Limping Marathon Runner

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Feel free to modify on as your own list.

Race Prep
- BIB Write
- 3 nights of early rest
- 3 nights of carbo load
- Cereal
- Museli bars
- Oats + Honey
- Defizzed Coke
- H2O for first load
- Wake up at 2am

Marathon Day
Head
- Cap, Sunglasses, MP3 Player

Torso
- CamelBak, Key, Transitlink Card, ID, ATM Cards, Cash, Spare Batt for MP3, Mobilephone, Camera, Ziplock, Racebelt, BIB, Adidas BIB, Race Tee, Race Shorts, PowerGel, Mars, Mealbag for BIB, Polar Heartrate Monitor, Vaseline, Deep Heat Rub, band-aid.

Legs
- Shoes, ChampionChip, Spare Shoes

Spare Bag For Shower/Change
- Trashbags, Slippers, Tee, Shorts, U/W, Towel, Shower Gel, Museli Bar, Pen.

I believe this is the biggest turn out ever. With Trifam people who are leading the marathon pace for different level were present today too. We did a short 9.6km and back to the start point. Nothing new. Everyone to stay alert and should be away from any injury at all.

Roentgen passed me my HWA goodie pack. Thanks! Personalised Thank You card!! Wow.. Thanks to all those who have made this possible in anyway. Any help in any way at all! Many thanks.

Excited about this upcoming marathon already.

My mobile phone could not charge and had no response when I tried to switch it off and on again. *gasp*

Could it be? End of its life?! Proceeded to do mobile phone C.P.R.....
Switch off, Dismantle all, Assemble back, Switch On. Yay!! One life saved!! Seems like I need to buy a new phone.... soon. Scary.

Waking up at 4am to find that my mobile phone not charging.... not good. Luckily, I rectified that and was able to give it some juice before I left home around 7am plus. Darn... I was late this morning for the beep test. Mysterious as it seems, I have been having nightmares (in a way or another) for the past few nights and it contributed to my loss of quality sleep. Anyway, with the necessary stuff for the beep test in place, we did a warm up (familiarization) and followed by an actual test. Simple as ABC. But, it progressively became tougher. To the point of fatigue, my estimated VO2max is 50.5. According to Philip, at my age, this reading is sipeh tok-gong. Now... am I projecting the image that I might be older than I am? Back to the test. .... Others like Googoogaga, Sotong and TLR did pretty well for VO2max score too! Philip proceeded to do a de-brief on the test and some tips on this up coming event. Since Sotong felt that his ITB is a little tight, Philip gave him a deep muscle massage on his ITB. Sotong screamed like he was in labour pains and I took it down in video. LOL! I decided to give Philip a go to massage my ITB and it was my turn to wince in pain. After the session, I did feel that my ITB is stretched. Nice! *Ouch*

Four of us went off for brunch before two made their way to Great World City for Happy Feet Movie. Since we were early, we chilled out at Mac. Another huge turnout. I think Happy Feet is like a musical animation movie, something along that line.


I created this. Sort of like a sneak preview of what's to come. I have yet to create yesterday's entry on cute Rachael as well. I need to scan the card.

I tried out the foot analysis today at Vivocity Adidas store. It was fun! Feeling silly on why I could never get my left foot to strike properly on the pad. I always land on my right. Now.. interesting stuff. As the Blue - Green - Yellow - Red print suggests I have swapped from a heel to fore / mid foot strike type. Wicked! The staff doing the analysis are friendly and knowledgeable. I am labeled as "efficient and elite" type as there are only 20% of runners who are mid foot type. Elite sounds totally cool but I am no where near there. Efficient? I have no idea.

Now several of us went for lunch before I looked at DS lite. Heh heh heh... I found the DS Browser as well. As we shopped around, we bumped into Skyver with his gal.

Set!!... 30km! But, I was stopped by a passing shower. Well, more than a passing shower actually.

往日情 - 李玟
作词：姚谦　作曲：鲍比达　编曲：鲍比达

让我慢慢忘记你　像朝露蒸发阳光底
干干净净的心情从此　不再背负思念荆棘
记忆　它属于生命　谁　能轻易抹去　我　只能全部都藏匿

脑海里　全是过往情景　我该如何整理　真教人力不从心
这份情感如何还给你　谁　能够代替你　我　毕竟已付出真情

（前段重覆一次）

为什么　世界好不公平
先让我们相遇　又经历太多风雨
午夜梦里　常常回到往昔
梦醒难忍伤心　因为当时有你

James Bond 007 movie is out. Guess this is one show I can bring my old man to watch.

I did some reading up on other interesting trips in my list during my free time while most are doing their body maintenance. On a different note, look what I have found?!

The coolest thing has happened... What I have been waiting for as well... Introducing .. Nintendo DS Browser!!

I punished my legs for a good 30km just now. Not the capital punishment yet... Stopping along the way for plenty of stretches.

Conan just MSN-ed me ...
"Are you nuts? We're having route march tomorrow..."

Perfect.....

A few of the other folks said ...

"juz a recovery walk for u lah"
"heheh..it's what they call 'recovery'"

Ya ... my limping foot... Can I report sick?!

Since my bad day started from yesterday, I was not spared from today as well. Can't sleep and the lack of it contributed to the DNF today. I could only managed a 6km before I felt nauseous.

Back to work.

Since no one knows the set up better, I have to settle it before I turn to Men-In-Green.

Definitely not feeling good, having to stay and set up since tonight I am suppose to celebrate YMother's birthday. They will have to go for the dinner first and I'll join in the cake cutting as soon as I'm done.

Nightmare.. I think I'm going to camp here tonight. Blast this. 15hrs of work?
Renohtaram!! Are you in office too?! .....

Ha.. I think I heard a "I need your help" from 5 different person today.

What's best? I forgot my keys and I left them in the office. I gasped in horror, standing at the door, outside my house. I dragged my feet with a lousy heavy notebook all the way back to the office to retrieve my house keys. Not a choice that I would have when no one is home. Everyone went shopping. By the time I reached home to change, I was really really.. .. late for SP Tracks. Cheow12 and Tiwazz were kind enough to wait for me to finish my 8 sets. I am suppose to do 9 sets today. I guess all the food in Bidor (adding 2kg to my waistline) did not help me in my mental state of "I-need-to-do-9-laps-today".

It is time to squeeze again.... just when the Men In Green act is around the corner. Forecast ... Things will still wait for me to be cleared.
Sometimes, I laugh at myself.

*Scream* For what?

Run run run.... not much time left for SCSM is around the corner.

Just back from Bidor Half Marathon and we missed the SBS bus at Bukit Timah Road. IMD and I were toying with the idea of waiting longer which we ended up misleading a foreign worker thinking that there will be buses coming. It was flagging down of a cab in the end, at around 1am.

It has been a great trip! Thanks for the company - Yi Hua, Yen Erl, IMD, SV, Shut and Ronnie!

Wow!!! Dean has completed his 50 Marathons, 50 states, 50 days ... all done (with NYC Marathon as the last marathon). *Salutes*

At 5.30am, my phone's alarm rang. I guess I was enjoying my sleep. Shut exclaimed, "AAAggggg.... I don't feel like running! How?". Let's slack! Stay in bed then!! Noooo!! I got out of bed and washed up before changing. I ate a Muesli bar and wore my shoes. When Shut and Ronnie were ready, we went down to gather with the rest. Ahh!! Stars over head! Nice!! I spent a minute to look around the sky before warming up.

Loud stereo speakers boomed the area with the Emcee and fast paced music rocking the quiet sleepy neighborhood on a lazy Sunday. We were ushered into a compound and then re-routed to the start line with only the half marathon participants first. Greeting each other with "good-lucks", we sped off after the flag dropped at 7am. I was suppose to pace Shut at a 2hr 30mins for 21km pace. But, I guess I just continued at a constant speed (wasn't exactly going at race speed). I can't remember I overtook SV at which point. But, he was not too far behind. At most of the time, I could see Ronnie in front of me. IMD is way too fast. I enjoyed running through old Kampong style houses, palm and rubber plantations. Running beside cemeteries was less frightening at broad daylights. The air is cool but had a strong dose of chicken farms smell. Sure woke everyone up with that!! We ran across the highway (4 times - to and fro) too. Once I calculated mentally that a sub-2hour is possible, I gave it a shot at my last 3km. I crossed the finishing line feeling good. My first 21km Personal Best - 1hr 56mins. Soon, the rest came in one by one. Yen Erl did a great job too! She had a good race though she shrieked at the slopes, "Ayeeeeee!!!"

Cold Red Bull and Vico was really a power up for me! Watermelon never tasted that good as well. We stayed around to capture a priceless shot of IMD receiving his 15th place in Men's Open category. Since none of us won anything for the lucky draw, we went back to the hotel to shower and change. We had some simple food for lunch before heading back to KL. Shut, SV, Ronnie and I hanged out around Bejaya TimesSquare. I read and finished off the "5 Love Languages" book at Starbucks, totally sunken into reviewing what I had went through many years back. I was not speaking the Primary Love language of "Quality Time". It was 6pm before we boarded our home bound bus back!

Yet another early day for me to get out of bed because we are going to race in Bidor, Malaysia - Bidor Half Marathon! Meeting at Kranji MRT around 6.30am, I was the earliest. I should have taken a bus instead. By the time Ronnie, Shut and SV arrived, we got on Bus 170 and crossed the immigrations on both sides swiftly. Since Senai Airport is not too far away, sharing a cab was quite a deal and we only got into a slight jam which is just outside the airport. A quick check-in and we were off to some breakfast at CoffeeBean and TeaLeaf. It was not too long that we got on the plane and reached KL before we can catch some sleep. Budget flights... did not expect too much. Within minutes, IMD and Yee Hua were at the lobby. We loaded our packs into the car and went to Cheras to look for Yen Erl.

Catching a quick lunch, we continued our journey up to Bidor where it was raining along the way, with IMD behind the steering wheel. He was practically transporting a car load of zombies.. all of us fell asleep. Oooops. Upon arriving at Bidor, we asked for directions to the race pack pick up point. Once we parked our car, it poured from the sky again!! We decided to have some hot drinks before driving over to our hotel. The friendly, chatty coffee shop owner even showed us his travel pictures!! Now that made us look like country bumpkins!!! He has been to so many countries!!

Since the rain stopped, we went to the official race hotel and were greeted by a "See Foo Hotel" which translates to "Master (KungFu) Hotel". But, it actually meant West Lake Hotel. *slaps forehead real loud* Ouch. There were signs pointing to a small door leading to a flight of stairs which certainly did not suggest any "star" to the hotel. Heck! Simple beds and bathing facilities are all we need! We went out to take some pictures at the start line and did some walking around the small town of Bidor. It was raining on and off, every now and then. We ended up eating Ramly Burgers, Goreng Pisangs, Curry Puffs and Duck Drumstick Noodles. Yum!!


Since there weren't any cable T.V. programs or Internet access, I read "The 5 Love Languages" till I fell asleep at 8pm. First time sleeping at such an early time!

My fav Add-on, ChinesePera-kun is supported on Firefox 2!! Yay..... Macfox... not yet.

Due to work this week, I have abandoned quite a few stuff that I should be tackling. However, I got "The Five Love Languages" book (loan). Yay!!! Why is everyone asking me if I'm dating again when they saw me reading that book? Does it mean that when one is married, he or she no longer needs to read on relationship books anymore? Are you an expert by then?

Otherwise known as the people's marathon, it is one of the best marathon around. No wonder Oprah Winfrey ran the MCM. Our ironwoman (IMO), Ripley, came back from her marathons..... I salute to her. Waiting for her FR!