A "Fool" Print

It was back to our class gathering. I was extremely late after interviewing over 20 job applicants at one go. It was madness!!

OK. Tonight, most of our topics tonight centralizing to the recent events, since some of them are from the financial sector (Banker, Accountant) and senior management. Things looked pretty gloomy. Apart from the bank failures, Eng Huat and Phua accounted that thousand of the factories in China and Europe were shutting down during their trips to global source for supply. Eng Huat cautioned that you had to be quick in China pick up the leftovers from the company once the bankrupt news were out. The Chinese were unscrupulous in doing the business. At one moment, things looked fine, and they disappeared on the next day. Europeans were more civilize in a way that they informed you first. Coincidentally, these correlated to the stories told by my friends and family - where they had immediately arranged movers to "snatch" the leftovers of a bankrupt company. Everywhere, now and there, people were worrying their "rice-bowl".

Lastly, the baton was finally passed to me to arrange to the next gathering at Jan/Feb 2009.

Last week, i had shifted my training to tuesday instead of thur. As usual in the past 3 mths, i was responsible for the 7 km route and this time togeher with Charmane and Niwas. The turnout for today was more than the usual. Saw a lot of familiar faces along the run.

In the last 2 km, i paced along with some of the slow runners to the finishing. Still felt tightness on my right knees and short of breadthness.. Hmmm.. still considering to do some lung function tests

There were lesser of us for tonight's ride. We decided to go for longer distance and exploring a new route. We started off from our usual route of West Coast Road. Subsequently, we turned towards Bt Batok Road, and rided through Old Choa Chu Kang Road.

It was eerie to ride in the middle of night via this road. There was only forest at both both sides of the road with no sight of life. I remembered the only few buildings i rided by was Tengah Air Base, Home Team Academy and some army camps. I was glad we had rided out of old Choa Chu Kang road since there was many up slopes at this road.

Then after, we turned towards Lim Chu Kang Road. The stretch brought back some of my fond memories where i was training with those hard-core runners for the Sundown Marathon, e.g. Kayano, PS, Jancy, Yong, stardust, David, Wendy etc.. It was a memorable night for me as it was my ever first time to run after midnight!!

Nevertheless, the road was dull, uninteresting and totally straight. I was nearly fall asleep several times and my bike was toddling side by side . There were occassional i nearly knocked onto the pavement!! On the other hand, I observed there were quite a number of foreign workers walking along the pavement. When we came to Neo Tiew Road, the mystery was finally solved. At the side of the road, there was a hostel located to house the fore
Next, we turned towards Lim Chu Kang Road. Riding through the Lim Chua Kang( Of course, with the Smell of the Chicken Farm..) brought back ign workers. I could see many of the foreign workers were sitting on the grassland, playing guitar and singing along. The scenery resembled a festival season with the whole place was brightly lit, and music and songs filling this remote area.

Thereafter, we decided to make a U-turn back via Jalan Bahar road, passing by Civil Defence Academy. Before long, our ride was slowed down by the poor visibility due to smoke covering the entire Westwood road. We were puzzled where the source was coming from.

Finally, we stopped at the nearby Petrol Kiosk to refill our bottles and made our way back home via West Coast Road.












Distance : 65km. Average Speed: 31km/hr. Mileage for past 3 mths: 1228km

I realized that i had slipped quite a lot from my training after the ISBG X-Country Run. As usual, we started off from the Marichite Reservoir's toilet at 7am.

For the first 15km, i kept closely behind CK. Hmm.. I could feel my breathe was improving (not as bad as friday's run) At the U-turn point for the 25km route, i decided to push myself a little further and run towards Mandai. Everything went well except on my return trip back. The weather was getting hotter and hotter till then. To make matter worse, i would feel a sense of dehydration (drank 2 bottles of istonic drink, still not enough) and the exhaustion from yesterday's cycling slowly eat up my strength. It was a tough run. Slowly, I dragged my tiring body alone back to the end point and saw Chairman there. Sigh. got to find more training grounds to stem up my stamina.

Susposed to meet up with Ka Liang early morning at 5am for a ride around Mandai area and probably joined the joyrider for another long ride to East Coast. However, both of us couldn't be able to get enough sleep and had to cancel the ride. haha.

Went back to the office in the morning to do some work before meet up with Xiaoming and Linda to watch an Abstract Art Exhibition - Shape of Colors at The Art House. Ha.. finally, I had to give up in understanding the oil paintings. I had to admit i had no genes in appreciating fine arts like these. Xiaoming took certain interests in the pieces especially as we were wondering how the artist had created the brush strokes.

Dinner appointment at Jumbo Seafood restaurnat at East Coast was cancelled. Jianxing had contracted skin allegry and was admitted into the hospital. The fulfillment of our 10 years contract(made by all bunch of secondary school classmates) had to be postponed till his recovery.


Instead,I did a fast ride(40km) to East Coast Park. There was quite a heavy traffic along the way. I was irritated by some of the inconsiderate taxi drivers whom drove against my lane to avoid the traffic jam. Around the same time, Adeline had finished her bladding at the park. Met up with her at Carpark D1, and passed her the coke which she ordered (since she didn't bring any money) before resuming my ride. Interestingly,there was a small discovery of miniature battleground field setup next to T3 Cycle for kids to play around with their "remote control" battle tanks.

I had finally did a long run after the Safra Marina Bay Run. Lynn and Alvin didn't join us today as they were participating TNF100 yesterday. Apple joined in for the run today, bringing a new friend in. The weather was cooling and favourable for the this morning run. Toh, Macus and his brother (Lawrence?), Chew, Billy, Tan had turned out early at 6.30am to do an extra 5km before we started off.

The running route was as usual (20km) before except it extended to another 5km at Seletar Reservoir. Mak, Apple and David Ong had gone for an extra mileage of 2km. Macus and I were pacing each other on our way back. In the end, everyone did well today and completed around 2:20 ~2:40.

In the afternoon, i dropped by to Rodalink at Trade21 hub to get a Shimano cycling jersey. What a bargain!! Price reduced from $89 to $62.

This was my first time ever try for aeromatherapy massage, and a full-body massage which last for one and half hour. The massager was good, using good technique and strength. In the end, my whole muscles were relaxed except for aches at my right calf of my legs. Hmm... wonder if there could affect tomorrow run.