Run Map Re-visited

I remember posting my run map around the Garden during my initial stage where I would normally tried to run 30min to 45min. One loop of those was about 2.4km if I'm not mistaken.

Just before I took off for a week being out of office (i.e. out of JB) last week, I tried a new route. Slightly longer in distance. My new run map now is as below, with a distance per loop of approximately 3.1km.

So yesterday, after a week of hybernation from training, I tried running three loops of above. I completed my run yesterday in 1hr on-the-dot, without knowing exactly how much distance I have covered. My target was only to run 1 hour, that's it.

In an anticipation to know exactly how far had I run, I went to mapmyrun dotcot to measure my new run route, as you can see above.

Hence, 3 loops x 3.1km/loop = 9.3km in total, covered in 1 hour.

Ish ish ish. Slow nye aku lari. Sangat mengaibkan.

OK, let's do some maths shall we?

To do a half marathon on this route, I would need to run 7 loops.

And to do a full marathon on this route, I need to run almost 14 loops!

Mampussss!!!

Determination @ GE30km

I was totally unprepared (yet) to take part in a 20km or 30km race for this year's Great Eastern run event. But, for the sake of absorbing the 'mood' for a race, I went to witness the event at Lake Garden, KL on a nice Sunday morning yesterday.

It was tough getting up early on Sunday morning, which was the reason for me arriving there at 8.15am where some of the runners were already on their ways back to the finishing line. And since it was my first time being there at Bukit Aman/Lake Garden area, I had to spent few more minutes extra finding a place to park my car. The whole area was full with vehicles, mengalahkan car park kat shopping complexes.

I made my way (after asking for directions from few people) to the Start/Finish point. Few runners have already finished their runs, both in the 20km and 30km categories. My basic maths would say, "They started running at 6.15am, and by 8.20am-ish the 30km runners have already finished? Wow, amazingly fast. 30km in 2hr-ish. Gilo, memang gilo punya determination."

I spent quite some time standing by the finishing line, enjoying the view of the happy runners thrusting their ways towards the finish of their grueling 20km or 30km runs. Some raised up their hand and smiled in victory, some just ran in as if nothing were in front of them, some gushed through as it was a 100m race, and some finished the run hand-in-hand with another friends.

Some of the photos below might not tell you the whole stories, but at least it lead me to be tempted enough to sign up for next run events myself. I don't even know most of the runners (and I bet they don't know me either), but one thing for sure, it was the determination that brought them to the starting line, and finishing up the whole journey on their own.

Respectful, indeed.

The fun of being at a race event did not stop there. I then spent few more minutes at the booths where all the runners sat down, or stood up, with their friends talking and sharing their experiences to each other. I met (read: saw) few more triathletes/runners which I get to know them through their blogs which I sometimes read (kalau cakap SELALU baca blog diorang kang, dituduh jadi blog stalker pulak, haha).

One of them is Abu Power. Yang lain-lain tak sempat nak snap photos coz I had to rush back early.

Last but not least, talking about determination, it's not only important for the runners/triathletes. I'm sure enough, this photographer below has much higher determination to be there from the beginning until the end, to snap photos of almost all who ran and finished the run, nonetheless whether he knows them or not.

Ok, now not only that I'm tempted to run longer distances. I'm also starting to have the temptation to upgrade my photography hobby (hobby ke?) to a DSLR.

If only I can afford it.

Macam biasa, me enter frame sikit standing on the right with Aini bebola api and another ex-schoolmate

Been away

I've been away for the last one week. Bukan pergi bertapa kat Gua Niah laa, but I had to attend a seminar in KL. Hence, no blog update for the whole week.

Yang lagi sedih apart from no blog update ialah, ZERO training. ZERO!!!

But, the good thing is, I spent lots of quality time with my family. Awesome.

So, this week will be a pulun-cukup-cukup-sebab-minggu-lepas-langsung-tak-training week. Harap-harap takde orang mengada-ngada set-up meeting pukul 4.30ptg, ke, 5ptg ke. Memang cari nahas la.

Another draw back for going to a long days seminar is that, after a week of not checking my email (work email that is), today I have to read approximately 230 emails. Mampus!

Fun, fun, fun!

Yeah, right.

Loose Vs. Gain

If we were asked to define the term 'success', can it just revolve around loosing or gaining?

For example, is it fair to say something like "I'm not being so successful today because I just lost a business opportunity". Or, is it fair to say "I'm a successful person because today I get the offer to work as a bla bla bla..."

We all wish to be successful. Who doesn't, right? Everybody wants to gain things, to win things, to be on top of everything. It's just a normal thing as a human being.

But hey, is it not a natural thing that a gain would sometimes come after loosing something?

Maybe yes, maybe no.

For example, a student may be said as being a successful student opon scoring or gaining good grades during the SPM, but God knows how much he/she had to loose in terms of fun times with friends, burning late night oil to memorize the notes, etcetra etcetra.

Another actual example would be on my self, in my sports life, per say. Previously, I envied all these super-powerful triathletes who could swim, bike and run much faster and much longer compared to what I could do. I felt like I'm not going to see a success in it.

But, after 'loosing' lots of energy and time to continue training harder and harder, at the end, I hope I can see the success coming nearer to me. We just can't stop trying and doing what we need to do, or the thing that we need to 'loose', before we 'gain'.

This posting is to mark a point in my career life where today, I feel like I'm making a decision that might be seen as 'loosing'. This is all done with the highest hope that one day, sooner or later, I'll be more successful than yesterday.

Only God knows what will happen tomorrow.

The Istana Garden - JB

Few days ago I posted the satellite view of the place I'm running nowadays - The Istana Garden, or 'garden' as the short form of it. Today, I'd like to share with you some of the beautiful scenaries around the garden which makes it the most favourable running/walking/exercising ground for people around the JB town.

Ample parking space with lots of trees to provide shades for the cars.

This is the Istana itself.

Lots of greeneries. Very refreshing to the eyes and the breathing.

Yes, what you see is the Straits of Tebrau. And on the other side of the water is our neighbouring country, Singapore. Just imagine cycling on the road just alongside the straits, wonderful isn't it? Who said there's not much beautiful places in Malaysia?

Sometimes you could even spot youngsters like above taking photos. I've also seen many times newly weds came to this garden to take their wedding photos.

Last but not least, this is me. Photo taken on one fine evening few days ago, after running 45minutes around the garden (menyibuk ah mamat ni, dia pun nak enter frame jugeekkkk...).

Cicak Bike

If people in KL can produce the movie Cicak-man and Cicak-man 2, here in JB we from the JTriClub presents...

The Cicak Bikes

Main actor #1

Main actress #1

Supporting actor

Those people responsible to cast these actors and actress are:

Mr. White, standing on the left leaning by the car - he's responsible for the casting of main actor #1 (Nama sebenar terpaksa dirahsiakan sebab aku takut kena balasah

Mr. Baps - he casted the main actress #1 and supporting actor. He's standing second from right. (Nama sebenar terpaksa dirahsiakan sebab aku tak tau nama sebenar dia)

Anyway, those are some photos of our new year's eve Wednesday night ride last week. Not so many people turned out actually, but we had fun cycling and then mentekedarah kat kedai mamak sampai pukul 1am.

This was what I had - Nan cheese + tandoori chicken set. The most favourable dish amongst us. Super yummy! Sehingga menjilat jari dan jugak tray.

Say "Nan cheeeeeesseeeeee..."

Tu oh-oh nain

Today we are already in the fifth day of the new year. How time flies by very fast, that I missed out the chance to wish everybody Happy New Year on the first day.

Anyway, what did I do on the last new year's eve? Well, I went cycling as it was our normal Wednesday cycling night. Rugi la kalau miss. And then we went for makan-makan and borak-borak session until 1am.

As far as I could remember, being an introvert person as I am, I do not gila-gila celebrate new years, or even my own birthdays. I normally kept things low profile when it comes to celebration.

But, I remember doing a bit gila thing during one of the new year's eve.

It happened back in the year 1999, on the few last hours before the clock strike 12 o'clock midnight, entering the new millenium of year 2000. At that time, I was in my cold room of the rented small house which I shared with my other two uni-mates, in Manchester, U.K.

During that time, it was already considered as a luxury to have a PC with 180MHz Pentium II processor speed. Mine was only a mere 150MHz Pentium I. Many of the assignments and even lab reports have to be 'PC-written', i.e. to make write ups with Word, and to make spreadsheet and graphs with Excel.

Errm, I also used my PC to pratice my blind-typing skills - through chatting via MiRC. Haha.

Those who were a bit IT savvy at that time should still remember the famous Millenium Bug, which was expected to cause a dramatic crash on computers when the PC clock cannot recognize the year change from 99 to 00 (during that time, the PC clock only showed 2 last digits of the year, instead of 4 digits being used nowadays). Konon-kononnya when the clock turned from 99 to 00, it will register as year 1900, instead of 2000.

Maka, aku pun dengan bangangnya (I repeat: BANGANG) telah menanti saat ketibaan detik 12 malam memasuki tahun baru 1 January 2000 di depan PC tanpa berkelip kelopak bijik mata sambil-sambil berharap PC aku tak crash dengan tak semena-mena.

Luckily, my PC did not crash and nothing went wrong with my PC until the end of my degree.

But, remembering the story make me smile by myself, looking back into the past where we as human being, once in a while surely may end up being or doing, well.. something stupid.

Happy New Year 2009 to ya'all.