Friday, February 11, 2011

Why? Running!? (3)

Third, to restore my passion and enjoy my life.

I still remember the bad experience that I had during my high school. Whenever we have a sport class and need to run 5 laps on the football field, I will be flatten at about the 2nd lap and tentatively dropped out at the end of the 2nd lap. If the teacher allows us to jog-walk, chances are, I will not able to complete the 5 laps within the 30 minutes given. I couldn’t belief myself will addicted to running, in my mid 30’s.

Btw, I like sports even though I am no good in any of them. I practiced some martial art (Taekwondo and Tai Chi) for few years but never mastered any of them. I took part in basketball in university time, but I guess the Residential College team only let me in due to lack of players (1st year) and I am kind of insisted (2nd year). The good thing about me is I finally realized that I am blocking others’ places, so I quit the team in my 3rd year.

Sports play some supportive role in all stages of my life. I guess I am using it as a source of meditation (or similar) to restore my core. The mind map on my own enjoyment (did in 2009) some how, included the running/jogging even before my running fever started. This linkage in my life is much clearer when we looked back.

Back to the starting point of my running addiction. My boss, some how is a runner too. He is surprised on my SMS telling him that I took part in a 10K and this logged into his memory. Later in September, the CICM Responsible Care Run asked our company to sponsor the race and he asked me whether I am joining this race or not. Sure I will give positive response, “Yes, I am joining.” And I don’t know how I begin to tell other colleagues that I am running for the 10K. Under the pressure of no failures as option, and the needs to get some decent time on completing the race, I started practice.

I start back in the same old way, running in the playground in the evening after work. Initially I stick to 1~2 laps running, and walk another 4~5 laps. And the number slowly grow to running 3~4 laps and walk 4~5 laps. And I discovered that I am actually still able to run more! When I browsed on the running topic, I come across the HRM (Heart Rate Monitor). I think this is very useful to keep yourself on track and get motivated to continue running. So I purchased a Polar FT4 in Fitness First for RM350+. Will come to this unit later in my other post. Btw, as the playground used cement tracks, my RM75 Admiral can’t take it further. I shopped around and purchased the NB1226 (RM400+ without any discount, am I insane?). These are my initial investment for my running gears.

I start running in MPSJ track during the weekend and managed to push my run-walk ratio to 6-4 right before the CICM 10K in Nov. Again, the game plan is to run on certain length then walk 1~2km and run. I even mark down some land marks so I won’t over stretch myself. Some how, the actual race route are difference @@” Overall, the race is still very fun and I managed to stretch myself to complete the 10K in 1:28 hours. After the race, I met my boss in the finishing area and he completed the race at about 1 hour time. He must have overtook me along the way (we are in different categories, mine flagged off earlier). I guess I have a long way to catch up.

There goes my reasons, why I am running. And, I am getting tired to tell the old story. The most important thing is, I am now totally hooked up and addicted to running. I will redo my Bukit Jalil trial in coming March (Bareno, I only took part for 10K), and this round I will run for the whole route without a so called “game plan”. Can I push my time to 1:10 hours? I don’t know, but my MPSJ tracks 25 laps record is still 1:30 hours.

Until next time.

1 comment:

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