What wakes you up?

It has been over two years since our small exercise group disbanded. It is often said that familiarity breeds contempt. Everyone took each other for granted, or they grew too big for their boots. In the eagerness to self-motivate and right the wrongs, ego got in the way. The bottom line is that everyone has flown the nest in pursuit of other things in life. 

So, what is the difference between exercising in a group and alone? For one, the fun factor is eliminated. There is nothing like having many people with the same mental illness flock together to do the same thing week in and week out and expecting a different outcome, to quote Einstein, if he actually said that. 

I take a special kind of motivation to push the sorry ass up in the early mornings to start the exercise. If previously the motivation was to keep up with the rest of the gang, now it is just you, yourselves and your sorry ass. 

During training, there is a push and pull factor that tickles the ego to outperform oneself. Sadly, when one is training alone, this is missing. The worst part is that the inner demons remind us to slow down and not to overdo it. It takes a different kind of something to slay that beast. 

Given that background, I registered for this year's Powerman duathlon, as I have been doing since 2020. This will be my fourth participation, having been shelved for a couple of years due to COVID.

After sending and parking my bicycle in Putrajaya and moving around with the competition wristband, my wife asked me, "So, all running and torturing your body gives you happiness?”

“Oh yes,” was my reply. "As much as you enjoy going to the temple, meeting the same friends, updating the obituary list, doing the same rituals, eating the same vegetarian food and coming back in bliss, feeling blessed."

As for me, the competition went smoothly. A 5 km run was followed by a 30 km cycle around Putrajaya, then it concluded with another 5 km run. Over the years, my speed has been steadily declining. It could be due to the ageing process or perhaps a lack of peer pressure to motivate me. 

Come to think of it, even at the finishing line, finishers were served the same snacks that the organisers had been providing for donkey's years - a dry O'Brien sandwich, a Cavendish banana, and 100-plus isotonic drinks to wash it down, along with a finisher's medal.

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The things you do...

Powerman Malaysia 2022

SK does not know whether to laugh or cry. If he laughs, it hurts. It is painful when he moves, and he is even afraid to sneeze. Ever since he cracked up a rib in a freak accident, he senses that his naysayers, who have been telling him to slow down with all those extreme sports at this age, are having a field day. They are secretly happy that he is grounded. Short of saying, 'I told you so', he can see the sheer delight in their eyes. Some are even emblazoned to ask, "why this Kolaveri?**"

Yeah, sometimes SK too asks himself, "WHY?" In the same breath, he also replies to himself, "why not?"

Homosapiens, by design, have been made to be agile and mobile. Through many prototypes which failed and multiple disastrous trials runs, Nature has remodelled and re-fashioned Man to be ambulant with such ingenuity. Only over the past 30 years, through the same thinking caps that make Man leap to greater heights, have we become couch potatoes. These prodigal products of Nature, with the boon of cognition, have rewritten the laws of Nature. The glutes, which played an essential role in moving around, somehow lost their purpose. Man now finds more pleasure in accumulating adipose tissue there. It even develops into a fetish by filling it with prostheses that enhance its gargantuan silhouette.  

Yeah, why do people do the things they do? Why do people want to climb a mountain? Why swim across a shark-infested channel to the other side? Why were the Wright brothers fixated on lifting a contraption up in the skies? Why do people write songs or even compose a blog? It is a challenge to push the human body to its limits. This endeavour gives a sense of achievement and immerses the victor in an avalanche of happy hormones. The trade-offs that come from this, the compliments, the honour and the desire to reach even greater heights, are pretty addictive.

There is also a desire to explore the roads rarely walked upon. As humankind learns about himself and the environment around him, he soon realises that so much more that remains unknown. In our short time of sojourn on Earth, a small fraction of eccentric individuals embark upon a journey of self-discovery. Not all will appreciate this.

**the slang lyrics of a popular Tamil song meaning 'why this murderous rage?'' from the movie '3'. It is meant to depict the anguish of a person whose love has been rejected by the girl he is trying to woo. It went on to include an onerous desire to achieve something.

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