Adious 2005, Welcome 2006

We would like to wish all our friends, runners, walkers and bloggers an endless happiness and excellent health.

Happy New Year!

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas

(Picture courtey of KC & The Sunshine Runners)

First of all, I would like to wish all runners and readers of this blog a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

It's a Sunday morning. So you can expect some runners gather at the Lake Garden to start their run even though it's a Christmas day.

However, I chose to do something different this year - by dressing up as a Santa Claus! This is the second time I dressed up fancifully for a run - the first being in an office attire for the Rat Race!

Thank goodness, everyone seemed to be in jovial mood when they were approached by this little Santa Claus. They were even more surprise when they received their little presents - some Himalaya sweets (sponsored by Wai Mun) and bottle of lotion (courtesy of Amelia). Looking at their smiles really made me feel good!

And yes, I completed my 20km run and came back in one piece - unlike the Santa Claus who is always madly being rush by children for goodies in the shopping malls.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Happy Dong Zhi

Today is a rest day for me. Yes, no running!

Instead, I have been eating the whole day. I had breakfast with my wife at Mid Valley, Christmas lunch in KLCC with buddies and soon, I will be having a family reunion dinner for the Dong Zhi festival in Bangsar. Isn't that wonderful?

Hey! Did I mention I had tang yuan (glutinous rice ball) too? Yes, I had it during my tea time, courtesy of my likeable neighbour.

Life is good.... enjoy it while you can.

By the way, if you don't know what Dong Zhi is, here's some explaination (which I will try to remember too):

"In the Chinese calendar, the festival falls six weeks before Chinese New Year. A popular expression among the older Chinese to refer to the end of a year and the coming of the next one is: “Chi tang yuan, da yi nian (Eat tang yuan and grow older by a year).”

One of the must-haves for the festival is the marble-shaped tang yuan, which carries the meaning of a family reunion.

Yuan, which means “round” or “a circle”, is also an auspicious word that suggests yuan man (perfection)."

Mizuno Wave Run

It was a different role for me in this Run. Instead of participating as a runner, I rendered my service as a volunteer and I was assigned the Route Marshal's job.

A day prior to the Run, we gathered at the venue - Padang Merbok in the morning. We have a great time determining the best spot for the Start/Finish point. Due to the heavy rain the night before, the field has turned to a little pond with water and mud everywhere. Eventually, we agreed on a dryer ground before the Race Director - Mr Wan piled the first wood as the marker in a simple "opening ceremony". From there-on the job was much easier as we just needed to work according to the layout set by the Race Director. We made sure there was sufficient space for distributing the Finisher's Position cards and medals, timekeepers, result recording, check-in and exit areas.

Next we recce the actual race route and put on the road signages so that the runners would not lose their way. We had a short briefing at 4pm with all the 18 road marshals and assigned each duties at the specific checkpoints. That was our Day One job.

The following day when the Run was to start at 7.30am, we arrived early at 6am. After our breakfast, we adjourned to our respective checkpoints. I was based at Checkpoint No.2 and the last checkpoint.



At checkpoint 2, I needed to make sure all the runners turned right to the KTM Station behind the Bank Negara. After just 10 minutes from the Start, all the runners had passed by my checkpoint. Thereafter, I walked back to the last checkpoint guiding them to the finishing line.

It's always interesting to see how the runners react to their run. Some of them can run very fast; some struggling; some for fun; some for personal glory.

For me, it's indeed a pleasure to give back to what I like doing - running!

Zhen Qi Practice

My wife and I have been attending Qi Gong or Zhen Qi classes lately.

The practice is easy as what you need to do is to focus on your exhaling and your "tan dien" or abdomen. We need not do all the exercises like you see in Tai Chee. We sit and concentrate on our breathing - sound easy?

Actually, it's not as easy as we think as our mind is always "in the go". If you are not thinking of something else, you may sometime fall into the trap of sleeping.

There are 5 steps in a routine of EXHALING:
1) Focus on your heart.
2) Imagine the Qi flows from the heart to your lower "tan dien" (abdomen).
3) Concentrate on your "tan dien".
4) The Qi will flow to your back and then to the top of your head once it gets stronger.
5) The circle will complete when the Qi flows from the top of the head to your forehead, chin and back to your "tan dien".

You will notice some reactions in your body, depending on your health condition. Some participants burst into cry due to their past bad experience or depression. If you have blockage in certain parts of the body, you will feel a sensation of poking or ants biting at that specific area. Once the Qi has heal the problematic areas, its flow will become smoother and you will feel great! I saw some participants' face has turned reddish! How envious!

Well, we have not reached that level yet but we will be there if we are persistent to do more practices. However, I notice some positive result in my achilles tendon injury as the pain is almost gone (if not fully gone, touch wood).

Hope we could incorporate this Zhen Qi practice in our run - before, during and after. Who knows, we could do more PBs in the coming future. Hehehehe....

Our new World Champion

Congratulations to Nicol David for becoming the new World Champion & World No. 1 ranked women squash player!

We are so proud of your achievements and your contributions to our country. Malaysia Boleh!!!