Limping Marathon Runner

After settling a morning attack event (yay! I'm on leave) and a late but excellent lunch, I wandered around the shopping mall. Something caught my eye. Mechanik. Yummy. Meistersinger? Pause. Maybe I've not seen this one before. The neat little thing (43mm is not really that little) is so sexy! Cool! A watch with only.... one hand! Meistersinger Scrypto 1Z. Mechanical watches have so much "life" in them as compared to quartz or digital watches. Needless to say, they are a class of their own.

I shopped around a little longer before heading for a train, homeward bound. Meeting PTK for a 8-ball pool session before dinner. Woot! I almost had a one cue game had it not been the number 8 ball's lousy shot from me.

Have not been posting for a while. Much routine and out-of-the-blue random stuff happening around. Of course, bitten by the running bug, I am totally bored without my runs.

Friends and people around me, amazed and surprised with pits of fire that I am being thrown into. I'm too tired to retaliate. Everyone is in some kind of shite. Only how deep you are in. I have been asked to let go and enjoy my weekends. How? When I have tons of PDFs to go through.

Talking about feeling crappy. Tried talking sense to a friend who has spent all the time, lamenting about the failed relationship. Everyone around her almost throat dry after weeks and weeks of conversation, trying to divert her attention. We, as friends, can only do that much.

Great lunch in the afternoon today. Mrs. Fong working on 17th floor, joined Beng, PolarBear and I for lunch. Norm stuff, Hans western food. Lucky thing that it wasn't that crowded. Erm. .. I spotted an ex-colleague, who doesn't know who I am. Who cares?!

Lecture lecture lecture....
*fight zzz monsters* Must resist!! Inject caffine.. *fight goes on*

I almost hit the panic button with my notebook freezing on me after login. Damn. Safe mode. Clear this and that. Viola! *Phew* I'll settle the labs on my own. Nothing beats serious hands-on. One will learn more when crap clearing.

8pm already. Famished! Packed and took a cab, heading off for dinner with Beng and PolarBear at Crystal Jade. Beng's treat. We should have ordered Sharks fin, scallops, lobsters and roast pigs.

Sitting on a bench for almost 2 weeks now. No running since my left foot developed a weird stretched feeling on a certain area (muscle). I feel so much better, in fact no more weird feeling at all now. I feel I've lost loads of stamina now. Nevermind. Sending the pain (not really pain) away is more important than anything. Say no to risking injury.

Clearing off some appointments and assignments yesterday, I took a breather. With energy levels as low as just 5%, I went to Al-ameen with Tiwazz. For the entire day, it has been drizzling, raining and alternating on. I had 2 Cheese Prata which helped a little in lifting my mood. Then, the Teh Halia came to bring it back down. Rainy and cold day it has been, I thought ordering a hot drink would be an excellent choice. Maybe my choice is right. Probably just not my day that my drink was totally disappointing. I should have gotten a Milo Dinosaur instead.

I need food.

Home. Clearing some stuff (stacked and dragging for a while). Slept. Woke up today, dragging my bums out of bed on a lazy raining morning. Meeting Beng for training. I know that Mrs. Fong is working on the 17th floor too. Ah ha! Mrs. Fong is back in the workforce. Lunch break.. food was good. Peking duck, ribs with papaya soup and mango pudding lifted my spirits. Training ... technical problems with notebooks. Interesting. Just great. I dropped the idea of joining vistors from overseas when I hear that they are having seafood for dinner. Seafood. Me? No mix.

Phone calls and more phone calls. Requests and more requests. Ya ya, okay okay. Good good, no no. Wait wait, later. Only one happy request. One that I would gladly serve and lay my life down to see it happen. Good friend, need I say more?

I need a break. No, not toilet break.

Alright. I had to collect and see how dead is my digicam. With the non-responsive digicam in hand, I tried ways and means to revive the once chirpy 2Megapixel shooter.

Change batts. Silent.
Re-sit batts. Silent.
Remove CF card. Silent.
Pressing all kinds of button, hoping for a factory default or reset. Silent.
Prayed. Silent.
Shake the bugger in a frenzy that any onlooker would deem me as a nut case. Silent.

Okay, you are soooo dead now. You have brought much colors to my life. Time to go. I think this space of mine will stay boring for quite a while without pictures. No digicam, no pics. Damn. It wasn't interesting in the first place, anyway! Okay. I won't even look at a replacement for now. Maybe the next time when I buy a digicam, it will be GigaPixel? Now... have I not learn anything from past experiences?

Nikon FM2 (loaned out) - she developed a green rash upon return.
28-85mm f2.8 Nikon lens - she had a few white specks in her.
Nikon SB-25 - she probably disintegrated.
400mm f4.5 Sigma lens - she was in a total meltdown.
Canon A60 - heart attack. Deceased. Still had her lens sticking out when she died.

I need air.

TMD. I need some retail purchase therapy. I looked around, said, "Madonna, it shall be. Do your magic, darling." and paid for a "Madonna: Confessions on a dance floor." On my way home, it was just Me, Myself and Madonna. Banged my eardrums, they begged to be punctured.

I need space.

Lucky thing, I'm alone. I think I would have gotten a stamp on my foot, a kick in the shin, a knee in my b**ls, elbow in my chest and a forehand backhand combo slap across my cheeks for saying, "Leave me alone honey...". Wuss.

I need a slap.

Home. Whoa.... more alarms triggers. I think cardiac arrest coming soon. Stomached down a soup bowl full of rice soaked with curry. A ladle-ful of curry, nice. Soup bowl filled with curry, with equal amount of rice generates equations.
(Curry + Rice) x huge portions = Later I'm going LS and set my a** on fire.

I need life.

Bugger. Give this character of mine, I should be an artist. Let my drawings fetch a fortune only when I kick the bucket. Let the alive and rich be richer. Artists are suppose to be a really weird pack of individuals, right?

I need to off gas and I don't mean fart.

XBox 360 is out. Give Bill Gates a chance? Yeah. I can break a controller or two, now.

Probably the bar I set is too high. Maybe I should be a Yes-man.
How to run with curry sloshing in your stomach? I cetainly live up to my nick for now.

Its been food, food, glorious food today!! Burrp! Excuse Moi! A whole bunch of us, runners, went for house visiting to TLR's place today. Fd greeted Tiwazz and me at the door. Oops.. we were late. We are suppose to have a discussion today. We covered the various topics and then.. its munch time! I like the spagetti best! I can go on and on and on.. .. There were too many delicious food around. Everyone enjoyed themselves tremendously. I was laughing for the whole of this afternoon. See how satisfied we are with the food?!



We discussed about the upcoming event, Marathon (Support) and Ultramarathon too. I'm all excited now.

Where is YankeeII, Carine and Ultraman?! We miss them!

54Brownie has discharged from the hospital and back home already. Glad to hear that everything is going fine for the 54Chinis.

These few weeks, work is getting little out of control. Nothing that can stop an avalanche from coming. The word swallow just takes a different meaning. By yesterday late noon, many events have been removed and I decided to say ... heck!

Dropped my stuff at work and headed for an American Pool session. Unexpectedly, it ended at 1am!! Oh boy! I am dead tired. Took a cab home, retrieve some emails for work(why work again?!). Talked with Karloong and Bala for a while before sleeping.

This morning (well, late morning), I went out to meet EndlessTrail, his bro (Danny) and Dreamscaper. We are going to watch the Harry Porter movie. But first, we thought it will be a great idea to have a board game session at one of the board games cafe. Cosy. Air-conditioned. Friendly people. We had a great time playing "Galloping Pigs". I think we laughed more than stressing ourselves with any winning strategy. We switched to another fantastic game, Scotland Yard. It's a police and thief game. You, being a thief, can get yourself in real hot soup or simply throw your detectives off guard while trying to slip away. I was relieved from some work pressure already. Ahhhhh.... Hmm... I sure am looking forward for the WarCraft board game! Oops! Where is my digicam!? I would have taken some pics. I am going to come back here again, most certainly!

Looking at time, we spent 2 hours there already and it was time for us to head over to the cinema, meeting Eunice there. First time, meeting Dreamscaper, Eunice and Danny today. Thanks a million to EndlessTrail for the lower priced tickets. We had nachos / cheese and a Cola to go along too. It was a well worth 2.5hrs movie. Most movies nowadays are really ... . sad to say crappy. Okay, I think Harry Porter series would not be that bad. I enjoyed the show. Right after the show(oh my!!), we though of board games again! Not feeling that hungry, we took a chicken rice dinner and ended up feeling full! Now, choosing a different board games cafe this time round, I noticed that the other cafe that we visited earlier today, it was much better. Nevertheless, we played a Cluedo idea-alike (advance mode), "Mystery of the Abbey", in a medieval theme. Not too bad..... My!! I saw a lot of games for today .. don't think we can finish all of them in a week!! It is addictive, I'd say. Next up, we played "Slam-wich", which has a similar playing style to the classic, "Heartattack", with a deck of poker cards. We ended our night with.. another 2 rounds of "Galloping Pigs"!! LOL!

I had great company today! TLR house visiting tomorrow! Erm... maybe collect my digicam before going over. Anyway, I received a call, saying that there is something wrong with my cam. Why? It always happens when I loan my cam out. Sigh... Speechless. Can I say it is time to upgrade from a 2MegaPixel digicam?

Hello! Hi there, Dayan!! Welcome to the 54family!! 54Brownie gave birth to a 54Junior!! I went to visit 54Brownie at the hospital. She is tired but fine. 54Chini is with her. I had a picture taken with 54Junior. This little infant has given me a feeling of warm!! Life!! Energy! Full of zest again! When I left office, I was so worn out by work. When I saw Dayan, I felt rejuvenated!! Good night, boy!! I will see you soon!! Just in time with Christmas around the corner!

a passing phase .... It has to be. Just do it.
Sierra Tango Foxtrot Uniform

At work, went to send documents like courier... *slaps forehead* Ha.
Stopped over for another appointment.. trying to reach Beng for lunch. Tough luck... he's busy. RLEK and I spent some time downloading mails from Mac, before heading back for Round 2. Once done, I sneaked over to a chinese doc to treat my "funny" ankle. The same doc who treated my wrist. This time, the same.... he pulled each of my toes with tugs. Another one clean jerk for my left foot. Not painful.. but my feet feels lighter. Cool! I can walk better.

Making my way to catch a train back to office, I was stopped by a staff. I think he has standing orders to perform random checks on bags. That is a good thing. I was probably limping so bad and he took notice of me. HA!!!

Staff: "What is this? Computer ah?"
Me: "Yes. My notebook."

I think I shall stay away from my Cumulus for this week. Next week too? Maybe. Better be safe.

I was in the office again this morning.. AGAIN? Nevermind that.

I met up with Tiwazz at the Temple of the Geeks. I wanted to pick up a PDA. Tiwazz was running a little late and I went ahead with my purchase. I linked-up with him and we walked over to our meeting point to take lunch together with Carine. But, Tiwazz and I were the ones having lunch since Carine took hers. What would runners do when they are together?! They talk about running! Once we were done with our simple lunch (I heard that we were suppose to have Katong laksa for dinner), we made our way to the bus stop and hopped on a bus to Katong CC. Since we were early (DO was already there), we helped out a little before the rest of the crowd came. Slowly, the crowd came pouring in. Ahh... I finally get to see who Seal is. He has yet to redeem his cup of coffee. I am happy to see new faces too. Cosmic_wind whom I would like to meet, came today too. Too many names to be named for the people that I met today. Let us continue...

The students of NJC were helping out to arrange the tables and chairs. Some of the runners helped out too. By this time, I had a missed call. It was Beng!! From his block, he could see me running around in the CC. LOL! I told him I was carrying stuff, arrange the chairs for the talk. The talk started, with Brokenrunner seriously funny when she was nominated to be the emcee. I am sure she will do a good job. I was half listening to Mr. Lim Nghee Huat's talk, half manning the table for registration. Still ..., some people tried to be funny. I think that was pretty rude. C'mon. ... give us due credit for arrange things like this and all you can do is ask. People with poor manners... can I even call them, people?

Anyway, the talk ended, I got my new pair of Asics GEL Cumulus VII too. I had to try them ON!! Haaa!! NEAT! However, I helped out as a road Marshall with Whr being the mobile Marshaller!! Probably another point to take note the next time, marshalling routes. Hmm...

We ended the run back at the CC. It was getting late. Some of us changed and showered. We did a short briefing on what are the up coming running events and get together sessions before the end of this year. I think we will have more fun!! Feeling hyper-excited over all these events!! Okay, we moved over to a hawker centre nearby to settle our dinner. A big group chatting around in separate tables. The gathering ended with most of us deciding to head back home. Cheow12 gave Tiwazz, Renohtaram and myself a lift home. Thanks!

What can I say?! I am eager to try out my new shoes! I was still in them when I reached home. I dumped my stuff and heading out for a run. I wanted to do an 18km but ended up doing 12km instead. I did not want a nagging ankle to become a nasty ankle.

Needless to say, none of us had experience in this non-profit form of organizing events. I would say that it is getting big. Big has its problems. A lot of us are slowly chipping in to make this place a better community for people with running interest.

Maybe this is not exactly a run as in a long run. Nevertheless, it was great meeting a lot of new faces as well as familiar faces! I really had a fun day! Thank you, guys! As usual, a list of attendees based on my memory: Taz, Tiwazz, Bee, Renohtaram, BrokenRunner, TLR, Commando, Pretty, Cheow12, Violet, Sanji182, DreamRunner, Carine, Meteor, Alvo2102, Clive, DO, Seal, Whr, IronmanDreamer, Kops21, run.run.runaway, Bug, Superboy82, Novaflux, Cokiee, Sumiko, Freddy, Kudanil, Hedgehog, jamessoh, Cosmic_wind, YankeeII, Wildcat, Slacker, Bselby0, Leica, Fellyruns, Tekko, Garfield, Ultraman, Gohkm, LittleFoot, Chankw and RunEssence

Where is ...
Fatty, Cyberkinetic, True_Atlantean

Sorry if I missed any.

Money... ooo.. sensitive topic. It is when you are asking:
"How much do you have in the bank?" (Null!!!)
"How much do you earn per month?" (measly teeny weeny small wage)
"How much did you pay for that fuelbelt?" (depends... maybe you are that sucker that paid for an extra $30)
"Were you the winner of the last toto draw?" *eyes roll*

It can go boastful with regards to dollars and cents when stuff you ask is about:
"How much did you pay for that bling-bling watch?" (Ok lah, $x.xk only)
"How much did you pay for that car?" (Cheap lah, $xxxk only)
"How much did you pay for that landed property?" (Very cheap, $xM only)

Money might not be everything. It IS something when stuff that you need, can be paid with money. No, I'm not talking about credit cards because those are not YOUR money. I might not be earning like soccer players whose pay go in Pounds per week. I am happy that I am able to pay my bills, on my own.

I always remember my maternal grand-mother who teaches me to be a down-to-earth person. Her quote: "Who to blame(no one), but myself for being poor. Grit my teeth, cos its full steam ahead!". I miss her already.

Okay... I hear my Asics Gel Cumulus VII calling.

Missed the Teh Tarik session last night. I left site around 8-ish pm? I think. In a state of concussion already. More reading and testing now trying to squeeze information in my head like packing sardines in a can. What am I talking now? Infomation, all ... non-sequential. (-_-)

Last night, we had a small celebration with YMother too. Durian cake. Why? I hope outbreak of sore throat does not hit me again. Seems like I can't take a list of foodstuff, an endless list.

Everything seems to be hay-wire now. Collecting my ASICS GEL Cumulus VII tomorrow.

Really afraid to set appointment these days. Too much uncertainty in work. I keep setting up appointments to meet friends for dinners, ball games, runs and canceling them in the end due to work. Feeling disappointed for myself and friends. Just like the chinese saying "Setting Pigeons Free".

Suppose to meet the runners for Teh Tarik Session. No Pigeons for this round, I hope.

*Cough* ... I did a whopping 17.9km last night. Unintentional 17.9km. It was suppose to be a 10-12km. Some miscommunication and muscle pull incidents, some of us got separated. Here is the Field Report:
Left my workplace sharp to reach home early for my run with the "westerners". I dropped my bag, got changed and started my run back to my office area to meet Dreamrunner, Tiwazz, YankeeII and Bug. Bug ran from his office too. We started our run to the meeting point where the rest of the guys were waiting there at the old Provost. Who was there? Flip, Runalone, Freddy, Spectre, Whr, Kops21, Kops21's friend - Poh, Slacker and LaoKaYu. We headed towards the WC MacDonalds, where it was wet along the way. It rained moments ago. We stopped briefly at MacDonalds because Poh has a bad muscle strain. Eventually, he walked and Kops21 accompanied him, with Tiwazz. At this point, we were starting to lose distance with the main bulk of runners. YankeeII was with me where the runners ahead of us were almost like a speck of dust. They were moving fast. At one point, which I think we took a different turn from the rest, YankeeII and I headed back to the Provost. OOoops... I think the rest stopped at a different end point. I received comms call from Flip that they wanted to come over to Provost. I asked them to stay at the gym area.. .. but, not sure why they wanted to come over to Provost. In the end.. it was due to bad communication, they thought I did not know how to go to the end point, gym. I sort of "sabo-ed" the guys.. making them run a few extra km. We bade each other farewell, with YankeeII, Dreamrunner, Whr and myself heading towards the BV area. Whr headed home once he reached the BV start point.

The three of us washed up a little while waiting for Kops21 to drop Tiwazz at my office area before we headed for a late dinner, chatting quite a while before we head for home.

Something about work that I really want to laugh out EXTREMELY loud until my gastric juices find its way up my throat and onto the floor. One word to summarize it all.... ridiculous.

Already done with 3 assignments, with the last one, giving me some sense of accomplishment because I have help the customer a great deal. Famished. I went for MOS burger, ordering a hotdog. Hotdog reminds me of childhood days. Satisfied. Soon, I got a ring for a pool session. Timely! We started with arcade.... *gimme more.. need to relax* and then American Pool. Wow... getting quite a number of wins, which is not too bad. Several classic shots and I even tried trik shots! Yay!! Yes, I missed my train home and had to take a cab.

Now... Why and what about work? Email is enough. I feel like a heavy weight champion already. More and more products under my belt. Soon, it will be a matter of convenience of .. you-know-everything, hence-you-can-cover-all-angles-of-X-area-of-SSSSes. I am SOOOOO looking forward for that day.

It has to stop.. and will stop one day.

Not good. Work again. I really hope that this is a passing phase. Eating up too much of my time in some areas.

I bet the rest of the gang had run at the VM today!

Not able to do the VM, I ran around 6pm instead. I had this strong craving for a cold drink right I finished my run!

Just about a quarter left to re-vamp this blog. REALLY close to completion and there is this section of the CSS code that looks weird. I shall stop for the day. Give myself a break from coding.

Going to do a slow run later.

Vertical Marathon Race happens tomorrow!

Marathon is 29 days later? Are you running yet?
Ultra Marathon is on 25th Dec. Are you joining yet?

Moving away from a lousy feeling for the day, I was thinking.. I would be a great idea to call Kay for lunch since it is his birthday today. To my surprise, Taz and runrunrunaway are meeting Kay for lunch too! I joined them. Sorry, no camera to take pictures.

Right after our lunch, runrunrunaway left us and we headed to collect our Vertical Marathon race goodie pack. That was where I bumped into Siong. We chatted for a while. I heard from IronmanDreamer that his coporate Triathlon timing was really excellent. Good for him. We headed over to the ballroom for distribution of the race goodie packs. Fastlane was in front of us. Surprise! When we were done with the collection, Brokenrunner, Alvo2102 and Meteor... joined us for coffee!! We chatted for a really long time!! Topics like races, outings, forum and all!! Seeing ZhiMien there was total coincidence!! Any place with electronics.. you will see this guy appearing. He is on leave, spending his leave day to send his Treo for repair. LOL. Smart phone gives smart problems. What to do?!

We ended out coffee session and I headed for my own dinner. I will have to work at night. I have to eat something! I stopped by the arcade area.. and there is no need to guess who I saw!! ArcadeDT. I watched him play a few sets and I left the place, heading off for my assigned job.

Going bonkers soon. I have been dropping all my runs for endless PDFs, docs, ssh and https. Testing, testing, testing 123. *mumbles*

I missed the run with lots of people like Brokenrunner, Roger, Tiwazz, Sotong, Commando and many more!! Definitely not a good feeling ...

Can't live if I don't have exercises .....

Maybe go for bowling to brighten up my mood later, after this testing shite.

Last night, I was talking to a friend for quite sometime. I do not understand some stuff. Some people just have all the luck. Yes. Life is not totally fair. But, what can't kill me, makes me stronger.... *rarrrrr*

I went online to check out the Macross Pencil Sharpener (random package) that I saw at Lot1 the other night. Damn!! So excited! I shall make myself happier! I do not know why, but I am a pencil person. For whatever reasons its may be, I prefer to use pencil than pen. Hmm.. probably because pencils have more "life" than pens?

I turned up on time for my appointment today. Kinda nervous and excited to meet the person, face to face. I have not seen the person yet. But, there is so much heard about the character that I am about to meet today.

Approximately around our meeting time, Mr. Lim Nghee Huat, finisher of the 168km NTU run, turned up in a simple polo and pants. If it weren't for the publicity, he would have seem to be like one of your neighbor-next-door. Still.. .. I noticed that he is a simple person. Humble. Willing to share. We (a few of us) touched on the topics that we would be covering for the 3rd Run Together cum Running Experiences Sharing session with Mr. Lim. Covering on other things like logistics preparation and planning for the day to ensure that the event is smoother and more meaningful for everyone. Time flies fast when you are enjoying company. We got so carried away with him sharing with us some of this thoughts and experiences on the 168km as well as other events. He did a LSD of 85km to prepare for this 168km!!! Gosh! At around 6pm, we concluded our discussion and thanked him for meeting up with us. Yikes.... I have a flyer to make for this event.

I feel totally inspired by his achievements and advice. I am moved by his friendly and approachable personality too. I am sure that this Sunday's event will be beneficial to most.

Yikessss! Just 3km into my run... the lightning was getting threatening.... I had to call it quits before it gets too dangerous.

Holiday. One for today. One for Thursday. Doesn't seem like anything to me.

For a start, I got several more arrows before I can even finish swallow the previous few. Endlesstrail asked me to join him for a ride. But, I don't think I can finish the reading on time. Moreover, I have an appointment set at 4pm later today. Its reading, reading and more reading for me now. All these required for the meeting on Friday and next Monday.

Okay, enough talkin'
.
.
Back to books.