Night Time Mumbling

Last year when I was still working in JB, I was targeting to participate in many running and triathlon races, with an ultimate dream of finishing an Ironman triathlon one day. My typical weekly schedule was roughly like this:

Monday: Gym session + Swim
Tuesday: Run + Swim
Wednesday: Bike + Run
Thursday: Run
Friday to Sunday: Switch to my ‘weekend husband/daddy’ role in KL, while squeezing at least one long run (LSD) during the weekend. Or perhaps a back-to-back session if I feel a little bit desperate to ‘up’ my fitness level.

Starting this year when I switched my career and return to KL where my family is, my weekly schedule turned out awesomely not-as-what-I-wish kind of thing:

Monday: Lucky enough if I can run in the evening. Or else I’ll be stuck in the office doing some paper work when a submission is about to due.
Tuesday: I might need to go home early to pick up my kids, it depends.
Wednesday: I may set this day as my ‘off day’ without being obliged to justify any reason for it.
Thursday: High possibility for a round of 9 holes golf session with a client.
Friday: Again, high chance that what happened on Thursday might be repeated, although with another group of clients.
Saturday: A very ‘tough’ 10km run, which feels more like a 25km. (“tough” here doesn’t mean the running route is difficult. It simply means I FEEL IT IS DIFFICULT to finish this distance)
Sunday: It is the only day when I turn into an iron man (unless if one day I decided to start seeking some help from a third party, also famously known as ‘The Laundry Shop’.)

Tak dapat jadi Ironman triathlete, dapat jadi iron-man kat rumah pun jadi lah...

So you can see now why I haven’t done any single race this year, despite of already being in KL where races are abundant and just a few minutes driving away from home.

Am I whining?

Am I blaming?

Am I being hard to myself?

The answer to these are a strict and clear-cut NO.

No, no and no.

So, why do I bring up this issue?

It’s is to show how important someone has to prepare before attempting such an enormous endurance event in the like of marathon or triathlon. The higher the mileage of the race events, or the better Speedy Gonzales you are trying to be, the bottom line depends almost entirely on how much you prepare for it.

It is also to show that if you see your friends crossed the finishing line of a triathlon or climbathon or swimathon or marathon or makanthon or whatever which you thought you could never ever ever ever do the same, then you should think again.

It is really not a matter of who you are or how your body size is. Sports background or not, fat or not, busy or not. It is a matter of whether you set your mind to do it or not. What should appropriately come next to that is your proper preparation for it. Follow that through with smart execution, and put gazillions of patience while doing it. Never rush for a result.

At the end of the day, you’ll be crossing the same finishing line as your friends did.

Amboi amboi, pandainya aku ceramah. Macamla aku ni terer sangat.

Ngeh ngeh ngeh…

But the real fact is... I miss racing...

Pantun Side Stitch

Di pagi Jumaat nan indah berseri,
Cuaca mendung nyaman terasa,
Hormon pantunku tetiba tinggi,
Mari tengok apa hasilnya.

Anak haruan anak keli,
Berenang bersama bersuka ria,
Akibat dah lama sangat tak lari,
Maka side stitch datang menjelma.

Nasi lemak ayam berempah,
Dimakan bersama sambal berlada,
Pabila side stitch dah makin parah,
Mula lah gelabah tak tentu hala.

Mata terpejam mulut ternganga,
Melayan cerita movie yang horror,
Stretching dah buat tak hilang juga,
Nampak sangat aku tak terer.

Poco-poco ramai yang tengok,
Di KLCC Park they “move-it move-it”,
Bila dah side stitch lari pun tak syok,
Muka pun kelat menahan sakit.

Selalu bersukan banyak faedahnya,
Badan pun sihat otak pun cerdas,
Nak hilangkan side stitch senang caranya,
Traininglah selalu janganlah malas (macam saya!).

Ikan siakap goreng bercili,
Tomyam udang ‘terbaek’ juga,
Cukuplah dulu sampai di sini,
Hormon dah turun ke paras biasa.

Dengan kata lain… dah takde idea nak pantun la ni.

Have a nice weekend y’all!!

It Is Now Four

Today, four years ago was the first day EnAikAY blogspot came as part of my life. It started of when I was in the States having my job training, and I had plenty of spare times to blog about my sports activities.

And that's how I started doing endurance sports, in conjunction with blogging.

I did the runs, the swims, the cyclings, the races... partly because I want to have something to blog about. And I think that's pretty much what I always blog about, which unfortunately makes some people feel fed up. Well, as a matter of fact I cannot please everybody. Heck, I can't even please my own self all the times.

So, coming to the beginning of 2011 when I moved back to KL for a job change, a lot of things have changed. And with the appearance of my second child, that too has shifted my focus in life, for the time being at least.

Combination of both, I know I had to re-balance my focus and I made the decision to keep it low and slow this year.

I'm taking this opportunity to celebrate my fourth year of blogging by re-starting my writings. I hope it continues for a much longer period. It's been a fun journey and though I sometimes fall into trouble when some of the readers get the wrong perception or understanding of what is being posted here, I guess that's part of the package. I'll take it as positively as possible for what I believe, nobody is perfect. Myself included.

So with that, happy fourth year birthday to my blog!

May EnAikAY keeps moving forward.
"To be, or not to be."

Good Day, Bad Day

On a good day, I am able to dip into the swimming pool and swim 2.5km in one shot, albeit being slow at it. It happened two weeks ago when I joined some friends at the Shah Alam aquatic center. Knowing some of them were there to train for the upcoming swimathon, I knew the distance to swim that day will surely be more than 1.5km. I was doubtful to be able to complete that pre-requisite distance since I’ve not been swimming for quite a while. Fortunately my energy level was there and every part of my body behaved well. So I just swam and swam and swam, and stopped once completed a total of 2500m with some extra energy to go further if I wanted to.

Well, that was on a good day.

On a bad day, I can’t even swim 200m without stopping in between. Just like what happened last Saturday morning at Bukit Jalil National aquatic center. I arrived at the pool with an ambition to hit 3000m, but nothing worked in sync with the goal. Not even close. Heck, I think I swam less than 1000m. However, the presence of some well-known-funny guys made it a day nonetheless.

After the swim, with Syah, Saiful and Shakhir (wow.. 3S gitu).
Sesi menggosip diri sendiri. Itu pasal gelak sakan tu.

I managed to convince Shakhir to join me for the swim, knowing that he had some obligation with his kids making him unable to hit the tarmac with his two-wheelers as he usually does. Syah, Ian, Saiful and Azmar also came. Once we hit the water, the fun began. The focus of attention went to Shakhir, as it was the first time we met for a swim training. He was determined to be better at swimming so we showered him with loads of tips and corrections of his current swimming style. And being joker ourselves, every little points shared became a reason to laugh more and more.

On a separate note, I now know where Syah’s turbo button is hidden. I was swimming behind him, following closely behind the smooth bubble trail he left behind his feet. Then, I purposely tickled his feet as a sign that I’m following him. Out of surprised, that triggered his turbo engine and instantly he changed into a speedboat and all I could see was bubbles and bubbles. Ini orang sangat marabahaya woo. Mengalahkan dugong.

Anyway, about swimming, I acquired the skill and knowledge the hard way, and the long way. I remembered the times where I was so envious to see swimmers doing laps upon laps when I can’t even swim half the pool. I even found it weird that people can float in the water just by doing some kicking and waving actions.

Back then I was a shy guy who was afraid to ask people to teach me how to swim (now I’m still a shy guy... percayalah. hehe). So, I spent lots of time observing how other people swim. Then I mimic them. I spend a good 3 months or more just to be able to swim front crawl (a.k.a. free-style) for 25m without panting or drowning. Another couple of months to observe and learn how to thread water (i.e. floating). It was a long process indeed.

The reason for not taking a swimming coach is that I’m not a patience kind of guy (albeit being a shy guy). I don’t have the patience to be repetitively asked by the coach to do something that I am not good at doing. You know, in swimming there are lots of individual drills you have to master before combining everything and form a front crawl, or breast stroke. There’s the kicking drill, the one arm stroke drill, the body balancing drill, the single and bilateral breathing drill, and many more. And the stamina for long distance swimming does not come that easily as well.

Either way, with coach or without coach, the moral of the story (fullamak!!) is that, if you put your effort into it and stay focus to get what you want, you will get what you want even though you initially think you can’t do it.

So, with a Saturday well spent in the pool laughing more than swimming, I made a plan to go for a long run on Sunday morning. That didn’t happen either as I was feeling lazy to drive 40km all the way just to run. So, with the leftover mood of swimming from the day before, I made myself a coach for my little prince for his first swim training. His first lesson was backstroke.

And I am assisted by my little assistant coach.

Yet to Decide

Every time my right brain wants to write something for this blog, my left brain will start to dysfunction. At the end, nothing came up. The idea to write just flew through my head without being jotted down. Time availability, a.k.a. the “line-not-clear” factor also contributes to the lack of blogability I’m experiencing nowadays. For that reasons, this blog is going to:

a) Be closed forever and ever. Sayonara.
b) Be re-activated, but with more nonsense and crappy entries which have nothing much to do with endurance sports
c) Be continually ignored, as it is for the past couple of months until Blogspot deletes it automatically
d) Be sub-contracted to another blog writer (anyone interested?)

I am yet to decide actually.

The truth is, I find it fun to blog. I find it fun to share something which might be beneficial for others in endurance sports specifically, rather than just being a plain bed time reading material. And it is fun (for me at least) to be virtually socializing through words left by readers on the comment box. I have a mix feeling between pitiful and happy when I see the statistics of visitors. Happy that there are still some of you out there who come and visit this blog albeit it being inactive. Pitiful because I can feel their disappointment when seeing nothing new is being put up.

I am yet to find the key to unlock this mental blocks inside my head.

Until then, let’s just hope there will be another blog entry after this one.
Ngeh ngeh ngeh.

New Prince of EnAikAY

Introducing, the new prince of EnAikAY
NIK ABDUL AZIZ

Once upon a time, there was a friend who told me that there are four significant phases of life which will somehow change our character in a way or another.

The first phase is when you start a job/career.

The second phase is when you get married.

The third phase is when you get your first child.

The fourth and last phase is when you get your second child.

I'm not so sure what was his source, and I'm not sure whether he said this based on his own experience. Anyway, if the above is somehow true, I'm now passing through my fourth phase of life. And if by any means my character is going to change, I hope the changes will be in the good direction lah.

Goodbye JB, Hello KL!

Finally, after being ‘stucked’ in JB for more than 3 years, I am now making a new career move which brings me back to the capital of this beautiful country we call home. Today is my last day at work here in JB, and in a few hours time I’ll be driving back to KL for good. Alhamdulillah.

It is such a relief, to me and to my family more importantly. Having done a long distance relationship all this while, I can now tell you that it is tough, and sometimes risky. Lots of sacrifices, lots of tears, lots of anxieties and agonies were involved. Not to forget the loads of hours spent on the seat of the express bus when I have to travel back and forth on every weekends.

Now, a new chapter of life has begun. Getting into a new career which is so much different from what I am currently doing is surely going to be a great challenge. With the new lifecycle, it’s time to refine my priority-balancing skills. To be honest, I have no clue of how it is going to be. But, I’ll work hard to make sure I survive.

Whether or not I’ll be able to join running or triathlon races this year, that’s not the main issue at this moment. And although I’ve been missing weeks upon weeks of daily runs due to work commitments, I’ve started to clock some long distance runs during the weekends. Sometimes when the itchiness was too much to handle, I did back-to-back runs. However possible, I’ll always make healthy living as part of my lifestyle.

I’m surely going to miss JB and the bunch of good athlete buddies I’ve called friends. I hope I’ll meet them again at race events. So, farewell JB.

Meanwhile, "Hello KL!!!"