RIFLE RANGE BOY

Uncle Hooi at his best © The Star I remember the barrages of concerned pep talks from my family members when they discovered that I, at the tender age of 43, slowly started indulging in competitive distance running. In not so many words, they were obviously trying to tell me that I would just drop dead by the roadside to be found by passersby as if I were just roadkill. Another old friend, obviously overweight and looking much like Peter Griffin of the 'Family Guy' fame was even generous enough to offer free anaesthetic services as and when I need a knee replacement.  As a last resort, my family went ahead and gave me a 'stress test - CT angio' combo as a birthday present on my 50th birthday. When the cardiologists gave a clean bill of health after silently cursing under his breath for wasting his precious time from his more deserving patients, they essentially gave up and let Nature take its course.  This must have been what Fauja Singh must hav...

Muang Thai Chiang Mai Half Marathon 2016 18th December 2016 "Sir, you are representing Malaysia?" she (or ze), the volunteer at the registration counter asked with her heavily Thai-accented English. Till then it did not strike me. Wow, I am at an international participant attended by representatives from 53 countries, and three of us were there to hold our national flag! She handed me a racing bib with my name proudly printed against my multi-hued country flag. The Start I would like to believe I am holding the good name of my country on my shoulders and it is my responsibility to make my motherland proud. It just gives a lame justification to motivate me to try harder. That is all. Nobody gives two hoots, actually. There is no 'the other' that I need to satisfy, to compete with or to set an example for. It is all in my mind. But then, it feels good, though. In keeping with the sombre state of affairs in accordance to the recent demise of the much-belove...

Mizuno Sayonara 2 I have been very lethargic of late. Body started aching most of the time. Inertia was the prevalent pace of my life. The bed was inviting and the treadmill was taking a back seat. Everyday, there was a convenient reason  to postpone exercise for yet another day - work requirement, family commitment, general fear of burning out, convincing the body to slow down as the body was no more spring chicken as the inner demons kept on pounding. I had to rejuvenate. I had to push that body. So, when the chips are down, the morale is rockbottom and life has no meaning, what do you do? Rebranding, of course. Even though the subject is the same with the same squeaky joints and aged musculature, new zest had to be infused. The panacea of all miseries - capitalistic consumerism. I got myself a new pair of running shoes. Instead of the same design of running shoes, I decided to go for a slightly different one from the same familiar brand. What I did is nothing earth-sh...

From the outset, things were not going as planned. With a bout of diarrhea and loss of precious electrolytes, I experienced stiffness and soreness over the knees and feet. On the race day, the newly replaced Garmin GPS watch went kaput on me and the music pod went on strike. So it was me left to fend for myself. For pacing, it was left to me to run pacing to feel and for auditory stimulation I was made to listen to my body! Even though the organisers boast of 60,000 participant in this inaugural race in the new Penang Bridge, the starting line had only a thin crowd waiting to be flagged off at 4am. The runners were released in batches all the way from 1.30am to 8am depending on the length of the races and their gender. Whilst waiting at the starting line, an old friend from KL appeared from nowhere. After the initial cursory, he complained that there was not such of eye candy for him to lay his eyes on. I told him that he was in the wrong category, the veterans. That itself was his ...

SCKLM 2014 It all started like a dream within dream scene from 'Inception'. At one moment, I got up thinking that it was time to go, only to realise that it was only 1am. I had planned to arise at 0310hrs to get ready with my regalia to face the 2014 Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur Full Marathon 42.195km challenge. I went back to sleep. In the next moment, I was shocked to realise that it was daytime and the sun was high. "What happened? Oh, even my buddy, who is to face his first FM must have slept through it all - he did not even call.", I asked myself. "Am I dreaming or is it for real?". I pinched myself to realise that it was real. I told myself, "Well, it is okay. There will always be another day, another run." Then at a different level of consciousness, I checked my watch again. It was 1.30am! I had not missed my alarm after all. With that type of interrupted slumber, Raj and I got ready for over Sunday morning challenge. Raj was soon to ...

Energizer Night Run 2014 Kuala Lumpur Ambil selfie dulu! Pre-Run We just signed for the jest of it. The distance was about the same as our weekly Sunday morning runs and we avoided all the stresses and the preparations doing it. We did not have have leave our homes 2 hours before the event, crack our brains of where to park our vehicles, the waiting, listening to all the public service announcements and meaningless VIP speeches of self glorification. 20 minutes after leaving our homes and we would be on road with our hearts pumping and minds awoken by the adrenaline filled juices. In 2 hours, we would have completed the run and would be seated at our favourite thosai joint indulging in sinless food. Then why sign up for this 15,000 strong night run at all? Especially after a long day's work and enduring the whole day's humid conditions our tropical humid city. It was all as a prelude and excuse of meeting up for a post run night out! After the last Energizer fiasco i...

Of late, I have across people who have indulged in some activities which would frowned upon. Nobody in the sane mind would ever, even in their wildest dream, consider some of things that these people would do. The more you interact with these people, the more you will realise that they have a tale to tell, and a sad one too! One guy was happily married to university sweetheart till she was diagnosed with the big C. Her health deteriorated as quickly as the news sinked in into the family. Even before the family could come in terms with her impending demise, she left Mother Earth. The guy, devastated with the whole turn of events, was a flicker away from being engulfed by the black dog. He did what most sane people do in situations like this. He ran. Like Forrest Gump he ran and he ran like he had never ran before. At the age of 50, he completed his first marathon and there was no stopping him. The euphoria  of the post run high appears to be the only thing that conserved his sanit...

Born To Run  Christopher McDougall (2009) ( A hidden tribe, super athletes and the greatest race the world has never seen ) Just finished reading a book (a non-fiction) about an elusive Indian tribe, a great foot race and a bunch of mad runners who do ultra marathons. I think that this is a book that any serious runner should read it to get a better perspective on running and also on life itself! The book starts with the author trying to track down a fabled and elusive gringo, Caballo Blanco, who had left his normal life in the US to live amongst a equally timidly elusive Tarahumara Indians in an isolated dry wasteland of canyons and desert-like terrain in Mexico in their simple way of life. The Tarahumaras are said to have been running all their life, first from the Spanish invaders and now from the drug dealers. These Indians have tremendous ability to run extremely long distances with minimal preparations and donning simple footwear - a piece of rubber sole draped by...

Bhaag Milkha Bhaag ( भाग मिल्खा भाग, Hindi, Run Milkha Run; 2013) What better way to stimulate nationalistic spirit than via sports? And the silver screen forms the platform to disseminate this message further. After watching this movie I came to realize that this towering Singh is indeed had an illustrious life, on and off the track. Perhaps also with a little push with the magic of Bollywood! Hailing from the Pakistan part of Punjab, young Milkha Singh was witness to brutal killing of his parents and Sikhs during the Partition. Almost plunging into a life of pilfering and dacoit, he swayed to side of righteousness by promise of love by a young lass.  In order of getting his life in life in order, he enrolls into the Indian Army. The lad who has been running all his life, first from the mob during Partition and then in his clandestine activities soon started running again. Only this time it was on the tract.  The m...

Perched high up on skyscraper, placed on a hill overlooking the lowlands of common people and the iconic bridge to mainland, amidst the clutter of cutlery in the continental restaurant, indulging in the high caloried diet with no guilt, sipping the freshly squeezed orange, brain immersed in endorphines, it sure feels good like a million dollars to know that you had conquered the challenges that life had to offer, albeit in our own small ways. We made small baby steps to face the giant face of life and came out smelling not of stinking sweat but sweet smelling roses. We persevered, we fought the fight, endured the pain, ignored the heartbreaks and followed the path of least resistance. Like James Brown said, "It feels good, it feels nice". Even the unsweetened black coffee tastes sweet! And the bread as we know it has a funny foreign sounding name.

They say they had a record of sorts, 44,000 registered to partake in this nostalgic run. Unfortunately, on the ground level, the number of participants at the half marathon did not seem to mirror that fact. Parking was a breeze relatively unlike last year and start off did not require knocking each other blind to pass the starting line. The numbers were made up by the 10km'ers and fun runners mainly. Even the marathoners did not stand out. After deciding to make it as a big boys' weekend out, the 4 members of the running gang drove up in the luxury of a 8-seater SUV to Penang in spirit of clean healthy fun. After reaching the destination and fulfilling filial obligations, we settled in for the night. The excitement for the day was too much for most of us to catch a single glimpse into slumberland! Being deprived of proper sleep for more than 24 hours, we stepped into our sporting gears at 0130h to conquer the bridge once again. We could not have asked for a more conducive w...

The jury is still out on why runners from certain part of Eastern African, especially of a certain tribe in Kenya do extremely well in middle and long distance races. People of the Kalenjin tribe who comprise 0.6% of the world population have the honour of holding more than 40% of the world honours in distances of 800m and above, all the way to marathon. Many theories have been suggested for their lion's share on these records. The familiar reasons that have been told to us are their physique, training in high altitude, their low socio-economic status and running as their trump card to freedom, bla, bla... Now, I heard of a new quasi-genetic explanation for their superiority - their tolerance to pain! In 1968 Mexico City Olympics, the unforgettable heroic saga to victory of a certain athlete, Kipchoge Keino, started the flood gates of subsequent champions emerging from that side of the world. After the preliminary rounds, Kip was to partake in 3 events, namely 10,000m, 5,000m ...

So it is yet another run, my personal competitive run #35 since I took the plunge into my first run in 2009. This time around it is the Adidas King of the Road 16.8km run, third time running. As  I was running along the mammoth monolithic man-made structures amidst the mixed affluent and the not so affluent part of the suburbia, I realized that nothing about the race had changed. The wannabe runners with their ' gaya muthusamy ' way of branded dressing and gizmos filled to the brim, heart monitors, sweat head band, logo flashing florescent compression suits, Gel Kinsei (the Bentley of the running shoes) etcetera, etcetera. Even the loud mouthed hooligans with nonsensical hurls and catcalls at the the 15km mark were there this time around. Only this time around, they had gotten their stereophonic bass beating high trebled high fidelity systems to complement their rowdy act! Also in saree So there was nothing new, it was just same old, same old... And as I was running...

SCKLM 2013 A few days before the event, the haze began to rear its ugly head again. It looked like the run was going to be jinxed, yet again. The question on everybody's mind was that was when the rain was going to come and was the run going to be called off yet again. It rained, alright, but everywhere else but the Klang Valley. This time around, the enthusiasm for the run seem muffled. After being in tip top form for the previous cancelled outing, lethargy set in during the training part of the haze postponed third outing at the 42km marathon. The eventful day finally came. The haze seem to have cleared but in its place was a scorching humid morning with not a single of a breeze. The only breeze seen in the atmosphere seem to the 'Breeze' application of Standard Chartered's mobile application! The outside temperature could easily be 30degrees Celsius. In most marathon races, the run would have been cancelled for health safety reasons. In fact, the last Boston M...