Featured in the Edge

I am nearly famous! My company's Rat Race team appeared in the Edge this week (published on 19 August), with a nice little writeup by the "team captain" - myself, heheh, at last some of my beautiful writing I am half capable of appears in print... !

Sometimes it is these cheap thrills that makes the race so interesting... Next week I will start to round up supporters... (oh what tough jobs team captains got to do, besides running in a team of macho men)... :-)

KC and his RHB buddies also appears on the same page ... (but of course due to my incapability to scan, am unable to display the entire page - go buy the edge now!).

See you at the race.

Mizuno Wave Run and Terry Fox Run - 17 Sept

Today, I rounded up two more persons who will do the following with me - Run the Mizuno Wave Run and then the Terry Fox Run, on the 17th September, back to back.

Mizuno Wave Run - starts at Padang Merbuk at 730am
Terry Fox Run - starts at Lake Gardens at 9am

Assuming at most I would take about 1hr-1hr 15 mins for Mizuno, I can probably get to finishing line, then run over to the Lake Gardens, and start the Terry Fox Run.

Total KM mileage to do this would be 10km + 6.5km. This is do-able lah. For the beautiful Mizuno t-shirt, it is worth it.

And two young runners to accompany me :-)

Now to get back to training.

The Ultramarathon Man runs 50 races in 50 days

Dean Karnazes, the Ultramarathonman is going to run 50 marathon races in 50 days.

This fall, the 43-year-old long distance runner will tackle one marathon a day for 50 consecutive days, running a total 1,310 miles in 50 days. And for each 26.2-mile race, Karnazes and his family of four will travel to a different U.S. state.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060816/od_nm/life_running_dc_4

Dean Karnazes was featured by KC's blog based on KC's review of Dean's book The Ultramarathon Man. Although I do not own the book, I was once tempted to race the San Francisco Marathon, which was hosted by Dean, in an interest to meet this crazy ultra marathon man.

Whilst I have yet to do even one marathon, imagine, this guy is 43 years old, so fit, and about to tackle the endurance test which has never been attempted before - in reality the body is able to tolerate the "abuse" but this has never been recommended before by most marathon training guides, which fousses on recovery after every marathon.

When is my turn?

Well, I am concious that with the current lifestyle I lead, I will not be able to attempt a marathon until I change the way work and live. Until then, I will settle for the half marathon again at least until next year.

Preparing for the Rat Race

I am so proud of my team! We are so ON! This photo was taken during last week's "practice session" - it actually took us longer to take the photos than to run the course. This is indeed a great achievement itself - that our Rat Race team is actually practising!!! We had a good time taking the photos, and really had a good laugh. Amazingly this was my second weekend "off", and now I am almost raring to go for races and races. Back to racing, yahoo!

Rat Race Team - Fear them - ok, give you a hint, three are members of Pacesetters (member only lah, does not mean they really run), two ran the KL International Marathon, two ran the PJ Half Marathon, two ran the Pacesetters 20km and one ran the 30km. Fear us !!!

Heh, heh, just for fun, scare the competition...

Back on track

It is good to be back on track! This is literally double meaning - back on track to blogging and also really back on track to running.

Yesterday was a first for me, I went all the way to KLCC park for a morning run - we were practising for Rat Race. Yes, this is indeed a rare occasion itself - my team is practising!!! The team this year has good spirit and is quite gung-ho about the occasion, and thanks also to my marketing manager cum old-school-mate friend, we round up a lot of enthusiasm in this event.

So, yesteday I got up earlier than all the workdays, was at KLCC at 730am which is already late for normal Sunday runners, but early for me :-o (as always).

We had a good simple easy run around 4 rounds (1.3km each) = 5.2 kms (Rat Race = 4.5km). This was a good bonding and easy start for us as running together meant we could chit chat, and this was the first time I had done so with my colleagues whilst running. Moreover I rarely see these guys, so it was good to just get a different group to run together. I also discovered more people who were picking up running competitively - this motivates me further.

We spent the cool down having breakfast at Lotus nearby, and hatched our plan to surprise the competition for the Rat Race :-). So watch out for Team Accenture... led by yours truly.

So this is my "back on track" plan :
1) Putrajaya Marathon - Half Marathon- hoping to be able to do this as my second half-m! We shall see, based on fitness levels...
2) Rat Race (4.5 km) - The event of the year. Watch out for Team Accenture, we will surprise you! Just hope it does not rain...
3) Terry Fox Run (5 km) - I am abandoning Mizuno Wave Run year 2 for Terry Fox - TF always has the atmosphere and enthusiasm which I always enjoy - a carnival like atmostphere not forgetting it is charity and lots of family goes for this, you can see dad's carrying kids and running too! Moreover this year it is sponsored by SF Coffee and my company's recreation club is specially urging us to go, so it will be a family day for my fellow workers as well.

See you there!

LDP

Leadership Development Program, Chantilly, Virginia 17-21 July 2006

Click here for photos link.

This was graduation class of the LDP, my last one crazy week with a crazy bunch of colleagues globally gathered together in Chantilly, Virginia (about 40 miles from Washington DC).

This session was a global session, all the various industry groups were present at this session.

Would you believe the kick-off dinner was at a airspace hangar? It was actually a hangar converted to a Air and Space Museum, and it was called... Hazy Center. They converted part of the area shown here in this picture to a bar area, where participants mingled, whereas the inside area surrounding the "space shuttle" prototype was where we had dinner! There we go, I really had dinner in a aircraft hangar...


And I had some wine too :-) .... hic hic... oh, and get used to these sort of pictures, it is so weird, we actually go for dinner in work clothes ... (everyday of the training)

Take Down

I have been very tired recently. Been on a trip to US and back within a week in a nightmarish 30+ hr trip to and fro, meaning I have flown for almost 3 days in a 9 day period (inclusive of both weekends).

My favorite word recently has been "take down". This is not taken to mean "take down" the photo from the wall, but of similar meaning. I use it for work in almost the same fashion as a CIA ops instructing snipers to shoot at a target. I refer to "targets", ie. the trouble ticket queue and instruct my team to "take down" the queue. This means to eliminate, shoot on target and get it out of existence.

I think I am REALLY tired, and my brain is definitely not functioning well.

Of course, I would like it to mean more of "would you like to take down my phone number"... "take down your garments..." Wait a minute, I am really tired, I am getting porno into my own blog...

A thing of beauty

I saw this photo in my yahoo front page and a link to a site on how to photograph fireworks, coming up to the 4th July celebration of Independence Day for USA.

The small thumbnail of the fireworks caught my eye and if you traverse to the link here, you would find good useful tips and magnificent artistry in photography.

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/how-to-photograph-fireworks/

I have always found photography to be very fascinating. The art of capturing a good photo is very satisfactory, and I continue to find that there are so many people who are so good at it that I am ashamed of my own limitations.

They say, a thing of beauty is a joy forever. It is a good photographers dream to be always chasing beauty.

Its a Rat Race again!

Footnote addition : The rate race has been postphoned to Sept 5th 2006. See you there! I promise you my team will bring to the race a surprise package!

In the midst of a very busy week, I received in my mail a couple of days ago, a request from my marketing manager to participate in the Edge Rat Race again this year.

The Edge, a leading business & investment weekly, hosts The Kuala Lumpur Rat Race on a yearly basis.

This year, the seventh year of the rat race will take place on Tuesday, 8 August 2006, after office hours. The race will cover 4.5 kilometers through the commercial heart of Kuala Lumpur. The CEO’s 1 km race will also be held simultaneosly.

I have the honor of becoming the team lead this year (due to my enthusiasm and early registration of interest to the new marketing manager :-)). In my "leadership" mission, I would greatly like to get the team to take pre-race publicity photos, dress up, and have more fun!!!

See you there, join if you have never participated before. This is the most fun race I look forward to every year, and last year, this was the catalyst for my interest back to running.

World Cup Fever

In midst of recuperating from Groundhog Day, the World Cup fever has taken over and I am relegated to being a couch potato.

David Beckham - incredible skills at free-kicks. However, I am not an England fan, and as proven, a league of superstars usually does not perform well. Nevertheless I have to admit, they got a very well rounded team and this is just their first match - got away with the 3 points.







Didier Drogba - this guy has style. Ivory Coast did well against Argentina, unfortunately losing the match hence having a slimmer chance of qualifying in the Group of Death. Definitely man of the tournament thus far for me, up to Day 3 currently of the World Cup.

Groundhog Day

Yes, I had disappeared from blogging for two weeks. There was a problem at work which required my full attention. We were almost 24x7 for a whole week of endless days, nights, SMS notifications three times a night on progress, weekends, and many levels of escalations. On the 3rd or 4th day (even I no longer recall), I would get in to work in the morning or at 9pm at night, glance at my fellow colleague in the same boat with me, and we knew it was another groundhog day. The same problem persisted and haunted us for almost 2 weeks. Luckily this was resolved last Wednesday and Groundhog Day ended.

What is Groundhog Day? It was a movie in the 90s starring Bill Murray. I saw it when I was much younger, but remembered the scenario - Bill Murray would wake up everyday and it was the same day again (he was a journalist covering a boring event called Groundhog Day). He would go through the same scenario, except that in some cases, he knew what would happen next. Eventually, he would woo the same lady again and again in different ways, until finally... Groundhog Day ends.

So, in the midst of our problems, I asked my colleague, how did Groundhog Day end in the movie? My colleague said - it ended when he (Bill Murray's role) found love. I moaned in disbelief when I heard that, but, well, improvisation was my speciality.

So, what I did was instead of finding love overnight, I proceeded to "spread the love". We shared the problem to our younger colleagues, got them involved even though it could not help much, but to just cut down on the burden on a few.

Eventually the problem did get resolved through our hard work in finding a solution. Though the love spreading did not directly solve the problem, it did in some magical way, help.

Loving is sharing, sharing is loving!

Sunset

Good photographers make good pictures or good pictures make good photographers?

I rarely have a chance to enjoy a good sunset, with so many late nights, so you can imagine my excitement when on my way back from an evening jog around my housing area, I saw the radiant sky awashed with a brilliant orange hue.

I quickened my step but had already missed the beautiful part of the sunset, and left the last 5 minutes. Nevertheless, what a beautiful sunset it is.

At times like this, I wish I could enjoy more sunsets, imagine, in our busy lives, if we see only one sunset one weekend, it is only 52 times a year. And that too, sometimes we miss the sunsets even on the weekends.

Moral of the story : Never let the moment pass by.

The Emotion Bank

Imagine a world without borders, a world where emotions can be saved and delivered. Can the internet deliver emotions?

I just had a brilliant idea.

I will create a virtual emotional bank account online. I will create an online site called emotion bank - EMO Bank.

Emo-bank will take only well wishes, deliver these to the target persons, offer subsciptions and gifts in form of wishes and physical gifts and maintain virtual balances on persons and friends.

Emo-bank is about good wishes and vibes and strives to keep everyones emotion deposits and withdrawals in check.

When you are angry, take a withdrawal of good vibes. When you are sad, emobank allows others to reach out to you. When you are happy and want to share your love, emobank allows you to express it to others.

Will you subscribe?
Would you join me in this venture?

New Balance Pacesetters 15KM Race

Picture : Alas, all this running can do my figure better... picture courtesy of KC.

My 6th race for the year is a 15KM run today. I was doubtful I would reach the end because of usual out of practice, but somehow again I did. The pattern of my races are in and out interleaving, meaning, in form and out of form. Today I took it pretty easy and was ran a relatively easy and relaxed race, although yesterday I was pretty spooked when I did the usual recon trip to check the race route - so many surprise "little" uphills - I think it took me 30 minutes itself to survey the route, so I was a bit apprehensive about running it!

Instead of race reporting, I thought I would point out the top ten interesting notes about the race.

1. Very good reception - the race was "crowded" - more so because there was only one category - 15km. Kudos to the Pacesetters for generating great expectations for the annual 15km race. From speaking to a few people, they look forward to these signature events.

2. Strong support from the participations in wearing the event vest - this was one of those very rare occasions I saw great support from the participants in wearing the event vest. C'mon, what are you keeping the vests and t-shirts for? I think showing the support is very important, reflective of a strong interest group. Of course, because of this, my friend KC the avid photographer did not have a good chance to take more pretty gals in skimpy and cool running wear shots.

3. Good field of volunteers - for the first time, I saw volunteers taking placards saying encouraging words when you're panting by - this is really cool... it brought a smile to my face and a skip in my stride whenever I saw that.

4. KM indicators well placed - this is the most motivating indicator to runners - knowing there how much is completed and how much to go, especially for those like me who are not running the route for the 100th time.

5. Interesting finishing - liked the finishing in that runners had to traverse the carpark zig-zag with spectators - it was almost like running into a stadium finish (like PJ Half Marathon) - gives you a great sense of achievement.

6. Water stations adequate - though would have done better to have more "endurance" drink. However, PACM is the only organisers who offer endurance drink, most don't even provide any.

7. Pretty serious looking officials - I was wondering if they were from New Balance or FTAAA? Because they were so serious in marking and handing out ribbons. C'mon guys, smile a bit lah... after all I got to get excited to run towards you to grab the ribbon :-)

8. Good mix of participants - Once again, despite that running appeals to the older audience, there was a strong mix of participants at all ages.

9. Green volunteers aplenty - This was a nice gesture of the organisers to provide the volunteers with t-shirts - it was a good clear indication of the number of people who were selfless in organising or assisting to make a good race.

10. Good wheather - can you believe it looked like it was to rain but it did not? The sun did not come out and coupled with the good route of the hills (okay, in exchange for the shady trees!) proved to be a pretty nice running day.

I enjoyed the race, see you next year.

Beijing Postcards-3 - Living in the Streets

I was told by my Beijing office counterpart, the average household income in Beijing is USD2900 for a whole year. The streets of Beijing seen from a tourist eyes is definitely not the common sight. On alleys, you will see the occasional beggar, which contributes to the high unemployment rate.

I was told by my chinese teacher, that the graduate getting a job in the service sector is a big deal. She came from a university degree to be a language teacher. Some came all the way to malaysia to be foot masseurs and are very contented with the salary.

My colleagues were given USD100 for a meal allowance one night. I told them, that this was a third of a whole month household income. They should be thankful. We should all be thankful.

Beijing Postcards-2 - Beijing Olympics 2008

Click here for the link to the photos I took on my whirlwind tour of Beijing.

Beijing is transforming itself to accomodate the millions of tourists for the 2008 Olympics. Pictures of the mascot - a hybrid of some form of panda bear (there are I think 5 of them) are plastered all over subways newly built to accomodate the traffic inflow. An expected 10 new lines for the subway is planned for up to 2008. Typical to China, mass development is anchored on opportunities such as the Olympics to showcase the mass, talent, capabilities and industrilisation of China.

I am sure the tourists and visitors will be overwhelmed and welcomed into the world's largest growing economy. I would love to be there for the opening ceremony of the games. See you there.

Beijing Postcards-1 - Introduction / Nike Lookalike

I had a whirlwind tour of Beijing last week, in a training assignment which I went earlier to do some sight-seeing. It was my 2nd trip to Beijing. China continues to mesmerise me in its vibrance, diversity and pure mass. Interestingly anything on blogger was censored in China, so I could not update my blog there. I would like to put in a few random thoughts, I call it "postcards" of fascinating instances in China.
-----------------------------

I spotted this in the busy tourist area of Wangfujing. The logo was a close copy of Nike, the slogan a close copy of Adidas - Impossible is Nothing. The merchandise sold closely resembles Nike's product lines of sports goods, clothes, shoes, etc. On closer look, the shoes were made of very thin material, but the clothes were a bargain.

Is this the new China? Where copies of things closely resembles the market, and prices are much lower than the "real thing" (there was a real Nike store down the road...). I was nevertheless both amused anad fascinated, and I have to say also, I bought a running vest from here, at a dirt cheap price. And the design was better than Nike's.

123456 Revisited

I posted an earlier post mistaking the date / time of 1:23 4/5/6 as 5th of April, when it should be 4th of May.

So what will you be doing on 01:02:03 04-05-06?

Here is what I propose :
1 SMS to send
2 the ones close to you
3 words to say
4 the things you care about
5 x 6 days in a month, a whole year round

3 words :
Thanks a lot
I love you
Wish you're here
Good luck always
Close to you
Please take care
Wishing you success
You are unique
Best amongst best
My best buddy

... Just Do It!!!

A wholesome workout

A little bit of light fare for once... to share with all my short break on a long weekend...

I love Malaysia's public holidays... today is Labor's Day holiday. Whilst I thought this was a international public holiday, apparently this is not recognised in some countries, and in fact according to a friend in Australia, some states in Australia recognises it whilst others do not.

I had a good weekend, which I would call the lull before the storm. The storm is blowing for this coming few days and onto the next 1-2 months, when work pace at my project will pick up to a full blast till the project goes live.

Saturday - We won the badminton challenge
Saturday started off a little disappointing. I was not able to watch or support my team members in the inter-department badminton challenge. I was tied up at work all morning, despite moving the morning meeting to start earlier (yes, unfortunately it has gotten to this - scheduled meetings on Saturdays?!). Thus, despite well armed with my Nikon D70s in my car, I was not able to make the trip to cheer my team members, who hoisted the trophy as anticipated. I have to give my thumbs up to these folks, what can I say when about 8 people in my project participated in the finals, in two separate teams, against each other? It can only be said that I greatly admire those who can put in their 10-11pms nights and still take some evenings off to practice, whilst others who bear the Nike's "Just Do It" style can also succeed. Diversity is my admiration for my co-workers.

Nevertheless, I managed to take a long lunch far-away in Jalan Loke Yew in town for a good sumptious unhealthy roast pork lunch and registered myself nearby in FTAAA office for the Jelita's Women's Run the next day. Yeah, somehow I justified myself for a sumptious lunch ...

Sunday - A unique all womens race
It was a rather unique all womens race I participated in. Firstly I really liked the pink free shirts. I decided to be pink for the day, unlike some regular runners who only run in their own apparel because of comfort. As I recalled in Pacesetter's magazine, women form hardly a small percentage of runners, being a more male dominated event, although it has begun to pick up a little more on the more veteran women runners.

At the starting line, I was surprised to see not as many participants as I expected, when I asked the FTAAA guy when I signed up, he said "banyak orang" (many people). The other really unparalleled instance was the usual FTAAA lady announcer did not turn up and a man replaced her instead. Then because he was trying to stall for time for the official flag-off at 730 am, he turned on the music and a Fitness First instructor jumped to the front and took the group standing in the starting pen for a 5 mins ad-hoc warm-up. It was so cool to be spontaneous! I could not imagine the guys doing this :-)

Also at the race, the other surprising thing was that there was a lot of Malay ladies participating. Probably because Jelita is a malay magazine, but it was encouraging that there were more Malay runners than I usually see in other regular public 10km races. Also, because I was on my own this time, and treating it as a warmup for the New Balance Pacesetter's 15km race, I took time to chit-chat with some of the ladies and also surveyed the "competition". The categories was also slightly unusual, as I was in a Women's Senior category for 30-40 years old. Together with the Open category, this was for 7km, whilst the Women's Junior and Veteran's category only had a short 5km. Surveying around was fun waiting for the start of the race, as it allowed me time to check out how old or young one can look within a specific age group :-)

The race itself was a bit sluggish for me as well. After weeks of non-practice, non-activity and many many late hours and weekends, the stress has taken its toll on my body, and it did not help that I had barely enough time for only once a week at the gym. The last race I did was almost 1.5 months back. I managed to make it in good time, but enroute back around the corner through the Jalan Parlimen/Dataran Merdeka traffic light, I made a mistake and stopped to a stroll. The abrupt stop made me very light headed and drained of energy, and I barely managed to walk the next 150 m to the corner of the Dataran Merdeka. Afraid that I would not be able to stand up straight much longer, I actually walked down to the carpark intending to give-up the finishing line and wash my face and go home. One lady behind me called me, telling me I was going the wrong way, but I told her to go ahead. So, there I was, sitting in my car for 3 mins, went to wash my face and returned to my car to sit down for another few minutes, very disappointed with myself. Then I did something almost absurd. I closed the car door, ran back up the steps and completed the remaining 200m of the race to the finishing line. And then I went home to sleep for almost 5 hours straight.

As a post mortem, I realised that it was not the race which nearly knocked me out, because I had the capability of running 7km with not much effort. It was my unrested state, and a very tired body that was screaming for attention. The run was a flick of a switch, a flick that told me my bulb was pretty closed to being fused and needed replacement.

Monday - Golf at Nilai Springs
My return to golf was a little less eventful as compared to my run the day before. I had not seen my golf buddy for almost a couple of months as well, and Beng, who is a member at Nilai Springs I had not seen for almost nine months.

After a good night's rest, I was amused and also impressed with myself for getting up at 545am for a 630am ride to Nilai for our game at Nilai Springs. I shot a decent game but what I was really impressed with myself was that I was so relaxed and throughout the game, I repeatedly told my buggy-mate that 5+ hours of golf, and add another 2hours of travel for the game was nothing compared to 45 mins of running 7km. How amazing the comparison is.

So, all in, I had a good wholesome workout, first the brains for working on Saturday, then the legs on Sunday, and the upper body for Monday. My body still aches, but it was a good laborer's day out!

Time Flies

Time waits for no man.
Time is of the essence.
Time will tell.

How fast time flies. Almost 4 months have passed of this year. It seemed like just yesterday the new year began. History extends itself and coming events beckons.

Yesterday whilst sorting my taxes, a few photos dropped out from one of my folders, of myself maybe 4 years ago, when I celebrated New Year's at KLCC. I looked in the mirror and found a stranger staring back, a stranger to the photo I found. What have I done to myself? I knew immediately that age is one instance where it waits for no one.

There is a friend I have known for almost half my life. The % of how long increases by year, so it is a good statistic of time. And I have a close colleague who is so different, from another country and whom I have known for less than two years. 2 years and almost 20 years. And yet, each to his own, I thank you both for being my friend.

Perhaps for the love of taking off the stress or challenging myself, I have taken to running races occasionally but more regularly over the last 8 months. Time seems to have not passed, as I felt as if I have ran for 5 years! I look forward to each race with passion, even when I know not many close friends who run. And here, I learn I enjoy new things everyday.

Time brings about new things, new friends, new discovery, and passing by we age, gracefully, and cherish more, those around us.

Time is priceless, treasure it.