Prime Time

Transformers 3 is coming out. Optimus Prime is cool.

"Autobots.. check me outzz"

Recently I've been sick of course, but let's not go there again.

The point is, I should be in KL now, going to bed early for my race at 5am. Instead, I'm in Kampar, tinkering with my FYP. Granted, it's more important, but that's not the reason why I'm here now.

In Team Miracle Mile, we use the term "Miracle Mile" a lot. It's our metaphor for goals, or the milestones we have in our pursuit of running. Sometimes the term comes to mind when you try to describe the feeling of making a certain pace or distance on the road.

As I grew in stature as a runner, my Miracle Miles became a whole lot cooler. From "finishing a 10k race without walking", I went to "getting a ranked position in the UTAR Run" and even "1:40 for Half Marathon".

These are all important. In their own contexts, they're equally important goals.

However, the situation I'm in right now means I have only one Miracle Mile immediately in mind:

I just want to get well and strong again.

And I'm not only talking about running. I want to live strong. There's been a malaise that I've been swimming in. I've been stuck in a rut. Hanging at a loose end. I know the feeling - I've been here before, and I think you know it too.

FYP, assignments, projects, cell group, discipleship training, bible study, marathons and relationships - these are all challenges that God has given me to not only accomplish, but excel and enjoy.

It's time to live high, live mighty, live righteously.

Not taking it easy.

Optimus Prime died but was revived by the Cube thingy in the second movie.

Optimus Prime is cool (Y)

UTAR Volunteerism Run

Hmm.. Okay I got quite a lot of things to do, but still, I really want to blog about something.

For the first time ever, we've had a distance race here in Kampar under UTAR. In conjunction with the apparently upcoming 10th anniversary of the university's founding, they've been going all out to do community service. This is a good thing. The run this time was to fund the construction of a mini library in Tronoh Mines, which I tell you is a really ulu place. Hope they find the library helpful.

As it was a 5km race, it went by pretty quick - so much that I can even give a blow by blow account of how it went. Here it is:

Before Flag-off: Finally! The starting time advertised was 7am, yet here we are still waiting at 813am.. warmed up too early and even cooled down with all the waiting we had to do. The emcee quite kesian.. have to repeat everything in 3 languages haha. Team Miracle Mile are all lined up at the front - nice :)

Bang!: Off we go! Wait, why are we running so fast? After 200 metres, I noticed that we're doing a 3min/km pace.. crazy fellas. Shujian and Jensen blasted off like madmen, making up about 15-20 people ahead of me. Kaomeng and I kept at our usual pace (we've trained together quite a number of times).. his presence really is reassuring.

1km mark: Water station! So fast! Just take and pour on my head for a kick :) Over the first km, a few people have fallen out already. Some slowed down their running pace and some even walked. I would say there's a dozen ahead of us now. I'm still with Kaomeng and Jensen is about 20 metres ahead.

2km mark: Now to get those little wristbands from the checkpoint. I peeled away from Kaomeng to grab one from a helper, and didn't see him again until the finish line. I could sense his presence behind me, but who has time to turn, eh? One tall dude with a nice body frame gave up and walked, which both surprised and spurred me on.. passed Jensen also but of course he wouldn't walk.

3km mark: Didn't bother taking the water. Regret it slightly though, I could use another sprinkle on the head... It's getting hot, which wouldn't have been the case if we had started on time. I've lost Kaomeng already, but I can see two red vests in front - clearly Meng Leong and Shujian. A bit surprised that I can still see Meng Leong, and more so that Shujian's ahead of him.

4km mark: I'm. feeling. tired... this was supposed to be a 4km race.. There's this white shirt guy between me and Meng Leong, whom I lost sight of because we're turning corners now. I can still see white shirt dude though, he's just maybe 40 metres ahead of me. I'm not totally sure, but at this point I knew I'd be in the top 10. The corners are agonizing la, I don't know how far I am from the front.

Stopped: I sped up too early thinking that I'm nearly there.. had to stop to choke down the impulse to vomit.. Continued running after a split second, but that's lost momentum I need to make up for. Starting to feel dizzy and I'm breathing crazily like... like... like.. like always I guess.

Finish! (4.87km): Goodbye, white-shirt guy! A turn of pace in what turned out to be the last 200m took me level with him for a while - we shared the sound of mutual haggard breathing for a few seconds before I shot away for the finish line. Dizzy and disoriented, with heart blasting away, I still had the presence of mind to stop my Garmin: 21minutes 55 seconds for a 4.87km route. A decent but unspectacular timing, yet I placed 6th.

What else can I say? It was a good run - would've definitely achieved my initial target of 17:30 for 4km.. In the end I still managed to finish the race with decent pace although I had to run 870 extra metres.

The organization was very poor. I suppose, on one hand, the committee neglected to consult any of the runners in UTAR about the technical side of organising such a race - even I could have troubleshooted loads of the problems that they faced - let alone the many other seasoned runners out there. They did do quite a meticulous and thorough survey after the race though, so I hope that, if they or UTAR is serious about really giving the best to the community - they can improve loads for next time. The running scene in Kampar is something of great potential that they can tap into.

Of course, the great thing about running is that even if the race planning screws up and goes haywire, you still get a real good kick out of it, eh? It was nice running with the Team and meeting new runners too. Next race: Bidor Half Marathon.

A Bareno?

What in the world is a Bareno? Is it some obscure Mexican folk dance? Is it the latest new-fangled Japanese toy in the market?

Bareno Kitty?

In reality, it is actually some relatively obscure firm that produces "a wide range of bathroom and kitchen products .... to cater to all your needs in style." (Bareno, 2011)

Like most 21 year old young men my age, I don't know squat about different bathroom and kitchen products. I know how to use them - I've been using them for quite some time now (I think..) but what do I know about brands? And why am I posting about this when there's so much else going on in the world right now?

Somehow, this company knew my achilles heel and decided to organize a multi-distance race in what I suppose must be partially a publicity bid too.

So there we were, 11 UTAR students from Kampar with absolutely no interest in kitchen sinks, braving the traffic and our packed schedules to make it to KL so that we could run the Bareno Run 2011. We had to pay for registration fees, we had to drive all the way, some of us had mid-term papers less than 24 hours before the race, we had to wake up at 4am, we had to run over either 10 or 21km of hilly terrain in a hazy atmosphere and our bodies experienced various degrees of pain, aches, cramps - you name it.

Naturally, we enjoyed it very much. After all, our interest is in running.

One thing that occurred to me is how daunting this run was in many ways. I haven't had the time or determination to train for this event (unlike PBIM). I was dead tired out of all the driving the previous day and only caught 4 hours of sleep, tops. I was sniffing and sneezing both during the night before and the morning of the race itself. The hilly terrain turned this trial into an ordeal, no joke.

But let me tell you something really cool about today's run. I finished it, and as a bonus, I finished it within my somewhat naively set target of getting a sub-2 hour half.

This is in spite of the fact that I've never wanted to give up so badly as I did in this race. Both my mind and body were yelling out for me to stop but I didn't. Not until my body took things into its own hands, though, cramping up and forcing me stop 3 times during the race. Yet I always got up and running again.

This race confirmed to me that there is some voice within me - the voice that is essential to all runners and tells you that you can do it - that you can overcome this.

I don't think I'll see you again, Bareno, but thanks anyway. I feel like I've come away just a little bit stronger.

The 20th Birthday Mile

If life is like a marathon, then I suppose that birthdays must be the distance markers along the route.

Twenty!!

Well, I've just hit the 20 mile marker on what I suppose must be my ultra-marathon of undefined distance. But hey, so what's the deal with birthdays and distance markers?

One thing about birthdays and distance markers, they're not really anything in themselves. Unlike bread, water and power gel stations, or toilets, they don't physically supplement you with anything. That is to say, if I were an organic robot that still needed nourishment, I would still need all of these things, but not the distance markers.

By the same virtue, birthdays are not things in themselves. They are not like lectures, tutorials, training sessions, sermons, exams or graduations. In other words, they're not what "really counts".

In spite of this, most runners think distance markers are important, and most people think birthdays are very important! Why?

The analogy continues. Distance markers help you know where you stand in a race. By knowing your time and distance traveled, you can tell whether you've run the race well thus far. Have things gone according to plan? Are you where you think you should be? Then you can make adjustments - whether to increase your pace or slow down if you're going too fast. For a junior runner like me, I get the kicks from seeing distance markers because it makes me think: "Wow! I've actually ran this far!".

I think you see where I'm going now. How you run near the distance marker isn't minutely as important as how you run the last 5km. How you live your birthdays then are nothing much in themselves - what is most important is how we live our other 364 days. But then again, we're human, and humans need milestones. Humans need to think and reflect on how they've been living and where they're heading. Birthdays are a special time that does that for you, if you let it.

My 20th birthday has probably been the best ever, not because of the celebrations, which were muted because of the exams. It's the best because of how I've run since the last distance marker. I started this marathon poorly, you know (most of us do), but I've finally learnt the secret of how to run a real race and I've been running like never before.

So I have two birthday wishes: one for myself and one for you, my friend.

The first, that I keep learning how to run better and better until the day I reach the finish line. Preferably, I won't stop.

The second is that we'll all be together there at the end.

IIR 2010

Hah.. 6 days after the race, I now got a winkling of time to post something about the past race.

IIR stands for Ipoh International Run, which about 15 friends and I took part in on the 18th of July. Among my contact list, Kelvin Wong and Jensen Chen are two of them.

Well I don't really feel like blogging about the run anymore, mainly because I already did a write-up for our running club website: Team Miracle Mile!

Once the website's worked things out I'll post the link here eheh heh heh.

Life has been pretty hectic recently, at least by my standards (it may not be considered hectic to people who are better organised). I need to orrrrgannise myself pleassse.

Spend every moment knowing that I can use it for the glory of the Almighty.

And so here I go! Wish me the best!

Hanging over

I feel... a bit funny. I think it's post World Cup syndrome.

And it ended in such anti-climatic fashion too, Spain pulling off their magic again? Not really. was it 7 goals for the whole tournament? 8? Nobody's counting.

Still, the World Cup is the World Cup - everybody coming together to watch the action, the drama.. all that stuff. In a way I'm glad it's over though, it is seriously not good for anybody to sleep at 530am more than once in a blue moon. Totally screwing with the internal clock.

So maybe that's what's bothering me. I feel weird and restless and lazy. Good thing Ipoh International Run is coming up, I'm gonna have to train and maybe perk myself up.

Lifestyle, lifestyle!