…. I am alive, not dead. Celebrate me as I am as alive as you are.

· November is the month of the beautiful but deadly scorpion, the star sign for Scorpio. I am a true blood Scorpio, though not much a believer in horoscopes, the interesting thing is that Scorpios are intense creatures. Vengence is high on the list. And passion too... (how do you mix that?)... heheh, do not cross me. You will not like me when you cross me. You will like me a lot if you love me :-)

· I love pork. I am also born under a chinese sign of a pig. This means I am lazy and a self serving bastard, eat a lot and also sleep a lot. What I love about being under the Chinese pig sign is that the pig, being lazy has to learn how to be lazy. Most of the time, I think I’m a half breed as I really got to learn how to be lazy more!

· 111 – There are too many ones in my birthday. I am as always, your super kiasu number one, although sometimes my poker face hides this kiasuness. In reality, I shy away from the limelight, but never have I not looked at something I consider a challenge, and back down. Number 1.

· Previous birthdays have been not great experiences for me. I cannot remember one which I can say is worth remembering. The only one I can remember is the one when I had to work overnight on my birthday. That just about gives away how terribly overworked I am.

I would like to say, I had a great simple halloween, birthday, house warning little cosy meal yesterday. Thank you for those who could make it. I am learning to be older, wiser, simpler and above all, the ever humble servant of the greater mysteries of life.

Pensive thoughts

2009-10-31T00:14:00.005+08:00

Today I sms'ed him and he called back. I have not spoken to him for two years at least, I cannot remember when... we are, still the same... there is still the same wall between us, but I have to relearn how to really know my old friend again.

All of a sudden, meeting a whole bunch of people over dinner made me think of that short 5 min call again this afternoon. If we are the same, how do we become friends again? I am not sure, but I am also not too disturbed over this.

Somehow, in the stories of me and my oldest friend, I am always the one who over-dos, over-thinks. I am not sure why, but even now, when I am not over thinking, I still feel ... disappointed.

Can men and women never be friends in a platonic nature? I'd like to say... no.

Pensive. I guess it comes with growing old.

Mizuno Wave Run 25th Oct - My first time on this UPM route

2009-10-25T22:23:00.005+08:00

I had a good run this morning at Mizuno's Wave Run. Kind of missed Tey and familiar photographer, so did not have a chance to get my face snapped. There were a few photographers on the road but few of them really "snap" random people's pictures. (Photo from Chan Wing Kai taken from pacesetter's albums)

- First time I ever drove my car to a race for a long while, usually there was Kell Jay or I would drive my Toyota. Its either that or I have really not run a race proper for a long time during the day.
- Arrived at a good time, around 640+, leaving plenty of time to ease into a good parking. Picked up SK along with me, so I had company as well as a decent navigator.
- Started to see the crowd around 7am, luckily I queued for the toilets early. Lost SK somewhere along the way, but I realise he likes to start at the back, so I spiced up the challenge a bit with a bit of a soccer bet, asking for 5 mins. In hindsight, I should've asked for more. Either that or he responds better to challenges than my legs could.
- Could not find Ai Leen or Boon along the way, but saw Philip. This obsession with the pretty vest of stark yellow made it difficult to recognise people in the crowd, though I got to admit, the vest was pretty nice
- The starting point was too crowded for a 4000+ people race. There was too many people, and since this race did not have the chip, the starting was a bit of a disarray, there was no gun even. And the people just started randomly running, cutting across the grass to make ground, and the rest literally walked or shuffled for at least 100m, then slow painful traffic like jog downhill.
- The initial part of the race, at least the first 1-2 kms was a painful slow crawl. The roads were pretty narrow, and at one point, I was even wondering if we were in UPM grounds!
- The most jialat part was the last hill, which incidently was the first hill we climbed, when going from car to stadium, the first hill we ran down initial 500m, and also the last most jialat hill we had to do before arriving back for a quarter stadium finish.
- The race was probably a full 11km as claimed. I arrived around 1.23, if you count the time the first guy sped off and I was still standing around. Got a card which allowed me to claim a medal for 69 position in the category... whee!
- Eventually coming out of the race, I saw Ai Leen who walked mostly.

All, in, I thought it was a decent race, but slightly disappointed with my timing. And, I lost 10-12 mins to SK, which is literally impossible!

Blown Away

2009-10-20T22:55:00.004+08:00

Image courtesy of internet surfing on flickr. Not intended to reproduce for commercial use. This was the underpass at ayala avenue (the underpass was about 15 feet deep at the bottom, including the stairs probably at least 20 feet, all underwater)

Blown away not by TNT, but typhoons...

For those of you who know me, I've been working on and off in the Philippines since Chinese New Year this year, two engagements and a load of opportunity chasing. This blog is purely personal, and about how I missed the typhoons.

I was not blown away, but nearly. The first typhoon, Ondoy in Philippines, but Ketsana globally (whoever said Filipinos do not have nicknames for everything!), hit on Sept 26, with menacing disaster. The first instance of it was the weekend when my brother's filipino maid told us her family was ok, and she was glad I was not in Manila. Then the photos started coming on in CNN on the floods in Manila, how it hit with 1 mth of rain water in one day. Sept 26th was a Saturday and my mum's birthday. Mum has blessed me that I missed the typhoon, not that I stayed a lot of weekends in Manila anyway.

The disaster which wrecked through Manila was quite real, but I was surprised by the resilience of the people. They basically shrugged it off and those who were well to do or able to volunteered and helped. When we visited our client (a telco), they shared incidences of how they mobilised on the Sunday itself. And how innovative telcos were that they helped in the best way they could by offering free load (people unable to topup in a prepaid dominant country) to the phones of those trapped. How they were able to setup mobile charging units and relief centers and call centers almost within a day. Something the government could not even do. These were brave souls who just shrugged off and told me that their family was ok, but the houses were underwater. About personal items lost in the floods. And then there were also many lives.

The second round was Typhoon Parma, labelled a supertyphoon for its wind speeds, and it started spinning to shore on Oct 2, when my big boss came down to philippines for a talk to the client. He was from Chicago, and basically I was heading off to Chicago as well on the next day on Oct 3rd, Saturday morning. He left in a haste, taking a Singapore-London-Chicago flight, which apparently left much faster. The afternoon, people were let off at 3pm, as the residents had their share of disasters and everyone left early to take their family home. The residents of fancy CBD of Makati were scurrying around buying rations!!! I wondered out of the apartment to take dinner at the shopping center given it was one of my early nights, and found most of the shops closed, light rain and many people scurrying to rush rations from the supermarket. My colleagues told me that I would likely miss the flight. I told them "have faith". I believe I could avert disaster as I have always been lucky.

Lucky I was. The typhoon slowed in the ocean and when it hit the shores it was Saturday afternoon, almost 6 hrs after my plane departed. The typhoon was also much more north, and it did wreck havoc to the northern states, and stayed for a week(!!) as a tropical depression (which I assumed brought depressing rain).

During this second typhoon, our malaysian SMS system texted the warnings. Only two of my friends sms me, concerned I was going to be trapped. Even my parents did not sms me. And of the two who sms'ed me, you know who you are - one was a colleague, and another a new friend. Thank you. I would have been blown away and nobody knows better.

I wonder, at what point does someone think about these situations, and reflect upon themselves? Is it only when they are trapped on the roof for two days or when they are two seconds to drowning. At what point do I realise, that it does not matter who or what I do, why I am in philippines, but the fact that I have many friends, family, colleagues, hold a respectable job, at what point is it that only two people bother to ask me how I am, blown away or still standing?

I am once again, caught, blown away by the simple fact that there is indeed, not much to be said about who I am, who I matter to, and that makes me, incredibly sad.

Have Vehicle will Travel ...

2009-10-17T23:05:00.002+08:00

My "vehicle" parked for the photo at Lake Michigan. To understand why running is such a big thing in the US, you have to see the kind of places they run ... wow ... Lake Michigan makes me want to run the marathon there ...

Too bad, I missed the signup of the Chicago Marathon 11 Oct 2009.

I had great fun biking on the scenic trail of Lake Michigan, besides the runners - at some point, I was "racing" with some of them with my rented "comfort" bike. Heheh.

My 13.5 hours date with an Apple engineer

2009-10-17T01:59:00.003+08:00

Got to break the norm of not blogging and start blogging again, without the burden of the emotional bits. Thought it was funny to start with experiences - this one is one which is close to the end of a whirlwind trip to US recently for training which I stopped by San Francisco and then headed back.

The bad news was that we went through the once in a year storm which delayed the plane after it got out of the hangar with all the passengers, and then it went back and we had to reboard again a few hours later and missed the connecting.

Met a young engineer on the plane sitting next to me on the way back from San Francisco to HK recently. Normally the more you travel for work or business, the less chatty people are - everyone does some courtesy chit chat and then they pour into their work, all believing they are doing the most important thing in the world. This was no different, however, after 3 hrs on the flight and getting unboarded and then getting back on another 4+ hrs later, the tiredness broke the silence. So I chatted up the young dude - he was an engineer from Apple. His earlier first attempt (1st boarding) of being chatty was pretty much a few lines.

Round 1 (1st boarding)
He - "I always forget to bring a book" (on seeing me throwing out a small novel - one I bought at the airport drug store together with some Reeses)
I - "Well, you can always see 4 movies or more..."
He - "You know, one has to diversify"
I - "Ok, maybe different types of movies..." (duh - clearly I was jet lag)
He - "Yeah, the only book I brought is engineering books" (duh - clearly a pretty nerdish reply!)

Round 2 (2nd boarding) - he was very late - and he was sitting in the inner seat, so I stood around wondering if the dude has absconded the flight (after waiting 4 hrs+). Then he strolled in.
I - "I thought you have given up"
He - "Well, not apparently not yet"

After settling down and asking plesanteries of where he was heading out to whether HK or somewhere else... found out he was heading for Shenzen, and he proceeded to tell me about jet lag... eventually...
I - "So, are you an engineer? I saw those engineering books you were reading... " (duh...)
He - Actually I work with Apple in the hardware side. (Me... **ting ting, the most beautiful job** if I were 10 years younger ... now rapt with attention)
I - "Oh, thats interesting... do you guys have a lot of people in Shenzhen?".... and the question I asked twice -- "by the way... what is the next big thing coming out from apple...?" heheh.. of which he twice answered "... now I can't tell you ..." heheh..

Did not find out what the guy's name was. He was quite decently handsome. Found out he had worked 3.5 years in Apple, probably still single, looks around 28+ out of college. Polite young man. Said his please and thank yous and did not ask for alcohol or heavy food or beverage from the cabin service. What was more interesting was a couple of cool things we chatted about in summary, started and was more on iphone purely because I told him I do not like the typing, and he started to explain to me how the pixels worked (!duh... really a pure engineer, even I could not understand!)

Anyway, some other things I thought I'd share here just for fun :
- One interesting experience he related to me was how they would do all sorts of test, one test had been that they found there was a lot of returns of the iphone saying the headpieces sound was not good. What they found was that the headphones had a defect in being very prone to shorting out due to sweat (!!!). The sweat would crystalize in certain parts causing a short and the poor sound. The lab boys apparently tested sweat on a few components and finally fixed it making it more resistant to sweat.
- He said he never got to get a iphone because Apple has return policies and honors them, thus the engineers have boxes and boxes of the phone which are returns - so he has two phones - one hacked jailbreaked and one original.. (and he was so proud of it heheh!) - I reconsidered and did not ask whether the licenses were checked like microsoft does when you login online (this was my biggest curiousity as I owned a apple macbook)
- He agreed with me that Snow Leopard was a bug fix but yet people queue up to buy it... (there finally someone agrees!)
- He explained to me the different types of drop test the iphone goes through (duh!! - heheh)
-I told him where I worked but he seemed to have no idea (!! duh!!! - this guy is really young or katak di bawah tempurung or something!). I proceeded to talk about how we really related to our clients about Apple's customer experience and the store experience - of which he had no idea what I was talking about - heheh...
- I told him about the concept of content is king to software and apple was just shipping hardware consoles to enable this - he also could not understand this (heheh), but proceeded to tell me he knows of friends who now makes a living coding apple applications, but he could not do it as he was an employee, and would probably have to sell it through a middle man... (wah, so innocent!)

This was my first really young experience with a fellow passenger - typically the older dudes sit in the business class or those really yuppie ones who pound on their notebooks. This guy was just so funnily innocent and engaged and it was one of those moments that I thought - I got to tell people that I sat next to an apple engineer - this is really cool. Heheh

Well, I thought I would diversify and be really young about this blog. I am obviously not attracted to this guy. But I was definitely enriched in listening to him talk about his job, especially with a company I thought would be a who's who on the employer's list!

After departing in HK, I reflected that this dude was perhaps one of the most engaged young engineer I've ever met - most of the people I get to hire or work with nowadays are really so dis-engaged, and expects the bosses to shower them attention, but few are engaged, polite, and speak passionately about their work with the light of innocence of this young chap.

Perhaps, there is indeed hope for Gen Y and also hope for Gen X in understanding Gen Y.

Melancholy

2009-09-27T01:21:00.003+08:00

Tonight I am melancholic.

What does it take to survive the Rat Race?

I had the concept of service, but I realised that service which is not valued is not really service at all. Or even if it is valued but not appreciated. I am teaching my people to watch their back and for them to help watch mine (ie the internal organization) more than to service the client. Watch their back and also those they work with. What have I become?

I fully believe hard work does not cut it anymore. And yet, I cannot detach myself from the need to service, push harder, yearning to achieve the impossible because of...? What have I become?

I look around me, my gen x friends, and I see everyone is working so hard, so this is the new norm. I sleep only 6 out of 7 days nowadays due to travelling once every week on a night flight. Whilst catching up on sleep the other day, I wondered which person wants to achieve the kind of balance I have at my level - I should be sipping coffee and wine instead of losing sleep!!!

It was never my doubt on my own personal intellect, my enjoyment of the work I do and how it helps our clients, or how my esteemed organization is able to bring the best out of us all and deliver the type of high performance service. The problem I have struggled with in my entire working life and more so in the past few years is that this is not yet the best I can be. The best I can be to myself, the people I work for, the clients I service, the family I have. Still not the best.

There's always one person who will eventually break you. That person I've just found out is really my own self. Everyone else, every other action is reflected in me but I am still not at peace with my ownself.

The 3 Seconds Rule

2009-09-21T16:03:00.003+08:00

Have you heard of this 3 seconds test? I am not sure where I read this from - but if I'm not mistaken this is based on the book "Mind Gym" on relationships. The authors spoke of the 3 seconds rule for relationships - and I guess it applies to nearly everything.

Have you ever seen someone familiar or not have enough guts or feel shy to chat up someone whom you thought could be interesting or you are bored in the line and you are observing some people or children and wanted to say a friendly hi?

Well, I will advocate to the 3 seconds rule in the following instances - its quite practical - give the thought 3 seconds and just go do it, whatever the gut feels right at that moment. Don't think too long about it. A lot of times our "shyness" or mind barriers kick in after 3 seconds. Here's where I thought it worked for me or could work for me :

3 Seconds Rule to Sending a SMS
- This has got to be my most successful attempt to beat the fear of communicating. I applied the 3 seconds rule over the last few weeks to a couple of items. From my time spent in the philippines I've generally become a more keen texter - here was where I felt, if you have thoughts, just text, and since texting was already not a responsive type of communication, what harm could there be?

- I texted one of my staff who wanted to quit to ask her to chat - I've never been much of a chatter for people, but recently I've been a lot more approachable. It tired me to speak to people who wanted to leave in distress but I knew I needed to at least try. Why delay - I could easily talk or meet up with them - 3 seconds told me there was no harm of talking to them to convince them to stay. At worse, I would've another good ex-colleague friend and given them the "release" they would need before they leave.

- I texted someone I hardly know to meet up. What harm is there? I was bored and needed some new friends, it took me 3 seconds to say, what the heck, this is better than not even trying. Who cares about first moves what ever... does it help me get anything in return? 3 seconds, do it, send. What does it matter if it was a yes or no?

3 Seconds Rule to Smiling
- It is funny how one has to think for 3 seconds to smile. Well this is not as it is - I've been out of town for so many rounds that sometimes just culturally adapting has proven to be a bit tiring - so I've learnt the new Philippines communication tool. Good intents are usually expressed just by smiling. Why make the doorman, the taxi driver, the client, your colleague whoever stressed - we all have our demands but what harm is there to smile?

- Take the 3 seconds rule to smiling and one becomes more comfortable to smile and after a while it becomes 1 second and eventually, it becomes part of your internal composure. I found that smiling made my entire thinking mind more positive and less tension is created, even in a tough environment. Well if there is no one to smile at, smile internally!

3 Seconds Rule to Sending a Email
- This can sometimes work and sometimes not. I usually advocate people to think about the email they want to send, especially in distress or emotional state. But I've found the 3 seconds rule applies well to times when you want to respond or feel there is not enough info, hesitate, or try to over analyse non critical notes - this is when the 3 second rule works - send that email and respond! You do not need 200% information. Well, this applies only to those who are like me, getting 50-100 emails a day, and sometimes people wait for me, but I always want to do a full job even responding to a mail. To be treaded with care on this one....

3 Seconds Rule to Action
- Get to action on that thing you have been procrastinating on? Just think about it for 3 seconds and action it - your gut feel is the right decision. And taking action is always better than not taking any action!

PS - 3 Seconds Rule to Procrastination - The bad part of the story is that it takes 3 seconds to procrastinate as well.... oh well, you can't win them all!

Stop, Pause, Rewind, Forward...

2009-09-10T13:39:00.003+08:00

I have not blogged for a long long time. I can somehow understand how writers suffer writer's block. I on the other hand am just burnt out at work.

I read this book, it said, when you make it a habit, it becomes a habit. So, here goes, welcome back to the blogging world, and please bear with me, I need to warm up.

Strange photo to post, you may think? Well, I just bought a new camera lens yesterday, and as usual, I like to point and shoot just about anything.

They said the sign of a clean table is a sign of a sick mind. Mine just has permanent clutter. This part of my table which I deemed publishable is indeed been there for a long while, but peering at the picture quality led me to think about how it so aptly describes me.

"Not a Mess but Unorganized Clutter"

Who would claim their desk resembles a mess and hence similarly their lives? Look at the photo and you would see a vision of a 0.001% view of the person I am - language - chinese, culture - philippines, how to simplify your life (!!!), thomas friedman, accenture golf tournament pewter card stand, ipod in an airport clear liquid bag (!!! not used?!), random pieces of small petty cash from last trip, some hydration gel I bought at SCSM last year, old mouse, headphones, border card, even mars and venus book... (!!!).

Go figure... an organized clutter, not a mess... don't you think?

"Read Me"

I like to read as much as I enjoy books which are short, sweet and my biggest secret is that I never finish reading the books I buy anyway! Who could do so when we now have so little time? But yet, I love book shops and hanging around book shops never bore me, it relaxes me tremendously.

"Needs Time Out"

This is indeed my main problem and the main reason why I have not blogged for a while. Just as much as my desk has been the same view for the last 6 months, some of the books there in the picture probably has been there for the last 6 years and maybe more. The picture is just as much as my state of writing and expression - bland, slightly disorganized - I have thoughts nowadays which I cannot hold for more than 5 minutes, and sometimes I have thoughts which I am trying to block my concious mind from thinking so that I can avoid problems or things to do at work.

I am at a burnt out stage - not miserable but just monumentally tired and out of juice.

Standard Chartered KL Marathon - 28th June 2009

2009-07-03T23:58:00.004+08:00

When all is done, and the people have packed up and gone home, the barricades are down and only a handful of really supportive full marathon runners are still around - I was completely pumped up and overwhelmed when in the last 50m, people actually clapped... despite finishing at a lousy 6hrs 42mins.

June 28th, 2009 - my first marathon in Malaysia. See how happy I was at the finishing line :-)....

Pre-marathon

I wonder if there is a day when I will say, I have had enough training. You see, it is all about passion, mental and also the determination. Each marathon target I go for, I regret not having enough training before the race, during the race, and after the race. I tell myself never to run another marathon during the race. And I tell myself when is the next one after the race.

For SCKLM - I had the least amount of training compared to previous marathons - Sundown and SCSM Singapore Marathon - both last year. For Sundown last year, being my first marathon, I did not know what to expect. I did my first daylight race for SCSM and got fried for not having enough practice. For this race, I had little / no training in the gym - I did a lot of road running and training - almost every weekend, and for 4-5 months, I accumulated at least 4-5 21km+ runs during weekends, much better than I did before, and at least 10km+ every weekend though with some lapses. This is definitely not sufficient for marathon training....

Marathon day

I was kind of upset to find the company's running club vest did not fit me - it was almost 2 sizes larger!!! But I was more comfortable in my nike whites... this time I tried to do tights instead of shorts wary that the last two marathons, I suffered chaffing badly that I nearly could not walk for a day....

First time I drove to a race!!!! I drove early and was fortunate to get a parking below the Dataran - brilliant strategy - do not have to crawl far to go home...

0-10km

Pace was good, I ran a comfortable race. At 10km mark, Kit jogged past me - he had a slow grinding pace which was decent - I could see him finishing ok with his style and pace, continuously.

This was the first year I had no idea where the route was taking me. The key advantage I had however was that no one else knew much as well, since it was a new organizer this year. It was definitely a tour KL de-force despite all the organizers shortcomings. The first 10 kms went to Sentral, Loke Yew, Cheras... (I had no idea I was even somewhere in cheras - just saw lots of flats)...

11-20km

At some point in a race, I lost count - the km markers were not very clear. The route I was looking forward to was inevitably Jln Tun Razak. Today when I was in my office in KLCC and I stared down to Jln Tun Razak - it scared me that I had actually run the WHOLE Jln Tun Razak... wow....

So somewhere along here, after Cheras and somewhere, we ran the entire Jln Tun Razak (the lower portion) and went somewhere to turn at the end, and inevitably end up headed back towards Jln Sultan Ismail via Jln Raja Abdullah. Again familiar roads, and I was thinking of work. This is where it got dodgy, as somewhere in 17km when I took my gel, the drinks station started getting dry and disorganized. The 17km station had bananas and 100plus but the 100plus was in large bottles - the organizer asked us to take and pour into our mouth directly (uuurggghh - i did not remind them i came back from h1n1 country... philippines).

21-30km

At 20km, I realised the drinks station became an aid station, and people were packing up - something was not right. At 22km, almost near KLCC, I saw the damning evidence finally - strewn cups empty and no more water and a poor St John guy trying to honestly answer my question "I dont think there is any more water anywhere up ahead"... after about 5km no water. I started getting worried...

So, I popped into 7-11 (life saver) in Wisma Central to buy a drink 100plus and grabbed another-tropicana orange as afterthought on exit (IN THE MIDDLE OF A RACE!!!) - I saw some singaporeans having a chat outside, casually - and how to run with a drink in hand, so I walked a bit. After turning back around KLCC - I saw Philip - he was spent, and I think injured maybe. He tried to jog a few m's with me and then gave up.

This part of the race I started to walk jog - and what disturbed me was the lack of drinks and my distraction and excuse of buying something and running with a orange juice in my hand. I wished I had done better this part, as it was clearly "my territory" and also rat race territory.... but a lot of turns and changes really did not like this type of race...

31-42km

Last 10km.... was an absolute haze. It went somewhere through the middle of town in Petaling Street Area, guess what, when I passed - I hallucinated about air mata kuching... damn!!!! My orange juice could only ration that far, and somewhere at the end of the stretch, I found another kedai and decided to grab my last orange tropicana. In this center of town stretch, I also almost ran the wrong path a few times as lack of marshalls.

I had followed this malay lady for a while - she had a steady slow pace, and at the free gel part, she slowed, she was quite upset there was no water, so when I exited the shop, I saw her and gave her my change.

After that we ended up somewhere near stadium, jln pudu, and finally on the highway, mahameru or jln damansara somewhere. I only remembered crossing a lot of roads with a lot of cars.... this is very bad...

On the highway, I turned back on my ipod and listened to a long road to eden by Eagles admist the blaring horns of the highway, and continued to walk jog, wondering what on earth motivated me to be on a highway, next to blazing cars, damn hot, no water and trying to walk some part of it....

Caught up with Adrian from my office at around 35km, and paced walked with him - I did not have enough energy to push, and unfortunately he gave me an excuse of walking without being last.

We finished the last 1km together in a jog - I was ecstatic that I was pacing a guy who was doing his first marathon... and flashed great smiles for Tey and Jason near the finishing line.

I got to do better next time.

Nike's motto - there is no finishing line....

I am really trying to smile ... after the fall but could not ...

2009-06-12T13:06:00.004+08:00

This was a mobile phone pic of myself in the mirror of my fall, with swollen and bleeding lip, blemishes.

Luckily I have recovered. My front teeth is slightly crooked but I am not sure if it is just my impression.

Three weeks later, I am finally back to hot drinks without a straw, but the front lip is still quite "stiff"...

And I've not put on any lipstick for the last 3 weeks since as the healing made my lips dry, and beginning to like this lipstick free look!!!

(See earlier blog post on suey and luck.. but I am back on my feet within a week and running the streets like no tomorrow again!)

Suey comes in twos, threes, fours...

2009-06-02T23:19:00.002+08:00

Do you believe in luck? I had luck laughing in my face for the last two weeks. But I am blessed to believe that luck comes in good and bad, sometimes in between the bad, there are a lot of good stuff, and we miss them because we always think otherwise.

My first spate of bad luck came when I went back to Philippines last monday. After the funny escapade of the treadmill challenge for SCKLM at 1U, and the Pacesetters Night Run on May 23rd the same night, I was completely pooped and only made 8km the next day on Sunday. But I felt my momentum was back, so when I got back to lovely Manila on the monday after, I decided - I must go and run and get my rhythm back. So on the following day, Tuesday, I got off earlier, waited a good 30 mins for a taxi to the Fort (Fort Bonifacio, the hippie running ground).

I thought I wanted to do 10km, have a good dinner and head back, great way to start this trip to Philippines. 2km, my legs were sluggish, and I tripped and fell. Right smack in my face. My legs were ok, but my hands were clumsy or something, only my right hand managed to scrape the cement but the hit was right on my lip. The scrapes on my hand and lip was quite deep, but other than that I was actually ok. I was on the ground, touched my lip with my slightly bloody hand, and shocked myself to see blood!!! Two kind lengchai's helped me to the sidewalk to sit down, and I was immediately feeling the swollen bloody lip. They passed me a box of tissues from their car nearby and proceeded to continue chatting!!! Some pickup, dudes?? Damsel in distress also do not bother?? This damsel, after swabbing the wound and still seeing blood, decided to go to one of the car side mirrors nearby (maybe it was their car!) and check herself out in the mirror. Shit, I looked like a mess....

And so began this funny trek to the toilet to try to stop the bleeding from the lip - damn, those lips are the blood vessel zone... and then trying to go to the pharmacy with my mouth half covered with my hand, and like showing the lady over the counter quickly because i looked bad... she must've thought I was a domestic violence case - ah the husband beat you up?? well if the husband beat me up, I would'nt be going to a pharmacy near a mall, and also dressed in jogging shorts and all... but still the queue in the pharmacy stared at me big time.... and then I quickly grabbed some other disinfectant and got into a taxi, mumbling with my swollen lip and got back to the apartment.

When I got back into the apartment, I told the concierge at the front door, to get me a ice pack, and flashed my wound for him. He panicked!!! After all I was the notorious girl who got her hand injured in exploding hair dryer (see below last story footnote). The 5 men arrived less than 5 mins after I reached my apartment, and to my shock realised that the not bleeding lip looks worse as it was really swollen and the red blood clot was there.

The 5 men- one with a first aid box, one with a ice pack, one with a radio, one rang the door bell, and one tried to help me with my hand wound using betadine, but dare not touch me because I looked like I would scream once it stung me. What I did was grabbed the cotton from the man with betadine and pressed it against my hand (like a hero). I obviously could not speak for a few minutes in stinging pain. Ok, the wound was not that bad, but it was obviously painful. I chased them out after two minutes, and took the ice pack on my lip for a good 30 mins. That was probably the best call I did to myself, cause it helped to reduce the swollen lip.

Next day, Wednesday, I had to endure the nasty stares all over the place, did not eat anything at all except for milo, and with a straw. I also had to explain myself to the client whom I saw in the morning, and my colleagues later of the day. I also went to see the docter at the office clinic. The docter gave me some antibiotics and asked me to go back 7 days later!!! Geez, I thought this is going to be a long ugly episode trip...

The next day, when I just managed to be able to talk a bit more properly, I presented to a group of about 10+ very senior client people, almost all of them whispering what happened to me... and if this is not bad enough, during the lunch presentation, I could not eat lunch, so I drank water with a straw, and spilled the glass on my notebook!!! As though not suey enough.... and the notebook blinked blinked... but survived. But for the afternoon, it went bonkers because the mouse was short circuited. And me after the presentation, with a broken lip, and wet notebook, went to the toilet to blow dry the notebook... hilarious!

My excitement was not over yet... after all that, I endured daily drinking coffee on a straw and finally two days after that, I could not tahan and decided to go for more solid food. At the weekend, decided that I was going to get back to running and signed up for a race. Still with a bit of scab, I ran the 13km race, and then ambitiously tried to do the 1km loop 7 times for 20km - this was the same loop I had the accident!!!

So that sunday morning, after bad accident number 1, water on notebook accident number 2 and prelude accident number 0 (footnote), after running one lap, I stopped and pulled out my bib number thinking maybe I should wait for lucky draw... and guess what... "915" called the announcer, and it was my number!!! I ran to the stage, grabbed the prize from her, in triumph!!! I had good luck at last!!! (well it was only approx RM100 mizuno vouchers)....

And happy me, went home, to find I had stomach virus. This was ongoing and got worse over the weekend....

And guess what - the virus was due to the antibiotics. I postulated that, and got off the antibiotics yesterday, and voila, the virus was gone.

So there you go... do you believe in luck? My life has been hilarious!!!

But in any case, if I find that blue tooth thing, I will download the photos for all the sadistic Facebook fans / pals I have of my beautiful scarred face. Thank you all for your concern!

Three Deep Breaths by Thomas Crum - get this book

2009-05-25T23:41:00.002+08:00

My father loves motivational books. For a person at his age, he reads a lot more than me. Every year, I have no problem doing my tax returns claims for books - not that I do not fulfill all the rebate quota of RM 1000, but my dad has way more than this in books and he's retired.

I grabbed this book from him last week when I was having a virtual break. It grabbed my attention because of the short blurb besides the title - "finding power and purpose in a stressed filled world".

I read the first chapter while having a foot massage (!!!). Of course, this being a rather thin book it comes in form of business parables. It started off with a character called Angus, who was a type A character, always impatient, did not attend his daughters school sports sessions, is always late and annoyed when the alarm clock rings, etc. Classic stress-maniac stereotype.

The major learnings of the book was very simple, and presented in a very logical manner - it was all about focus and breathing which drives the focus when you are surrounded by manufactured stress :

The first breath - A centering breath - a breath to calm you and bring you back to the present

The second breath - A possibility breath - to imagine the you that you want to be

The third breath - A discovery breath - to discover new things, to not pre-judge, to learn...

I thought I needed the book.

Running in Philippines

2009-04-25T23:17:00.002+08:00

I have now done 3 races in Philippines on my assignment there. Who knows, there may be more. To give the Filipinos (Pinays/Pinoys) a lot of credit for some of the uniqueness I appreciated about the races in philippines - I thought I wanted to drop a short note on some of the most appreciative things I had encountered.

1. Top one - last Thursday, I received a SMS from Vince Mendoza, from www.finishline.ph - they were the organizers of the Greenfield City Run in Laguna (see last blog post). He SMS blasted to inform that some 21k runners may not have received their medals, and for those who did not to SMS bib number back to him. This was what I received roughly :

Vince - "Some runners may not have received their medals for 21k Greenfield City Run, if you have not please sms your bib number and we will send it to you"

Myself - "Bib number 7883, thanks, it was a great race"

Vince (less than 5 mins later!) - "Thanks May. Where should we send it to?"

Myself (very surprised he addressed me by name) - "

... btw where can I see the photos especially those on the route?"

Vince - "Sure, no problem, photos at www.photovendo.ph"

Wow - this is true customer service! The organizer having a conversation with an individual runner! Great job, Vince! I will definitely join more races if I have the opportunity in the future. I liked the free bus service, by the way. And if the medal does come in the post a few days later, I would be so impressed!!

Many credits to finishline team, who not only setup a portal for running, organize races, but also personally answers questions and queries on the comments, and personal mobile. No race organizer has had the patience or courtesy to entertain in such a personal manner.

2. Second one - I love the signup processes allowing bib, and event t-shirt to be collected at Nike stores. Despite this may not be the most far-reaching approach, I preferred this and online rather than some weird location somewhere, where not many can get to go to signup.

3. Third one - Enthusiasm. Just like the bloggers community here, the blogging community for running is crazy in philippines. I have just yet to convert and start pinging all of them, but I am so impressed with these guys. They are mostly not very old, and just new runners all.

A few notable ones are :

www.takbo.ph (first forwarded to me by Ellen from SMART, apparently takbo, i guess by now, means run)

www.bullrunner.com

www.finishline.ph

www.runrio.com (one of those young dude coaches around)

4. Fourth one - Race results. Ok, on the bib there is a slip to tear off the bar code when you finish. The "tear-er" person slings this on a hook. But 2 days later, the results are out for the race, where did the automation come from!?? I am so impressed, because it comes out published in an excel, with race finish time, pace, and where did the automation come from? Why can't the local races in Malaysia do something similar?

5. Fifth one - the race and the runners itself. Damn hot. Guys, I respect all you crazy pacers - running in the early morning sun is not easy, I have a lot lot of respect for all you fellow runners, despite coming from a tropical country myself, the philippines summer is not easy for running in exposed barren lands...!

Greenfields Run, Laguna, Sta Rosa (Philippines) 19 April 2009

2009-04-19T17:55:00.003+08:00

All photos as taken from photovendo.ph site - thanks - just posted here for illustration

Photo 1- see we are at a banana plantation :-) (greenfields of lallang and banana- though the plantation portion was actually decent running track as there were no cars!)

Photo 2-the scorching sun @ the barren lands!!!

Photo 3-this was near the starting line - the greenfield city was quite a "designer" city at some areas where nice rich apartments were built.

Photo 4-Greenfield was on the way or near Tagaytay (home of Taal volcano, the first tourist place i visited in philippines... it took us 2.5 hrs to get to tagaytay the last time!)

Photo 5-The start/finish shot

Who would've imagine I would get up at 2:30 am for a 21k run?

This would be the last 21k I would run in philippines, for the time being. We signed up for this a few weeks back, but JS could not make it because she had injured her knee.

The race starts at 5am, and unfortunately after I had signed up and the subsequent weeks after, up to yesterday, I found out the location was very far away, in fact on the way to Tagaytay (the Taal Volcano trip we went on our first weekend in philippines) - that trip took us about 2.5 hrs to reach tagaytay! With a lot of reservation, first I tried car hire, then taxi booking, both were a bit unsuccessful, so finally since I was the only person going I decided to signup for the free shuttle bus service - luckily for me the shuttle bus was still available the day before even though the signup had closed two days ago!

I slept at 1040pm - this is really a trying one for me to getup at 2:30am. The bus schedule was assemble at 3:30am, leave around 4am, and ETA around 440am - I was a bit worried about this, as the various people had said this place was between 1hr to 1.5hr away despite it being wee hours in the morning....

I somehow managed to get to the bus assembly point at 330am, right on time - and found the bus (in the strange darkness) - got on the bus, it was full, and luckily one more spot left. The trip there was in silence with a Singapore Marathoner sitting next to me, and tried to catch some sleep, despite the bus was really cold.

Got to the starting line with 20 mins to go, the bus left at around 345am, and had time for a toilet stop, which was a must because the bus was SO COLD!!!

Greenfield City, Laguna was indeed another attempt of the local government to create a "holiday" looking vacation city close to Tagaytay on the outskirts of the Makati city center. The race starts at Paseo Greenfield, which was a outlet mall, so already it had a very american feel even as we assembled in the starting area.

The race started promptly at around 5am. This was when it got interesting. Suffice to say that this race, I really really regret not training for it, I only did one 20km @ bukit aman, and 2 6km spans one each week. Regret also because I am terrible at waking up early, and for such a small race, the lack of pacers really bogged me down.

At about 10km onwards, at 630 am, the sun was scorching hot. This is so different from Malaysia runs. The other problem I had was the route was barren - we were running next to literally "green fields" - they were fields of green "lallang"... and no cover for sun. Stretches of long barren land in the blazing sun was not easy without a pacer. I took off my shades on the return route from 14km onwards. The shades made me feel shorter due to the optical effect, and my stride felt heavier. I guess when I reached around 17 km, I was almost done and started to walk. All in a very very bad time, not my worst but still not good. But good training under the blazing sun...

Some observations :

1. Everyone started rather casually on the starting line - no one pushed forward. I guess because it was 21km, nobody was really rushing. Moreover, there was perhaps around less than 150+ people for 21km. Again, I got a bit worried...

2. Unique for the event was the route, before dawn (dawn was around 515?), the route on the first 5 kms was lit with torches (interesting huh... like a tribal function...)

3. Another unique for the event was the eagerness of the organisers to be a running event for runners - music pipping from loud speakers in non-residential and stretches of the road for the first 10 kms, some even with a bit of zen like music!!!

4. The provision of rush (electrolyte water like 100plus uncarbonated) was a good call, I survived on rush. Water stations aplenty.

5. They ran out of medals - I was not happy, but too heat treated at the end of the race to even bother too much.

6. The photovendo guys who offered free photos at end of race, and a long line to do so - that was not smart, and not cool.

7. Between starting so early and having such a closely starting time for the race meant some people sat around and waited for the 21km runners. I guess it is just difficult to cater for everyone (2k, 5k, 10k, 21k - what a range!)

8. The route - flat, nice countryside running - but VERY VERY hot... sigh....

9. Providing ransport is good, but they could've got the bus to run on the return trip earlier. Everyone was really tired when the bus left... (3 hrs after i finished 21km!!) - and the shops were not open!!

10. I did love the scenes of families bringing their kids for the 2k run, and getting up early for a family day. This is one great thing about running in philippines - its good family affair - and not just for avid runners but social runners as well

Lepak @ Orange Run 2009

2009-04-12T19:40:00.005+08:00

I have been having a fascination with Nikon D700 recently. Trying to figure out the power of full frame photos vs investment...

Anyway, this morning, I decided to spend the time doing the

photographer's act at Orange Run at the Curve. The funny thing is that I have NEVER run the orange run, despite it is so close to my house, and I've always wanted to run the BU neighbourhood... well this time it was because when I got back from Philippines on 3rd Apr, that weekend itself they had already announced all numbers were already given out! Imagine 3000 bibs, gone one weekend before.

Either the neighbourhood has a lot of health enthusiasts or people just love free stuff... well I think it is a more of the first, but the second also just upset me that people took the numbers and did not bother to run, just come to collect the goodies... and those like me have to consider to run illegally :-)

In any case, I got to do another 21km race next weekend, so I better train....

I just loaded a few photos here, it was difficult as I did not have the long lens - my biggest lens was the kit 18-70mm... so shy no big guns, so played with Tey's old camera D40 with a 55-200mm lens for a while, still good and better than my D70s... I am indeed the most underinvested "interested in photography" person around... heheh. Anyway, I will try to load the stuff to picasa album, meanwhile a few shots from this morning.

10km Men's Health Run 29 Mar 2009 (Philippines)

2009-04-11T14:08:00.006+08:00

Men Health Run late run report...

Credits of photos goes to NY, one of our colleagues.

This was my second run in Philippines - it was at the university of philippines. For more pictures, please see my facebook photos.

Firstly big big thanks to paparazzi NY who joined myself and one other colleague JS in the run. This was really the first run where I was pampered with someone dedicated to take photos! (Although our photographer was distracted along the way by the sponsors and organisers.. more later)...

The run was held in the University of Philippines, Diliman campus. Though I've been away from studies for a long long time, it was good to see other countries university campus - and what more better way than to run on the campus!

I signed up for the race together with JS (her first run in philippines). The interesting thing about this race was... it was sponsored by a condom manufacturer - Frenzy (a local brand). On close inspection of the event vest, the big condom logo is on the back! So just in excitement, we thought, well, this run will be filled with big macho looking guys... (hahah). As it turns out as well, on the same day, there was another event which was a women's only run. Oh well...

The race was supposed to start at 6am. When we were checking how long it would take to get to the campus, the apartment supervisor where we stayed told us, around 1 hr!!! And one other local runner told us 45 mins!!! So, we thought, well, lets play it safe, go at around 445 am? Guess what... we reached in 15 mins... so we were staring in the dark at 5am +, they were still hanging the starting line stuff, and my paparazzi had time to learn how to take photos on a DSLR!!!!

The race started finally at 620am. It was two 5km loops around the campus main grounds - the campus was actually a very nicely shaded area, where later I found out many came to run on weekends as well. The course was pretty decent. the water station a bit poor in manning.

I had a new pair of shades (my first!!) because of the prior week's condura run, I realised running in the sun was really too glaring for the eyes. The shades were Rudy Project (sound cool already?) and meant more for cyclists. After procuring the shades on the day before, when I arrived at the starting line of this race, I realised a lot of people loved to show off shades on their head... haha. Actually, I was a bit uncomfortable with the shades during the race, there was a distance differential - I felt shorter when I put it on. So I alternated on and off...

Finally, the story of our paparazzi - during the first loop he disappeared and was busy taking pictures with the girls (the ones selling condoms)...!!! Its funny, they were selling photos and giving away condom tattoos... etc.

All in, a pretty good race. Did not train much, and after condura, I learnt to enjoy the new "discover philippines" whilst running... I did 1:07, decent time for a very relaxed race...

As you would see - not many people in the race... and mostly men!!!

Condura Race Report 21km @ my first race in philippines

2009-04-05T00:06:00.003+08:00

All pictures taken from Canon EOS club site member's postings (thanks, I did not copy all the names, but these are among the best photos)

Condura Run was my first run in Philippines. I have been there for almost 6 weeks on a work assignment, and on the 4th week, I was itching to run in Philippines.

Condura Run was the first 21km event on the Skyway. Along the way, I found out that the Skyway was actually a big highway... leading somewhere... I never found out where. But the photos will show it is a big highway. Apparently the locals were all very excited to be running on the skyway... well I guess I was fortunate to be the "first" to run on the skyway, but seriously, it is like Adidad king of the road running on NPE...

It was a very hot morning. The race started at around 6am (but seriously, 6am = 7am in malaysia, as the sun is up earlier in philippines). Thus, daylight was peeking out when we started off. We started off at the fort (Fort Bonifacio), this was the place where I found is a runner's haven for training. Apparently they run there every night. I broke my own routine by running there on the friday night before the race!

I had very little training for Condura, and as such I was a bit anxious before the race. I only ran a couple of times on a gym, and twice at the Fort, all in maybe less than 20kms within the few weeks leading to the race. As it is, I was a non-starter in the GE 20km I signed up due to work. It would seem, I was committing runner's suicide...

The day before the race, I hydrated myself and got plenty of rest. On race day, I got there on taxi on when it was still night (the apartment security guy gave me a stare...). When I got there, I saw there were a lot of people, but 5 mins before the starting, I started to realise how little people were running the 21k,.... wait a minute, there is something not right here... and there were only hardly a handful of ladies....

One of the realisation that had dawned on me way before the race (it happened during our first leisure run at Fort) was that the running community here is smaller, but growing fast, and the cater for many different people factor is serving the masses - ie. the races were 2k, 5k, 10k, and only a handful 21k, and maybe a handful, marathon. But they called all the races marathons... and seems to have a more family environment, and the middle tier people were more keen on competing and those who competed, some had not run 21k even. This was a big surprise, though no different from Malaysia, the runners in Malaysia were quite competitive and the turnout to races were quite high, for 21k races, you would find most of them were seasoned veterans and newbies had the guts to take on 21k after one or two races...

The race ran one loop around the fort and then onto Kalayaan flyover and to Buendia avenue, all the way past my apartment area (Makati Avenue), and cutting through Ayala Avenue and finally to the skyway. The skyway was around 7 km off the start. The route was very friendly - very flat, the only steep part it seems was the Kalayaan flyover coming back, probably because everyone was tired.

The route was also pretty simple, 10km to some midpoint on the skyway, then 10km back, the same route. By the time we were coming back, it was really really hot. I reckon it was almost equivalent to running at 9am on a highway, when I got to 3km left on the Kalayaan flyover coming back. The rest of the route was pretty ok, and I surprised myself, I think I ran almost the entire distance, except for 4 drink stops and probably a short 50m walk on the Kalayaan flyover. I felt uncomfortable when I stopped - this was indeed a new feeling.

The other thing which helped I believed was the friendly manner with runners - I was at ease to chat up other runners, though I only chatted up 2 persons along the way seriously. One guy I paced with for almost 30 minutes, and I was pretty proud that he gave up at around 13km, and said he had to walk!!! Wow, I've never paced faster than a guy before... but then, this fella, and I think probably a handful of people I said hi to have never run a 21km race before (what to do, my pace is so slow, I get all the newbies...).

All in, a great simple race. The surprise was the results were on the website a few days after the race. The race signup in philippines is pretty cool, most of the time, you can do it and collect the number on the spot at nike shops. I liked that as you do not have to go back on the day before to collect the bibs. The race timing was done via scanning of a barcode torn from the bib (no shoe tag). Condura was one of the best races of the year, apparently, and true to form, the results as well as the publicity was in one of the newspapers a week after that (shock! - my name was in the newspapers!!!).

One interesting thing when I was surfing for photos - there was not many photographers. The photos taken by the Canon Eos club members (stolen and pasted here some of them), were the only ones which was interesting, but even that, there was a pattern of cutting off the head of the runners.. and also a habit of taking only photos of the celebrities... what's up philippines photogs? What happened to your Tey equivalent? Well, I did see a big fella with a big lens all along the way, but I don't know the website. Oh well...

KLIM 2009

2009-04-01T23:07:00.001+08:00

i've signed up! running my first full in malaysia @ klim 2009. what a feeling! now if only i can stop working so hard and start training ....

Jaguh overseas ... PB in Condura Run 2009

2009-03-24T23:26:00.002+08:00

I'm pretty good at this by now... I actually run better and faster overseas!

Condura Run 2009 - Philippines ... was my first run this year, I am serious! Well, it must be good to trigger a bit more blogging back from me?

2.41 for 21km - I am pretty happy - this is one of my better times - this is better than all my KLIM attempts. I think the first attempt I did in 2006 21km I was around that time? I am not sure, but for the moment, I will claim this to be my 21km personal best.

This run was really fun... Personally I found nothing so fantastic about running on the famous "Skyway" which is like a huge NPE. The only difference for the locals was probably that they never get a chance to run on the highway. The other pretty cool thing was that it was good race with the route pretty flat, and despite the sun here rises ahead 1 hr than Malaysia = baked by 7am (1.5 hours), the usual race euphoria is just such a great feeling!

The fun thing about running overseas - especially in Philippines is that I almost felt the urge to race up to most people who looked like they could chat, and said "this is my first race in philippines".

Next week 10km - men's health run.

Oh year, I love the sign up process. Bibs on the spot. Results out within 2 days!!! Check out www.condura.com

21km Condura Run (Philippines) - the skyway or my way....?

2009-03-22T10:52:00.003+08:00

Yup, I confirm the fire is still in me to run. I am currently on work assignment in Philippines, and just did my first run in the philippines - the Condura 21km race. I have just joined the running scene !!!

Let me just go through some thoughts I had pre-run and later I will write about the run itself.

1. Sports gel - Power Bar, you guys must do a better job at getting your gels into the Philippines. Last week, I went looking for gels and they stared at me like I was speaking some foreign tongue - the locals and pharmacies have hardly heard of gels! Then I surfed and found out the gels were in Fitness First, and I ran to Fitness First to look for them, but they were out for the month!!! That is so shocking.... I am sure there must be a better supply chain for gels. I am wondering how runners here survive without gels...

2. The Fort - this has got to be the coolest running practice zone - can you imagine running 1km+ round and round this huge shopping mall - apparently this is such a good running zone that the locals train here every night. We took the opportunity to try this out last Sunday and boy, was it hip - it felt like a people watching scene. One mistake was to start too late to train - because the sun here is almost 1hr ahead, as such starting at 745am meant almost 845am equivalent = very hot. But two 6km sessions here was all I had for training for my 21km...

3. Running distances and speed - My other runner colleague and I realised that runners here are pretty casual, the distances on races are mostly 3km, 5km, 10km at most. In fact 21km races are rare, and marathons even more rare. I suppose this is the same as in KL, but in KL, most of the starting distances are 10km or single distances - so it can be pretty unforgiving. Generally I also found most people ran slower here - part of the reason could also be that there are not that many places to run or train.

4. Signing up for a race - this is pretty cool - the bib is given on the spot on payment, and there is typically distribution via Nike outlets or alternatives. In general, this is better than taking a trip to collect the bib a day before the race. The bib is also given in an envelope, and has a barcode for recording when you finish the race. Cost of signing up for the race is slightly more expensive than KL - it cost approx RM 40 equivalent for the 21km Condura Race, for a t-shirt and the race itself.

5. Running portals - this is also pretty cool - most of the running portals are quite established, and teams prefer to run in their own group. Some of the portals includes :

www.takbo.ph

www.bullrunner.com

and a few more....

Well, I survived condura.... dare I to submit the registration form for KL Marathon now? More on the race details in next blog... have been too busy to blog even...

Return of the prodigal daughter

2009-02-09T01:42:00.002+08:00

My hands are sweating as I am typing this. Not because I am nervous or anxious but because I am typing this on my new macbook. Never a fan of notebooks as a gadget - despite my craze towards gadgets, this has to be an exception.

There is a legion of devoted fans to the mac out there, and these guys worship the mac truly. As for me, it is the return of the prodigal daughter, as my first PC (or rather the one I used - dad's purchase) was an Apple. During those days it was Apple IIe - I might still have the shell somewhere in the house. It was some really tight basic programming, and the green screen games.

Today, the Mac is a sexy piece of a gem, and just watching the demo of OS is enough to convince me this is definitely a phenomenon in human computer interaction.

Steve Jobs, you are definitely one crazy and talented guy.

Nadal

2009-02-06T23:33:00.002+08:00

Rafael Nadal, Australian Open 2009 Champion.

Nadal has never been my hero, but he inspired me for the last few days of the Australian Open tennis series.

He beat the guy who tried harder than him - Fernando Verdasco in a 5hr 14min semi-final. The Nadal Verdasco match was so tiring to watch because it reminded me of running a marathon - if I were to be able to do it in 5hr 14 mins, it would have been a great achievement - and these guys were slugging balls for 5hrs + !!! Ferdasco tried harder than Nadal - the match statistics showed he had twice the winners 90+ winners but also twice the unforced error of Nadal. What does that tell you? Trying harder once is never good enough, talent is never good enough. Perseverence, and above all being stronger and being never to lose mentally is the key...

He brought Federer to tears. When you have tried so hard, and the opponent such as Nadal refuses to die -- what more can you do? When your opponent gives you a hug and says you are a great champion but I am sorry.... I would have given way to tears just like Federer would.

If you were a non tennis fan, I hope you saw the match and was converted.

But most of all, I was inspired by his "never say die" and "chase every ball" working attitude... (it reminds me of someone... - me - except I have not reach number one!!!)

Belated Goodbye to 2008, and Lets upgrade ... for 2009

2009-01-06T23:48:00.003+08:00

For my first facebook status for 2009, I said - "lets upgrade".

Lets upgrade for 2009. There are many reasons why, but I will start with my one of my favorite blog topics for the year - running - this passion which has held steadfast for the year.

Leaving 2008 - with two marathons in the belt ...
2008 was a really eventful year of trying with less effort, and enjoying a "stretched" target. As those in sales knows, there is always the target and the stretched target. I did not have a real target for the year for 2008, but I had wanted to do my first marathon. Sometime in Feb or something, I signed up for Sundown. My rationale was so "logical" and so me - that to conquer the 42.195 km, my only option was to run at night, as I had been burned and dehydrated before in even half marathons, and moreover, I am really a night person.

And so the KLIM whizzed past, I remember doing it with the remaining of a flu, could not breathe through the nose, and rushed to Sydney in a plane a couple of hours after that. The overseas travel usually knocks off momentum, and after that I was sick, and before I knew it, Sundown Marathon 31st May approached and I was not entirely ready. With a few usual goading from some friends and fellow bloggers, I decided to "go for it" - moreover a few of my colleagues were going for it, with a couple of us in our maiden marathon. The strategy I had was correct - I did what I could to compensate for my lack of practice, but made the race, terrible time.... and that got me hooked!!! After all, I had joined the marathon's club!

I am not a born runner. Nor a fast runner. Or had I ever raced for many years.

2008 was year two of the running club I formed with some colleagues in the company. I am so proud of the group - this is purely passion fueled, and to do KLIM with about 50 people - wow... and to see so many who started (you guys know who you are), and raised their level, this is amazing to me.

After a few more races, I got the itch again, and went for Singapore Marathon in December. What a close of the year for me, where again I travelled to Singapore with trepidation, regretted to not train enough for it, and finished the race, in the sun - another first for me!

To me, this year, 2009, is all about upgrade - I would encourage all those who are thinking of joining the running community to see what this drug is about, please do not hesitate to join - every year, somehow, I manage to know a few "converts" and when they race past me, I feel that urge to continue to run and run...

Arriving to 2009- and reminder to take care of myself...
I started the year terribly - my first weekend run for the new year last Sunday at double hills track in Bukit Tunku the Pacesetters regular track was really fun. The way my body reacted after the run told me I was in terrible shape, both from lack of sleep of overwork and also from working through the entire longest end of year holidays, uncountable amount of multi-tasking, and much less exercise. Suffice to say that after I got home fine and rested, I developed a "heat wave" - body was heating up from dehydration, and I had headache, vomitting, diaorhea, and was sweating in an air-cond room. And as the week starts for the people returning to work from a long break, my fatigue is really settling in and I still have no time to run, and my sole is aching for no reason. The forces of nature has issued me a reminder, the body is like a machine, it breaks down from over extended use.... press ctrl-alt-delete....

For 2009, my upgrade is not to do an ultramarathon - I have no qualifications for that yet, but a few simple thoughts of what I'd like to upgrade to - to do a few new things, and do better in a few events and not overkill myself physically -
- a 12/24 hr walk - I liked the thought of endurance event at low pace (and its at night heheh)
- two marathons, with target of 6hrs, 5.5hrs - sensible 30 mins increments!
- a dualthon - biking and running
- qualify and run for the rat race for the 4.5km
- do a personal best for the 10km and the 21km
- 10 persons from the company running club for the KLIM, and sponsored shirts from Nike (this one is for my selling skills, not my running skills)

Simple. Lets upgrade....

Malakoff 12km - 21st Dec 2008

2008-12-24T00:28:00.005+08:00

This was the closest 10km and above race I have ever been to, and what a better place to do it than Taman Rimba Kiara, greenery and all. The photographers all had a field day, including many photographers you don't see in a run event.

The route was changed last minute, as informed by organisers just days before the event. I was disappointed to not be able to run down the Kiara road and through to the Penchala Link. The last time I did that was the Tunnel Run, and that time we ran from Mont Kiara and I took part in the 5km race only.

Anyway, as it turns out, the organisers chose a safe "internal" route, parallel to KLGCC and the Kiara Hills - and it was so hilly!!! But it was a good race, it helped me to practice the hills and allowed me to practice also sprinting down the hills to fully push the entire body, legs, quads, whatever. As a result, I had a bit of side split at the end of 6km, and had a tougher recovery, quads still a bit sore, because I pushed running downhill (happily!) !!!

I stole a few photos from Tey and Jason Lee (via KC site). I am learning new things everyday despite three years running. My stance is one of a slightly heavy (and lazy) runner. See this shots (even Mr Tey runs with a nice bended leg). So simply said, the good runner has efficient pace and push from toes to run further and more efficiently. As such, the back leg is always bend in motion, not just bend slightly. The front leg is sometimes in almost approaching 90 degrees.

I got to learn to run again !!

Running dry ... on adrenaline ...

2008-12-23T00:10:00.002+08:00

My colleague said today, I need to get some juice. I said, well, I need to get some too.

1. He was referring to laptop battery.
2. He thought I was referring to getting a cuppa (I am an acute coffee fan, not addicted, but acute).
3. Actually I was just running low on chi and adrenaline.

2008 is almost done. It is also a period of holidays and leaves, and it is pretty depressing to keep up the high spirits when I'm dipping on reserves.

As I waved goodbye walking away from the last race at Malakoff 12km, I said, this is my last race for 2008!!! I am actually suffering from race fatigue - yes, its actually still fun to run, but just tired, from early mornings, trying to squeeze time on weekend for training or the couple of kms around the house.

So, back to blogging styles of the tired soul - if you could survive on half your salary, and in exchange for a balanced lifestyle, would you trade the job for more time?

Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon - 7 Dec 2008

2008-12-08T13:48:00.001+08:00

(thanks tey for the 2nd photo)

Run your own race ... I did just that. What a thrilling weekend!

I came to Singapore from a start of the week which was bad at work, and to end the week in a semi-closure. It is difficult to explain to non-runners how much of a marathon requires both mental and also physical training. I have always been stronger mentally (exposed to all sorts of work stress and experiences), but I continue to admire the mental ability of an athlete - the next stage in sporting excellence - one I aspire to be. I would say I use whatever mental strength I have to overcome my lack of training!

It would be funny if I were to mention that I had race jitters a week before the race. It was my 2nd marathon (cannot claim maiden marathon anymore!), and I signed up for this more than 3 months before - and yet I could not have trained more? The funny thing about this was that I actually enjoyed the "anxiety" feelings ..... If one does not have "anxiety" feelings or rather any feelings at all about running a marathon [ie... "excited", "trepidation" (look in dictionary!), "worried", "nervous"]... I think one is not alive!

Getting There...
This was my first trip to Singapore on Air Asia- thanks to an accidental stumble on cheap tickets, mine came at only RM210 all in - this is just slightly higher than my bus tickets last time! So, indeed "everyone can fly" even to run a race!!! Thanks to Air Asia for making travel affordable, simple and no frills!

The accomodation which I booked with a friend was quite poor - it was at a Robertson Quay hotel, which was recommended by my friend's marathon friend who had run the Singapore Marathon before. Indeed it turned out to be a small room, but to my surprise, I got over that whithin a minute - when it comes to travel on my own, I seldom worried over the little things.

I was on "sponsorship" from my university - Monash University for this race. I was proud to call myself team monash - and getting "sponsored" had a feeling as though I am a pro. But more than ever, it was a good moment to be there in Singapore, running under Monash and together with one of my uni mates, although she ran in the 10km category. My only apologies to Team Monash was that in mind I was with you guys, but with the event vest, sorry I could not wear that, there was no size and the shirt was not exactly breathable...

Race Day...
Queueing for the race with 15000 people on the road in front of Fullerton Hotel - this had to be the most strange feeling - on the same road as the formula 1 cars!!!! Got to say, Standard Chartered and Singapore has great organisation skills - there were ample toilets, the entire camaraderie and race feeling was there, it started on time, and they had great DJs and support.

First 10 km ... frankly I do not know Singapore enough to know where I was running through, but I got to say, this race is pancake flat. The cool morning breeze was there whilst running through the first 10km, despite it was in the city. The amount of people stampeding through Singapore streets for a FULL marathon category, was indeed shocking. So for the first 10km, I was determined to run, without the music of the little ipod shuffle, and just enjoyed the atmosphere, it was a relaxed first 10km, even saw some of the 530 pacers in front somewhere within 50 m at one point...

Second 10km ... we got onto the east coast area, after the half marathon turn off. I liked the East Coast area and route, it was a good running track, not on the busy city, and best of all, peaceful and more shadier with trees.

We saw the first of the race leaders on the opposite side of the road along here - I don't know if it was Luke Kibet (the eventual winner), but there was less of a pack than a few sparsely separated front runners. Whoever it was, I knew that guy had a good chance of winning - it was also quite cool when the people around clapped when they saw him - respect the distance, and respect the best runners!

Somewhere along here, I also saw Dhiren, one of my ex-colleagues, I don't know if he was running or was a spectator, but he was surprised to see me waving at him and onto the platform for a minute. It was a good distraction, suddenly seeing someone whom I did not expect brought a little more adrenaline...

Another somewhere along here, I heard Tey shout my name across the divide where the runners were coming back beyond 20km turn around, and he snapped a pic I think because I just waved instinctively - I am so surprised to even heard and more surprise he could see me, heheh, more adrenaline from quick photo...

Third 10 km... I had a continuous pace of running but on 20-30km, I slowed down a little with some walks in between during drinks - to rehydrate - hydration has always been why I did badly in KL half marathons in the past as the heat was too much and running and slowing down suddenly can drain you. Along here I also started the iPod again, and took lots of liquid, but the sudden desire to not push settled in here (as I felt I had to do the last 10km still) - and this was where I slowed down with a little regret, because it affected momentum-- especially when the sun really started to get onto me within the open spots without trees coverage.

Last 12 km... This was mostly back on the city route, completely exposed to the hot sun and really draining - it was like baking in late morning sun, in humid Singapore. It really does not help when most of the crowd is walking their way to the finishing line - kind of makes me lazy too and I was worried I would actually pass out in the heat if I pushed! So, slow jog and walk with some pauses as well as drinks hydration every station, all the way... and only towards 2km to finishing line, I jogged to the final turn, and wow, finished my 2nd marathon !!!

Post thoughts
1) I would do it again. And again. The best part of it is that I know I can do so much better, and the desire to achieve more and conquer this makes a great feeling. I have run in races proper for only 3 years, next year 2009, it is not about marathons, but variety, and better timing!!

2) Got to change the attire - the chaffing is killing me post race... but the shoes the NB 1224 - indeed the most stable shoes - held me through the race and my soles completely recovered in a few hours.

3) Respect the distance - I got what I put in, ie. not enough. I could only do 10kms 3-4 times a week for a month prior to the race. I did not even attempt 20km due to no time to do it. If I got to do this again, I got to be more committed.

4) Gel up - The gels helped to maintain the hydration and salt for the body, thanks very much to powergel for this. Surprisingly powergel was all SOLD OUT prior to the race... not surprising if I think about the 50,000 people and half of them who will get at least 1-2 gels each.

5) Always enjoy the race - And I did... together with the finishing t-shirt and the medal !!!

Really Funny

2008-11-09T14:09:00.000+08:00

The amazing race asia show had one task which had the team record a joke told by the man on the street - this woman was REALLY funny - she was on a motorcycle, and she said this -

"Why did the one handed man cross the street?
To get to the second hand shop!!!"

:-) :-) That really cracked me up - worth this posting!

New shoes, new discovery

2008-11-09T13:31:00.001+08:00

I have been sold!

Yesterday, I discovered my old pair of faithful Nike Air Span 4 (which fitted with a large front of the shoe) was almost "koyak" - the heel portion of the shoe had almost degraded at one part to a rubber portion, although the shoe remains largely intact and also still well preserved. I cannot remember when I bought this pair of shoes, it must have been almost more than 1.5 years ago. I can only remember I ran Penang half last year with this, and with all the races since then to now, I think it must've clocked its useful number of miles. That said, I was pretty comfortable with the shoe and how it fitted my large feet (!), and with some right socks, I had not have blisters for a while.

Whilst browsing around yesterday at the New Balance store in 1-Utama had a pair of interesting new release of the New Balance 1224 - I was even more ecstatic to discover that Pacesetters had 30% discount (whoopee - this discount paid more than enough for my whole year of membership!).

I also discovered one thing I suspected a long time before - I am really flat footed! And worse also I tend to lean on the heel balance backwards. This is why when I did the Sundown, my sole was so tingling painful for such a long while I could not even sleep right after the race!

I've never been on a new balance before, so this morning took it out for a run (very excitedly) and made 3km before it started to rain! Now, I can't wait to drive to the gym to continue the run, the sorely missed training because I've been too lazy to get up to do the Bukit Aman trail.

Verdict on the shoes so far : Very stable, and good support for long races, but seems to be a bit heavy for short races. Good space on the front of the shoe, and fits well after 1 km, it was sunk in.

Still thinking of which shoe to wear for the singapore race.

Footnote 1: And... wishing all the rest of the guys, all the best in Penang. It was too rushed for me, as I had something on Saturday and had to go for another trip on Monday, so I decided to chill. I will try the 30km on that day at Bukit Aman (hopefully can wake up) to celebrate all of you guys running the Penang race.

Footnote 2: Pacesetters members, are you aware of NB discount of 30%? Its a good deal!!!

Wait a minute ...

2008-10-20T22:26:00.000+08:00

Previous post photo - aren't those guys stepping on the mat? Does that mean it does not work already at the starting line?

Don't make me run faster...

2008-10-20T22:08:00.000+08:00

"Don't make me angry, you won't like me when I'm angry" - Bruce Banner - the Incredible Hulk

"Don't make me run faster..." - yours truly - when reminded that I needed to catch a flight at 12 noon - wah, so tight... this is really the 2nd time in a year - the first was KLIM - 21km and then run to car to catch a flight. To be honest, I'm really too old for this run and fly routine, unlike some people who think its really cool...

Anyway, so that was Mizuno Wave Run, ok, not too much faster, but maybe around 4 mins faster than my first Mizuno Wave Run 2006... (err, I was slower in 2007).

So maybe "dont make me run faster" works better... this is after I had a bit of a anxiety looking for SCH who collected my bib and chip (rhymes eh), about 15 mins before the race starts. And the bib ripping off before I even get to 2 km down the road.

Photo credit to Tey again, and to be honest, it is quite difficult to take photos of people running- and more importantly to enjoy taking photos of so many people. It takes interest, dedication and passion - to be honest - of all the photos pros take, I find the most difficult is with people because people change.

RACE ID:13649-MAS-MVW-xxx

2008-10-15T23:09:00.001+08:00

Three years ago, I started running, I would never have guessed I would do two marathons in a year three years later. still a bit scared...

The fear is always, what if i pass out in the heat - will anyone know? (my sundown marathon fears were worse - what if i pass out and fall into a drain in the dark - a valid scenario! - what more that the others were faster than me).

Then again, you would never have lived if you dont live to run the next marathon.

RACE ID:13649-MAS-MVW-xxx
RACE:Full Marathon 42.195 km (Race starts 5.30 am)
COMPANY:TeamMONASH
Thank you for registering for the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2008!

Rainy days

2008-10-13T23:50:00.000+08:00

They say, save it for a rainy day. But no one ever realises that sometimes, the rainy days bring the best of things. This was captured from office window from the Twin Towers today, when a huge cloud blew past, and the bright sun was shielded with a strange yellow apocalyspe type of light. The picture was taken with a mobile phone camera, so it is not so clear, but definitely it was spectacular to the naked eye for those who saw it.

Podium Finish

2008-10-13T13:10:00.001+08:00

Funny, I could get a podium finish with such a poor timing in the AdventuRun 2008 charity event organised by the Taylors Business School in support of the National Cancer Society for Malaysia.

But, who cares, it is still a podium finish (3rd!). In fact, we team of oldies and "goodies" (we care for cancer!) from my fellow colleagues took top 3 positions in the ladies above 21 category, and also 3rd placing in the men's category.

I discovered a new thing about running - really, the young college kids don't run or don't know how to run, at all... and secondly they don't know how to smile... (?) - I was bored and said good morning to almost all the marshalls in the round 2 of the 2nd half of the race (2 loops of 5km) - and only one person said hello back at me!

Anyway, here it is - myth or truth (see second photo below) I could even run with my eye closed nowadays! (Either too early and still sleepy, small chinese eyes or showing off?).

Thanks, Tey for the first two photos.

Last photos, whats in the simple 3rd prize bag, lots of Vico!! And a little Alonso car :-)

Next week, Mizuno Run.

Hail Haile

2008-09-29T00:03:00.000+08:00

Haile Gebrsellasie, the world record holder for the marathon has done it again. He broke the world record for the marathon in the Berlin marathon today, with a record time of 2:03:59. He was the holder of the previous world record of 2:04:26 both set at the Berlin Marathon.

I was surprised to catch this live on TV on ESPN sports on Astro this Sunday afternoon, one of the first few times I've actually watched a live telecast of a marathon. Watching races on TV can sometimes be boring (this is why we go run it ourselves!!!) - but this race was a surprise as I was at that very point in time reading the Pacesetters magazine, and for the last few editions has had Haile's picture in the PowerBar sponsor ad page with the huge "world record holder for the marathon" declaration!!

As it turns out, I did not managed to catch the entire race - this would mean watching a man run for 2hrs (!) - but about at least 2/3 of it - and the interesting thing was that they have pacers hired for the race (I think by the organiser?) - Haile was surrounded by 4 pacers - these guys paced him up to at least between 20-30km - they were fast! It was like running a race with body guards. There were pacers for nearly most of the top guys - and this was interesting - imagine running at world record pace up to 30kms - why would you not go for the full thing with a PB (Personal Best)? Well, then I realised that they get paid for pacing, and were *not* supposed to win the race.

Well, I must apologise for the obsession with racing in the last few blogs... (always the amateur sportsperson!)

Experiments of the heart

2008-09-26T01:20:00.000+08:00

A few lbs (just a few) lighter, and after recovering from a nasty flu last week, I started running again this week and found myself running faster and feeling lighter as well. Was it due to the 2-3kms I tried to do after work outside and it was getting dark and I ran faster? Or the Dean Karnezas book which inspired me? I do not know but it was a strange release and a good feeling because I felt free and relaxed...

Today also marked another one of my boredom experiments, something I've always wanted to do but never tried - I tried to do the stationary bike at the gym for 30kms - am so proud to know that I made it easily !!! I have no benchmark to compare, but it was around 70 minutes, and I guess this is a bit slow, but the strange thing was that during the ride I was bored and tried to experiment with controlling my heart rate. It scared me because by a focussed calm, I managed to drop my hearrate from 110 to 95 within less than half a minute. It was a pretty weird "experiment" as I tried to recreate a type of calm to slow down my heart and I found it could work. At the end of the bike ride, I actually found a slower heart rate than when I started, whilst the two fellas working out next to me were panting and sweating profusely!

I cannot believe I am conducting lab tests on myself...

The Reading Runner and Climber

2008-09-24T00:19:00.002+08:00

Running and Reading is so different. One is pure mental, the other pure physical. And yet, surprisingly, I enjoy these two past-times tremendously.

1. Dean Karnazes - 50 Marathons, 50 Days (extract and picture of book taken from a book store website)

2. Lincoln Hall - Dead Lucky

I wanted to relate two finds in Australia - the price of books being slightly more expensive, I seldom buy books overseas except for bargain offers. But these two were a great find.

Dean Karnazes 50 marathon in 50 days was a great find - it is about the race where he raced a marathon in a day in 50 days in 50 different states in US in 2006. He actually did 50 marathons in 50 days! He recreated some of the marathons by asking for the race directors to point out the route of the state's marathon, and ran 8 of the marathons "live", including the last race, the New York City Marathon in December 2006 - the same first race Lance Armstrong ran as his marathon debut. Although this guy is pretty much a marketing man (he has written the Ultramarathon Man book and essentially gotten North Face funding for this race) he definitely captivated the spirit of running. Good tips are all over the book - I am on Marathon number 11 now, and when I finish the book, I will pass it on other runners. I think it is absolutely inspirational - he writes about not only various tips but also the different learnings or runners who join him in some of his 50 runs. Drop a note if you want to borrow this from me.

Lincoln Hall's Dead Lucky is a slightly older book (2007), which was on a bargain corner, next to another book on climber's ethics - as also in the same year 2006, there were 11 or 12 people who died in the Everest, raising the highest death toll for the year and raising questions on how ethical it is to leave injured climbers and take care of yourself first. Lincoln Hall turns out to be an Australian experienced and famous climber who collapsed on his way down and he was left for dead, and then he turned out alive the next day, where he had spent a blistering night on the peak of everest. The book is written by him, so it would be interesting to find out how he managed to survive and what happened (I've not read it yet!).

I am looking for a nice curled up weekend on reading. And then out to train for my next marathon after that... or was it before that?

Footnote : I've always enjoyed book stores - and it was no different this time. When I walked into the book store even overseas, there was a sense of calm and serene about browsing around. Where I was sick or even tired from a long day, I swear I felt my heartbeat slow down to a slower more restful peace around the book store.

Long Way Home

2008-09-23T23:52:00.000+08:00

Pic 1 - Family Day at Federation Square on Father's Day

Pic 2 - Seriously I was really at my niece concert on one of the nights. I spent 3 hrs at a 7 year old's grade 2 concert! Seriously, the Australian primary school kids did such an elaborate concert!
Pic 3 - The Melbourne Arts Center from the Eureka skydeck

Pic 4 - Seriously, I spent AUD 15 to stand on the Edge on the Eureka Skydeck... a cubic structure which slowly edges out of the building such that when they defrost the glass, you see you are standing on a piece of glass 88 stories fronm the ground.

September was a busy month for me, in a different sort of way. I was sick again for two weeks, making this a really "poor health" year for me.

Making a difference, I travelled to Australia for a recruitment drive for the firm. In a span of 11 days I was away, I did about 5 campus and off campus career fair, three and a half full days of interviews, talked to probably about 200-300 people about the firm, worked two full saturdays, went out on ALL days to catch up with my friends, and had a family day sunday with my brother, and my mum and dad, in Australia!

Phew.

Indeed, it has been a long way home for me, and somehow, away from my home in Malaysia, I tend to be slack on blogging, busy or not. And coming back home last week, I was really out for two days - down with the flu, and my defences were broken finally!

Well, this is indeed a personal blog, so no photos of work, and these were the only time I managed to squeeze out to spend doing other things.

I studied in Melbourne for my undergraduate degree, and since then have only been back to melbourne a few times. There was a great sense of deja vu, but also a sense that I was a visitor passing by this time. I never felt a strong kinship with Melbourne, although I still have a lot of good friends and my brother and his family is still there.

Nevertheless, I am glad to be home.

Olympics @ Damai Laut 08.08.08

2008-09-01T00:51:00.002+08:00

I am catching up on posts of activities in the last few weeks in August. How time flies!

On Aug 08. 2008, the 2008 Olympics was officiated in Beijing. It was also the weekend where we went away for the Business Unit Meeting for my office. This was a 3 day event where we will have a day of team building, a day of community updates and some rests on the remaining time away from work. This year it was held at Damai Laut, Lumut.

The theme this year? Olympics of course! And we went for it, from all the "themed" sports with a twist to having screens to watch the opening ceremony to Olympic themed new hires performances. All in, fun and really in the spirit of sports, I had a great time doing not much, and enjoyed the best organised event ever, and watched a great team run this event as smooth as the militaristic Beijing did!

And, I won the Hookers Cup (our annual golf tournament) again this year for ladies champion...! (At the expense of a sore arm for a week due to over-golfing practice last minute).

A great weekend away.

Pic 1 - Beautiful resort attracts UFO photography?

Pic 2 - Beautiful sunset... better than discussing work in a meeting room...

Pic 3 - Rings of the Olympics - this was a team building game where the competitors had to get their "balls" through the rings of the Olympics

Pic 4 - A portion of the Photography SIG taking the privilege for a group shot (my camera was used!)

Pic 5 - Getting the takraw through the rings of the Olympics...

Pic 6 - Redefining the relay 4x50m

Pic 7 - Egg Putt (a short putt using your own designed shot put with an egg in it, held together with straws and toothpicks)... apparently a harvard orientation game?

Pic 8 - Land synchronised swimming!

Pic 9 - At the most scenic hole, golfing @ Hookers Cup during the 3 day weekend

Pic 10 - The Hookers Cup

Welding @ Happy Merdeka Day Celebration - The Curve 31st Aug 2008

2008-09-01T00:38:00.000+08:00

Warning 2: More amateur photography ahead...

After an overdose of fireworks at MIFC within the week, I thought I would chill on trying to go to another crowded site in KLCC, although my wish had been to photograph fireworks at KLCC from Ascott swimming pool (which is on a higher floor). I have seen photos of this angle, and it is spectacular.

Anyway, onto Merdeka Day eve, and decided to check out the party at the Curve, which was blocked out since 7pm+. Last year, the fireworks had been near Cineleisure, and this was where the cop I chatted to told me as well. Unfortunately a tall building in construction had appeared in front of it, and also the view from across the road at the corner of the BU4/11 slip road presented the big ugly building and three spotlights spoiling the shot.

So, I decided to get closer, took out two of the street spotlights, and felt I was quite safe, hmm why no one near me... the crowd was on the street between Ikea and Curve, and about 50 m ahead. And then I heard the countdown, 3,2,1 and .... off goes the fireworks, but where was it?

It turned out to be at the angle directly between the building and cineleisure, and not within my view. I jogged with my tripod to be closer, and well, it turned out all my shots looked like a welder in a construction site...

Nothing beats MIFC, skills or no skills. This was over in less than 5 mins to my disappointment. And I did not know how I could've avoided the building and also then I understood why no one in the crowd was doing a DSLR. Apparently the pros always know where not to go to... but the lazy photographers like me take the priority to the walking distance from house.

Photo 1 - the first shot I took after jogging another 20m to "see" the fireworks. See the ugly building? Cineleisure is on the right. I am on the exit road from Ikano/Ikea.

Photo 2 - This over-exposed shot really looks like a giant construction welding iron! Sigh...

Smoked Out @ Putrajaya MIFC Finale!

2008-09-01T00:14:00.001+08:00

Warning - don't be offended by unprocessed lousy photography!

If you have not been to the MIFC fireworks competition (this is the 2nd year it is held), I have to say, it is a truly breathtaking experience, with or without the camera. This year, the Malaysian International Fireworks Competition was held at around the same time last year, and at the same location - at Putrajaya. All the word last year on traffic was unfounded, and together with some budding photographers from my founded Photography SIG in my company, we set to this event to "learn" how to take fireworks.

The first night on 24th Aug (last post) turned out to be a rained washed night, with the rain coming in before the fireworks and in the middle of the fireworks, causing some of us to frantically pull the camera to safety in the middle of the event, whilst I actually took the umbrella out in the middle, and still had a few spots on the camera view.

However, the fireworks was indeed breathtaking, and despite saying "I will not stand another 3 hrs again", a couple of days later, I actually considered doing it again, as I was a bit disappointed in my shots.

Come 29th August, being a Friday, the timing sounded good. However, it was almost not a night to be for me, as firstly I left my tripod at home when I left in the morning to work (intending to go directly after work). Then it followed that I left my house keys behind in a rush, and had to get a spare key. By the time I got to PICC, it was almost close to 830pm, after almost 2.5 hours of travelling from office, to home, to get the tripod, and then finally to Putrajaya. Nevertheless, we had planned to do this second trip and sourced out another location, the cafeteria of PICC, where for RM 12 coupons for food, we could get the verandah and be shielded from rain and best of all, eat and have a seat waiting!

As it turned out, the photos turned out, disastrous and worse as the smoke blew to our direction! The fireworks display was also not as spectacular or formation like as the ones we saw the sunday 24th August (who in fact turned out to be the winner to our surprise). So, here are the smoked out photos (unprocessed).

Pic 1 : The first shot, not smoked out but we were obviously at one corner of the cafeteria (as indicated by my cutting out the last ball of fire)

Pic 2 : This shot was less than 1 min into the fireworks, and already smoked out!

Pic 3 : I found the water layer on the outside of the verandah an interesting reflection, almost a strange cut of the fireworks, but because it was too far away, the reflection was not complete, but it was an interesting idea. (Again, holy smokes!)

Pic 4 : Holy smokes, flowers on fire, in a portrait shot!

Pic 5 : Putrajaya at night, after all the buzz

Footnote : I buzzed KC when I was there (and he was there indeed), and he responded, "wind blow your way" - I was wondering what the heck does that mean... well, that was so clear during the fireworks.

Anyway, I will not miss this event next year, after seeing MIFC, no other fireworks can equate this.

Great Show!

Olympics Aftermath...

2008-08-27T00:35:00.001+08:00

I miss the olympics already. I forget sometimes that I have transformed to become a great armchair sports-person... so here are my few comments and memories of the greatest show on earth (and they have been influenced by later events...) .

1. Diving - what an awesome dive from Mitcham of Australia to overtake the chinese diver for Gold, with an impossible near perfect executed dive, on the last dive. Even the armchair sportsman was impressed. A true champion... but... did you know he was gay? On google I discovered this - rather I would think, what is the big deal? But it seems that these groups highly publicise his win - lets just say they are proud of him! (Picture Credit to the site).

2. Swimming - I probably got tired of Michael Phelps after his 3rd gold. No doubt, he is one of the best olympian in history, if not the best. But what really impressed me was the emergence of the lesser nations - ie. The Korean who won the breaststroke - he broke the China-Australia-America domination!
Picture Credits to Korea Times

3. Athletics - Usain Bolt, need I say more? And the biggest screw up for US for both their mens and womens 4x100.

4. Athletics - Yelena Isinbayeva - awesome focus and mental strength. She said - "The world is my runway and I am here to perform" and perform she did, at 5.05m

5. Badminton - Lin Dan - sorry to ignore Lee Chong Wei here, but Super Dan played an awesome match in the final. I would never say Chong Wei did not perform, but Lin Dan performed exceptionally well!

6. Tennis - Rafael Nadal - congratulations to the newly crowned world number one - best match was with Novak Djokovic - this was really more the gold medal match than the other one with Fernando Gomez.

7. Weightlifting - you would not believe I would watch this, but not only myself, but countless other armchair TV addicts during the olympic season loved weightlifting. My favourite lift? The chinese lady who said she can, and shattered the world record. I cannot remember her name

8. Soccer - playing under the 42C temperature for the final - congraulations to both Nigeria and Argentina!

9. Cycling - Road racing all the way to the great wall of china. Fantastic route and challenge.

10. Marathon - And... the finale, one up for the marathon woman - Constantina Tomescu (38 years old!!!!)
Congratulations and I did watch both the men's and women's marathon. What impressed me was despite the contrast of the two events (womens was in the rain, mens was quite hot), I was humbled by these representatives who really battled themselves to the finishing line - it was inspirational to see the TV broadcast showing numbers up to 60-70 and up to the end position, despite the winner has probably already gotten tired of running their victory lap. It signifies the effort and the triumph of the marathon, and the human spirit.

With this, I hope to have the same inspiration 4 years later from London 2012.

Great show, Beijing.

Fired up over fireworks... MIFC - Spain!

2008-08-25T01:49:00.000+08:00

To the nicely choreographed soothing music and numb knees, three precious hours of standing and the nasty rain cutting into the routine, fireworks has never been so beautiful against the Putrajaya sky.

The photographer, however, needs to improve her amateur status ...

The KL Rat Race - Master Stroke!

2008-08-21T01:06:00.001+08:00

Euphoria could not describe my young team's first ever "medal" win of the KL Rat Race.... And how better more to do the master stroke at the crown jewel event of the corporate world!

The Rat Race this year was a lot more subdued probably due to the issues at Bursa earlier of the month for the system failure, the poor performance of the local share market, and the low sentiment of the economic impact from the US sub prime issues.

The usual suspects in the CEO race was not there, and the large RHB team in the past was eclipsed in all areas, including the podium finishes, when the CIMB team upstaged the competition this year. Even Digi, who sent in the largest contingent this year, with 10 teams were subdued in moderate white polo tees with yellow lining, and the two yellowmen and the mobile toilet Celcom PowerTools folks did not seem to really push the atmosphere.

Or maybe, in my 6 year to support the Rat Race (Ran 4 of them, and supported 2 of them, this year with the honor of "choosing" the team and being a back seat driver!), I felt a satisfaction of bringing a team and driving them to achieve a 2nd place finish, and also I finally felt a different sensation - one of a great team at work, charged, and delivering in high performance, and I no longer need to be in the active driver seat.

Congratulations to the team, if you work for it, if you dream it, you can achieve it. The "secret" is that there is no "secret" but to do the best and enjoy the journey.

Don't be surprise the competitive blood is in me that I would like to "qualify" for the Rat Race next year, as we will dream of yet another way to win. What spirit!

Photo - Candid on one of the CEO reps - This looks like a Usain Bolt action, looking behind on the last bend to see if any competitors coming

Amateur Photographer

2008-08-14T18:50:00.001+08:00

Can you imagine, after two years and still an amateur photographer?

Dusted my camera recently over the spate of activities, and had taken it out to three separate outings as an amateur photographer, the first was company outing at Lumut which I was the lead organiser, the second the company badminton tournament and the third, the KL Rat Race.

Read on for later posts of these events.

Photo : Since I am in the photo with my camera, obviously I did not take this photo! My comment was that all "semi-pros" and "pros" photographers have a blog or facebook photo with their face partially covered by the camera. The logic was that the camera was an important identity, but most photographers shy away from the camera themselves. That started my attempt during the weekend company trip away where there were MANY DSLRs to take the opportunity for SOMEONE to take that "semi-pro" shot... so... nice or not? Now to take some good photos to post together with my "author" shot...

My parents read my blog!

2008-08-14T11:52:00.000+08:00

I would like to welcome my mum to cyberspace, officially! She read my blog! I will need time to recover from this shock ...

Well, seriously, this short entry is specially dedicated to my parents - for which raising me to who I am now, and I feel humble and honored at the same time to be trying to be now in return teaching you about the things such as internet which the opportunity was never available to both of you back then.

With the internet, satellite TV, CNN, online newsfeeds, SMS alerts, we are in a world of information and opportunities aplenty to use or enjoy the knowledge brought about by these sources. Let us hope that we continue to use this information wisely and enable the next generation to prosper further from knowledge.

Ancora Imparo* - I am still learning ...

*latin motto of Monash University, my alma mater

Let the Games begin ... 08 08 08

2008-08-12T23:21:00.001+08:00

Photo - from Business Week

Only China can stage the Olympics opening ceremony in the way they did on historic 08 08 08 at 8 08 pm...

Suffice to say that I am so incredibly impressed, and upset as well that I could not get to see the repeat - I was at Lumut for an offsite meeting and community office event - and sneaked off the post dinner activities to snuggle in the karaoke room on and off, and waited for the opening ceremony lighting of the Olympic torch.

And it was well worth the wait.

Li Ning, 4 times gold medalist for China, and a balding 40+ year old entrepreneur now, was hoisted up via suspension ropes to the stadium walls, after being passed the olympic flame, and proceeded to simulate a run through the stadium walls - a sight to behold - no runner could contain the delight of seeing the amazing choreography which showed the impression of Li Ning running magnificently against a spotlight on the stadium walls (when he was just being swung around and swaying his legs simulating a run) whilst a scroll unfolds, depicting the history and culture of China. And finally to the torch, which had been erected minutes before, and lighting a fireworks path which traversed to the torch and lit to flames...

Let the Games begin...

Note - I am indeed a pure sports fan surprising to some people - I was so impressed with the road race cycling (yup, I aim to own a bike by end of year), enthralled by the weightlifting (eh, how come they are so muscular and still so light in weight...), waiting always to see our badminton boys, pinpoint impressed by archery, even watched rowing skulls... (no time to blog!)

The mountain, my inspiration, my bogeyman

2008-07-29T00:25:00.002+08:00

My second trip up Mt Kinabalu last week is by far most memorable, and with a slight tinge of regret of not conquering my bogeyman again, the summit trail. The story behind the decision I made whilst sitting in the dark on a long table at Gunting Lagadan a un-heated cabin, staring at two empty bottles, cold, damp socks, not finding a basin to throw up and having that silly altitude headache and everyone asleep ... well, that is a long story. Suffice to say, I had my laziness strike at the wrong moment, and that sitting in the dark and in the cold slows my willpower and makes me wonder why I wanted to try the summit another time in suffering ...

The last time I did the Mt KK trip, about 3 years ago, on Merdeka weekend, I did the peak, and for a good 1 year, I never wished to step near any mountain again! Instead I discovered a world of peak fitness, spurred by the KK trip, and my encounter with KC and his group, and subsequently Rat Race, and my rediscovery of the passion of running. I never looked back.... and what a great 3 years it has been. There were many ups and downs, but for health, my passion in sports, my running career, has taken me from Rat Race to 10k to 21k, multiple 21ks, and finally the Marathon this year. And I decided on a spur of the moment to take on KK again.

I related to my team, who made the trip worth it, that the sunrise was overrated, the Timpohon trail was easier, but no one listened, instead, I am quite proud of those who conquered the odds, braved the elements, and enjoyed the real test of endurance KK brought.

I encountered by bogeyman again, travelling to the summit, and not shy to say I did not make it because on the spur of the moment, I did not want to push myself. Instead I discovered something more real and valuable about the trip - that it was fun to travel at ease, with great company, simple pleasures and when doing the same thing again, makes a difference with the company.

My souvenir for the trip, a deep gash in my elbow, still healing, and my knee is still recovering, although not in pain, but getting up is not as easy as it used to be.

As age catches up, I have that sudden thought, would I dare to venture Everest base camp next year?

And the next question quickly comes to mind, what is stopping you?

40% Effort, 40% Willpower, 10% Science, 10% Technology ... and a heart for glory

2008-07-14T18:30:00.001+08:00

This was quite an interesting conversation. It was about our upcoming trip to Mt Kinabalu, done on a one month preparation. I would rank my fitness level and readiness about middle of the pack despite I have run races for a while. Climbing is certainly a different set of muscles... However in terms of Effort, Willpower, Science and Technology, I think I would rank top 3!. Effort because I do believe in training, Willpower because I am an endurance runner first before a climber, Science - I've discovered Phiten (http://www.phitenmy.com/), and Technology - the walking stick I have from China and my trail shoes....!!!

Three years ago, I had not participated in any races, and I climbed Mt Kinabalu, with about 3-5 months of training on and off. This time, I believe I have more of willpower, effort, science and technology to counteract the lesser time for training.

Above all, I believe I have the "heart for glory"....

Anyway, another story here - I saw a malay lady, she was panting up the stairs at Batu Caves last saturday. I was on my 4th round, but almost starting to feel the pain at the calves. She stopped, and I decided to strike a conversation with her to lepak a little. She asked whether I was going to KK, and I replied, yes, next week. I asked her when she is going, she said, in October. Then she told me, she is 54 years old (she looks like mid 40s only) and she was loaded with a backpack and adequately dressed for training. She asked me how old I was, and whether I thought she can make it to the top. I said - "I think you can". She had the "heart for glory" and I knew I inspired her when I said that without hesitation! (She even took a photo with me...). The next thing I knew, she was on round 2 and 3, even though she said she will only do 1 round.

See you at the top!

Siemens 10km Run - what are you running for?

2008-07-07T00:30:00.001+08:00

The theme of this year's Siemen's Run is quite cool - What are you running for? I thought about it before the race when I read the info of the run and I guess I did not have a real answer, the closest I would have would be ... I am running for "life".

Running has always been pure fun, and for someone with a non-athletic background or family or physique like myself, this has been my personal achievement, and puts a whole meaning of being alive and healthy.

I had not run for a proper race since the Sundown Marathon, this means almost 1month+. How time flies... the only running I've done is in the gym, and from 2-6km only. However, this 10km was not competitive to me, but still I felt an urge to "do well" because it was ... only 10km... heheh, kiasu. Caveat was that I did Batu Caves stairmaster training yesterday, and my calves was a bit painful...

It was good to meet a few good friends on the race this time, some of my colleagues (about 6-8 of them!) who did not run often, or first timers, came by, Wai Fun and Lee San came with their friend Liew (who was a familiar running face), and I saw KC, Tey, Boon and some of their friends.

This was a well organised race, high turnout, good atmosphere, water stations every 2 km+, a band to send you off, and a lot of cheerleaders on display the last 500m. I ran a pretty slow but comfortable race, and did think that I had a personal best, unfortunately was told it was under-distanced. But, for charity, and all the fun, and for a comeback race for me to running - loads of fun!

Next race? Maybe Penang Marathon if CM Lim Guan Eng can get the funding act together...

My calves still hurts ... this is so strange ... I used to have sore thigh muscles after any race, but from the sundown marathon onwards, I've lost that, is it my running stance? Now my calves hurt doubly due to the race and yesterday's training... hmmm

Hiking to Wangsa Hill / Pak San / Bukit Putih

2008-07-07T00:02:00.001+08:00

Runners are asking, so how have you been since the great marathon attempt? The truth is, I've been over-resting! And also, a new challenge came up, and I've decided to do some cross-training over the last few weeks.

This was from a hiking trip last weekend to Pak San @ Wangsa Hill @ Bukit Putih, a surprise little hideout near Taman Cuepacs, somewhere I could not describe how I got myself to. As it is, Cheras itself is unknown territory to me...

The trip is a preparation for our July 20-24 trip to Mount Kinabalu. This will be my second climb of the tallest mountain in Southeast Asia, and not looking down upon this attempt, some last minute training is needed. Actually, this was a last minute suggestion hatched up over an abalone meal, where one of my colleagues decided that eating abalones was too rich despite it being a milestone dinner occasion for that project, and he felt he had to work himself harder for his next target. Me, I'm just in for the ride...

Anyway, back to this Pak San. It was no simple feat. The mountain has levels, we were probably up to Level 6 and then came down. Apparently there is Level 7 and the summit, but my team did not know how to get there. This thing about Levels is almost like those computer games, you battle battle and then you reach the next level... or rather like learning kung-fu...

In any case, we did spend about 3.5 hours there, went up the 6 levels and at level 5, detoured off to a waterfall off the path, which turned out to be a tiny regretful moment, as the detour descended sharply, and that meant, we had to climb back up from the waterfall before proceeding to descend fully.

My calves never recovered from this hiking activity. Furthermore, I sustained an injury to the ball of my feet, as the shoe just cut into my skin, causing a deep bleeding blister which hurt all the way down, as it scraped against the same edge of the shoe. When I got back to the car, I had a 50c coin equivalent blot of blood on the sock, and the whole week it took a long time to heal as it was a common area where any shoe will rub against.

Surprisingly, I loaded my backpack with my DSLR, whom I've ignored for almost many months... so there you go, a few pictures to share here.

Pic 1 - Level 3 - there, you know when you reach each level
Pic 2 - Selamat sampai ke atas Bukit Putih Stesen 3
Pic 3 - A bit of fresh green vegetation
Pic 4 - I almost grabbed this thorny tree crossing one of those fallen trunks. Teaches one to check what you are reaching out for... yes those are thorns...
Pic 5 - Tiny waterfall and some bit of wading and cooling for the sore feet, which was put to a more severe test climbing back up. Not worth it!!

Supporting the KL Rat Race for the 5th year...

2008-06-18T01:29:00.000+08:00

I think it has been 5 years. 3 years I ran in the Rat Race, and 1 supporting as photographer. This year, the inaugural Rat Race will be on 19 August 2008.

I called myself motivational coach last year, and doubled up as a photographer (albeit a lousy one!) on race day.

This time around, I have only one target (and I don't need to run the race) - this year, I want to get two prize positions (top 3 only.. geez - this is a pretty high target!) . One in the team event, and one in the CEO race. Forget about cheerleaders (can't beat the cool Yellow Man last year), forget about costumes (can't beat the real corporate folks like Nestle, Ikea, UEM, etc who has money...) - two teams, two CEO reps and two prize positions.

I am a lousy coach, not a great runner, so this year, lets see how good a strategist I am.

And then on race day, I will be the photographer again, heheh...

The Running Alternative to Driving...

2008-06-04T23:13:00.000+08:00

Coming back from an overseas first marathon at Singapore must've set my kiasu factor on... it was quite worth it as my tank was almost dry...

It just went to queue for 20minutes for petrol - the price hike is on at midnight tonight, when RM 2.70 per litre sets (currently at RM 1.98 per litre).

Now, would anyone consider running or biking to work? Would anyone consider to change jobs to save petrol cost of travel?

Post-post marathon post-script : For strange reasons, my body recovery for the marathon is so much better than even a 10km race - within a couple of hours, it was just some minor thigh muscles ache, I was even on heels and away to work the next day without much hesitation. It is either I am a night creature or I'm a real sucker for extremes, I hope I can remember what else I must have done differently...

Sundown Marathon postscript

2008-06-02T13:24:00.000+08:00

Some pictures taken by my non-running buddy who was in Singapore with me and saw me off at the starting line... (notice all the pictures are DARK). Obviously I miss our friendly malaysian race photographers, and the pacesetters photo on cert thing...

Pic 1- Odyssey premium service bus - going was a long journey due to friday traffic, but coming back was ok.

Pic 2 - Collected the race pack (ok, the pack had nothing much except one t-shirt, a customised number tag, and a bottle of mineral water and hundred plus). Carbo loading at Mandarin having my favorite chicken rice at Chatterbox (using carbo loading as an excuse, heheh)

Pic 3 - My sundown customised tag - they gave you a means of name you want printed on the tag and a new chip system - it was just a RFID string with a transmitter wired to the back of the tag.

Pic 4 - Sundown comes, midnight arises, getting ready for the race

Pic 5 - Warming up for the race - why does nobody warm up? I was a bit surprised that there were tons of participants (4000 I was told!) and yet, everyone was SITTING around. I had a bad feeling this was one of the marathon techniques I was not aware off... (or is it a singapore thing?)

Pic 6 - See, sitting around even for those at the first of the line. They must understand the pain and conserving energy...

Pic 7 - Go-go-go

My first marathon was an away trip - to Singapore, which revealed a whole new world of running to me and the 42km finisher tag - priceless..!

The race started in humid 12midnight the ungodly hour when everyone is getting ready to sleep. I was fortunate to have booked the hotel next to the race starting point at the last minute over the internet. It was a simple 5 mins walking distance away.

I had no strategy, but I carbo loaded dinner, breakfast, lunch and dinner before the race, drank lots of water to hydrate my body, slept the afternoon to rest, and brought along 4 packs of powerbar gels.

At the starting line, my first surprise was that, there were A LOT of people! Wow, Singapore is a really fit city (I will find out more later!). There was no way I could look for my colleagues (4 of them were running) or others I knew who were running this race. I did find KJ at the starting line and we started together, at the 5hr marker.

The starting was really cool, but eventually we were chaperoned off to a side of the road walkway even at the start, this became a congestion traffic point (CONGESTION at a MARATHON?). It also made me dizzy when I see so many runners stomping all around me...

0-10km - This was all the way around some flat pancake road, along changi, all the way somewhere to the civil airbase. The airport road was really really long (nothing like RMAF) - planes booming along the runway (and the passengers probably looking out and seeing these ants at midnight+... (we were wearing the shiny glowing concert band thing!)

11-20km - The east coast park was a bit more windy, and a nicer place to run. Although at some point there were people having picnics and all on the side, it was a strange distraction. At 20km there was a turnback, so along here I saw the other two of my colleagues - KH and SA, on the other side. I was still running ok.

21-30km - The unknown territory begins at this point as I had not run beyond 21km in my poor preparation. I was still going quite well, and at 21km, I was around my usual 21km run pace, but body still feeling good and legs feeling ok, at this point I knew I could make it to the finish. It was all a countdown from here. This part was the most weird route of the race, it went through a few overhead bridges, many park connectors (ie running next to people's house in lanes), and some weird smaller pathways. I lost a bit of momentum here, as there were many people walking, some of them even block the path.

31-42km - The countdown, and also halfway, last hour, it started to rain. It was a real motivation for me to run faster. At this point, I was surprised my feet were just numb, but no cramps, aches or anything and really jogging was much more comfortable than walking. The finishing last 2km, I almost walked it, except for last 1km, when you know you will finish, you kind of slack off... but... what a feeling - the finish arch was ... euphoric, I ran like 100m speed the last 50m!

Some comments :

1) Singapore vs. Malaysia - a couple of things - Malaysians will never sign up with such fervor for a marathon. But, as I expected, there were still many Singaporeans who were not really experienced athletes (ie they were walking much of the race beyond 10km or same pace as me). I was wondering where singaporeans run and train since there was not much space. I realised during the run there were these connectors pathways between apartments... The other thing I wondered was about warming up and this sitting down thing - most sat around the starting line - is this a new technique?

2) Route - What the heck are bridges doing in a run? I think I did about 4 bridges, I cannot remember. One even had stairs... and the final little bridge one lane to the finishing area ... But kudos to some lone person cheering you in the middle of the night in weird nooks and corners, at least won't get lost, and also they had toilets along the way.

3) Carbo loading, hydration, gels, socks - I cannot underestimate the value of these three factors. Beyond 21km, I felt good enough to go for another 21km, due to these three factors, and the socks and shoes are important to avoid blister and have a good run

4) Chaffing, Pain and Post Race - The only comment I had post race was - I now know what is the reason why you need vaseline to avoid chaffing (during shower after run). The other was that extended pain can be avoided with good anti-inflammation cream, warm up and I am an advocate of powerbar recovery drink.

I am not sure when I will run a marathon again, but you can be sure I will be better prepared... ! For the record, I ran for more hours than I usually sleep - this is an achievement! Thanks to all for the motivation.

Sundown Marathon 42km Finisher

2008-06-01T21:41:00.000+08:00

I did it! My first marathon run completed at Sundown Marathon in Singapore - this morning! I did not sleep the whole night. The feeling is, ecstatic. Every km beyond 21km was a new zone to me, I freely admit to not advocate my not enough training approach. But, with a bit of careful treatment, carbo loading, gel packing, pacing, and the night race, I finished my first marathon despite not a great timing, but I fully enjoyed this race.

It is a question of sufficient preparation and eventually, mind over matter, and now I fully understand why the experienced runners are addicted - "pain is temporary, quitting is forever" - I saw this on one of the runner's shirt.

Let me savor this for a moment ... will write a proper race summary and some photos later.

RMAF 10km - 25 May 2008 - better late than never

2008-05-25T11:13:00.003+08:00

Many thanks to mr tey for the photo, very gemuk but funny that i am smiling all the way to the end from this funny rmaf run...

I had signed up for this race a couple of weeks back, in the 10km category, in anticipation that I may wish to race for Sundown next week and needed a bit of rest (more on that later...).

There is always a first for any race. I had done a DNS before (Did not start), never wish to do a DNF (Did not finish), but this was a LTS (Late to start!!!) - my first start late race!

Looking back, I can actually see how funny it is, but I was really close to giving up and driving back. I had surfed around the net looking for directions to parking for this run since two days ago, and failing to do so, I set off at around 6am, and reached around the Sungei Besi airbase area in around 10-15 mins. My first mistake was not able to get onto the partially blocked slip road, and ended up on the SMART highway lane. So, I headed to KL and turned back. Second attempt following some small signboards, ended up in a blocked slip road, the cop asking me to go go ahead. And I ended up in Cheras direction, turning back, another block, and the cop asking me pusing balik. By then it was almost 645. After pusing balik, found the road to the airbase blocked off, but this time, there were about 5 cars also trying to inquire. Finally seeing how there was less than 5 mins to starting, I moved ahead and parked like about 750 m from the turn off. And ditched all the gadgets and ran to the turn off, only to find a man directing further ahead the entrance to the airbase. And ran to the entrance, almost 7am flag off time, only to have the man in the entrance telling me to run forward for a BUS!!! What the ****?? By then, I was almost running pace, had run almost 1km+, and got onto the bus, together with a handful of similar fated persons about 8 persons, and the bus waited for a minute or two for stragglers. And as the bus moved to the other end of the airbase, the bus driver pointed to the airbase and said, hey, the category C,D,E,F is flagged off, there they are running on the airway, maybe you should get down and just join!!!! It was not funny.... :-)

We took the bus all the way to the starting point being pure sports-people. And there we were, after alighting from the bus, squeezed past the barricade of the next flag off category, to jeers and cheers of bunch of army men, and me and 3 other guys quickly sped off, where the last of the category E/F people who were walking were almost 3/4 off the airbase runway. So we were about slightly under 10 mins late all in....

The good news was that, the late start made me so concious that I did not want to be last. Paced with veteran C3167 Syed Ahmad (who was in the late bus!!!) who told me he ran in last week's race, and he was furiously also trying to catch up after parking far away. We looked really weird trying to potong these young kids starting to catch up almost at the end of the runway (about 1km+) - these kids were walking, and me and this veteran malay man was furiously running the runway to catch up. It was almost weird also because C3167 ended pacing throughout the race with me, finished almost the same time, and the first 3-4km, I almost felt strange, he was running faster than kids who were probably less than 1/3 his age, and I was in my blue Singapore Marathon souvenir vest looking really out of place among the kids dressed in the event t-shirt and most of them were Malay. So I look like some SPG running with an older man... ahem.

To be honest, this was one of my best 10km for the year - I ended up clocking about 1hr 6m in a pretty comfortable run - but the master clock was flashing 1hr 45 for the half marathon runners when I finished - this means we were about 9 mins late (the half marathon started 30 mins ahead). And pour salt into wound, there were few runners in 10km category, and I missed medal position number 50 by 2 persons in front of me!!

Note - Finally found a hill more nasty than double hill - the one at the back of Kuen Cheng school, where the Chinese cemetary's are. Yes, we ran past almost 2km of chinese cemetary. At one point, I joked to one of the girls that it gives you more motivation to run faster since both side of the road was lined with cemetaries. She said, well, if you dont disturb them... but well I said, huge stampede of runners waking the dead up early in the morning... heheh.

Funny episode, and good run, glad I went and still persevered despite being late. Now, come to think of it, the runway looked pretty short....

And I had to hike another 1.5km back to the car... (making this a 13km race? haha!)

Antara Anyer dan Jakarta

2008-05-22T23:48:00.003+08:00

Song name - "Antara Anyer dan Jakarta" - Sheila Majid

I received a SMS from Hendra today that he was meeting with one of my ex-client team members, GPU. Hendra used to work for me in a bank merger project in Jakarta - I was there in 1999. It brings back a lot of memories. Hendra would not have messaged me if he did not have the same flashes of deja vu - meeting with people from the past... this was one of the good project experiences I had in my career in consulting. After all, there were very few of us who has these fond memories still around the same company.

How time has passed ... It was a time when I was still young, impressionable, motivated. I headed out to Jakarta during the period when Megawati was elected president. The previous election shed blood and many did not want to go to work at Jakarta at that time. I was just promoted at that time and was eager to "take on new roles". I was promised to lead a technical team, and my "friends" - colleagues I was close to was going for the project. It was led by a good charismatic leader. The team had already been there for a while to build the merger plan. It was time to implement the plan.

This was my most memorable project. When I went there, I was given a pager. The pager was a security device which the firm subscribed to using a security consultant. The pager provided key information to tell you when to run or when to stay put, it also had different levels of security alert.

But I found the country very friendly and safe. I actually really liked the people, the client and found a lot of comfort in the environment. I "co-led" a fun team, a small 6 person team which managed the technology integration aspects - in my final role - I was a one person leading about 20 men in rollout teams. Thinking back, this must have indeed been very challenging for a chinese female like me then. My co-team manager was an easy going local - he is still around the firm. My client manager was a steady individual, who drew a lot of strength from my input. We got along very well and I was a good trusted advisor. I presented in Indonesian to the CIO twice. We rolled out 20 branches, and in one incident, we were locked in a branch overnight due to security issues outside. I was driven around by a driver who was a standard norm in indonesia. My driver smuggled durians into my apartment for me when I asked for the "best durian" in Jakarta. I slept in a room with 15 other females during a "client away" trip. During our weekends we would go to Puncak (the hillsides) for some jagung bakar. I created a reusable warehouse for recycling equipment. I worked in that warehouse which was small size of two conference rooms, underground, with about 20 smoking men all the time. I had the worst rollout incidents in this project - all things went wrong at one time that it was 2 nights of sleepless nights before we were able to go off. I regret that I left in a hurry, because after that I left for another offshore project in Taiwan.

The Sheila Majid song Antara Anyer dan Jakarta still hangs in my memory of those days. Not because of any love story (thats what the song is about!), but the experience and the people whom I met, and that I never went back there for the last 9 years - I said I will be back but I never did... it brings back a lot of memories.

And the best thing was, I did go to Anyer. One day, a few of us asked our driver to drive from Jakarta to Anyer and to the corner of Java island, took a ferry to Sumatra and back. It was just another town at that time, but when I heard the song, I knew the meaning will always ring in my head as long as I remember the good old days then, the camaraderie of friends and long lost acquaintances. I cannot remember all my team members, but there are a few HP, ESS, GPU, AW - these are my clients who were mad enough to be with me on that journey.

I hope I can say again, I will be back. I miss those good old days, and respected all of the people I was with then.

New Balance Pacesetters 15km 18 May 2008

2008-05-19T00:30:00.003+08:00

Thanks Tey for the photo. What was I looking for, I looked quite tired! I hope I did my big smile for the camera cert... heheh

This was my second NB 15km race. The first one I did in 2006, whilst last year, I skipped it due to illness.

I've never felt so good about a race for almost a long long time. I had really not run for about 2 weeks+, not even in training, drowned in work and also this nasty lingering cough. I skipped the 30km night race last week, and decided to pull out of Sundown on the same day last week due to lack of practice.

Today's race went quite well, even though I was almost 6 mins worse than my time in 2006. I could not tell if it was just the standard decline in my performance in running (as observed in all the races!), or it was just the change in route. This year the route was indeed a bit more challenging due to the teasing ending but not yet when there was almost about 2 km more towards the end near Padang Merbuk, and the last 1 km, we had to do the KTM loop which is a nasty hill which punctured everyone.

This year's race also saw a unique medal - in shape of a NB shoe!

I surprised myself with a consistent pace, and I throughly enjoyed my new found toy, my ipod shuffle with a mix of silly chinese songs (Twins!) and real rock stuff from Eagles, INXS. My collection of MP3s in iTunes were a mixture of CDs I had ripped from a few occasions, with equal mix of chinese and english titles.

All in, I had a good continuous running pace, with only and yet only the 2nd hill of the double hill and also the final KTM bit which taxed me and forced me to a walk. My knees felt fine and I had no blisters and I did not push myself to the limit at the end to manage my own exertion.

This run is my post-retirement run. I could make it a comeback run, but I am still not sure. Now I am indeed tempted to go and try the Sundown just for the heck of it, but as I told SCH this morning, the problem I had was that I did not know how to quit and stop. Having never encountered injury and also immense body stretch of a marathon, I would have no idea when is the breaking point.

This is coming from one who has not hit the wall before. So how would I know unless I try.... still... I cannot imagine being carried off to a hospital in singapore all because I wanted not to waste my SGD 50 for the race fees...

Think about it for one more day.

Weekend Deja Vu with Australia @ Hunteroos Race

2008-05-14T00:12:00.000+08:00

I have not blogged for a while. Almost 2 weeks plus ... Perhaps to refresh my POV and blog status, I thought I'd restart with the lighter side of things. Last weekend we participated in the Australian Hunteroos Race. Almost very excited to be going for another "treasure hunt" after the last disappointment with the Trailblazer's Race, we were all gung-ho and arrived at 3 Kia Peng all eager.

Firstly, this was not a treasure hunt but more an Amazing Race. Secondly, it was the most well sponsored "race" we had ever encountered. They served breakfast, provided T-shirt and caps, started the race at 9am (which is unusually late), and had wine, beer, and huge lunch served, even with Angel Hair pasta.

I played the didgeridoo (what?) for the first time (see Pic1-that is not me). Yeah, that australian aborigine music pipe. Me, running with a nasty cough was huffing and puffing all my saliva into the **** pipe and some young punk telling me, you have to loooose your lips and "blow softly" do not need to take hard puff. Just try just try... after like 20 times on the "didge", I was almost annoyed that he was not even looking at me when I made some almost music sound. Finally out of pity of this bronchitis sounding participant (me), he finally said, one last attempt and I will see, and in my final puff, he gave the the points. I cannot believe I would pay to do this!

We all got a chance to do the Flying Fox for the first time in the KL Tower (see pic 2). I heard of a reverse bungy, but never knew they equiped the tower with a flying fox from AJ Hackett the bungy experts. Well, the Flying Fox cost almost RM 30, and I would have not paid to do it if on my own, as it was a short distance, but as part of the race... greaaat! What was really disappointing was that I leap off the stand, had a real good relaxing swing down, posed for the camera, and MISSED the "trump card" extra point kangaroo shirt man standing next to the camera-man!

Lastly, as another part of the race, we had to eat a slice of Emu and a slice of Kangaroo, not knowing what was each and identify one or the other. Mr JS ate the entire Emu happily without sharing and we were in such a disappointed state that we had a pretty good time kidding ourselves and convinced the organiser to give us another piece to try. Well, it is indeed the first time I probably tasted Emu but maybe I had eaten kangaroo meat before. It wasn't too good to share these "endangered" national animals of australia as toasted meat for the participants... especially with a team who calls themselves Skippy (us) (the Australian bush kangaroo, according to Ms JS).

That was the weekend for me, got home flustered from over-excitement in the earlier part of the race, some disappointment mid of the race, and a full stomach end of the race.

But, kudos to sponsors. Just not too happy with organisers for some "flaws"...

Life is a one take movie

2008-04-29T23:11:00.000+08:00

Just feel a bit low today. One Kilkenney beer and it still did not solve the problem. And truthfully, I have only myself to blame. Anyway, its one of those days, I am bogged down by too many worries at work, I have been on panadols every other day for the last 3 weeks+, wish to not have any more instant noodles, wish for more than 3 hrs of sleep, not feeling worn down and just plain not be bothered by the fact that I am not able to respond to things I need to do.

Life is a one take movie. One of my old friend's mother passed away on Sunday. I did not manage to attend the wake. Since when did I have friends with parents who pass away? The first thing that hit me was that I am really getting old. The second thing which hit me is that I really hope she had a peaceful and fulfilled life, which I am sure she did. And when it comes to my time, what do I wish to see on my tombstone or recited at my wake? I feel very under-achieved in life and having lost so much time on useless worries.

The processor is really tired.

Social Business

2008-04-22T12:25:00.000+08:00

Book introduction excerpt here
I bought this book over the weekend. I read it last night, the first two chapters - the prologue and the introduction, albeit having one of those incredibly exhausted days.

Muhammad Yunus is indeed a genius - a worthy receipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (together with Grameen Bank) in 2006. When the Nobel Peace prize winner was announced, I was a bit surprised to hear of this unknown man - such is the world of information and capitalism, that those worthy causes which do not generate profit and publicity does not gain much worldly attentions.

Here is a man who developed and built Grameen Bank, igniting the microcredit revolution, and at the same time, working on loans to poor women to conduct business and creating the social capability for them to lift themselves from the poor via small businesses. Loans were all less than USD 100 and yet it was capable to enable these women to be entrepreneurs and start new businesses for them to survive.

This book talks about a new idea which I found refreshing - social business. The idea of a social business is about a no profit, no dividend based business which seeks to address social issues ie. poverty, malnutrition (the example was contribution and establishment of Grameen Danone which provided yogurt to the poor in Bangladesh using a no profit scheme and at same time distribution channel of the Grameen women, enabling the poor to be part of the scheme).

The introduction itself was captivating, it addressed why World Bank, Governments, NGOs and Corporations with CSR intent was not able to address the social dilemmas but it required a new form of business called social business where these issues could be discussed.

A worthy read.

Beijing Olympics Torch Relay Fun Run - April 20

2008-04-20T12:28:00.001+08:00

Photo credits to Hon You, from pacesetters/KC's blog site.
Pic 1 : Sieh Kok Chi, Olympic Council, with supposedly an "original torch". Everyone was quite hyped to be standing so near the "torch". Apparently Sieh ran as well...

Pic 2 : Starting line for the run...
Pic 3 : Me, with some "pia" spirit at the end, trying to speed up to potong someone...
Pic 4 : My buddy Wai Fun, also most loyal to the Olympic spirit, greeted by the samsung supporters on blades.., she is not a regular runner, but bravo to Orange Run last week and Olympic Torch Fun Run this week - great achievement...
Pic 5 : The finishing line, a bit informal but quite rah-rah as well.

Location - Dataran Merdeka, distance, around 5.82km (as seen from pacemaker blog)

This was the fun run I was not about to miss. Although it was hardly advertised and boasted a distance of only 5km - this was a good and relaxing run and also a great spiritual run for me as I uphold the Olympics as the greatest sporting arena for the modern world.

Probably two lines of strict opinionated thoughts - the Olympic Torch Relay has been to many countries and disrupted many times by pro-Tibet or human rights activists on China's stand and treatment on the Tibet issue. I am, and I think very much all whom I know still stand strong on that the Olympics is a great sport - do not mix politics with the Olympics. The effort of the athlete and also the spend on staging the greatest event for 2008, and for Asia to hold this center-stage in Beijing, this itself is a testament of the meaning of sport. I support the Olympics meaning and uphold its principles, and this was what the fun run was for. I hope the real Torch Run tomorrow will not be disrupted, and from what was advertised, we are targeting 80 key Malaysians who has contributed to sports and sponsorships to take the 16.8km Torch Relay, starting at Dataran Merdeka and ending in KLCC.

Despite a small crowd, it was very heartening to see people of all ages, young and old, take on this race, have the spirit to wave the sponsor's flags at the finishing line and also having a great simple sunday run.

Footnote - As this was just a 5km run, and also incredibly unfit, I had a first hand experience in dashing to the finishing line. I was racing this girl, for the last 50m, and we "sayur" one other lady - in the end I lost to her, I think I was running like it was 100m race - it really brought a smile to me as it was just plain fun to put on the speed and run like no tomorrow, even if it is just to the finishing line. I wish I had run a bit harder along the way, I probably missed a medal (top 20 only) by one or two minutes, finishing around 39:00 min at very easy pace.

Two Days and Two Monuments @ Sydney on April Fool's Day

2008-04-17T23:55:00.000+08:00

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, site of fireworks every new years day...
Ah, I told you I was there for two days, this is the evidence. It was a great sunny day.

Magic turns people on....

2008-04-08T18:14:00.004+08:00

I guess you give everyone a bit of time and put them into dinner and dance fancy dress theme, they are very creative. Magic was the theme of the simple but magical dinner and dance last Friday. Photo credits from the photographers, Kok Leong, and mostly Chin Geh (whom I stole most of this post since I could copy it).

The wardrobe was a clear winner of the best dress event. The guy who can think of the weird and unique spend as little as possible, understand what is needed to socialise his idea of best dress is definitely a smart young man.

Men who put on eyeliner or body paint deserve mention as superhuman effort to try to look good and can spend some time on it. In today's society, this is also an exception...

There was evil and tail pulling amongst even my most goodie two shoes team members. Women who smile and chooses to dress as witches are suspicious. So are good guys who can look extremely evil under camera.

There was a bit of flesh baring as well... again women held their ground with nice flat tummies and the sex appeal won the day for the best performance event with a bit of belly dancing - eh when was that magical?

Whatever turns the younger generation on.... it was a fun night!

Trailblazers Hunt 29 Mar 2008

2008-04-04T01:37:00.000+08:00

This was the first treasure hunt for the year for our team. After announcing internally to my regular team that we should target to conquer the top 5 position this year, it was a slow start fro the treasure hunt season, thus finally in end March we got the chance to get onto this hunt. Of course the disadvantage was that the usual suspects of experts had already a few down their belt for the year, and were more fresh... and of course it was another CoC.

There were a few things at stake here, we agreed we would go for Kiwanis Hunt (which was quite expensive and some of us a bit tight on schedule), if we emerge top 15 and of course the standing promise that if we ever achieve our top 5 breakthrough I promised that after this "breakthrough", the next hunt after that I will drive my car for the hunt!

The bad news is that of course we messed up, and probably turned up more than the Kiwanis participation limit for the hunt, and did poorly in overall compared even to a team whom we know with two members who were our colleagues and were not regulars.

The good news (I'm ever optimist) is that I think we manage to break our thinking rhythm. We finally had some patience to figure out the sequence of what to be looking for and worked as a good team to find some of the answers. The only problem remains in that we had two weak areas - one was on treasures, and the other was not being careful to decipher and match the whole clue, causing us to drop a few route questions rather carelessly and figure out some of the difficult ones(!!).

So what do we need to do differently? I think we need to think about our approach clearly again, as definitely this was not good encouragement to be always hunting in the middle of the pack, and if we dont do something, nothing will improve.

One thing I noticed was how I was always told, treasure hunting is a sport. It is emphasised again and again by the experts. I do not disagree with this statement, but the beauty of this sport is that it is controlled by the brain. I know in my team, we have the capability to be the best because we have that capability within reach, whilst running a race really requires adequate conditioning of the body, conditioning of the mind was indeed more within reach than the body. But one thing I wanted to see more, in every sport, the most interesting thing is enjoyment, I do find the treasure hunt community to be a bit tight on themselves. To be honest, what is wrong about laughing about yourself or be more friendly after or before the race? Even during the race, nothing to stop you from giving the friendly competitor a bit of devilish smile. I find it odd that those who heckle the organiser are really the average joes, whilst the winners keep quiet and tense and hide their "interest".

Our time will come...

KLIM 2008 - The beginning of the end? Or the end of the beginning?

2008-04-04T01:15:00.000+08:00

Picture credits - Vincent Leong

Blogging in reverse, I admit I had a good race. My race strategy was to take it easy as I had a terrible week of being too busy, and a lack of good practice for the last few weeks except for weekly runs (thanks to our running SIG!). The most I've ran before the race was the Circuit Run #2 within the last month and the GE 20km for the last 2-3 months. In between we had some fun weeks racing in double hills. With the nasty dry cough, I was not certain I would run about a week prior to the race, and also with the week following which I had to travel to Sydney immediately after the run. In the end I did the race because I had sacrificed my sydney trip going earlier because of the run. Again, my race strategy was simple because I knew this year, the time is longer for half marathon, 3.5hrs.

Standing at the starting line, I cannot believe that after so many runs (3 KLIM half marathons!), and four half marathons last year (KLIM, GE, Penang, PJ) I had not managed to get rid of this butterflies in my stomach feeling when I step to the starting pen (kandang!).

The loop this year has changed slightly, I was disturbed by the change because after the initial loop around KL and back to the starting line in the beginning, I noticed a good 16 minutes had gone past! When I did not manage to reach the drinks station after running for 45 minutes (it was supposed to be at 5km), I started to get weary and slowed down. This was probably my mental self also checkpointing myself that I could push myself as I needed to travel later in the day. When I slowed down, before Federal Highway, PL and JS passed me.

Surprisingly TY passed me only much later, closer towards the Sungei Besi - he is a very steady runner - he paces himself well for his large build. At the Sungei Besi turn, I was shocked to find that I had approximately touched almost 1:30 something, and this was indeed bad news but my great mind thought, well I ran the extra 16 mins at the beginning. This was when I started to really slow down after 11-12 km, and did half of the remaining race half walk and run. I shuffled past two of my companie's younger guys after about 12km near Pudu, it was such a thrill I was not last!!!

Most enjoyable difference this year was indeed the Adidas rain showers at the Sultan Ismail last stretch, who cares if I had wet shorts or wet vest, it was a cool shower!!! When I made the end I was just around 3hrs, it was a disappointment for a runner to get worse year after year, but I was quite pleased with myself, nevertheless this was also a point for me to reflect - I think I want to give up the sport for next year if I go on this way. How am I every going to go for the marathon distance? I think about it and wonder if I have to get back to the basics or quit the sport.

Postscript - Tonight, I took a box and put in my half marathon finisher medal this year. I had in the box, a collection of medals from 10-21km races throughout the last two years+ when I started running. It is a great achievement, for a person who is not an athlete inborn, but every race I see great motivational people and people who want to stretch themselves, and every year, I get more of my team to join the race. Racing is a lonely sport - as you run against yourself, but one which you feel scared in the beginning, want to retire in the middle, and a great accomplishment in the end. People ask me what I think during races, this race I ran without headphones and MP3, guess what, I was just thinking of whose butt am I following. Perhaps this lack of sensible thinking is why I really enjoy myself!

What a long week!

2008-04-04T00:58:00.000+08:00

Phew, what a long week it had been.... and I have just gotten a small fragment of time to blog, but I do think the long week will not finally end until end of day tomorrow.

The week started the beginning of last week, when I had a roller coaster week, I was doing almost 5 different things every day / different critical things and projects related areas for the week. When I reached Thursday I was almost wiped out and I had even more on Friday. This is almost when I started to control my timing for the weekend.

Saturday - AM Trailblazer treasure hunt
Sunday - AM - Ran the half-marathon at the KL International Marathon, PM boarding a overnight flight to Sydney ex Singapore (with only 3 hrs sleep on the flight and some sore legs)
Monday - AM - reached Sydney hotel with 30 mins to spare before my training starts, PM visited a university friend whom I've not seen for many years
Tuesday - AM - day started at 8am, ended at 3pm. PM - went for a whirlwind tour of Sydney from Sydney Harbour Bridge/Opera House, boarding a ferry to Darling Harbour, visited the Sydney Aquarium, then had my Krispy Kreme doughnuts for dinner, and then a bunch of concalls
Wednesday - AM - day started with post office trip to send stuff to my brother in Melbourne, and then boarded a flight back to KL ex Singapore
Thursday - AM back to work, skipped both presentations I had, did lunch with client, and another bunch of concalls, a tender opening announcement, and finally to pick up costumes for D&D and camera equipment from brother at night.
Friday - D&D

And I am so completely drained... but I survived! I am not proud of this mad schedule, in fact if anything, I think it has finally cracked my need for speed.

When I was walking towards the pier in Sydney, on a bright Tuesday afternoon, in Sydney. I was really thinking, I need to quit this rat race. I had been coughing and suffering a lack of rest for the whole almost two weeks, and when I was walking towards the pier with a coffee in hand, with no hurry, I felt the world suddenly slowed, and I was walking down a road in sydney, going to see one of the most beautiful and famous sights in Australia. Why should I not be doing this more often? And for a good afternoon, I stopped coughing.

The soul is screaming for a rest!!!!

How Many?

2008-03-26T00:53:00.002+08:00

Somehow, no one understood the purpose of having multiple blogs. So, no one has asked me, how many blogs do I have? I actually have 5 blogs!!! (Wow!) - two is stagnant, one is for my dad but he never wrote.

Extreme Leadership - My leadership series which I am beginning to enjoy writing a lot more

This blog - My personal blog which I've started way back in 2003

My photo blog - The photo blog which was intended to parallel one I saw in a friend's post, but ran out of gas on photos.. may be reactivated in future

Wireless Trends - A defunct (and one day I may activate it again) blog also started in 2003

Sow a Seed of Greatness - Seriously, this was my birthday present to my dad, to setup a blogsite for him, but he never did write anything. The phrase is indeed the tagline of his work - at that time he was creating motivational quotes for people.

In the course of the five years of on and off blogging, it has been a pleasure to surf and view others' writings - blogging is indeed a phenomenon of the modern internet world!

With much thanks to all who has given feedback here and there, and to Michele for asking to put my leadership series up for view within the corporation whereby I have politely declined. My thoughts are that if I write for others to read, I report, but if I write for pleasure and with good intent, I blog.

Pre-Treasure Hunt Photo Trivia

2008-03-26T00:42:00.000+08:00

The brain has not been working well lately. I love it when I think that going for a treasure hunt will help it work faster... but well, one has got to try all sorts... Am definitely looking forward to jogging the brain cells a bit this Saturday.

I am a photography fanatic in a distance. What this means is that I have no patience to learn, but I do love good photos. Thus to bind together photography and treasure hunting, what else, here you go, photo-treasure guessing, well if it works I will do a series of ten, ok :

1. What is this? It is pictured next to my running watch for size purposes.

Hint : It has to do with the recent silence from a famous boy band from Taiwan who lost three members.

Answer when I feel like it, submit please

SMART Tunnel is not so smart after all

2008-03-24T17:29:00.000+08:00

Caught this in the Star, after my short cut from TPM to KLCC was found BLOCKED off this afternoon. What? I thought the SMART Tunnel was for rain? I smell a big fiasco cooking up ...

SMART tunnel closed until further notice
PETALING JAYA: The SMART Tunnel has been closed since 6pm Saturday for flood-mitigation works because of heavy rains, and its management is unsure when it will be re-opened.
Stormwater Management and Road Tunnel Sdn Bhd experts will meet Monday to determine when the tunnel can be reopened, a spokesman told The Star.
The company is a joint venture between Gamuda Bhd and Malaysian Mining Corporation Bhd.

We are First Among Equals

2008-03-20T00:09:00.000+08:00

Watch this space for more...

Blood Donation Restrictions

2008-03-19T00:15:00.005+08:00

Can you read it? Spotted... at TPM

Anda dinasihatkan JANGAN MENDERMA DARAH jika anda PERNAH...

- Melakukan hubungan seks :

> seks sejenis (homoseks)

> kedua-dua jantina (biseksual)

> bertukar-tukar pasangan

- Menjadi pelacur & melanggani pelacur

- Menghidap penyakit kelamin

- Menagih dadah & berkongsi jarum

WOW!!!!! (get it translated if you do not understand malay- this is really blunt!)

Encounter with an ADUN

2008-03-18T00:45:00.000+08:00

The housing area where my parents stay at recently has had a spate of petty thefts which is bordering on daring and also risky. The thieves uses a fishing style - they prey on open windows (even on upper floors of a double story house!), and also unlocked windows to pry open and use hooks to "fish" for valuable stuff. This has been ongoing nearly everyday or every other day for the last two weeks.

Last week there was a "steering committee" meeting for the representatives of the street. The steering comm was called to discuss actions to curb this. Surprisingly, the meeting was attended by the new ADUN from DAP (hey, everybody's ADUN now is opposition if you stay in the city!).

Guess what? One of the ADUN's suggestion to to rear a dog as an interim measure! Huh? What? (Even my dad was shaking his head when he related this to me!) - what kind of interim proposal is this!? I am beginning to wonder how "skilled" these newly voted ADUNs are ...

But, the message is still clear - we still need better security.

Class Act

2008-03-18T00:14:00.000+08:00

Never been so proud of the guys.

No ocean too deep, no mountain too high, no distance too far. We can take on anything you throw at us.

This is my young team who has proven, they can take on the challenges.