There’s a lot of seasonings associated with Japanese food, and you combine little bits and pieces to get a meal. The more attractive bits for me is the bright and bold packaging, with large fonts and tasty morsels as pictures to give you an incentive to purchase their products.

And the end result is the below. Vyanne made a salmon rice with eggs, chives, salmon bits, sesame seeds and other bits. There’s also seaweed and tofu on the side.

* * *

A bit disappointed with my run today. It was sort of a regression as I timed myself completing the run at 1 hour and 42 minutes. It’s only 180m longer than last year’s track but it’s a regression of almost 10 minutes. Arrived just before 840am at the venue with my cousin (Jerome was supposed to run but had to go back to Malaysia for some personal matters so gave up his spot) and we idled around until 935am before the line started moving. As soon as I passed the starting line, I just dashed off on the track. I was breathing and running comfortably for the first 5 to 6km before I started to feel some of my back muscles tightening. I’ve changed my style of running this year, taking greater strides so my pace was pretty quick.

The subsequent 8km I just walked and sprinted, although it was more walking. As the event was much earlier this year, it was rather warm by 1030am and it just felt a little too hot for me. I’m disappointed as I couldn’t muster more energy to run longer. Maybe I’ve done this a couple of times already, so maybe the urgency of completing it wasn’t quite there. Heh, or maybe I’m getting older and towards the last 4 or 5 km, my thighs just started aching. I started training earlier this year, but probably didn’t train as hard as I should have.

Heh, got to the finish line and just needed plenty of water to replenish myself. As with last year, they had people giving out bunches of grapes, and you could see me revert to a primal state. Normally one would pluck the grapes from the stems before eating them but in this instance, I just jammed the entire bunch of grapes into my face. It was so refreshing.

Left the iPod and camera at home this year. Had no music, so maybe my mind wandered a bit as I ran as well.

* * *

I feel liberated. The run required quite a bit of effort to complete, so any pent up energy from before was expended. A diversion from the usual routines, so I’ve completed one of the things I know I needed to do this year. Heh, I’d like to do the Kid’s run again next year, but I definitely need a more consistent training program if I ever want to try a half marathon at any later point in time. My cousin who hasn’t done this before finished only 3 minutes after me, which I thought was pretty good, so at least there might be more people to do this again next year.

Next up is my not so exciting CPA exam. That’s a month and the half away and it’s bugging me at the back of my mind. Studying resumes tomorrow.