A "Fool" Print

Today’s plan for the Safra club was to run 2 or 3 loops around Marachite park. Although the turnout was better than the last, but many of the hardcore runners, e.g. Anthony, David etc were not presented. KK and Siew Lee had trouble finding a parking space and the group was waiting for them. I kept looking at the watch as I had to meet Mark (from MR) and passed the New Balance Shoes (MR1062SB) to him. Based on my experience, the MR-26 group (Not to confuse with MR) would finish their run within an hour or so.

At the start of the slope, Ricci, Trevor, Freddy, Jimmy and those fast runners were running in front of me. My ITB was still hurting me, and I had to take my pace slowly. Perhaps, I had run for Marachite too often. The trail had become a playground for me, and proved to be an easy run for me. I couldn’t feel any short of breathe or sweats in doing the trail except of the disturbance coming from my knees.

In the run, most of us were sticking together with occasional stopping by to wait for the rest. After we had ran passed the golf link, I left from the group and sprinted towards the Marachite toilet point. I was in short of time since Mark could finish his run soon. Again, it was amazing how the trail run had improved my running. Before I realized, I had reached the end-point and caught hold of the MR-26 group. They were gathering at our usual resting place. I took a break, passed the shoes and chatted with them. Again, our topics were surrounding running shoes. Somehow, I guessed I had become infamous in the group of providing opinions on running shoes. Ha.

After a good chat, I wanted to proceed to my run. Deva was astonished that I was doing a 20km distance since the next week was my Full-Marathon race. Usually, this would be the time for runners to do tapering. Moreover, I was wearing a knee guard.

The second loop was a lonely run. Till now, the Safra group was far ahead of me. I ran at my own leisure pace and managed to overtake a few Safra runners. I saw David in the trail running at an opposite direction of me. He was wearing his usual black cap, Nike tights and running shirt. After a cold bath, I hurried off to my Church Service.

I had missed this morning Easter service. To make up for my absence, I arranged to meet up with Mun Hoe in the late afternoon to attend his church (City Harvest) service. Hmm. That left a couple of hours for me to do some short run…

I have not been doing many long runs lately, mainly due to reason of the pain at my calves and knees. I have been quite mindful of the condition of my legs (esp. at the lower calves) and reduced my pace every time the stitch resurfaced. After a typical rainy weather for the past few days, the island had finally received a hot, sunny afternoon. For this afternoon short run (Tiong Bahru -> Botanic Garden -> Holland Rd -> Queenstown -> Tiong Bahru), I intended to keep a slow pace at 6min/km. When I started off with my run, the agony at my lower calves came back again. It was difficult for me to keep a constant pace as the pain kept disturbing my advancement whenever my foot touched the ground. Similar to my ITB which came as sudden as it likes, dark clouds begun to form in the sky and thunders roared. While I was running along the Holland Road, rain started to pour. Well, I couldn’t able to stop for fear of being late to meet with Mun Hoe. In the end, I managed to do a well decent speed to complete 14km at 1hr 35mins.

The City Harvest was totally unlike the Church of mine. The building at its Jurong West was elegantly built, which occurred nine storeys (four in the basement and five on top of it). When I stepped into the hall that could cater for about 2000 members, the seats were fully occupied. After a few ushering here and there, we (Mun Hoe, Gin and me) managed to get hold of the seats directly in front of the stage. I was impressed by the drama put up by City Harvest Drama group. The music, acting, singing, sound system and the costumes were nowhere inferior to any drama put up by the professionals. I could see that the members of the church have devoted a lot of hard work to make this show a success. It was entertaining and meaningful as the drama told us the origin of Easter Day.

After the service, I met up with Cedric to have a dinner at Jurong Point and bought a bottle of Glucosamine in the hope that it could ease my pain. Although the supplement is more targeting to neutralize joint problem, but now I could try for anything to help me to recover from my ITB since my KL Marathon is coming up. Besides, I read reports that many runners have found that it is effective to assist them to recover from ITB.

At late evening, my Sis and Brother-in-law fetched me from Jurong Point together with their children for cycling at Chinese Garden Park. It is always enjoying to see my two little nephew and niece playing around, with their laugher and shouting surrounding us. :) We have a supper at McDonald before I reached home at 11.30pm. It was a nice, fulfilling day for me to enjoy this Easter holiday…

There were only four of us (Deva, Tan, Mak and me) turned out for today’s run. Apart from the usual runners whom ran at Macritchie Park, there were polices and soldiers flocking into the venue. It was reported that someone had caught sight of Mas Selamat at the surrounding area. Nevertheless, activities at the park were still as usual as if the news of the escaped convict had no impact to our daily life.

We started our run at 7.05am and ran together as a group. In the first 7km, I was running slightly behind of Deva with Tan and Mak falling behind 300m away. My calves were feeling tighter and the pain at my knees was developing. I would sense my old injury is coming back to me. For the past few weeks, I still could feel stitches at my knees while sleeping. Deva had a stitch at his stomach and his pace was slowing down while we were coming near to our U-turn point. This provided me a moment of relieve from my pain as both of us slowed down our pace.

After making the U-turn towards Upper Thomson Road, my pace with Deva had came even closer with each overtaking each other. While we were running through the Old Upper Thomson Road, we heard someone screamed from the woods. Would it be Mas Selamat? Nevertheless, nothing could deter us from continuing with our run.

After making a rest at the Pierce Reservoir’s toilet point, Tan had picked up his pace. I attempted to follow him but the pain at my calves and knees proved a great challenge for me to overcome. Once we out to the main road, I couldn’t spot sight of Tan. He was far away from me dashing towards the end-point. By now, Deva and Mak were way behind us. With the pain developing, I had a moment of tendency to walk for the rest of the journey. Still, I continued and completed the loop around 1hr 30mins.

I met KC at the park while resting and chatting with the others. Before I left with Tan for a free ride to Velocity, I spotted a helicopter hovering above us. It looks like this time round the tip is real.

In the afternoon, I met up with Tania for lunch at Earle Sweden. She has dropped by to Singapore after attending a conference at Thailand before heading back to Jakarta in the evening. Veronica was there too. She had just returned from Seattle. There were about six of us in total (Elaine, Tania, Veronica, her husband, 2 other current MBA students). Rosalind was late as she still suffered from the jet lag. She just flew back from Seattle after attending the Microsoft’s conference at Microsoft University. She looked haggard, probably due to lack of sleep. :p Before Tania boarded Veronica’s car to the airport, she wished me well for my career. How sweet is she. :-) I gave a pat on her head as a return of my encouragement to her.

Subsequently, I had an agonizing and harrowing experience of leg massage by Jan at Chinatown. PS has become infamous in the shop as Frankie was telling me of her running experience. After finishing the massage, I could hardly walk by my own. Hopefully, my legs would recover before the KL marathon.

Today is the 15 km progressive run event held by MR25. There was a huge crowd gathering at the starting point near the Macrichite toilet with lots of familiar faces being spotted, e.g. Ronnie, Anthony, Janice, David, Eric etc. In addition, the Tampines Safra club had organized their run at Macritchie reservoir too. I have never seen such a huge crowd since after the MR Ultra-Marathon.

Macus and his brother were wearing their brand new GT 2130 Asics shoes. Everyone was making fun of the brothers’ new pairs of running shoes. Choo was especially interested and ordered a pair from me since he has been searching for the same model for months. Not sure if it was an act of God or by coincidence, our running route for today would pass through a series of trails and slopes. So much for the new sparkling white Asics shoes, which might soon be covering with mud and dirt.

We waited for the 15 km progressive run to begin before our turn to start. Incidentally, the 15km progressive run route was nearly the same as us. The route ran through the woods before hitting to the main road, up to 2 treacherous, daunting slopes before hitting to the scenery golf course, bypassed the air-con road and back by Upper Thomson road.

Our topics of chatting during the run were mostly circulating around running shoes. When I reached the golf course, I saw Anthony firstly to run back to the finishing, followed by Ronnie, Janice, David, Eric and Janice’s husband. One by one, I gave way and cheered for them. Subsequently, Teo led the way and brought us to the water point for the 15km progressive run. (He is also an old member of MR25) Since there was no participant left, we tended to drink up the rest of cold and refreshing water. Cooling!!

Against Toh’s wishes, we protested of his proposal to go up to the air-con road. However, the two ang-mohs (I saw them before but didn’t get their names) whom joined us had already run up the slopes. Nevertheless, that couldn’t spare us from another 2 more “killer” slopes in which we had to pass through.

After reaching Upper Thomson, it was a completely flat road. I thanked God secretly that my suffering had ended. I could still feel a bit of pain near my knees while running up the slopes, probably due to the 3hrs of cycling around at East Coast yesterday cheering up some of the Safra members in the Biathlon race.

At the finishing line, I met Anthony, Jancy, Ronnie and the rest whom had completed their run. Anthony suggested going for another round (10km). I was totally exhausted by the numerous slopes that have conquered. In fact, I didn’t think that Anthony was aware that I just came back from my run. Still, the idea allured me. After knowing their running route, I told them that I would catch up with them later.

I rested and chatted for nearly 20mins. While walking back to the starting point, Billy waved his hand to catch hold of my attention. Hmm.. how did I miss him? He didn’t join us for today’s run but did a short distance instead. I managed to borrow $1.20 from him to buy a can of “green tea” before I ran at the opposite direction of Anthony’s via the woods.

My plan was to wait for Anthony and the rest at the exit of the woods so as to be together for the rest of the journey. However, as usual, my plan fouled. They had not turned up. After waiting fruitlessly for ten minutes, I decided to make a U-turn and go back from the same direction where I have come from.

Jancy was earlier than me at the finishing. Great minds think alike. From Janice, I understood that they had made a U-turn just like me. Alamak, no wonder I couldn’t able to meet them. At this moment, Uncle Chua, Soh Hua, Eng Hwa and Goole had also done with their run. Janice’s husband revealed that Anthony had lost his car key and the rest (I presumed Ronnie and David) were with him searching for the key.

After taking my bath, I volunteered to backtrack their running path to see if I could locate the key. Janice offered to help but I couldn’t think it was necessary. Furthermore, dark clouds were forming in the sky. Perhaps it was a punishment that I didn’t attend the Church service. Once I reached the start of the trail, the weather began to pour heavily. The rain abated and poured again every time I made my way again back to the trail. The experience was exasperating. I headed back to the Macrichite toilet but still no sight of Anthony and the rest of the gang. Finally, after waiting for another half an hour, I decided to go back and prayed that Anthony would find his car key.

I reached the Safra Club at 6.30pm. The sky was cloudy and looked about to rain anytime. Without waiting for the rest, I started my run earlier and jogged towards Mt Faber.

At my first loop, my pace was slow, taking it as a warm up exercise for me. There was still no sight of the any Safra members yet after the completion of my first loop. I picked up my pace faster for the second loop. I always like the Mt Faber loop, as the venue is quiet with little traffic passing by. This allows me to ponder over things while I am running.

At my third loop, my pace was getting even faster. At the upslope of the hill, I spotted Sok Hua, and bypassed her. Subsequently, I saw Angelina, Peter, Wong, Emenila etc and bypassed them one by one. Heng was in front of me. I tried to catch up with him but to no avail. At this moment, I could feel breathless. The sound of my breath was so loud that I swear that it would hear from 5m away. Luckily, the down slope of the hill always provided me a good opportunity for recovery. After a short while of cruising down the slope, my breath was back to normal and I started to pick my pace again at the start of my fourth loop. I overtook few other runners and spotted Heng in front of me. I attempted to maintain a distance from him and careful not to overstretch my breathing again. When he finally caught up with Chairman, I gave it all my might to complete the last 100m run and overtook both of them.

Yean had arrived shortly after my run. I waited for the rest of the runners to complete their training before we headed back to the Safra club where I saw PS and Albert working on their stretching. I didn’t see them in the training today. However, my attention was soon drawn to the smell of the food coming out from the buffet beside the billiard room organized by MPA. After Julie had conducted her warm-down exercise, I swarmed towards the buffet and grapping the leftovers.(Of course, with permission) There was not many left over except Mee Hoon, French fries and Spring rolls.

After the bath, most of us drove down to Henderson market to have our dinner there. During the chitchat session, Alan was transferring his knowledge of running to us. He emphasized the correct technique of running should be using the tight muscle at all times drawing Julie, Teck How, Kurmara as examples. Hmm.. I couldn’t agree with him completely as I always thought that different terrain should be using different part of muscles instead.

I arrived just in time to see the group when they started their run at Macritchie. After queried with Toh on today’s running route, I immediately packed up my things in the locker and chased after them. Strange enough, at the first 10 km, I couldn’t detect any sight of them. Thinking I might be ahead of them, I waited at the Lower Pierce’s toilet for ten minutes. Still, there was no sight of them and I continued.

At the midway of Old Upper Thomson Road, I finally met up with the rest of the group. Teo and Macus beckoned me to make a U-Turn and joined together with them. I agreed.

As we were running (me, Teo, Macus and his elder brother), Teo updated me that the group had geared up and improved a lot in their timing. Macus joked that we couldn’t be lazed around anymore with Toh spying on us like a “watchdog”. In fact, Toh was in front of us and made a few stops to check if we were following him closely.

The pace was unusually fast, roughly around 4mins/km. Even for me, I hardly could catch up my breath. Teo was joking we had to run faster and not letting Tan to overtake us. (Tan was running 20km while we were doing 16km) Else, we would be totally losing our “face”. Eventually, we arrived back to Macritchie 1 min before Tan. (Lucky for us) Tan was really fast, I could not remember anyone I known of whom could do 11/2hrs for 20km distance. And, he will be joining the coming Biathlon held on March. Good Luck to him. :-)