Oh, those cramps!

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 Marathon was postponed by a day for this same reason!
A crowd of 3,000 participants partook in the 42km category (of 33,000 overall). The start at 4.30am was slow with crowding of runners in the first 2kms. My run progressed smoothly. I managed to clear 10km mark by about 1'8". The heat continued radiating. 21km was covered by about 2'22". As I was cruising along the 25km mark, the first twitch manifested at the left little toe. I thought that it would just disappear, just like all those little twitches that come and go. Then a funny sensation showed  up at the adductor group muscles of the left thigh. Then I knew it. The jeva vu of Putrajaya come flooding through. Cramps!
I had to scale down my pace. Later, I had resort to walking as the cramps became more apparent. From 29km and on, it became run-walk strategy.

BFM Night School (Live)

Slowly I could see the pacer balloons passed me by...the 4:30 the 5:00 and finally 5:30!
Some how, with a little  bit of determination, I managed to pull myself through the finishing line after 5h27m14s.
It was not a rewarding run. I did not finish strong. But at least, I could go back with the comfort that I completed the task in one piece and continue life with my day time job the following day.
Anyway, there was the BFM Night School live show and the Running gang's Chinese dinner to compensate for the poor run. That would always be another race, another day, another time. To be still standing....priceless!

Only the good die young!

So at the funeral pyre, the crowd sobbed at the passing of a likable 53 year old lady who succumbed to the devastating effects of the malignant crab of an organ which held the seeds of life (not death).
The family members and friends have been prepared and even relieved to see her go. Seeing her organs fail one by one to be supported by modern science and pain (oh, the pain)... Death was the saving grace. After stopping all medical interventions and returning home to the comfort of the familiar company of her family members and family home, in the echoing chants of prayers, she breath her last breath.
One relative who was perplexed by the turns of events confided why she should just whither away so soon, being a seemingly kind lovable religious vegetarian and all, at an age where she should be enjoying the fruits of her life struggle. She finally came to terms that this was one of those unexplainable things in life that nobody could decipher. The only thing she could do was to do good, pray hard, do the necessary medical tests and hope for the best!
....The evil minded devil's advocate in FG got him thinking...
Maybe, the dearly departed was so lovable that even God wanted to have her close by his side! If not, why do you see so many seeming evil man and evil women still roaming the world? Would not a bolt of lightning just strike at the right spot to jolt them into place? People who allegedly had great disservice and atrocity to humanity, should they not be eliminated early to maintain peace, law, order and sanity on Earth?
Chin Peng, who is griped strongly by a big group of the people in this nation lived to a ripe age of 89. There are even some plotting devious plans of dominance and ill intent against his enemies at this late twilight of age. So, my friend, this adage of doing good to live longer does not hold water. On the contrary, only the good die young. Furthermore, living on Earth is supposed to be the punishment of the soul in the cycle of karma!
When you pray, are you communicating with a bigger Being who would change the course of your life after taking pity on your plight of getting fed up with your constant harassment? Is it not just a monologue or a self pacification to give encouragement to counter the daily challenges of life?
The more you think of things like these, the more confused you would be. People with limited knowledge probably with vested interest would tell you this and that attempting to cow you into submission with talks propagating siege scenario. So, the best thing for me to do is to run and clear my mind..... 42 here I come...
Only the good die young, so be a bad*ss!

Bank heist: A political statement?

Dog day afternoon (1975)

What makes this bank robbery movie different from others of the same genre? We have bombarded with too many stories with nitty gritty technical details of planning and execution. DDA, however, appears to me like a satire of sorts. By the way, DDA just a poetic way of saying 'a scorching hot afternoon'.

The bank heist shown on screen these days are so high-tech. The amounts planned to be robbed are in gargantuan proportions and their modus operandi is usually much bigger - including world domination, anarchy, terrorism and even nuclear warheads. In the 70s, it was a political statement. It is about the small man fighting a system dominated by greedy enterprises and politicians. This film is based on a real story. 

It starts with 3 bumbling amateurs holding up a bank. Just as they unleash their weapons in the premises, one of the gang of three get cold feet and requested to be out. And off we goes, walking out the bank! The bumbling remaining duo - Sonny (Al Pacino) and Sal - were in for bad luck. The armour truck had come early to collect the bank money early, leaving only $1100 in the vault! So they started taking petty cash and travelers' cheques. To squash evidence, Sonny, the dominant and mastermind, started burning the register book. The billowing smoke alerted a passerby and within minutes, the area around the bank was sprawling with cops.
The  startled robbers took the bank employees as hostages. Negotiations over negotiations happened with the police to release the hostages. In came the TV crew eager to interview, and he did, of the robbers. Taking pity on the robbers who seem to be getting bad luck, one after another, the hostages develop Stockholm Syndrome! At some point, they even give suggestions to them what to do next.
The taped area outside become theatrical as the spectators cheer for the robbers as they deem that their action was heroic -the oppressed Vietnam veteran fighting the establishment, as Sonny goes on TV.
When Sonny requests to meet his wife, the police discovers that Sonny was a homosexual and brought him his gay 'wife' whom he had recently married (in a church!). Now, the gay community started lobbying their plight in front of the bank. They claim that the heist is a statement, to highlight their course!
Sonny's annoying mother and later his first wife appear at the scene. They, of course are no police to persuade the robbers to disarm as they are more interested in washing dirty linen in public and highlighting their own problems.
Sonny and Sal, who are at wits end on their escape route, demand for a free passage to Algeria on a jet.
Even though the whole stories may appear comical, the excellent direction and acting by the stars managed to maintain the suspense.
In the end, they only made it to the airport. Sal was shot dead by FBI and Sonny was captured. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
A classic film with subtle jibes at modern living. It pokes fun at people's herd mentality, media craze and media manipulation of people. A good one.

(N.B. Dog Day Afternoon just means 'a scorching hot afternoon')