Standard Chartered KL Marathon 2012

This was to be my first official 10KM run in 10 years.

When I was 16, I trained for many cross-country runs and represented school. After I left SMKDJ prematurely for a ‘one heck of a ride in my lifetime’, I trained less and less and gradually stopped running altogether.

It was only a month and a half ago that I started training for the run again, after so long. Although my gym training focuses on building muscles, I still ran a casual 5KM twice about a week up until Race Day.

Waking up real early in the morning (as early 3:30 AM), driving to Dataran Merdeka and waiting at the starting line until the gun shoots at 6:30 sharp – they sure bring memories. I joined quite a number of notable runs like PJ Subang Half Marathon and Penang Bridge run back then, and I regret not taking any photos to savor those moments.

This time it’s 10.6 KM – I joined the Open Men Speed Category. And I finished in 1 hour 11 minutes. Not bad for a come back! Also considering that I took a toilet break at the 4KM mark – lost about 3 minutes there. I reserved my energy for the run and overestimated the distance, having not run for so long.

Even though I’ve trained and gotten back to my prime again now, I realized a big difference between now and myself a decade ago: I felt bulky when I run. I’ve put on 8.1 KG since 10 years ago (55 kilos when I was 16; now I am at 63.1 kilos) so when I run I felt my movement was bulky.

There’s good and bad to that – that is why I am settling to gain up until 65 kilos and then I’ll maintain from here on. Any more than that and not only will it be expensive to maintain in terms of food consumption and training time, it won’t do good to my speed and agility.

With some more training, I should be able to reduce the time to a clean 1 hour on the next run. ๐Ÿ™‚

On another note…

Templers Templars

Also known as RYM Camping Trip

I organized the camping trip for my church friends at RYM @ SIC just last week i.e. 10th and 11th December. It was RYM’s first ever camping trip and even though it was 2 days 1 night for everyone else, my initial team and I booked the place and stayed one day earlier.

It’s been exactly 10 years since I last went on a camping trip like this. It brought me back memories to my high school days as a boy scout. ๐Ÿ™‚ And yes, I camped here in Templers Park as a scout before… surprisingly, not much changes even after a decade!

 

Being the camp master, I did a lot of planning – including Plan Bs and emergencies – and went on a shopping spree for items. I felt less confident initially since it was ages I’ve been out of touch with scouting / camping. My cooking skills is nearly non-existent too!

Thankfully, there were other more experienced people in the group who could help with the fire pit and cooking. ๐Ÿ™‚ That left me to focus on running the activities for the group of 17.

 

Arriving a day earlier, some of us set up the tents and chopped firewood and bamboos in preparation for the coming days.

There was a group of hedgehog hunters that arrived hours later and initially, we feared they would interfere with our program. Fortunately, they were really nice people and matter of fact we owe a bunch of thanks to their help and generosity. They helped us set up some gadgets and being very experienced with the jungle, they gave us priceless survival advice!

For me, it was 3 days 2 nights of being disconnected from the outside world and civilization! That’s right – no Internet. No computers. And no reception.

Since the jungle is deep, I got us a couple of walkie talkies to communicate while within the jungle.

 

The camping trip was more relaxed and I deliberately planned for a loose, less rigid schedule. I mean, I’ve already punked so many people into thinking the walking journey from entrance to camp site is 25 minutes… when in actual fact it is 45 minutes long. ๐Ÿ˜›

Ironically I found the abundance of time observing others curiously. I don’t remember going people-looking for that long. Probably because I was stuck in the middle of nowhere with them. Haha!

 

When you are in the middle of nowhere, the luxury of modern technology is taken away from you and the comfort of a cozy bed gone, you cannot help but wonder how people lived just simply hundreds of years ago!

I also remember that things used to be harsher and less forgiving when I was a scout. But I stuck it through. Now? I work half as hard than I used to but I was already easily lethargic. I think it must be age, haha!

Since it’s coming to year end, it was a great opportunity for me to pause and reflect on all the past events.

This year throughout…

How a chain of events and circumstances shaped me to become who I am today…

And of course, reminiscing my days as a scout ๐Ÿ™‚

To think that just one and a half months ago, I was busy preparing this camping trip for the youth group while juggling my travels. Now everything seemed so worth it. I know it, when I saw everyone’s smile on their faces. ๐Ÿ™‚

New Zealand Chapter: Dunedin

Continued from New Zealand Chapter: Auckland…

Dunedin.

Where I had friends to meet in Auckland, Dulcie is the only person I know here. And I had to count on her to go around here.

The first thing on the to-do list was racing up Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world.

What a way to start the holiday in humble ole’ Dunners. Haha!

Got to know Dulcie’s friend, Jay, and within no more than a minute he invited me to represent Salmond College in the race up Baldwin St. A mercenary never takes a day off.

The air was cold and chilly, definitely colder than in Auckland. I jogged to the start of the street in an effort to warm up. The super steep street is intimidating but I was more excited to see how far my gym training had brought me in the past 6 months.

So I raced against other Amazon-like women… and prevailed!

It came at the cost of running out of breath and retiring down to the ground.

The street was no joke. My legs felt crammy yet it was the cold air that really got to me. The hailing stones that came minutes later didn’t help with things. LOL

While in Dunedin, I stayed with everyone else at Salmond College. Dunedin is basically a ‘students town’ because the number of students outnumber the rest of other occupations here.

Dulcie toured me around the college and the next couple of days here. Staying here, I didn’t feel like a tourist… more like another student! Haha. ๐Ÿ™‚ And I’ve mentioned many times Salmond College reminds me of the fictional X-Mansion in the X-Men cartoon a.k.a. the School for Gifted Youngsters.

Speaking of that, only the best students get enrolled here so students here are truly aces in their own rights! Makes me feel like some non-enlightened, uncivilized barbarian now ey?

Dunedin is full of churches from many denominations, and most old buildings are preserved to this day. So walking around in Dunedin kinda brings you back in time too!

While here, I attended a mass service with Dulcie and her friends in the Holy Name church.

One of the attractions I went to in Dunedin is the Cadbury Chocolate Factory!

75 minutes of watching how chocolates were made behind the scenes and shipped to the entire world… not gonna lie, we had “chocolate orgasm”!


Meet Sarah our Cadbury tour guide. She’s been whipping out chocolates after chocolates magically from her pockets throughout the tour! I think cross dimensional pockets are no longer a thing of the future.

My stay in Dunedin was shorter than in Auckland. We did plenty of walking around and sight seeing including the Botanic Gardens, the old Railway Station, numerous churches, and life in slow paced Dunners.

It was an overall fun and exciting vacation but good things came to an end when it was already time to fly off.

All in all, it was 9 days well spent in New Zealand!

Even more photos on my New Zealand trip are found on my Facebook profile.

10 Years Ago Today

I was 15 then. It was around midnight when a school friend ICQ’ed and told me to quickly check out the news on CNN. So I rushed downstairs to the TV and see what was happening on the other side of the world.

Footages replayed over and over again on two planes being crashed into the twin towers while new information was being relayed through the scrolling marquee. I remember one of them was exactly “Osama bin Laden: I had nothing to do with it”

By now my whole family woke up to see the bad news happening LIVE.

New photos. New footages including the Pentagon on fire this time. And even more footages taken at the vicinity of the towers which will later be known as Ground Zero. People running away from the collapsing towers. People FALLING from them.

I didn’t know what was really happening except it was truly terrible. Little did I know we were all witness to something that would later go down into history of the world.



Do you remember where you were 10 years ago today?