Monthly Archives: March 2010

The Run

★ Posted on at 09:44 pm ★

st patrick's day

Took a trip to the local Irish pub behind my apartment to just join in on the St Patrick’s Day celebrations. Lots of people turned up wearing green and just gulped down pints of beer. Had two pints of my favourite stuff. Guinness pints brings back memory of New York city, the drink of choice after work with my then boss.

guinness!

* * *

The official time for my run has been released. It was 1 hour 41 minutes and 44 seconds. The interesting bit was I had completed the 10km mark at 1 hour 5 minutes. Heh, was hoping to be able to reach 10km within an hour but I only managed to get to 9km at that point, at which, my brain just switched off and I continued running as best I could. I just didn’t try any harder.

I’ve been wondering at the back of my mind. As we grow older, we start dismissing things more easily. “I’ve done that before”, “I’m too old to learn this”. Heh, maybe the latter bit doesn’t quite apply to me yet, but there are a lot of us who are so used to just learning enough on how to do something and they stick with it. It serves its purpose, and we are all busy people, so why bother to take the next step up? For the former, it represents a mental block at times. This is my third run or this is the umpteenth time I have to sit for an exam. Heh, the run is behind me now, an my cousin has mentioned the Melbourne Marathon in October. I think I might sign up for that, but I’m still deciding between the 10km and 21km track. Not wanting to be overambitious, my friend asks me why I torture myself. Heh, I do things simply because I can, and because I want to, and I’ve always had the need to prove that I can do better. It doesn’t quite translate into the effort though, as in hindsight, I didn’t push myself hard enough to start aching all over. Your body will adapt to conditions and while I have come a fair way (first time I jogged, I was unable to even complete a third of the course of Princes Park, last year at my peak, I could run two full rounds without slowing down for more than 10 seconds, as of today, I can probably do 5km at about 11-12km/hr without too much drama).

I’m just a little worried about my upcoming exam. I’ve done accounting bits in and out since 2000. Covered some of it when I was studying for exams during my first year of work. Covered some of it studying for the CFA exam. I’m studying it again now. It’s the case of I’ve done it before, but I can’t say I’m very good at it yet, just as I’ve been running on and off since I first trained for the Kid’s run in early 2007.

Heh, maybe as a kid, you have less responsibilities, you have no hindsight, no benchmarks (other than your peers) to set you up with, you basically just do. We should not get tired of rising to the occasion, of facing the challenge. Maybe it’s also because we have worked so hard previously and it’s wedged us into a style of living, that we are so afraid of giving it up, and we stick to what we know best. “I’ve always done it this way, the results have always been as per my expectations, I can live with it, so why change?”. Well, maybe not everything lives up to our expectations, and then we revert to our habit of complaining about everything around us as the reasoning behind our unhappiness.

* * *

I fall in and out of this trap, so some days can become really mundane and you see no light at the end of it all. Not going to get stuck in a loop, and I have to break the circuit every now and then just to keep things in perspective.

Liberated

★ Posted on at 08:29 pm ★

seasonings

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.

salmon rice

* * *

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.

Contemplative

★ Posted on at 06:46 pm ★

coffee - 5 months later

After 5 months of owning the coffee machine, I’m better at estimating when a shot pours whether it will taste good or not. There’s no scientific experiments, just subjective observations on what would taste better. I can get nice silky milk, but haven’t figured out how to get the really nice rosettas into a cup. Heh, will need to do another round of reading and experimentation when I’m up to the task.

* * *

There are days I’m more upbeat, reminding myself to be happy and be happy for the things I have around me. It’s amazing how saying a little prayer gives me the energy to drag that lazy ass of mine out of bed on some mornings. Been running and swimming quite a bit of late, and trying to eat healthily to replenish the system, but some days I just wake up feeling a little sluggish. It’s okay to feel your body aching all over, some days it’s when the brain is feeling lethargic, it’s almost paralyzing and you have fear gripping over you. There are days like those, I just need an overriding smack on the cheek (figuratively) to knock some sense into me to get me going again. It’s ok if you can’t run the whole way, you just need to not stop and complete the journey you have set yourself out on.

* * *

There are also days where I don’t say the nicest things (not rude, but not really right for the subject matter). Sometimes maybe I’m too focused on myself that I am not entirely tactful. I never mean to be inconsiderate. I just feel I rub people the wrong way at times. I don’t apologise directly, but do try to make up for it in other ways.

* * *

Heh, it’s good to have time to reflect, but it’s time to study.