Due to a happy alignment of the stars, three major ethnic festivals are happening in the same month this year: Mid-Autumn, Hari Raya and Deepavali. The three festivals also coincide with the convergence of 16,000 IMF delegates on our little island state -- which is the kind of conincidence that makes you wonder about the real power of our government...
Anyway, public holidays are sweet. For equity, major ethnic groups are allocated two public holidays each: two Chinese, two Muslim, two Christian, two Indian, and three secular. Singapore banks on these festivals to up the "asian factor" of our otherwise modern and secular country, and so go all out to impress tourists. Which means that it is a great opportunity for a midnight run. :)
Mid-autumn Festival
Deepavali
Hari Raya
The plan was to hit all three light-ups via Chinatown, Serangoon Rd, and then Victoria Street in a grand loop that was to take about 26km. We started about 9:45pm and got home at 2am.
This was the route we took.
What a run. It was interesting to watch how the city changed as we ran. The ah-peks (old chinese men) on bicycles in Chinatown morphed into the young dancing crowd at clark quey, which transformed into the crowded Indian streets at Serangoon, which eventually settled uneasily into the buzzing bright lights of geylang... When it got late enough, we bumped into the midnight cyclists.
The stretch on MacPherson towards Paya Lebar was horrendously long and boring, but I eventually got over my bed-time sleepiness and felt better after the U-turn and stopped running away from home. Smole's knee started hurting at Bugis so we stopped, leaving the battle for another day.
Thank God for taxis that ply the streets at all times of the night. And for seven-elevens and petrol stations too. The best part? No sunburn! ;)
Sunday, October 01, 2006
Week 4: The Great Midnight Run
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings
You know, it really is kinda very sweet to have online friends who sympathise with you when things are just crummy. Thank you.
I'm feeling a lot better. Last night, I dreamt of a jolly fat lady who gave out gifts to everyone she met. She was giving out baseball-styled t-shirts that fit everyone perfectly. She gave me a pair of jeans with pockets full of spare change, lovely trinkets, and useful stuff. I was very happy.
In fact everyone was very happy to see her because she would smile, look at you, and give you a gift that was just right. When she showed up, we forgot that my mother had tongue cancer -- yes, I dreamt that too; it made me wake up early and drag my parents to chinatown for breakfast together -- and all the other irritating things we did to antagonise one another.
It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
:(
i was on the last stretch of my very last lap of 800m. I could see the finishing line just ahead, so I gave it everything I got and kept accelerating to the end.
All I could hear was the pounding in my ears.. just 20m more..
Then suddenly, I heard someone yell behind me, "What are you doing?" And then I realised there were two ang moh men behind me and I had inadvertently sped up just as they were going to overtake me.
I said, "Sorry.. I'm finishing..." as I veered off to the grass. And then, he shoved me hard off the track.
Damn them. I would have fallen if my legs didn't keep going.
Later I saw them on the other side of the track and I was very pissed so I walked towards them to say that I really didn't hear them -- all the earlier laps I always stepped aside to the drain to let them pass -- but he still should not have pushed me. But the guy I approached said it was the other guy who pushed me, and he was already running out of the stadium to leave. So I didn't confront the ang moh bully after all.
I feel like crying. :(
They were part of a team. I want to know the name of their company.
Run-for-a-cause
Smole and I are raising funds for the breast cancer foundation by working on the sympathies of our friends and co-workers.
Ruminations on Running
Training for a marathon defies common sense.
It is hard on the body. The pounding on concrete wears out the knees; the sun ages your skin prematurely; the immune system is usually slightly compromised after a long run. That reluctance to take another step at the 20-something or 30-something km mark is not just your imagination.. It is your body telling you that what you are doing is beyond what is needed for a healthy balanced lifestyle.
So why do people still do it?
Is it endorphins, that biochemical compound released by your body during exercise that makes you feel on top of the world? I doubt so, because sheer fatigue always overwhelms the good feelings with enough time. Trust me, I know that for a fact.
Is it for fitness? There are easier and better ways to be fit. Swimming is easy on the joints and is a good cardio workout. Even running the half marathon or 10km is better as it is less taxing on the body. I was literally sneezing and feverish all day yesterday from the long run on Sunday, and that was only 25.8km.
Is it for fun? Erm, personally, at this point in my life, playing squash is probably twenty times more fun than running a long slow distance. There is greater variety and competition in any game than there is in running, so, no, it is not "for fun", even if the music and company is good.
Is it for fame and glory? Not unless you can finish the race in a superhuman time.
So what is it?
For me it is this:
because flying to the moon defies common sense too.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Which is the worst?
Praying selfish prayers
OR
Not praying at all
OR
"Lord, I'm sorry my prayers are so selfish. Amen"
Week 3: The beached whale run
Die lah. Cannot make it. How to run a full marathon at the end of the year? I'm having a severe case of cannot-do-this-itis.
Smole's knee gave out very early during this run -- I think it was at the 10km mark. From Yishun Ave 1 all the way to the end, it would suddenly buckle every 500m or so. We walked the very last bit because of the pain.
We also got hungry. Who gets hungry on a long run??? We actually stopped at the 19km mark to eat a sandwich and piece of carrot cake because of the general tiredness. I thought we would have to stop there and take a bus back, but Smole sucked it in and kept at it until we got back to where we started.
Die.
[By the way, who says running is free? Amount consumed during run: $1.40 Ribena; $1.00 100-plus; $0.90 bottle of water; $1.40 can of lemon tea; $1.40 can of 100-plus; $1.80 sandwich; $1.00 carrot cake. not including the 3 water refills of water. Who has to eat this much during a run???? Die.]
[By the way, Edgware is positively as un-Singapore-like as you can get. Stepping into that neighbourhood is like stepping back to colonial times. If I lived there, just going home would be stress-relieving. The first time we ran through Edgware was in preparation for the half marathon last year. That was only the head of the beached whale. Now we have to do the whole freakin body and tail as well. Die lah.]
Saturday, September 23, 2006
A beach of diamonds
Without her glasses, it seemed to her that she was running on a beach of diamonds.
And in many ways, it was exactly so.
With the unrelentless sun beating against the back of their necks and knees, they hedged their bets on a singular moment: a quantifiable stillness in the movement from here to there. If they stopped to pick the diamonds, or stopped to fly their kite when the dark-skinned man so temptingly said. "Stop here? Wind good. Fly kite.", that singular moment would have slipped away like a mirage in the delusional desert heat.
There are no checkpoints in this journey. There were only hideous looking gods made of the same black glittering sand, watching the two -- what shall we call them? -- migrants making for themselves a trail of footprints as an offering that will be claimed by the sea. The sea always wins. Once in a while they would pass by a coconut tree that gave up, its crown completely buried in the sand, even as the others stood resolutely by with their dry roots exposed.
It was a curse: if they stopped they would lose; if they reached their destination, they would lose, but like condemned gamblers, they put everything they had into that singular and fleeting moment, relegating the crippling pain to a back part of the brain that could not be accessed easily.
And she thought: "Isn't this a lovely beach of diamonds?"
But she lost her glasses to the sea a long time ago.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Links and Chinks
Quick links.
- Jim and Eric, you have been linked by our local library blog site! I submitted the book review I did for "Blindness" and they publised it. I say, I am going to submit a book review every month until I win that $10. ;)
- Via Elle E., an intriguing article on the "Macbeth effect" of needing to wash the hands when feeling guilty and the relationship between physical and moral purity.
- Popagandhi reviews the Nokia N73. That girl can sell me anything.
- How to make your own sports drink: tips on hydration by Guardian.
- Daryl's new MacBook has been randomly shutting down like many other MacBooks worldwide. If yours starts doing this, bring it in. They may swap out your logicboard.
- I still think sweat bubbles are gross but it kinda helps loosen the dead skin and encourages you to scrub it away, so I don't know if it is an entirely bad thing. I suppose if you were had so many sweat bubbles that they were keeping from cooling off through evaporation, that would be bad, but otherwise?
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Week 2: Bali Run
Bali was amazing. The private villa was the epitomy of hospitality; it was great fun getting to know new people; and then there was this: the crazy, amazing, unforgettable run to Sanur and back. 21.83km, most of which was on a black sand beach in the unrelenting noon sun. It was crazy but I would do it again, this time with sunblock.
We ran on the main road by the honking cars and grazing cows until we got tired of it; we ran on the inside kampung paths where everybody stared and dogs barked and chased after you; and we ran on black sand that glittered in the sun.
One of the cottage industries in this area is the collection of the perfectly smooth pebbles that was everywhere on the beach for export. There were many women on the beach collecting these pebbles and carrying them in gunny sacks on their heads. The black sand is also supposed to have healing qualities, which I hope explains the large number of naked local men we saw along the way.
It was really an eye-opening run. We didn't take a picture of any of the naked men, but my buddy took one of this guy standing on his head on the beach.
Along one of the kampung roads heading back to the beach, we saw a sign warning people what to do and what to look out for in case of a tsunami. The sign says that you should run towards higher ground when the sea starts to smell like "cooked stinky salt". I realised that I was such a city girl that I wouldn't know a normal sea from an abnormal one, let alone sniff out the "cooked stinky salt" tell-tale sign.
We had to cross 12 rivers this run. Everytime, we would take off our shoes and socks, wade through the stream, walk a bit, and then plop down to shake the sand off and put our shoes and socks back on. TWELVE TIMES! Some of the rivers were so strong that you could see large smooth pebbles rolling down.
Assessing the river.
First step.
Half-way. Man, this water is fast!
Almost there..
Waving at my buddy.
We got to Sanur, had a lunch of fried fish and rice, bought a kite, and headed back.
On the way back, Smole lost her glasses in one of the rivers when she stopped to wash up and cool down a bit in the water. She didn't even realise until quite a distance later when we stopped to put our shoes back on. We went back to look, but it was swept away a long time ago.
It was a difficult run for me at the last bit because I had a bad stomachache. The sun also got to me at the end, and at our last drink stop, it felt like we were at an oasis in the middle of the desert. The man at the drink stop said to us that we could stop and fly our kite there because the wind was good, but we had to say that we had many more miles to go... Thank God it was closer than the 2km we thought we had left, because I think another 30mins in that sun would have given me heat stroke.
We are only young (and foolish) once.
(Thanks Smole for running with me and taking the pictures I was too scared to take!)
Yasso's 800 and why you shouldn't run when sunburnt
My body has been feeling out of whack ever since I got burnt. I'm lethargic, grumpy, lazy, and in pain. So it was with much effort that I dragged myself to the stretch of road near my home to do a few laps yesterday evening.
I haven't done anything for four days. No cycling, no walking, no running, and there was the freakish long run this weekend looming over me like a curse. I squeezed into my sports clothes -- I hate running bras even more when I'm burnt -- brought a bottle of water, and tried out Yasso's 800. (Yasso's 800 is a pretty nifty way of training for the marathon. Basically you want to train to be able to do ten 800m in the same "time" as you want to do for the marathon, for example a 4:30hr requires you to do it 4:30mins.)
I chose a straight stretch with a short hill at the end of it, and I estimated 800m to be two laps of that stretch. So I started running... and felt weird straight away. My muscles weren't co-ordinated and I felt like I couldn't sweat properly. I thought I had just lost muscle mass and fitness because of the last four days so I perservered. First lap 4:55; Second lap 4:42; Third lap 5:07. I was pooped and my shoulders were stinging.
And then I noticed them. Hundreds of water-filled bumps all over my arm, my shoulder, and the back of my legs. The sweat had collected under my burnt skin and was unable to get out! The skin was slimy to the touch.. horrible! So I went home immediately, got into the shower and scrubbed myself with a wash-cloth, which left me looking like a multi-layer scratch-and-guess-what-colour-you-get-for-a-prize card.
(I have a picture of the bumps, but to keep this blog from becoming a compendium of awful pictures of skin abnormalities, I'm refraining from posting it.)
(I've changed my mind because I am more macabre than I am vain. For the foolhardy...
Sweat bubbles under burnt skin.
I am multi-coloured, are you?
see the pictures here!)
