How Many?

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

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

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

Watch this space for more...

Blood Donation Restrictions

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

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

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.

Convergence and Divergence

At some point in time, some of the things converges and then one realises whether this is it. Whether this is a focal point, a beginning or a convergence before the end or the end of a beginning. Or whatever.

I have been feeling a throbbing headache for the last few days since Thursday. My body is starting to reject me! After a 10.8km run on Sunday, I felt my body broke down finally in protest - the week which I left behind on Thursday finally caught up with me and it told me I was not ok. I had a terrible Sunday, threw up my lunch, had a throbbing headache and the headache never stopped even up till now as I am writing.

I have tons of unfinished business, a few dozens of half done stuff and a lot on my mind.

My mind needs to take a vacation. It has gone beyond what my body can cope!

7 years @ TPM and still hungry...

As a consulting professional, I've always been mostly at clients site for work.

On and off, I have been at Technology Park Malaysia for about 7 years with some breaks in between (3 clients!).

This morning, this guy just really made me laugh - i was rushing off for a 2pm appointment without my lunch and he stopped me at the car park (do I look very friendly to young chaps - I thought everyone really thinks I look too snappily fierce recently?)

Young Malay Guy : Nak tanya, di mana ada tempat makan? Saya baru pindah office!
Me : Huh, err.... then I started staring at direction of APIIT - hesitated as it was quite far to point, then said - Disini tak ada tempat makan
Young Malay Guy : Huh, tak ada?
Me : Ya, tak ada, langsung tak ada - and started to point towards APIIT, muttered something like sana, turn right.
Young Malay Guy : (Very confused with the langsung tak ada and repeated) Saya baru pindah sini
Malay Man walking past : Makan? Di sana, kanan, ada kolej...
Me : (Nodding) Ya, APIIT... (Thinking, Ok, I can go now...)
Young Malay Guy : Jauh kah?
Malay Man walking past : Ya, 10 mins?
Young Malay Guy : Huh?
Me : (Started to LEAVE...!!!!)

Poor guy. Technology Park even after 7 years there on and off still has NO place to EAT on walking distance except APIIT (which serves paltry college kid food).

And why do strangers ask me questions like that? Just the same as the KLCC guy manning the scanner machine - sometimes he likes to practice his english on me "Good morning, how are you?" These guys do it only to specific people, and trust me, I know I do not have a "wish me a good morning face" - maybe I have a blank face and they want to see if I'm brain dead?

And I'd write more on 7 years @ TPM later...

Stress Kills

I was happily watching TV at home after work yesterday when I was informed by my mum that the notorious Klang municipal councillor Zakaria who built a mansion and had a satay house without a permit had passed away (apparently even this made it to the SMS alert from Star so many knew about it).

Me : Died?
Mum : Yes, die already (in chinese - "sei chor") !
Me : What? How? What do you mean die already?
Mum : Yes, just passed away after dinner
Me : Huh? You mean heart attack?
Mum : Dunno, must be....
Me : Wah, like "po ying" (chinese, meaning - paying for sins)
Mum : Ya, got big house also cannot enjoy... must go enjoy more la...

And at that moment, I turned on to Berjaya TV channel 502 on Astro (24 hour news), hoping to catch some of this gossip, when the TV turned to a special Bahasa talk show segment on "How to Handle Stress" - and I was watching it for 5 mins, and they mention hypertension causing heart attack, blah blah...

My heart felt a bit funny for a second. I recalled one occasion running the treadmill at a frantic pace just to get some of those overflow of info off my head... and I wonder, how come now I don't feel so stressed anymore? Or has hypertension set in within my low blood pressure?

Stress Kills...

And I am getting old too... systems stress level not good already...

(Post script - I was told that "po ying" means die a terrible death, but this guy really died away peacefully... so I wonder how many nasty SMS he received before his heart give up...)

With sincere apologies that I do not intend to make humor out of people's death, just the coincidence and realisation is that we should all live with less stress and also with every moment fulfilled always.....

Malaysia Decides - Tsunami of Change

The "rakyat" has spoken. I am shocked but really proud to be in a democratic country yesterday. The 12th election just saw a tsunami of shock defeats and a wave of change sweeping across the nation, with heavy casualties amongst top politicians, handing over the coalition its worst performance since our independence.

As predicted in the last blog, the winds of change, coupled with a long list of undeniable dissatisfaction points of the existing government had brought huge wins for the opposition, and to my surprise, the coalition lost the 2/3 majority although maintained a simple majority.

The tsunami effect had been totally unexpected even by the politicians themselves. The people carried the sentiment of problems and voted out many incumbents instead choosing for the opposition, sending a strong message to the government for a need for change.

Selangor, my home state, and Kuala Lumpur where I work, will be ruled by opposition.

A PAS MB (Chief Minister) will rule Kelantan and Kedah, whilst Keadilan MB will rule Selangor and DAP MB will rule Penang.

We will have a bunch of lesser experienced, young, enthusiastic, parlimentarians in the opposition party, whose consensus needs to be agreed to change the constitution.

We will have three strong opposition parties in the parliament.

Meanwhile, the Barisan Nasional alliance will be required to do serious soul searching on the brand of race based politics and examine the need for stronger leadership across the various component parties.

What does the future brings after the tsunami has cleared and everybody realises they need to get back to their regular life?

The optimist in me sees that the Barisan Nasional team needs to examine itself closely, because they need to do a thorough post-mortem, understand the real reasons for the dissent, give up self denial, cut off the cancerous bits, bring in fresh blood, transparency and socio-economic progress for all, and reinvent themselves - because they can only get better in the next 2013 elections. Be man enough to accept defeat and rebuild for the future. Whilst the opposition will be stronger after given a chance, they could also be weaker if they are not effective.

The people have spoken, have you heard them?

Now... get to work please, all you Yang Berhormats...

Election Fever

Pic - SS2 Ceramah on 7 Mar - it was raining.

The winds of change are blowing. It is a question of change with new or change with old, but I am convinced that this Election Day for Malaysia, on March 3rd 2008 will be carried through with a gust of the winds of change.

I am truly convinced the national coalition, Barisan Nasional will still win the elections and retain a 2/3 majority, hence achieving a mandate for the next 4 years. However, the elections fever has really caught on with the nation, and with strong challengers, new, young blood, unsolved mysteries, allegations of corrupt practices, the governments coalition front should brace itself for a tough fight, and surprise wins and loses will be in store for the rakyat and the government.

I am not advocating directly the opposition's vote, but this is my first elections which I have truly felt the need to exercise my vote, and I whilst I have not made up my mind, I am determined to exercise it responsibly.

This elections, for the very first time, I have attended two lively ceramahs thus far. Although I did not sit through (or rather stand through) the entire ceramah, it was very interesting listening to the speakers, and last Saturday, the first time I attended the ceramah, I went with my parents!!! And yet, old and young turned up, and I saw a friend also bringing his parents. And this is when I know the winds of change is blowing. Very much like Obama vs Clinton, see where Obama is - he is a fiercely strong and motivating speaker. And this is where I see the opposition has changed since the last elections. No longer a paltry 50-60 people last time I saw the ceramah in 2004 elections outside a restaurant we frequented, now the opposition draws a 2000-5000 crowd nightly and with a concerted effort, driven by information.

If you are a strong patriotic citizen, I urge you to listen to and be informed, to seek knowledge and make a responsible choice.

Mobile Phone Photographer

I admit it. I have downgraded to become a mobile phone photographer.

Against the chilled "cool toy" of the iPhone, I bought the Korean LG's beauty product - the Viewty, on eve of the eve of chinese new year. It was my CNY present to myself. It had been almost a year since I bought my last phone - the Sony Ericsson K800. The K800 used to be the cool toy - 3MP camera, and an extremely good buy - it had never broken down in my entire use of it.

Then I started noticing that everyone had the K800 - from my manager to my staff to my contractor. At one point in time, when I sat down in a working table and put my handphone on the table, I could not even differentiate which was mine.

Why the Viewty? Firstly the name is a lousy "chinaman" name - viewty, beauty ... heheh, very corny. The camera has its share of difficult usage - the sms is not really easy, and a keypad-less phone gets using to. However, after a weekend, it got better and i got used to the phone with the mascara (it had a mascara like stylus attached in a little dangling stick)

But I guess when I got used to it, I kind of liked playing with the 5MP camera. Imagine, about 8 years ago, I bought my first digital camera it was 1MP, Kodak. I have since upgraded to a 3MP camera three years later, and then another three years later a Nikon D70s DSLR 6MP and a Sony Cybershot T10 7MP for my family members.

Imagine, this phone now has a 5MP camera... how times has changed. It can even do ISO setting, exposure adjustment, focus, and an online edit and upload to YouTube. Wow....

Times have changed.

I am now a mobile phone photog.

Gongxi Fa Cai Ad Insights

A belated Gongxi Gongxi Fa Cai to all who celebrates Chinese New Year!

Bu Bu Gao Xing
Nian Nian Jun Bu

Not sure if my pinyin is still working after all these lack of learning - in actual fact, I never did learnt Hanyu Pinyin, the romanised version of mandarin translation. The phrase above means

May you achieve greater success with every step,
May you achieve greater progress with every year...!

The Chinese have fantastic ways and means of having these four letter (or rather four characters!!!) phrases which sounds very good and auspicious. Every year, during Chinese New Year, I would watch Astro Wah Lai Toi, and listen to all those HK or Malaysian TV stars wishing everyone a happy chinese new year.

This year, I saw a few cool ads, all expressing the New Year's best wishes in the most elegant form. The most notable one is of course the great sense of humanity and togetherness in the Petronas ad where a chinese boy orphan was asked to draw the reunion dinner affair and he was naively clueless to what to draw. As it turns out later, he is taken home my an indian lady to a orphanage, and with a message to the audience to cherish the family and spend time with the family back home for reunion dinner. Well said.

The TM ad was also muhibbah in its own kind. TM chose this year to emulate Tenaga (who did it last year and revived it again this year the same theme) - to get their senior execs to come on TV to wish happy new year in their own way. And so the group of company CEOs for TM, VADS, Fibrerail, Celcom, all came together to do their own gongxi, and also an added bonus to them was that they were all nicely clad in traditional Chinese clothings, and a clever mix of male, female, and all races too. A big thumbs up for TM, and Dato Shazali's CEO of Celcom trying of the chinese pronounciation of the four character phrases on national TV!!

Maxis did not do a TV ad this year (cutting costs?) but had a print ad with a traditional chinese meaning as well, with a single character Man, which means abundance. I suppose it has deep rooted meanings of providing for all, also it was indirectly romanised as "man" and also one with a cultural connotation of having always extra during the festive season. Maybe it should've gone about to tie in with a charity message. I would say that though stylish, the rest of the words was really too tough for me to read in the ad- the chinese was too difficult to the half educated reader of my calibre, so I suppose I missed some of the secondary messages from the phrases it was accompanied with.

The one single ad which I loved the most, and is most simple was the Pepsi ad. It starts with a silly man and large words depicting things to do this chinese new year 1. Clean House 2. Wash Hair and 3. Buy Pepsi...! and the last scene had the silly man with shampoo'ed hair down the aisle lining up for pepsi, and dusting the cashier as he was going off!! You really have to watch this to have a real laugh. The best joke was that, after that, everytime I went to the shopping center before CNY, I remembered to buy Pepsi!

The other favourite of mine was the Astro ad. It had a young man calling his dad asking him what he wants, and the dad saying, nothing, and then the viewer sees the dad in a small town, bored, riding his bike, drinking coffee alone, staring at old newspapers, and finally the son asked if the dad wants an astro, and then pause, flashes the empty house before, pans over to the astro promo and ends with a flashy and bright loud house with the astro tv on! Again, it is better seen than read. This ad was quite spot on!

Well, it just goes about to show the creative industry is still very much alive in Malaysia!

Great Eastern 30km/20km Race

I waited for this - this was a picture of my first race of the year, the Great Eastern Pacesetters 30/20km race. I ran in the 20km category, once again, slightly unfit, but definitely better after we had a few good practice runs with the slew of holidays, the practice run on the Double Hills were very encouraging for morale.

I definitely need more practice for my next race, the next big one will be KLIM 2008.

If you were to ask me, I look shagged, and definitely need to lose some pounds. Imagine my knees carrying all that weight :-)

Treasure Hunts - the addictive brain game

When when is the next treasure hunt? Just like the addiction to running, my addiction to treasure hunt had peaked at the end of the year, and then, eh? When is the next treasure hunt?

The treasure hunt bug bit us in end 2006/ towards the whole of 2007. The real sting which got our adrenaline pumped was definitely the highlight of the entire thing, to win the company treasure hunt. Albeit this was a bit of uncontested, I had a good time giving the prize to myself (almost). The feeling on the stage was interesting as I was going from 5th, 4th, 3rd, and finally 2nd, and we did not hear our name!!! Of course, dozens of people wonder why I take part in treasure hunts in the first place, and also with a really interesting bunch of people, my colleagues and to some cases, even my client members!

Firstly I have to say, I have the greatest respect for my colleagues and my client.

I am also mentally challenged by treasure hunts, no matter how tired the week has been or the challenges of the day, to look forward to a different kind of challenge on the weekend was very fascinating.

What was really interesting was also that there were ordinary folks and also well established folks who took to the same interest to the streets every week. It is also humbling to know what you do not know.

I am one who is optimistic. In every hunt, I know I could do better. I am not yet a veteran, but I am confident this year, my team can make the top 5.

As part of my analysis of the hunts I've participated in I thought about listing out what worked and what did not. That would be privately shared with my fellow hunters, but below really is just a couple of comments, and really it is just these hunts below I've participated in (maybe about 10 years ago, I did a couple of hunts, but I've laid of hunting for that long until end 2006)...

2006
Awam Hunt (Womens only) - I drove in this hunt, with 3 other gals. I was blissfully happy in the aircond car when they ran around. I also found myself to think better in the cool aircond car and spotted well from the car. We won something, maybe 8 position, can't remember.

Tiger Hunt Berjaya Times Square - Nasty walking and running around Berjaya times square hunt. Did not win anything, but discovered a new treasure hunt mate (the cap harimau washing detergent man).

Malaysian Mensa Hunt - We challenged ourselves here. TKM our driver's car window broke down in the beginning of the hunt making it a very hot hunt. We also did lousy on time. I think we were about 25 out of 35 consoled ourselves that the audience was too chim ... heheh...

2007
Company Treasure Hunt (Internal) (PD) - 1st 1st 1st, it was very fun, because established the team very last minute, just for fun. Young newcomer hunter hit my non-driving car at the parking lot!!!

Kiwanis Hunt (Melaka) - Biggest lesson of the year, was DQ'ed due to time. Felt disappointed, but met grandmaster CFS.

Multiple Sclerosis Hunt - Eh, what is multiple sclerosis? Did badly 15 of 22 but happy that we were on time after kiwanis...

Lexis Nexis KL Bar - Tough against lawyers.... I think I drove and we were at a 3 person car. Mistake to think 3 can think for 4. And I realise that I may perhaps contribute more on the thinking than driving.

Atmah Hunt (PD) - Eh, we did a right thing, we told ourselves we were novice, and got a novice 1st!!! But I never saw the prize... my fellow hunters ATE my share... :-)

Sun Motor Treasure Hunt - Wow, I love this hunt. The prizes were up to the 100s and the cars 250. Crazy... We got 45th position, and a lousy rice cooker. Just because of treasures ...

Franchise Walk Hunt - Can't believe we signed up for this. We got a newbie, CY, and walked and picture spotted ourselves to 10th position. I guess we still could have been better in the first half when we walked the wrong direction!

Old Georgians Association (OGA) Hunt (Seremban) - Kiasu-ness drove us to explore the neighbouring state, drove ourselves to a non-prize winning position, but mostly quite bad got lost and missed the treasure again. Had a ball of a funny time though...

Amazing I could remember all this... bring on the next hunt please...

Technology and Kids

Kids learn about technology so fast nowadays. My 6 month old niece who was featured in the last post, was absolutely fascinated by the simple camera phone. The technology consulting gadget savvy Aunty ie. me, took to simple tricks like trying to con a 6 month old baby with pictures of her sister, her father, her mother and even herself.

What was most fascinating was that the baby clutched onto the phone and loved her ownself and was absolutely trying to fathom how could another baby emerge on a device or how there are two versions of her mother or father.

So, I put the camera in the baby's hands, opened the lens, let her have a look at the phone picture of me, seeing she was able to be a bit curious, helped her pressed the button with her tiny fingers, and voila, you have a picture of aunty...

Pic 1 - can you see the halo around me :-) angel aunty...

Pic 2 - young camera-kids, soon they will be teaching me how to set iso and aperture... :-)

Both pics taken from my 1 year old K800i

haha...

Kids nowadays really knows how to use the digicam better than me...

Innocence

The look of innocence, of my 6 month old niece whom I met for the first time last week.

Life, many many years ago, as a baby was just so simple and peaceful, sleep, eat, cry, seeing things, learning things, daddy, mummy ...

I wish I could move time backwards not because of regrets, but because of just envy for the bliss of innocence...

Nostalgia - my San Francisco days...

Postscript - I could not resist - both photos here added later, intentionally small as it is intended only for those who know them. They are dated 1997, and used my K800 phone to photo a photo. I am in the second photo below.
Pic 1- Hari Raya and Chinese New Year in SF
Pic 2- Looking across at Alcatraz
-----

There are people who look back at photos and pictures of the past and feel, wow, this was what I was then, there are people who look back and wonder, wow, what has happened to these friends, and then there are those like me, I feel nostalgic.

If there was one project or assignment which has really been in my memory for my career, it would be the time we had spent in San Francisco, as a first leg of a project using a global asset for a local client. We were there for 6 months and our motley crew was a handful of american, canadians, and a handful of us malaysians, and a Frenchman, and a HK guy. That was 1997, 10 yeara ago. 10 years has passed very quickly.

I had a few encounters with this nostalgic 10 years encounter recently.

I met LH, my ex-supervisor who is back in the same company, she had left just about 9 years ago, just after the assignment where I was in a short sojourn in San Francisco. She looked older, though what did I expect, it has been almost 10 years. The old LH emerged, I could see she was still a very focussed, go-getter, though I did not know her too well then. And suddenly, here I was, at the same level of the organisation with her. And through 10 years, I've kept the same path with this company, and she has taken another, which brought her to Australia now currently back in employment with us. I was not sure to treat her as a supervisor which was the relationship we left off as, or as a friend, whom it never really had been or as a colleague, an equal. LH, I respected you a lot and will always respect you, you gave me the foundations of being a survivor in this organisation, many years back. And we had a blast in one of my most memorable assignments.

JR, whom I've been in contact with and had been for more than 10 years, shared also the same experiences we had in San Francisco, 10 years ago. Dear JR just got married to a lovely bubbly lass, and looks likely to be coming back to working closely with us again in the near future. JR, whom I've had the pleasure of knowing since he was part of the firm more than 10 years back, whom I've had the pleasure of many ski trips with then when we were all bored in San Francisco. Years has passed, and you have never changed, you have the passion to enjoy the best in life. Congratulations and all the best.

SL, after 10 years, and a few meet ups in between, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Beijing, you are back in lovely KL for our friend's wedding. Can you imagine, meeting up in 4 different countries, and if you throw in KL and SF, we'd have had met in 5 different locations, which is truly, a global connection. I admire your courage to do things differently and wish you all the best in your new job. You have indeed the individualistic and unique style which is admirable and also noteworthy. I am sure you will find what you want in everything that you do.

I can't help to be nostalgic. On my way out of the house, I actually accidentally stumbled upon a stack of old postcards, cards, photos from those old days in San Francisco. More than anything, I was there with you guys, and the others not on this list, SL, SR, JF,... 10 years and yet we remember those good old days... (When I have time, I'd post the photos here)




You know what they say, you are old when you ramble of things which has happened 10 years ago...

The Shoes are Back on!

It has thus far, been a reasonably healthy new year.

I've taken the "initiative" to laze off a bit on the second day back after new year's day, and went to the gym, at Fitness First menara maxis, for the first time since I signed up. The truth was, I've always imagined myself to be doing the menara maxis gym because it was nearby the KLCC Twin Towers where I occasionally am there almost 50% of the time. Moreover, I've actually met quite a few people who go to the gym and it is kind of like a home gym, I've double signed up California Fitness and Fitness First because I got a free year from Cal Fitness, but MidValley is a dreadful deadlock everytime anytime of the day.

So, just the second day after new year, I stopped by the gym at Menara Maxis, for a short workout, and a short run. These days, I'm tired even after 4km, which in the speed I run on treadmills is about 30mins. However, it is kind of interesting that as I pick up back the gym course, I could actually run faster on the treadmill without getting too tired.

The gym was also the place where I have decided to embark upon more strength training. I am hoping these will help me get back in shape and also fitness for the 20km GE race I signed up for. Was almost tempted for 30km, but in no way was I in shape..!!!

On Saturday, I did another round in the gym, thus on Sunday, my choice of Bukit Aman vs Bukit Tabur (Klang Gates ridge, a hike organised by some colleagues) was good - my Bukit Aman conquer of Double Hill never felt so good despite at least about 5km I did it on my own. However, there were many runners, so there was no fear for safety. I also counted many houses where there were security guards, so it felt safer and I would speed up when I was near them.

This Thursday, and coming Sunday, I'm looking for increasing the distance to 15km and 20km, so that I could have a good race on the 20th Jan.