Be Prepared For Raya

One of my favorite. The pineapple tarts.
My wife's family makes this every year.

Raya is coming soon. It is just around the corner. During the whole fasting month, we’ve faced lots of challenges. With the always changing rain-then-hot-then-rain-again weather, the flu outbreaks (at some places), never ending work at the office, this and that. So, it is just normal for us to celebrate the Raya to the fullest, with the long holidays that come together with it (which also leaves you with lesser annual leave in stock, if you are somebody like me).

And for some of those who have to miss few hardcore fitness training sessions because they can’t afford to do them during fasting (if you are people who are good at giving lame excuses, like me!), Raya is the time to put in some revenge and reset our body for more training sessions. Many big races are also in few weeks time after Raya.

Be careful though. Raya celebration/holiday may not mingle well with your fitness training. The loads of special delicacies served, the new dresses, the relatives and friends, the travelling and the atmosphere itself, may wrongly tune your brain away from what you used to have before.

LSD may bring a meaning of Lemang, Satay, and Damn-there’s-more-to-eat! So, don’t be surprised if you can do five or seven LSD sessions per day and still not feeling tired yet.

TOF which originally means Time-On-Foot training, might be misunderstood as Time-On-FOOD. Yes, this is very normal.

For all you know, there might be a kuih raya named Fartlek, among others like Almond London or Famous Amos. So, you can put a FB status update such as “I just finished five Fartleks this afternoon”, and your running friends will be in jaw-dropping-awe mode thinking that you've done the interval-like training under the hot sun.

This is not kuih Fartlek. You have to work on your own imagination for it.

When you put a status update on your FB like “25K done!”, your friends may be thinking that you just had 25 ketul ketupat. Or, maybe they’ll think that you just drove your car 25km away to meet your relatives. Do you really think they will fall to believe that you’ve ran that long during Raya? Oh come on, keep dreaming!

If you DNF (Did Not Finish) all the satay at the third house you visit during first day of Raya, it’s ok. Don’t be sad. Leave some of the satay for others too ok.

And if you think you DNS (Did Not Start) eating the third plate of rendang and lemang at your favorite uncle’s house, you are loosing a big time man. Raya only comes once a year which means your auntie only cook that special rendang during Raya, if you forget that fact. Dua pinggan mana cukup!

Please, please, please. Do not expect there will be Gatorade or cold 100Plus at the houses you visit. The most you’ll get might be F&N Mirinda strawberry flavor that will leave your tongue red, and makes you burp every 45 seconds. And if you fancy something weirder than that, try those carbonated grape drinks and you’ll end up with purple tongue.

Or if you dare, carry along your Fuel Belt or Camelbak over your Baju Melayu or Baju Kurung. Then you can have your endurance drink with you wherever you go. In case you suddenly lost the endurance to visit the 15th house of the day.

Oh ya, kids won’t be impressed if you wear your triathlon or marathon finishers’ tee shirts. For all you need to know, kids will only like you if you give them RM10, and they might fall in love with you if you can give them RM20. If you really, really want to impress the kids, put RM50 in the ang-pows (money envelopes). The kids will instantly be jumping in joy and not long after, you'll notice somebody come over and ask you, "Are you crying?"

Three more days for me to spend this week before I can finally put up the Out-Of-Office autoreply message on my work email. My body may still be here physically in the office, but I’m sure my brain is already at my hometown, since last Friday.. hehehe.

Another long driving journey awaits...