The Midnight awaits...

Killing two health birds with one well-placed kidney stone?

2011-12-27T13:37:00.001+08:00

Someone please tell me BP Healthcare at the very least have someone with an above average command of English to go through their public marketing materials?

"Friendly medical practitioners soothe body fluid donators to ensure a smooth, flowing process. Tests take up to 15 minutes, after which upper class postmen whisk blood and urine samples to brainy testers. Examinations cover health obstacles like hepatitis B, liver and renal malfunctions and patients need not stretch their patience as results can be obtained within 24 hours. After a doctor's consultation, customers are entitled to a complimentary nutritionist consultation, killing two health birds with one well-placed kidney stone."

Source

I am thinking of going there for my regular health checkup (my last two were done at their place). Now I'm not... hmm.. quite so sure. Am not quite ready to understand how kidney stones are useful to kill health birds. :)

27 Sep 2011: Siemens Run 2011

2011-10-11T02:51:00.009+08:00

What are you running for?

Siemens has a reputation for hosting one of the more "fun" races in KL and with them donating the run proceeds to charity, it's a run that's always worth supporting. I missed the 2009 run as I was late to the party and the registration has closed. I did sign up for last year's but due to some last minute engagement, couldn't make it on run day itself.

Siemens only has 10K as the competitive category and with limited medals (150 for my Junior Veteran category), you need to make sure you come back fast enough to grab one of the finisher medals. Their running vest is from Brooks and usually far much better quality than those from the "more famous" brands.

This would be my first road races after SCKLM (which was at end June) and while I've been (trying) to keep to my practice runs at the gym and KLCC (thanks to new-found Sunday running buddy, Ang), the practice sessions been irregular at best as the project at WSM is rolling towards it's Go-live date - and BGC taking up whatever slack time I may have after WSM.

Which brings me back to this article's topic, what do I run for? Simple.... to ensure I'm fit enough to continue doing what I'm doing - work, business, personal, boardgaming, etc. And for this 10K races are the best way to keep me "honest" in terms of getting myself fit. Life always gets into our way of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and good fitness level - we'll always have the "excuse" to skip today's training in order to complete another assignment or report.

But when you know you've a race to complete sometime in the horizon, you will make an effort to get to the gym if only to make sure you dun suffer needlessly on race day. If you follow Covey's Four Quadrants, then "running to keep yourself fit" is usually a Quadrant 2 (Q2) activity and one we tend to "sacrifice" when push comes to shove timewise.

Ensuring I keep myself fit enough to run 10K races (which fits sweetly into a one hour time slot) helps to avoid this Q2 activities (exercise) turning into a Q1 firefighting crisis (when we've to take a rest/break from our hectic schedule due to reason of poor health).

Yeah, that's what I run for. :)

The run itself was not a good one for me though. Perhaps I've been slacking in my treadmill sessions. The route is similar to SCKLM 2011 except where we turned into Syed Putra, we kept along Jalan Tun Sambathan instead which made the route shorter by about 800m.

I'd an easier run during SCKLM, doing a 5:51 average pace and generally just chugging along fine. This time however I were struggling a bit to keep even a 6:00 pace even though it's on the same route. Told myself I won't be surprised if I'm past the 150 medals when I reach the finishing line at this pace.

But surprisingly the medals were still around when I came to the Finish point around the one hour mark at position #118 (within my category)! And the finisher medal - made of wood instead of the usual pewter - indeed looks good.

RESULTS

Distance: 10.06 km

Position: 118 (Men Jr Veteran)

Time: 60:45 min

Pace: 6:02 /km

This is the first of a series of races I'd signed up for in Sep/October (August was Puasa month so no races scheduled); the next being the much anticipated Adidas King of the Road held at Sunway next week.

RELATED LINKS

Siemens Run 2011 Official Site

Siemens Run 2011 Results

What dreams wouldn't we dream if we knew we wouldn't fail?

2011-09-20T00:46:00.002+08:00

Saw this writing shared on my buddy Hengy's facebook notes. A nice piece of writing - not surprisingly from Paulo Coelho, who in my mind is not just a writer of novels but a philosopher of life as well. Let me share it here for those who follow this blog. :P

--quote--

"We must never stop dreaming. Dreams provide nourishment for the soul, just as a meal does for the body. Many times in our lives we see our dreams shattered and our desires frustrated, but we have to continue dreaming. If we don't, our soul dies and Love cannot reach it.

The good fight is the one we fight because our heart asks it of us. The good fight is the one fought in the name of our dreams. When we're young and our dreams first explode inside us with all of their force, we are very courageous, but we haven't yet learned how to fight. With great effort we learned how to fight, but by then we no longer have the courage to go into combat. So we turn against ourselves and do battle within. We become our own worst enemy. We say that our dreams were childish, or too difficult to realize, or the result of our not having known enough about life. We kill our dreams because we are afraid to fight the good fight.

The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams is the lack of time. The busiest people always have time to do everything. Those who do nothing are always tired and pay no attention to the little amount of work they are required to do. They complain constantly that the day is too short. The truth is, they are afraid to fight the good fight.

The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties. Because we don't want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life. We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day existence, and we hear the sound of lances breaking, we smell the dust and the sweat, and we see the great defeats and the fire in the eyes of the warriors. But we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those engaged in the battle. For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what's important is only that they are fighting the good fight.

And, finally, the third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace. Life becomes a Sunday afternoon; we ask for nothing grand, and we cease to demand anything more than we are willing to give. In that state, we think of ourselves as mature; we put aside the fantasies of youth, and we seek personal and professional achievement. We are surprised when people our age say that they still want this or that out of life. But really, deep in our hearts, we know that what has happened is that we have renounced the battle for our dreams - we refused to fight the good fight.

When we renounced our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being. We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That's when illness and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat - disappointment and defeat - came upon us because of our cowardice. And one day, the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death. It's death that frees us from our certainties, from our work, and from that terrible peace of our Sunday afternoons.

The only way we can rescue our dreams is to stop being cruel to ourselves."

--adapted from Paulo Coelho, The Pilgrimage

--unquote--

To me when I started the first boardgame meetup years back, I've envisaged the vision of "New OTK" of today. It's been a long road... glad we've arrived in some forms and some parts. There's still a longer road in front I'm sure... but when you are living your dream, the hardship matters less.

Coelho's writing reminded me of a quote I always held close to my heart. A quote that never fails to lift me whenever I felt the road in front is hard to continue... when turning the other way or simply stopping was so much more easier. We may fall. We may stumble. But cold and timid, we will never be. :)

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Lord of the Rings Chess Set

2011-08-14T00:36:00.002+08:00

While surfing eBay looking for some other stuff, I stumbled upon the LOTR Chess Sets from Eaglemoss. Not any wanna-be chess set featuring LOTR figures but a very polished looking hand-painted set.

It obviously comes with a price. L Issued in sets of 32 pieces, they used to have two sets and have recently announced Set 3. With each set costing around USD180.... hmm.. Not cheap to acquire them.

http://www.lotr-chess.co.uk/index.html

BIM2011 - Running along the coastline

2011-06-23T03:01:00.003+08:00

Even though we only slept around 12 m/n (after getting back from the Carcasean boardgaming session), I felt well rested when I woke up around 5ish. The plus point of staying just 1KM away from the starting point (Likassquare Condo) is that you can afford to wake up later and just saunter your way to the race venue. :P

The races start earlier here compared to KL ie 6 am for our 10K and the ungodly hours of 4 am for the full marathoners! :O The reason is simply the sun rising here 1.5 hrs earlier than KL even though both locations are on the same timezone so a 6 am start here is about equivalent to a 7:30 am start in KL.

By the time we were on the road towards Likas Stadium (start venue) around 530ish, the full marathoners have already been on the road for 1.5 hours. Gosh.

We didn't actually saunter since we thought it might be good for us to slow-jog our way to the Stadium, which was a useful pre-race warm-up for us anyway.

A view of the dynamic Likas Sports Complexs which houses an Olympic-size swimming pool... this complex is located along the route from our condotel to the stadium.

Likas Stadium is imposing.. It's the 8th largest football stadium in M'sia with a capacity to house 35,000 fans! Even though it was not even 6 am, the sky was as bright as any morning sun!

We were flagged off sharp at 6 am. No funny celebrity warm-up stuff, no longish speech about nothing, just a quick "Hi How Are You All This Morning" and Bang! Off we go....

The route for the 10K run... starting from Likas, then a 2KM stretch along Jln Tun Fuad Stephen which is the coastline run before we enter the city centre, an u-turn at the 5KM mark and returning in the opposite direction along the same route.

This is the road heading out towards Likas Condotel (that's the tall buildings after the arch) and another 500m we'll hit the coastline. J

This being my 2nd (actual) race this year (the first was the now-infamous ENR at Sepang), my plan for this run was simply to take it at a leisurely 6 min pace. The route here is flat. I mean FLAT with no elevation at all so for those with pace to burn, this is actually a good race to do your PB in whatever category you wanna do.

It's only 1.5K from Likas Stadium to the Tun Fuad Stephen roundabout (above) and from here we turned left and were now running along the coastline of KK facing the South China Sea. Ah.. the sea breeze!

This coastline stretch is about 1.5KM long and it's really such a blissful feeling running along it with the sea breeze in your face! Priceless experience - especially for us city-folks given only to running in the concrete jungles of KL.

Somewhere along this stretch, I saw the 1st Kenyan runners coming from the opposite direction heading back towards Likas Stadium. It's just 6:15 or thereabout and with just 2+ KM back to base, this guy was going back with a timing of around 2:30 hr for a full marathon!

In case you are reaching for your calculator, that's an awesome 3:30 min pace (in other words, he ran each KM of the 42+ KM at the average pace of 3:30 min per KM)!! *shakes head*

At Km3 we start to reach the city centre though the coastline is still very much visible along our route.

The next KM took us alongside one of the newer shopping malls in KK - the Suria Sabah (wonder if it's related to our Suria KLCC?)

After Suria Sabah, we were running along the Harbour Front (above) which has a 2KM boardwalk (arguably the longest in Asia).

We made our u-turn just before the KK Wet Market (the large covered building above). From here, it's just the same route back in the opposite direction. Yay! Another 2KM of coastline run!!

The 21K and 42K went on further down this route... past Le Meridien KK, all the way to Sutera Harbour until they reach Tanjung Aru where their u-turn was.

This was a picture of me stopping for a cuppa of Gatorade at the 7KM mark, taken by Tey. See the coastline in the background? J

The last 200m was on the stadium's soft track.. My Garmin tracked my time at around 59+ min but there was no official time for me as there were some problems with the race bibs they used for this race.

However the BIM organizers were more than willing to help you check your official time from their data if you provide them with sufficient info. A quick email exchange with (the late) Andrew Voon gave my official time as 59:03 min. Sadly, there was probably the last email exchange I'll ever have with Andrew as he passed away suddenly last week.

Overall this was a well-organized race (compared with the ENR, haha), started on time, routes well-marshalled, drinks available almost every 2-3 km (for 10K route) and your goodies like finishing medal, t-shirt and a wet towel were handed to you at the finishing line (makes it easier rather than having the runners queued up for this after crossing the finishing line).

Kudos to Andrew and his organizing team. BIM is a relatively new race (this is their 4th year) and I wish they'll continue to grow from year to year.

waiyan did well in her 10K too. Think she came back around 68:30 min. J

I enjoyed this run a lot.. Probably the best run in all the races I've done. Think part of the reason is that I did not set any finishing target for myself and just decided to do a 6 min pace. I find that at this pace I can just coast along and in the morning air of the South China Sea, while running my mind reflected on where/what/who/why/when/how of my life and I probably achieved clarity in some aspects of those contemplations.

I'll certainly be BACK here for next year's run!

Next: Post-run photo shoot

Borneo International Marathon 2012 date announced!

2011-06-21T02:27:00.003+08:00

It's set for 6th May 2012 (Sunday) and online registration is expected to open 1st Oct 2011. We did our first Borneo run last May (see first blog entry here) and my extremely busy schedule is keeping me from writing the rest of the blog entries.... but we thoroughly enjoyed our run (and also the short holiday at Sutera Harbour) and will definitely want to come back again!

If you'd ran in the 2011 race (full or half-mara) and were coming back to the last KM around 8:00 am - 10:00 am, you might find your pics in my BIM2011 albums here in Facebook.

Official site for Borneo Marathon

http://borneomarathon.com/

------------------------

NOTE: I wrote this entry almost a week back and it was sitting in my journal waiting to be uploaded to Blogger. However on Saturday (June 18) morning, I read a sobering news on one of my running fren's Facebook wall saying Andrew Voon (Race director for BIM) has left us suddenly when he collapsed during his morning run and never woke up.

I do not know Andrew personally but I admired very much what he has done for the Borneo International Marathon (he was one of the founding members) and am sure part of the success of BIM was down to his planning and dedication.

I enjoyed my BIM run this year, luv the feeling of running along the coastline... and I'm sure I'll now return to KK next year for BIM2012 to run again in this wonderful race and to say "goodbye" to Andrew.

Life is fragile... live it now.

BIM2011: Race Pack Collection

2011-05-15T12:24:00.004+08:00

It was 2 years ago that I first noticed this boutique race - Borneo International Marathon - held in the land of the hornbills. The picture of the proboscis monkey (which I kept confusing as orang utan) on the finisher's medal made it a unique medal to collect. The attraction of running along the coastline is probably a strong second pull. And earlier sessreps from Yim (who attended the 2009 run) pointed to a well-organized run.

In 2009, the event was held in the later part of the year (October if I'm not mistaken) but in 2010 they switched it to May 1st which happily coincide with the Labour Day public holiday here. This year's even better, May 1st falls on a Sunday which means Monday is the replacement day-off for us (and we do not even have to take annual leave for Monday).

Not wanting to miss this good opportunity to swing by KK for the Borneo Run this year, we were rather quick to sign up when they opened for registration in December 2010. Yup, they have good planning and started promoting their way almost 6 mths to the event.

Early registration means early flight bookings and while AirAsia continues to offer cheap flights into KK, we found MAS' schedule more amenable to us. If I remembered correctly AirAsia's deal was around Rm400 while MAS about Rm550 per pax. However AirAsia's flight required us to wake up in the ungodly hours of 3am or something since it's departing around 7am (Sat) and then leaving KK on the 9am flight on Monday hardly giving us enough time to R&R (rest & relax) in KK (which beside the Race is part of the reason for this trip).

Some of you might wonder what's wrong with a 3am wake-up on Saturday. Well for one, I do have to host the Boardgamecafe.net's Friday meetup which usually ends (if early) around 2-3 am Sat morning so that meant I'm rushing straight off the meetup to the airport? Nosireee.... I would rather get a couple of hours rest in-between and then get ourselves leisurely to KK in the afternoon.

Oh yes AirAsia do have flights leaving on times better suited to our itinerary but that would meant their cost would be similar to MAS. So MAS it is, which gave us a 12 noon flight out of KUL and a nice 7pm flight back from KK.

First to-do on our list upon arrival at KK (after checking in to our hotel in Likassquare) was to get our Race Pack from the Community Hall, which is about 5 km from Likassquare. We took the complimentary shuttle van from the hotel to get to the Community Hall in good time and the Race Pack collection went smoothly.

I noticed Jesseltown Hotel's located just opposite the Community Hall so if you are thinking of staying somewhere within really short walking distance, you can consider this hotel (not that I've any good nor bad reviews about it).

When we were searching for an accommodation for this trip, we were deciding whether to stay in the city centre (which is just a short 4-5 km the race venue Likas Stadium) or to stay at Likassquare, a short 1 km walk from the stadium. In the end we decided on Likassquare as their frontline person was more responsive and attentive to my emails.

As we were about to leave the Community Hall, we spotted Tey (Facebook link if you do not know who he is). He came with a posse of runners from KL (all from the same family I think). Wow! He's really passionate about promoting the sport of running!

Thanks Tey for this photo!

A little bit on KK City

We decided to hang around a bit in the city centre before moving back to the Likassquare area and were looking for a place to sit and have a cup of coffee.. And we spotted Old Town White Coffee (OTK). Those of you who are boardgamers would surely understand my affinity with them. :)

This OTK outlet seems to be overstaffed but we couldn't complained since it meant their staff are very attentive to your needs.

We didn't order much food to eat as we were saving our stomach for tonight's dinner with Sean & his wife (that'll be our trip to Carcasean Cafe which was the main agenda for today).

My bib for the 10K Run. There's also a useful Starbucks voucher (buy 1 free 1) and a nice eco Newton bag. No running vest but they'll hand out a finisher tee at the Finish Line. You can also see their distinctive logo being branded everywhere.

When we left Old Town and walked around, we noticed a café beside OTK that was packed with customers! The peeps inside were enjoying their food and engrossed in conversation. The café was well (though simple) decorated and we could see a lot of those customers who appeared to be "runners", no doubt for tomorrow's race.

Ah.. Now we know why Old Town was relatively quiet compared to this buzzing place which is know as Fook Yuen Cafe & Bakery. :P We later found out - from Facebook- this was WHERE most of the runners (especially the West M'sians) were gathering to fuel themselves!

Strange sign post in KK. hehe... 164M to the toilet?

Yes, we are 0KM in Kota Kinabalu!

The interiors of the Likassquare apartment. Ours was supposedly a studio apartment but it's essentially a 3-bedroom apartment converted into a studio, to cater for couples like us who do not need 2- or 3-bedrooms.

But they do have 3-bedroom apartments for rent and the price would be very attractive for a group of 5-6 runners sharing an accommodation for this run. With the Start/Finish venue (Likas Stadium) being only one KM walk from this hotel, it's very well positioned for runners who are attending this Race.

The only downside is probably this hotel being away from the city centre hence you'll either need your own transport or to use their complimentary shuttle van when getting to/from the city centre. They even sent a shuttle van to pick us up from the airport!

We took a taxi back (from the Community Hall) and local taxis here go by a fixed rate rather than meter, which I think is understandable given the low volume of customers. Fare from city centre here is about Rm15-17 which is expensive considering the distance covered (barely 5 KM). The hotel's shuttle van is available as long as you make pickup arrangement.

We'll definitely be staying here again if we are back for the next run! At just Rm130+ per night, this hotel is well recommended by us especially if you are a runner coming here for the Borneo Intl Marathon. :P

Next stop: Carcasean Cafe for some boardgaming session & Race Day

--------------------------------------------------------------

For more photos, pls check out my Facebook Album

- BIM2011 Race Pack Collection

Links

- Borneo International Marathon

- Likassquare Condotel

The Bladerunners

2011-05-08T18:07:00.013+08:00

THE BLADERUNNERS
About half a year back when I was due to replace my Adizero Tempo, I was scouring the market to see what's new with running shoes and one brand caught my eye - K-Swiss. I actually first saw it some time ago while in the LRT when a young chap walked in with a nice dynamic looking shoe. It had 4-bands so it couldn't be Adidas. It was not until some of my runner frens started using K-Swiss that I finally found out which brand it was.

Note: I did end up replacing my old Adizero Tempo with another Tempo back in Oct last year (during the Adidas Refresh Your Gear promo) coz Frank told me the yellow model of BLR won't be available in Msia until March this year, and my old Adizero Tempo has had more mileage than it should be.

The Blade Light Run (BLR) caught my eye - in particular the yellow model (above) - probably due to it's bold colors, dynamic shape and it's close proximity to the weight of Adizero (which is a very light trainer). I don't run longer-than-10K races but still, I do not want to lug around a brick on my feet everytime I run. :P

In the early days, it was difficult buying a K-Swiss here since there's no one retailing the shoes locally. Everyone I knew who had this shoe bought them from overseas; usually S'pore or HK. You won't have that problem now since Runnerz Circle (run by Frank Chong) carries (almost) the full range of K-Swiss running shoes.

I didn't get around to asking Frank what's the story behind the Mashimaro but it was displayed rather prominently at the front of his shop. :P

Frank's store is in Kota Damansara which is kinda far from where I stay... so I've been dilly dallying about getting to his shop to look-see at the K-Swiss shoes. The Race Pack collection for the Energizer Night Run (ENR) on the 10th April at Tropicana Mall gave us an opportunity to swing around to his store. The ENR event itself is another big fubar story altogether (will save it for another blog entry).

It was not hard finding our way to Runnerz Circle in Kota Damansara - well, a Garmin nuvi sure helped made things easier. His store was opened a couple months back and I can see that Frank has now keep his shop well-stocked with all types of clothing & accessories for runners - and also triathletes. :D

But we are here for the shoes and it's close to closing time (5pm). :P So we promptly get down to business. He took out a few sizes of the Yellow BLR for me to try out, and I finally found one size that fits me.

The array of K-Swiss shoes available from Runnerz Circle. As you can from the above picture, Frank has one pair of the latest Kwicky Blade Light shoes in his store but we were told that was a trial pair from K-swiss and this shoe won't be available here until later.

Anyway I've already made up my mind long ago to get the Yellow Blade (even though I already have bought a replacement for my Adizero Tempo). No harm having another pair of good running shoes. This shoe looks like I could use it on race day which would then mean it can replace my aging Adizero Ace.

Waiyan also found the Blade Light Run to her liking and decided to get the red colored lady version of the BLR. Haha.. Good for Frank then, a quick double sales!

I took the BLR for a short run at KLCC Park the following Sunday to see how it would go with my feet before using it for the actual race day on the 16th (Energizer Night Run). The shoe fitted snugly and was very good to run in. Can feel the support when my foot hits the ground.

Another aspect of the Blade Light Run is their "drainage" technology - you see those pores in the shoes? - where supposedly even if you stepped into a pool of water, the heavy water would drain itself out from the shoes and avoid turning the shoes into a heavy wet lump.

I did not manage to test this out - and not that I'm keen to do so (hehe) - but Jamie Pang has written a very good review that explained this "drainage" part of the shoe. You might want to read Jamie's review if you are keen to find out more.

I've since used this shoe for two race days - hehe.. the only two races I ever did for 2011 so far (been real busy la!) - which were the Energizer Night Run and the recently concluded Borneo International Marathon. I did the 10K in both races and maintained a consistent (and slow! hah) 6-min pace in both races and I felt the shoes gave me tremendous support.

Waiyan has the same positive remarks for her red BLR. So yes if anyone asks us, this Blade Light Run comes highly recommended by us. But now the Kwicky is slowly turning our heads... hehe.

Btw if you fancy some t-shirts - maybe as souvenir - from past local races, do drop by Runnerz Circle as they have a Frank and Jamie's corners (see below) of past races' t-shirts available for sale. :)

Till next time.

Change.Work.Shop

2011-03-24T03:42:00.003+08:00

OSLO. Today's a full day change management workshop we did for the Oslo office. Not going to write much about the change management programme (since that's client specific and I would like to keep this blog personal). Perhaps let me share some pics of the Oslo office.

We owned the building, two of them in fact - and in Norway almost all commercial buildings are designed distinctively with its own identity. No mass design here. :P

As such, each building is able to convey it's own character and carry a facade unique to herself. Its actually quite cool to be working in such beautifully designed & built offices.

Our building faces the sea - being a maritime business - and while the water's all frozen now in winter, the view outside can be awesome in other seasons.

A concept prototype (below) of a futuristic car carrier using solar powered energy!

We ended our programme earlier than we thought and since we already have plans for tomorrow, everyone agreed tonight's a good time as any to visit the famous Opera House.

Random buildings on our way to the Opera House.

This is a restaurant and it disappointed us! It looks posh outside but on closer inspection, realized they serve only café food!

This (above) I believe is one of the good hotels near to the Opera House.

OSLO Opera House

http://www.operaen.no/Default.aspx?ID=27237

Operahuset, or otherwise known as the OSLO Opera House is right now the largest cultural building in Oslo for a city that's famed for her culture & arts. As one who luvs musicals, I've made it a habit of visiting opera houses where I travel and when me & wifey were at Brisbane 2 years back, we even booked ourselves tickets for "Chicago" at the Brisbane Opera House.

The bridge connecting us to the Opera House, and along the bridge you get to see pictures of the development of the Opera House from concept to completion of the entire building sometime in 2008.

A picture dated 2006 showing the Opera House almost completed...

Sally & John at the Oslo Opera House

We saw Oslo locals going into the foyer so I think there's a show or performance tonight. Too bad we were really on very short time here else I won't mind getting myself a ticket. :P

Ticket prices are reasonable with the front seats going for around NOK800 or about RM400.

You can't come to the Opera House without getting to the top! The snow-covered steps leading to the roof of the Opera House can be slippery especially when you are dragging along a DSLR.

Not sure which building this is (below) but it's situated just opposite the Opera House across the river. Seems like it's under construction or upgrading.

I've to think these are locals (below) as otherwise I wasn't able to differentiate which was frozen water and which was solid land.

Merchandising is always good business, and opera houses not excluded. J Seems like their current performance is "LULU".

Ooh..... rows of audio CDs. Bought an Edvard Grieg collection, and also a book about "Norway - Past Present & Future".

They sell everything it seems....

Sally & John in the foyer... definitely a show on for tonight, looking at the crowd behind them. :P

PEPPE'S Pizza

We were told pizza is one of Oslo's fave food, and the pizza here can be as good as the Italianos. After eating humble pie with the Chinese restaurant thingie (see Day One), I have an open mind on this.. LOL.

We went to a place near the central park named "Peppe's Pizza". Looks like a typical American-style pizza place....

But how did the pizza go?

Apology for a out-of-focus pizza... but you see.. The pizza smelt - and tasted so good - it's a sin to waste time taking pictures instead of chomping on them! Yes Oslo has great pizzas!! Compared to this, Dominos/Pizza Hut seems like junk food. Maybe I need to revisit Micasa when I'm back in KL to see if standards are comparable. :)

Today's still a relatively quiet day travel-wise since we did have a full day's work to account for. But stay tune for tomorrow we visit the famous Vigeland Park...

Meet-n-Greet makes for a Quiet Day in Oslo

2011-03-24T02:23:00.002+08:00

OSLO. The 2nd day was a working day for us in Oslo. It was what we call the "Meet-n-Greet" day; drop in, go around to say Hi and then sit down for some one-on-one with senior management and key staff. We also took the opportunity to go through some important project talking points with staff in the Oslo office.

Since we'll have an early start tomorrow and it's also expected to be a long day, we decided to just have a quick dinner nearby the Oslo office, and then adjourn for the evening.

The Oslo office faces the port/sea and right outside is a string of port-side restaurants. Water's all frozen though....

Today's slightly warmer than yesterday but it's still a sub-10C which actually made for a very very snappy and nice weather to be in as long as you are properly clothed.

We picked an Italian restaurant. Pretty unassuming in deco but I've to say their pasta is simply superb!!

That's all for a quiet day... more to come for tomorrow's sessrep where we went to the recently opened Oslo Opera House.

OSLO TRIP BLOG ENTRIES

Day One - Royal Palace
Day Two - Quiet Day

Day Three - Oslo Opera House

Day Four

OSLO 2011-02 PHOTO ALBUM

Day One 23/2/11

Day Two 24/2/11

Day Three 25/2/11

Day Four 26/2/11

OSLO - The 2nd Most Expensive City in the World?

2011-03-15T03:41:00.004+08:00

With Oslo being rated as the 2nd most expensive city in the world behind Tokyo, it's not your usual destination for an European holiday. Unless you've a desire to know all things Norwegian.

The current project I'm on requires a global implementation across 14 countries, as such "change management" is a crucial element to ensure not just a smooth roll-out but a solid buy-in after we go live. As part of the plan to soften the grounds before go-live date, we arranged for visits to key locations to deliver our change management & communication plans.

With the company being a Norwegian company - even though their HQ is now in M'sia - Oslo has to be the 1st port of call for us. The timing also couldn't have been better... we were due to do our Oslo visit in end February which is when winter is tapering off.

Winter is REALLY winter there, with tempatures dropping to below -25C at times and with -20C being the norm. Oslo is not known as the Winter Capital for no reason. However the February month is probably when Oslo is at her "warmest" in winter.

Then again, the BEST time to visit Europe is always in the cold winter season... never mind if the temperature is -20C. After all what other time can you get to pull out your expensive cashmere coat to wear?? hehe

Just a Drop-n-Run trip

When I was moving around Europe back in 1999-2000 on the ORCA Projects, I tend to extend my stay there after work is done. Makes sense since the air ticket is paid for and all I need to fork out would be the accommodation, which would make for a very affordable overseas holiday. J

This time this trip was a short drop-in, get-the-job-done, move-out thingie.

Partly becoz wifey is not traveling with me, and partly becoz the project demands required me to be back in KL soonest possible.

KUL-AMS-OSL

We flew KLM which required a drop at Amsterdam before transiting us onwards to Gardermoen Airport, Oslo. It's a longish 14 hr flight and with only an hour transit time at Amsterdam, let's just say all I saw of Schiphol Airport (AMS) was the journey from Gate A to Gate B. LOL

We arrived at Gardermoen in good-time (9 am) and quickly parked ourselves at a café in the Arrival Hall while waiting for John, our external change management consultant to arrive from S'pore (his flight was due to arrive half an hour after us).

Two basic hot-dogs and coffee cost us more Rm90. You did notice I mentioned Oslo is one of the most expensive cities in the world rite? :P

Day One was a Resting Day

Our Change Management programme was scheduled for Friday and we've a Meet-n-Greet sessions with some of the management and key staff on Thursday, leaving half of the day for us to kinda recover from the jet lag.

After checking-in to the hotel, picking up some emails, and a short nap, we met at the lobby to decide what we were going to do for dinner and the walk-about before dinner.

Sally, my colleague who has been to Oslo a few times suggested we visit the Royal Palace and then dinner.

That's me and Sally in front of the Royal Palace (Slottet).

John and Sally @ the Royal Palace.

I'd seen one or two runners braving the freezing temperature for a jog around our hotel area... how I wish I could do the same but seriously, you need to be well-prepared to run in this weather!

The snow was almost up to my knees! Never mind run... even walking can be a problem!

Some rehearsal for a show in front of the Royal Palace?

The statue of King Carl Johan in front of the Royal Palace.

A closer look at King Johan...

Oslo is a dog-friendly city so you can expect to see more pictures such as the one above in my blog entry of this Oslo trip. Well, I mean pictures of dog and not necessarily pictures of them peeing randomly all over Oslo!! Bad doggy! LOL

An Art of ICE

After a quick walkabout of the Royal Palace - really there was nothing much to see except snow here and snow there (spring or autumn would have been different) - so we started walking towards our dinner place.

Along the way, we passed into the centre area of Oslo city itself.. And there were some displays of ice sculptures and other art form.

The one thing I admire about Europe - and the reason I always favor Europe as a holiday destination - is it's beautiful and unique architecture. And Oslo is no different.

The weather was probably around -15C now, which was just at the nice level to enjoy the winter capital. :P

Sally was trying to locate a Thai restaurant here that served good thai food - we were skeptical. I mean, all the way here to eat Thai?? But it was a good respite from the cold to pop into this building to look for the restaurant.

I did find a nice bookshop but didn't have the time to pop-in for a look-see...

And there's also this café named "Cafe Bali"? Thai and now Bali... hmm...

More ice sculptures on our way out..... can you recognize this "famous" figure?

I suppose when in winter, there's nothing much you can do except play with ice! :P

Around the streets of Oslo...

This poogie was so obedient... sitting there posing for his owner to take a few snaps.

More doggy.... and no peeing. Good doggy!

The BEST chocolate - FREIA Firklover (or so I was told by Sally)

They were having a sales of FREIA choco bar at the duty free shop in the airport. You should have seen the number of bars we smuggled out of their airport!! Hohohoho... even the airport security lady was giving us the "winky look" when she saw our stash!! :P

We passed by the Parliament House (Stortinget).....

.... and also the Nobel Peace Center (Nobels Fredssenter) but as we were rushing for dinner, didn't drop in for a look-see except to take a quick snap of the building.

If I'm back here again - hopefully with wifey - the Nobel Peace Center is one place I'll be sure to pay a visit!

After failing to locate the ahem, famous Thai restaurant, Sally proposed a Chinese restaurant that she said serves very delicious and authentic Sze-chuan dishes. Chinese now? About 10,000 km from KL? Sure or not?

Sounds wonderful but I did inform her either a) she has not gone to good Chinese restaurant back in KL or b) it's a fine dining place!!

When she passed by this restaurant (above), for a moment I thought this was our dinner place! No disrespect meant but this doesn't really look "delicious". :P

Thankfully she continued walking .... hehe

The walk to the fine Chinese restaurant serving delicious Sze-chuan food seemed to take forever and ever! I was beginning to wonder whether it's Sally intention to walk us till we are so hungry & tired, any food would taste like Sze-chuan fine dining!!

We passed by this beautiful port.. Well, it's NOT that beautiful in winter, with all the frozen water around the stagnant boats but I suppose in summer or autumn, this place would look marvelous!

After walking what must have felt like half of Oslo, we finally arrived at our fine Chinese restaurant serving delicious Sze-chuan food!

I was half-expecting it to be called "Royal Sze-chuan Fine Chinese Cuisine" or something grand.. but it was simply called "Dinner Bar & Restaurant". Talk about keeping it simple, hah!

Ooi... is this the fine Chinese restaurant serving delicious Sze-chuan food? Anyway legs were tired, it was getting colder (must be closer to -18C now), it's also getting dark (Oslo gets dark around 5:30 pm this time of the year), stomach was growling... now's not the time to debate about fine cuisine but the time to sit down and have a warm meal!

Once we entered the restaurant, our mood improved! It was packed! People were queueing for tables and the place looks very nicely decorated and does appear like a nice dining place with a warm ambience.

Maybe there's some truth to the fine chinese Sze-chuan food after all!

We waited for a short while and were soon seated. But the head waitress - a pretty Chinese lady (from Sze-chuan?) who speaks good Cantonese and Mandarin, and English... and Norsk - informed us politely we need to finish our dinner by 7 pm. It was 5:30 then.

At first we thought she was joking but then realized she's dead serious! She explained we were the first wave of diners, and their 2nd wave starts around 7 pm! Oh...

The spring rolls for appetizer... well presented and tasted as good as they look!

Yes, their signature Sze-chuan soup! You can really taste the "sweet" and the "spicy" part of the soup distinctively... and the spicy part kicked in as you get down to the "bottom". I'm not one who take spicy stuff yet I almost finished the entire bowl. But the last two spoonful were really too fiery for me to finish!!

Compared to this, I dun think many Sze-chuan soup served in KL come close! The soup alone cost more than Rm40 per bowl so price-wise they are in the high-end but I suppose in Oslo, they are considered a "regular dining place" since a coffee & hotdog also cost me Rm50+!

Fried sea bass as the main course...

... and mixed vege.

I've to swallow humble pies and really have to give this restaurant TWO THUMBS UP!! You bet I'll want to visit this restaurant again (am sure wifey would luv the fiery kick of the sze-chuan soup). It's certainly not on the cheap side but for the quality & taste of the food, you simply need to try this highly-rated restaurant!

That's day one of my Oslo trip. Stay tune for the next instalment for our 2nd day where we had dinner at the port after our Meet-n-Greet session at the Oslo office.

OSLO 2011-02 PHOTO ALBUM
Day One 23/2/11
Day Two 24/2/11
Day Three 25/2/11

HUKM Run for a Ray of Hope

2010-11-13T03:10:00.004+08:00

Fresh from last Sunday's Terry Fox Run, this coming Sunday sees another charity run organized by the National University of M'sia to raise funds for the needy in PPUKM.

The interesting part of the run is that it's held in UKM, Bangi - a venue I've not ran in before which should make this an interesting run.

Those of you not doing anything this Sunday morning are encouraged to come and support this event. Registration is still available I think and it's just Rm25. I'm pretty sure there'll be a strong contingent of UKM students taking part.

You do get a very nice dry-fit t-shirt.

Note: Online registration is closed but you can register either at the race kit collection site tomorrow (Sat) or onsite Sunday morning at UKM, Bangi.

I'm still troubled by a "painful" ankle (didn't do much running lately so this is likely caused by too much bumming around) so hopefully I can get to do this run on Sunday. I suppose the risk of sleeping late on Sat and not waking up on-time is higher than my ankle pain. Let's see... :P

HUKM Run for a Ray of Hope

http://runforarayofhope.blogspot.com/

Busy As Busy Is

2010-11-13T02:51:00.003+08:00

Someone once asked, "Why are you so busy?"

I need a few secs to gather my thoughts before I can compose a reply. A weak one though.. that went like, "Why am I what?"

I suppose if I were to ask someone, "Why are you so free?" I may solicit the same response from those asked.

Anyway thought it might be interesting to post a snapshot of one of those busy weeks from my planner tool. :P

Software used: Achieve Planner

I color-code my activities. Green is for my running activities. Sadly I missed a run on Thursday. Purple is for Boardgaming activites, and Friday's our weekend OTK session. :P

This tool also allows me to define time charts ie certain time allocated for specific project/category in a week which is the concept of First Things First (Covey). This makes me plan and balance (as far as possible) my week according to the importance of the projects I need to work on.

The coming weeks are looking busier than ever but you are not likely to hear me complaining. For the busy man is troubled with but one devil, while the idle man by a thousand. LOL

Terry Fox Run 2010

2010-11-10T02:04:00.001+08:00

TERRY FOX RUN 2010
What's Fox, Pretty Celebrity, Boardgames, and Hope have in common? They all appeared in last Sunday's charity run in aid of cancer research, the famous TERRY FOX RUN! Were you not there? Aiyoh...
by jack208

Event: Terry Fox Run KL
Venue: Taman Tasik Titiwangsa
Date: 7 Nov 2010, 8:45 am

There was a poignant moment before the run was flagged off when the CEO of CARIF, a local non-profit organization dedicated to the research of a cure for cancer, went up to the stage and asked those who know someone who has been affected by cancer to raise their hands... There were thousands of people gathered at the padang in Taman Tasik Titiwangsa and I think you can see a hand from almost everyone.

Take a moment to digest that. That's how pervasive cancer is, sadly.

Dr Teo of CARIF

FOX
Thirty years ago, a Canadian diagnosed with cancer and with one of his legs amputated, decided to embark on a cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research. He ran a full marathon (that's 42.195 km to those counting) every day and so began the Marathon of Hope.

Picture © Frostbite, CA

Today the Terry Fox Run is a non-competitive charity event held annually worldwide. It's an informal run, where your participation is more important than completing the distance, where everyone can run, walk, ride or wheel.

PRETTY CELEBRITY
There's always a famous local celebrity emceeing KL's Terry Fox Run. This year's no difference and they had Chermaine Poo (what, you mean you dun know her?) who's not only pretty but knows something about numbers too as she's a Chartered Accountant by training.

Picture © PM Tey

She certainly had the crowd's attention and did a fantastic job getting everyone ready-to-go!

Picture © Pueh-Tian Lim (runwitme.blogspot.com)

For more pictures of Chermaine, pls check out PM Tey's Facebook albums. I've stopped counting how many pictures of her were in his photo album. LOL.

BOARDGAMES
We took part in this run last year but as individual runners. This year, we thought of getting Boardgamecafe.net as part of our social responsibility to contribute towards this charity event by sponsoring their t-shirts.

At last year's Terry Fox Run

In return for our sponsorship, we get to have our Boardgamecafe.net name imprinted on the sleeves of the t-shirts. Cool!

Here are some pics of other boardgamers and runner friends who took part in this event and supported Boardgamecafe.net's contributions...

Chia Kai (right-most) who's just back from Greece (marathon) actually happens to be Hiew's (aka Hecose) nephew. Small world indeed! Oh.. you can also buy Small World the Boardgame here (hehe)

AyHeng, regular OTK kaki and his wife Li Li waking up early to come and support the event! Interestingly President Roslin - of their fave Battlestar Galactica boardgame - was a cancer victim. Wait.. she's a CYLON!

C_mun with her King Henry, King Richard and Princess Samantha! :P

King Richard who ran and ran and ran and ran... so much that he went out of juice later and kept wanting to lie down and tidur!! Hehe. Poor waiyan was the one chaperoning him..

C_mun's fren... oops we forgot to take any picture of Cheng Yee, a good fren of ours whom we've not been catching up with regularly since our Angkor '08 trip. Ian Tan is missing btw!!

This is what jack208 does when he's not boardgaming....

HOPE
Whether you walk, you run, you cycle, you wheel or you ride.... we all need to start somewhere.

Running - similar to boardgames (we hope) - unites all people regardless of race, profession and age.

The family that runs - and play boardgames - together, stays together.

Hope gives us the power to step out and try... well said, kiddo! Butwaitaminute kiddo... how come you wear this t-shirt? Never buy official t-shirt ar? Next year must buy ar? :P

This year is a landmark 30 Years for Terry Fox Run, and their t-shirt design this year is really cool. What? You didn't buy their t-shirt?

HOPE gives us the belief that we will finish this together... I like this shot very much. Good one, Lai Wah!

CONTRIBUTORS' LIST
We were actually not informed that our contributions would enable us to see Boardgamecafe.net's name in print on the Contributor's List board so it was a rather nice surprise for us when we saw BGC's name in the list!

It's good to have your company name starting with A or B

Next year however we'll get a bit more organized for such events and will come prepared with walking banners like this Starbucks group. :)

Hmm.. I think if she became Boardgamecafe.net ambassador, we'll see a super increase in new boardgamers!! What you think ar? :P

Photos to Remember
Here's some pictures taken by Lai Wah for your enjoyment!

Starting them young...

ET Phone Home?

Round and round they go... the blue t-shirts

Not just wheels... but wheels-with-style!

Wonder where we can get this? Your own custom trailer, powered by Daddy-Two-Legs!!

Check out the rest of the photos of this event at my Flickr Album.
All photos in my Terrfy Fox Run Flickr album taken by Lai Wah.

And a special mention for the two "celebrity" in the local running circuit - PM Tey and Pueh Tian - whom have done much to spread the love of running everywhere they go!

PM Tey (left) and Pueh Tian lending their support to this event.

Last but not least, Boardgamecafe.net will like to say thank you from the bottom of our heart to all those who have contributed to the Terry Fox Run in all forms and kinds. We'll be back for this again next year and we look forward to your wonderful support then!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINKS
Terry Fox Foundation (click here)
CARIF Malaysia (click here)

Other Links
Pueh Tian's blog entry (click here)
PM Tey's Multiply Album (click here) - note: you need to add Tey as friend in Multiply
Boardgamecafe.net Terry Fox Run blog (click here)
Chermaine Poo website (click here)

Short & Sweet Theatre Gala Finals 2010

2010-11-05T06:03:00.005+08:00

A year ago, around the same time, we went for our first Short & Sweet Gala Finals at KLPAC. We luv it very much... and this year, we are back for more!

Short & Sweet is the brainchild of Dato' Faridah Merican (and her partner-in-crime Joe Hasham) making its debut here in 2008 with just the Theatre format. When we attended last year's Gala Finals, they've already added Dance to its repertoire (but being newbies to this show, we didn't know and thus missed that!)

This year they've added Musicals to the list and yet we contrived to miss the Dance Gala Finals again! Thankfully we managed to come to our senses and promptly booked tickets for the Theatre Gala Finals.

Short & Sweet Theatre is an innovative concept of a series of 10-minutes plays put together by emerging local directors, screenwriters and actors. The ten best plays are then selected to appear in a Gala Final night where awards are given out for Best Actor, Best Director, Best Production, etc.

With ticket prices for the Gala Finals at just Rm43/pax (comparatively the Kings & Queen show we attended a week earlier cost almost 7 times as much!), the event was backed by heavy sponsorship from various organizations, notably YTL one of the co-founders of KLPAC, an important hub for Malaysia's young performing arts industry.

Kudos to the following sponsors for making this happen!

ASHELISM in Theatre?

My niece Reimena has been helping us with some creative work (for Boardgamecafe.net) lately. Waiyan suggested we should take her along for the Gala Finals since this type of show is likely her cup of tea. Her first theatre?

We were early. Very. Hardly a soul there and we were half wondering if... we'd got the date wrong? Nah.. We were just.. very early.

After collecting our tickets, snooping around the box office to see what other shows they are having next, checking out the merchandise shop.

Bought S&S t-shirts and a mug for souvenir.

Eerr... I think the kid was waving at me! :P

And then it's time to feed our stomach. :P

The Curtain Call Bistro, the last time we were here (was last Sep me think) did not have much food to offer, except some really expensive meehoon goreng. However they have upped their game, and we can see they've a good list of a la carte meals to choose from.

Both me & wifey went for Singapore Meehoon Goreng - we saw a customer having this and it looked yummy - while Reimena chose Vegetarian Fried Rice, which was given thumbs up by her as well.

So ah well, we can now afford to have dinner here in KLPAC while waiting for the show to open it's door. Cool.

We hanged around the foyer waiting for the queue to form at the entrance to Pentas 2. As Pentas 2 is a free-seating theatre, we need to get into kiasu mode to ensure we queue early to get a good seat.

Last year, the Gala Finals had 10 plays. This year, they've added 2 more.

FARIDAH & JOE

They are simply awesome!! And KL's Performing Act industry owes so much to the tireless effort of these two in organizing, promoting and nurturing emerging talents!

Alrite, let's get to the plays....

1. Birds Fly into Ceiling Fans and Die

Two siblings struggle to move forward in their lives, unable to see eye-to-eye.

Hmm... first show was, not, that, fantastic. Maybe it's just me. The delivery of lines were wooden and bland. Think they were supposed to play two siblings in constant argument but can't feel the underlying emos...

I think the title is meant to be a sarcastic punchline, but imho it went flat.

2. The Bear in the Pawn Shop

Sometimes things found, remain lost.

The next play was better. Much better.

At least the actors delivered the lines more naturally.. and as a bonus, they've the youngest actor in the Finals - the 11 year-old Chea-Mun Tan who played the little poor gal who lost her brother's teddy bear.

This young gal got potensi! And she was given the "Encouragement Special Award" by Faridah.

3. Postmodern-isms

Three ideas on discussing the best seat in the house...

It continued to get better! A hilarous take on our different perspective of right vs wrong; black vs white. The setting? Three people debating heatedly over which is the best seat in the theatre.

This play has many convoluted lines... involving heavily interspersed of the word "right" and "wrong". Not easy to deliver and you need not just to memorize the sentence(s) but also the timing. Phoon-Chi Ho (above) did one amazing sequence of line that contained so many "right" and "wrong" that I think I need a recap in order to understand properly the context of that sentence!!

Viknesh was not too bad either... keeping up with Ho's delivery. Ho went on to win the Best Actor (Male). Well-deserved win I have to say.

4. Perfect Stillness

A man writes about his wife in stillness.

Ah well, the good run has to end at some point....

There were bits of this play that looked like it was reaching up but then ebbed away... Anyway I like it's morale of people needing to be honest with each other.

5. Unfinished

When will it end?

Next up was an interesting one. The actors didn't speak a single word, they merely showed flash cards containing hand-written words!

I couldn't take much pictures of this play since I found if I spend too much time peeking at time thru my lens, I would miss too much of the play if I do not read the flashcards!!

I suspected - but only confirmed towards the end - they are deaf-n-mute actors. My suspicion was confirmed when I saw their director talking to them using hand language!

Their director, Ms Larna Hoong was feted with the S+S Special Awards for Innovative Direction, and I must say she really did earn this!

6. 10,000 Cigarettes

Would you like to join the Cigarette Smokers' Hall of Fame? Terms & Conditions apply.

This was a quality one from the script point of view! Four ladies - all playing as heavy chain smokers - delivering their lines all interwoven with each other.

They really have to do lots of homework (ie training) in order to get the delivery to be pitch-perfect (to borrow from the musical line)! Not surprisingly their scriptwriter Alex Boun (from Sydney) won the Best Scripts award.

7. Wati dan Puan

Kisah hubungan your istimewa di dalam sebuah rumah yang tipikal di Malaysia. Berdasarkan kisah benar.

Then comes a touching, yet at times funny play about a typical Madam, her servant and missing Indon husband! Haha.

The delivery of lines by both actresses were so natural you would think they were just having a chit-chat on their own without the audiences around them. The script was in Malay which was also refreshing.

Was expecting Siti Farrah (who played the Indon servant) to win Best Actress and disappointed it didn't happen.

8. Triangle

The trigonometry of drama begins when one is getting married and one is having trouble putting on his sampin.

This about a man getting married to his long-time sweetheart, and his best man & buddy who was in love with the same girl.

Pretty "old" storyline.. but was not too bad, I suppose due to the camaderie you could feel between the two actors.

9. This is Heaven

But all endings are also beginnings... we just don't know it at that time.

This one lost me completely. Thought they were supposed to play husband-n-wife who have passed away and now met in Heaven to reminisnce about their good ol' times but both characters were played by women!

I'm not sure how the "endings are also beginnings" were drawn from the play itself? But the part that lost me completely was this play won the Best Overall Productions award (which would have been equivalent to the Best Movie in Oscar)!! Maybe I really dun understand Performing Arts... haiz.

10. Single Worded Title

You have got to know funny to understand meta.

I enjoyed this the most! Not only were their idea very ingenuitive, they actually managed to insert an actor into the audience as a "surprise" factor! The inserted actor were not even mentioned in their credits to avoid giving up her secret... but she (Nabihan Yaacob) walked away with the Best Supporting Actress (Female) award!

They also won the Best Director and the People's Choice Award, and this play took the most awards for this year! I would even consider them for the Best Overall Productions but I suppose the judges have other criteria.

I suppose having an oversized Justin Bieber (above) in your cast helps... LOL

11. Tipping Point

After three good years, Rob and Laura are breaking up. Now they're trying to work things out, their lives and happiness hanging in the balance, on the tipping point.

Another one of those monologuous talk-to-the-audience type of play. I think for this type of play, two from last year's Short & Sweet stayed in my mind! They were really good but this was just so-so.

Yet the actress won the Best Actress award. I'm stumped. :P

12. Energia

"Accept me the way I am" is a contemporary euphimism for...

Haha.. This started slowly.. And I was half-thinking the good plays have done their run... and then it surprised you!

When we love someone deeply, we'll always say "I'll love you no matter how you change". This play pushes the "change" part of your declaration ALL the way. And I really mean "ALL the Way"!! Haha.

Husband and ahem, wife contemplating a love declaration made many years ago.... (hehe)

Will you kiss me, honey? And they... almost... did... kiss on-stage!

DOUGLAS AH DOUGLAS

Last year, during the break when the judges went into the room to deliberate on their scores, they turned the stage into a dance floor and had everyone get off their bums to move it move it baby. That WAS fun!!

This year they decided to have something low-key, and instead of asking the audience to provide their own entertainment, they brought in Douglas Lim to deliver jokes to keep us entertained while they process the judges' scores.

We'd just seen Douglas Lim at last week's Kings & Queen of Comedy Asia and it would be interesting to see how many "fresh" jokes he has. He didn't disappoint even though you can see he did not come prepared and it was more of an impromptu performance for him.

His "Bear & Police Efficiency" joke was great.. I even had that videoed but sadly he asked us not to put that up on YouTube. Hehe.

I salute this lady.. She was translating everything- even Douglas' jokes - using sign language to a group of deaf audiences (some of them would be those acting in the Unfinished play).

And the award goes to....

For full list of award winner, go to their page here.

Nabihan Yaacob, the actress inserted into the audience, receiving her Best Supporting Actress award from Faridah Merican. She (Nabihan) actually sat next to waiyan!

Best Supporting Actor. Apparently his play did not make it to the Gala Finals but he still garnered the highest score to snag this award.

The Best Actress award to Shiva Kalaiselvan from the "Tipping Point"

The Best Actor to Phoon Chi Ho from "Postmodern-isms"

Special Encouragement Award to the youngest actor in the Final, Chea-Man Tan who's only 11 this year.!

Innovative Directing award goes to Larna Hoong for her well-staged no-word-spoken play "Unfinished" delivered by a group of deaf actors.

HAPPY DIWALI!

On the way back, we saw Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad was bathed in luminous purple light! Not sure if this was for Halloween or Deepavali?

Until next year! We'll make sure we do all Musical, Dance and Theatre Gala Finals!!

LINKS

Jack208's Photo Album for Short & Sweet Theatre 2010 (click here)

Short & Sweet Malaysia website (click here)

Short & Sweet Malaysia blog (click here)

KL Performing Arts Centre (click here)

Kings & Queen of Comedy Asia 2010

2010-10-31T06:35:00.006+08:00

It was billed as the first ever night of kings.. and queen... of comedy where you get 5 stand-up comedians at the top of their game bringing you the BIGGEST laugh in a live comedy event! For some reason, the organizer is doing this show for a single night only (in KL) which obviously did help to ensure the show was a sell-out.

With the irrespressible "Queen" Kumar hosting a mix of the best comedians in Asia, and with two of the four kings coming from Malaysia, Douglas Lim and Harith Iskandar and the other two from India (Vir Das) and Vietnam/Australia (Hung Le), this was a show I ain't wanna miss (even tho' it's ticket price is quite pricey).

I'd a boardgame meetup event at Subang earlier on the afternoon of the show - bad scheduling I've to say - and by the time I got back from Subang, we were very pressed for time heading towards KLCC where the Kings & Queen of Comedy Asia (KQCA) show was being held.

The show was to start at 8 pm and by the time our car's parked inside KLCC, it was 5 minutes to 8 pm. We almost wanted to sprint all the way to the Plenary Hall... but noticing other "latecomers" who were walking at the same brisk pace heading towards the Plenary Hall, we were assuaged by their company. :P

Most of the musicals or events which we attended, be they held at Plenary Hall or Istana Budaya, did start on time so we do not suppose this would be an exception. But then again, this is a Malaysian event. A-ha...

When we got on the escalator leading up to the main lobby of the Plenary Hall, a huge sigh of relief as we could see everyone's still hanging around the lobby; most of them chit-chatting... some appeared "lost" and a few were busy taking pictures with the poster boards.

So the show is LATER than us! Hah!

My lovely companion for the evening

After catching our breath, we proceeded to check into the theatre. Seating was good.. we were in the center about 10 rows from the stage. We even managed to snap a few pics and still the show was not starting! Apa ini... show on Msian time ka?

Oh well, Mahathir Lokman's just seated behind me! :P He's a Datuk now, rite?

OPENING ACT - JAY ONE AND TEE Q LEE

It was not until 8:30 pm before the show opened with their catchy theme song, performed by JayOne and Tee Q Lee.

Still that's a full 30 minutes late... wonder if it's becoz some VIP guests were late??!!

QUEEN KUMAR (SINGAPORE)

However all's forgiven when the Queen came on stage, for she (or is it he) certainly knew how to instantly build a rapport with the audience.

Hosted by the awesome Queen Kumar of Singapore!

KING DOUGLAS LIM (MALAYSIA)

The show started - and ended - with a Malaysian, and Douglas Lim was the first to take the stage. It appeared they like to crack jokes at their own ethnicity - eg Kumar did not shy from making Indians the expense of his jokes and neither were Douglas short on Chinaman jokes.

While the event was labeld 18PL, I think you need to be even more liberal in your thinking especially on racial and religious issues in order to enjoy this show. This was particularly true when Douglas ended his session with a cover version of Justin Bieber's hit song "Baby" (rhyming to "Babi") J

I think if my niece Reimena was here for the show - being a staunch Groban fan and hardcore Bieber basher (and that's putting it mildly) - her face may turned smurfy blue listening to Douglas Lim's cover version! :P

KING VIR DAS (INDIA)

The 2nd act was by Vir Das from India, another comedian who's shorter (in height) than Queen Kumar who did not stop emphasizing this point. :P

While Douglas cracked cina-man jokes, Vir Das also wasted no time in laughing at his own Indian origins, all done in the name of humour and nothing serious (well nothing serious unless you've a very sensitive mind). He's also very fond of adult/sexist jokes which the audience lapped up voraciously! LOL

We have a short 20-min break after Vir Das' act, time for toilet break and in our case grab some (accordingly to waiyan) "tasteless" sandwich and drinks since we didn't have our dinner yet due to the rush to get here on time. :(

Kumar with his new costume after the Break. Ain't she sexy?

KING HUNG LEE (VIETNAME/AUSTRALIA)

After the break, it was Hung Lee's turn to entertain us and Queen Kumar cheekily introduced him as "not so well Hung Lee". Not sure if she has personally attested to this. hehe.

Hung Lee was good not just with the jokes but he also seems to carry around a perpetually funny-n-cute look who probably endeared him with the crowd.

I didn't have a good picture of him but perhaps this picture of him (from the Herald Sun Australia) will give you an idea of what I meant by "cute/funny" look.

Now everytime we take oatmeal, I'll think of his "oatmeal sandwich"! Haha

KING HARITH ISKANDAR (MALAYSIA)

They saved the best for last... our very own Mr KFC!

He certainly drew the most laughter all around... with his various innuendos of recent political and current events in Malaysia and Singapore. Seems like nothing is "sacred" to these comedians. What I liked best about him is his ability to actually take a piss at BOTH Malaysia and Singapore in the same sentence!!

His last act of comparing the differences between CSI Miami and CSI M'sia has to be - in my opinion - the highlight of the show!! Unbelievably funny, LOL.

APPLAUSE!!

I've to say before the show - and this being the first stand-up comedy on a theatre stage - I was not sure what to expect. If it's a concert or a musical, you do have an idea what you'll be getting but a stand-up comedy and probably solo act?

Queen Kumar milking the applause from the crowd at the end of the show...

At the end, we were not disappointed at all! It was jovial fun and not at all a bad way to spend an evening! It's certainly a new experience for us. But I do hope if they are repeating this show in future, they are able to organize it for a few more days instead of just a single show.

And start the show on time la! :P

I've read an article saying stand-up comedy is one of the hardest job in the world. Most people talked about stage fright or butterlies in the stomach when they were asked to just give a speech or talk... imagine how it would feel to get on stage, crack some jokes and have the audience laughing at your jokes!

Your entire performance depends on how the audience warms-up, connects to you and responds to your punchlines. As Jeff Green (a master stand-up) once said, "You can't solve stand-up comedy, you can't solve the audience. Tomorrow's different, and they'll laugh differently."

Kudos to these four Kings and one Queen for delivering one heck of a comedy show!

"At its best, stand-up comedy is the purest and most immediate medium for comedy and possibly even self-expression." The Guardian.

I leave you with the catchy soundtrack from the Opening Act of this show! Enjoy!

click here)

Check out the rest of the pics from Jack208's Photo Album (

-----------------------------------

The show's Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&viewas=0&gid=35329974791

Zumba your Way to Charity

2010-10-22T01:19:00.003+08:00

ZUMBA YOUR WAY TO CHARITY
A group of dancers are hoping to raise Rm60,000 for Kiwanis Bangsar by doing a 2-hr public Zumba Fitness dance class cum party! Apa tu Zumba?

Hmm... from their official site, it says Zumba is a hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves creating a one-kind fitness program that'll blow us away. J Okie.. Sounds FUN.

Where: HGH Convention Centre, Lot 475 Jalan Sentul

When: Nov 7th, 2010 (Sunday) 10am - 1pm

Price: Rm18/pax

Ticket costs Rm18 each, and I've already gotten two even though I'm not sure if I'm able to make it on that day (it's on Nov 7th) but never mind la.. charity ma, it's a good thing.

Visit their Zumba For Charity blog to find out more.

It's Show Time!

2010-10-22T00:59:00.005+08:00

IT'S SHOW TIME!
Busy is not good. Busy makes you missed good shows. Haiz. Wasn't even aware of it but Short&Sweet Dance Gala Finals was last Sunday (17/10). Could have gone but were not tracking it, so didn't even know the Gala Finals were on Sunday. L

If you like stuff like this, keep tracking them at the KLPac site, as their Short & Swweet Theatre Gala Finals is this coming 31st Oct.

However a colleague did give me the heads-up on another comedy show, the Kings & Queen of Comedy Asia. First of its kind in Asia. 2.5 hours non-stop laughter. 5 of the top stand-up comedians in Asia featuring the popular Harith Iskander and Douglas Lim (of Kopitiam fame). Only one day show?

Ticket price seemed pricey for a comedy show (then again, that's comparing with musicals held here in the past) but given the dearth of musicals on the local scene lately, what the heck la... let's dive in and see if this turns out to be a good.

So tickets booked and they will even courier the tickets to you. The tickets did arrive promptly.. and we are so looking forward to this Saturday.

To book tickets for Kings & Queen of Comedy Asia, go to TicketPro.

Mandarin Grill Once More

2010-10-22T00:19:00.003+08:00

Did not think I'll be back here so soon - after having dined here with wifey recently. After having been busy for weeks, we finally crossed one bridge and had the (project) contract signed, sealed and done. Of course, hard work needs to be followed by a celebration!

Vendor asked me to arrange the venue and it was a toss between Lafite or Mandarin Grill. In the end, MG it was - given it's proximity to the Twin Towers. No photos this time with this blog entry. Well, when you are having the VPs with you, it's not exactly proper to be carrying a camera and snapping each and every food that's brought to the table, while grinning like a cheshire cat and going, "Oh, dun mind me. It's for my blog. Keep eating... " Need to maintain my decorum. Hehe.

I did not have the Pumpkin Soup or their signature Roast Duck (as it's a dish meant for two). Instead I went for their Grilled Free Range Chicken which was good but it would have been better if they served choice of dark meat with a half chicken portion. I did start with the Alaskan Crabcakes (yummy) and ended with Tiramisu (didn't seem to be able to taste liquor in it).

We had wine this time, one that's quite tannic, Italian and I think it's Barbera. Service-wise, they are still good but somehow did not seem as attentive as my last visit. Perhaps back then, it was just me and missus - and less diners that nite - so I suppose they gave us a bit more personal attention.

And oh.. we saw one of their waitress slipped & fell on the "artistic" half-height step that leads from the main reception into the dining area. That was always an accident waiting to happen.. Luckily except for a bruised ego, no one was hurt. :P

Terry Fox Run 2010

2010-10-19T01:12:00.002+08:00

This was first posted at the Boardgamecafe.net site. I'm cross-posting it here to share with readers who are not Boardgamecafe.net fans.

They said "running" and "boardgaming" don't mix well. Argument is that one (running) is active while the other (boardgaming) is passive. One tests your physical limits while the other stretches your mental endurance.

The above argument carries some weight as often a boardgamer is not so into running, while you can't easily find a runner who's keen to sit down for a game of Agricola.

Between both ends, you do see shades of gray. I am of such a shade of grayness, and it's encouraging to note that I'm increasingly seeing more boardgamers or runners who share both passions.

All except one of these bibs belonged to a boardgamer!

In truth, both are not so different.

In Running, you have the Fun Run (5 KM or less), Short Distance (10K), Middle Distance (22K or Half-mara), Long Distance (42K or Full-marathon) and the Ultras (50K or more). Recently a group of my running frens came back from an awe inspiring 50K trail run in the S'pore North Face Challenge! Some of them are even contemplating doing the full 100K next. OMG!

You also get similar groupings in boardgaming - the Fun 30 min Games (Jungle Speed, Blokus), the Short 1 hour Gateways (Ticket to Ride, Samurai, Zooloretto), the Middle Weights (Puerto Rico, Power Grid) which take about 2 hrs to play, the Long Heavies (Agricola, Age of Steam, Imperial) which can go to 3+ hours, and the Hardcore Games (Thru the Ages, 1856, Twilight Imperium) that requires at least 6 hrs per session. And boardgamers also have their "100K" equivalent in legendary games like "1841" (12+ hrs) and "7 Ages" (14+ hrs).

We believe both are activities that promote healthy and positive lifestyle habits. We also believe just as prayer is good for your soul; boardgaming is good for your mind while running is good for your heart. Indeed a holistic way to balance your life!

Boardgamecafe.net's mission is to promote the joy of boardgaming to a wide audience in Malaysia - that you all know J - but we do not want to stop at just evangelising boardgaming to the masses. We want to grow a community of aCTive and hEaLthy boardgamers that's full of semangat!

A BoardgameKids event at a local orphanage, part of our social responsibility programme

Always on the look out to align our community engagement with corporate social responsibility, the upcoming Terry Fox Run this Nov provides an opportunity for Boardgamecafe.net to give something back to the community, and to further blur the shades of gray between boardgamers and runners.

The Terry Fox Run is a charity run in support of the Cancer Research Initiatives Foundation (CARIF) and is held yearly worldwide. This year is a very special year for this event as it marks the 30th anniversary of the Run and a special t-shirt has been designed to celebrate this achievement.

The cool 30th Anniversary Terry Fox Run t-shirt

Boardgamecafe.net will sponsor a number of the Terry Fox Run t-shirts and will give them out to 1) regular customers, 2) those who have bought more than Rm500 worth of games from us in the past 30 days, and 3) those who have contributed selflessly to the growth of the boardgaming and/or running community. Free t-shirts are given out at BGC's discretion.

You can also help support this cause by buying these cool collectible t-shirts from us at just Rm25/ea and in return BGC shall give you a voucher worth RM25 that can be used in your next game purchase. And of course, do come and join us on the day itself to celebrate TFR's 30 yrs of milestone!

What: Terry Fox Run 2010 (30th Anniversary)

When: 7 Nov 2010 (Sunday) 8:45 am

Where: Taman Tasik Titiwangsa

RSVP Here -> BGC Terry Fox Run

BGC at last year's Terry Fox Run

Whether you are a boardgamer who got into running, or a runner who discovers the joy of boardgaming - come join us and let us all run / jog / walk together this Nov 7th in support of this great cause!

"Even if I don't finish,

we need others to continue.

It's got to keep going."

Terry Fox, July 10, 1980

Question: When you are shades of gray, do you call yourself a "boardgaming runner" or a "running boardgamer"? Tsk tsk.

We look forward to see you at this year's Terry Fox Run!

----------------------------

About Terry Fox Run (link)

10 in 10 makes another 10

2010-10-17T01:35:00.002+08:00

10th October 2010 or 10.10.10.

Dates like this comes nought often. More so when it falls on a Sunday which offers the perfect reason for organizing a once-in-a-lifetime running event. Therefore not just one or two races - but more than five I can easily count - were scheduled for this date. That said, the two running events that received the highest profile were the Hooha Asia's 10.10.10 Fun Run and Nike City 10K Run (an event that's organized worldwide with S'pore and KL representing the Asia leg of this event).

We signed up first for the Hooha Fun Run (which was a 5.5K stint) but later when I heard Nike is going to print our bib number onto the Nike 10K City Run running tee, that was a novelty that's worth getting!

Here's a pic of the Nike Run t-shirt with bib number printed at the lower left corner. Pretty nice idea I must say. J

I'd initially thought of doing the "swing" i.e. start the run at Nike, then hop over to do the Hooha race. It's not often you get two high-profile races within closer vicinity of each other - Nike was in KLCC while Hooha starts in Lot 10, a 10-15 min walk at most. And even rarer that two short-distance races start at different time - Nike starts 7 am and Hooha starts 8:20 am.

In theory, it's possible to start from the Nike Run, complete the 10K run by 8 am, hop over to Lot 10 with about 5 min to spare and then kick off the Hooha's part of the 5.5K leg.

In theory.

That theory got flushed down the drain when Nike confirmed it'll start it's races - both the 5K and 10K - at the same time which would be 7:15 am now. There went my double-race prosperity bonus. Haha.

With a 7:15 am start and a 10K race, I am not fast enough to finish it on time to hop over to Lot 10. L

I was even contemplating short-circuiting my 10K to the 5K version as I saw both categories of runners following the same route until the 4K mark at the Yap Kwan Seng / Ampang junction where the 5K runners turn right heading back towards the Finishing Point while the 10K runners turn left towards Sultan Ismail to get to the AKLEH highway.

But the thought of getting to run on the AKLEH was tantalising. Not often do organizers do races that run on AKLEH. I suppose this made the decision for me. 10K it is then for Nike. And Hooha a miss it's gotta be. :S

Wifey waiyan who was in the 5K Nike category did actually do both races! Well done to her then!!

This would be the first time in months that my feet actually ran on actual grounds!! But if there's any run to get back into running, I've to say the Nike City Run would be one of the better ones. It's generally a fast track and it ran thru familiar places (at least to me) such as Kia Peng, Bintang, Ampang, KLCC.

Photo from Tey Eng Tiong's collection

I suppose when you are running around places or landmark you are familiar with, the route doesn't seem so far or daunting. And almost along every stretch of the road, we have sight of the KLCC Twin Towers, which was where the Finish Point is. You can say that kinda gave us something visual to lock in to.

This is also one of the few races where I wore the "official" running tee and not one of my usual Adidas. Reason #1 is that your bib number was actually printed on the tee itself! So if you do not wear it, you are running without a bib number.

Reason #2 is I find the Nike BRIGHT Lime-green tee quite... attractive!! Nike has also made it official it can ban any runners from the race if you are not in their official tee. I guess they really dun want to see runners wearing Adidas, Reeboks, Mizuno, Brooks, NB, Pagoda, anything but Nike!! LOL

I've to say this was a masterstroke as getting all runners - well, the majority anyway as I can still see a few "rebels" donning non-official tee in the run - in one singular bright luminous green made for a very visually spectacular race especially at the flag off!!

Photo from Nike10K Tweet

RACE STATS

Distance: 10.27 K (on my Garmin FR405)

Time: 58 min 06 sec

Pace: 5:39 min

After not having had any OTR (on-the-run) run for months, I'm more than happy to get my running feet re-acquainted with the tarmac. Hope to be able to keep to some more normal running schedule.

Btw NIKE sucks! All we got for finishing this race is a ... nice.. soft.. toy.

Picture taken from Bobby Yap's facebook album

A HOOHA END FOR THE MORNING

By the time I came back to the Nike finishing point, it was already 8:15 am and with the Hooha starting in 5 min, there's no time for me to hop over for a 2nd leg. In truth, I have no more JUICE left to run la!! LOL

So after catching up with cmun, both of us slowly sauntered over to Lot 10 hoping to catch some of our frens coming in for the finish. Turned out before we even reach Lot 10, Ainul called up and said he's already completed the race!! Aduh...

But we did meet up at Lot 10, claimed my Hooha Goodies bag - even tho' I didn't run - and managed to catch up with a few running frens - Julie, Karen (btw where's the photo ar?), Chia Kai, etc. Seems like the Hooha Run was more FUN??!!

Hooha Run Goodies Bag - nice ler?

And guess what? The goodies bag from the Hooha Run is SO SO much better than what we got from the Nike City Run!! Eerr.. .actually we didn't get ANY goodies bag at all from the Nike Run. Haiz.... in fact, not even Ais Milo or 100+ booth at the Nike Run.

To view a video of both the Nike City Run, and Hooha Run which was flagged off by a RUNNER (bravo PuehTian!) drop by Pueh Tian's blog and check them out!

- Nike City Run video

- Hooha Fun Run video

Tomorrow's Mizuno Run... let's see if my running feet will be touching the ground or it's Air Cheras again!

Kanban

2010-10-15T05:36:00.003+08:00

This Kanban Flow tracks the sales pipeline (and fulfillment) for the BGC business. Happy to see the upward trend of the flow and a great appreciation to the BGC team for keeping this going strong. J

Will be writing more about this Kanban methodology as part of my "Project Management consulting" blog but since I'm not likely getting a critical mass on that blog in the early stages, I'll use this blog as a staging site for the articles (rather than keep deferring the articles until the other blog is ready).

So stay tune if this is your cup of tea!

Adidas Refresh Your Gear Promotion

2010-10-15T05:18:00.003+08:00

If you are looking to get a new pair of running shoes, Adidas is having a trade-in now via their "Refresh your Gear" promo.

You can get up to RM80 rebate for a new pair of running shoes by trading in any old shoes. When I checked at their Pavilion outlet, the RM80 rebate applies if you are buying a new pair of shoes priced at RM400 and above. If it's lower than RM400, the rebate is only RM50.

Promo is until end of this month... so that's how long I've to decide if I'm going for another Adizero or switch to the new K-Swiss. :)

Details here at their Refresh Your Gear page.

K-SWISS, the new Swoosh?

2010-10-15T05:06:00.004+08:00

K-Swiss is not what you would call a mainstream brand name for sports shoes, in a market dominated by the mind-share kings like Nike, Adidas and what-not. However their new line-ups are looking very "sexy" and from a runner's perspective, gives you more bang-for-the-bucks.

It's time to replace my Adizero Tempo. In fact, it's way over-time as I'm sure it has been used for more than it's recommended mileage given I'd bought the shoe back in May last year.

Let's see if I end up with a new K-Swiss.... or yet another Adidas since they are now having a trade-in sales @ local outlets.

But wifey said K-SWISS looks boring wor... :(

p/s If you are looking to get K-SWISS here in Msia, do give Runnerz Circle a call
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Runnerz-Circle/362242785616

BEATLES here there everywhere....

2010-10-09T23:09:00.001+08:00

With John Lennon's 70th anniversary (if he was still alive) being celebrated today, it was no wonder everyone's favourite BookXcess (the evil bookshop haha) decided to have a couple of their books on vivid display in their shop, which helped to lure unsuspecting folks who were just innocously passing by on an easy Saturday......

.... and then leaving the shop with BEATLES in their left- and right-hand!!LOL

It didn't quite end there!

With Victoria Music Centre also located in the same vicinity, yours truly can't help but walked in to inquire if they still have stock for the Beatles Stereo Set (a complete collection of their 13 albums plus extras). This set was released late last year and I've kinda been dragging my feet over buying this, constantly convincing myself stocks will still be around.

The complete Beatles Stereo Set collection of all their albums remastered in stereo

... and I walked out of their shop with BEATLES here there everywhere!

Now if you think this is the end, not quite yet... have I told you about the MONO edition of the Beatles Collection? Hah!

But I shall spare you as the nite is late and I need to sleep for tomorrow's run... zzzzz....

"This isn't show business, this is something else. This is different from anything that anybody imagines. You don't go on from this. You do this and then you finish." John Lennon, 1963

My long awaited report for the recently concluded Newton 12K Run

2010-10-09T22:39:00.026+08:00

...

....

........

Nothing? Hahaha

Yeah, nothing. As I FFK that event!

FFK = Fong Fei Kei (literally translated as "fly aeroplane" or in layman speak "to skip an event")

I signed up for this event - the Newton 12K - a couple months back but as is with my schedule, it's hard for me to know how busy I'll be on event day itself. Still, I like to give my support to the local running community and sign-up for any running events I came across. Worse case scenario? You pay for the event and just get a running tee lor. Not a bad deal rite? :P

P/s This Newton Run is also known as the Ammah Hill Challenge - if you want to know why, check out my fren Yimster's blog entry on this - so I'm certainly not too "unhappy" that I chickened out from this! LOL

Sometimes I do wish I've more time to indulge in more running activities but as-is, my main consulting work in WSM is starting to take up a large chunk of my focus. This is my PSI (primary source of income) and as such it's not something I can just walk away from.

At the same time, one of my MSI (multiple source of income) projects Boardgamecafe.net (BGC) is shifting into higher gear this year which inadvertently compresses my "free" time even further! BGC is partly a passion - of boardgaming - and in all honesty even without the biz moving a gear or two up, it'll always occupy some of my time in particular Friday evening when we host the now infamous OTK Cheras Meetup. The Friday evening sessions - which starts 8 pm and can last till 5-6 am the following morning - are as AY Heng (another OTK regular) would call it "our weekend getaway after a hard week's work".

Everyone is welcomed to come join us if you are around the neighbourhood. Find out what's all the hoo-ha about these boardgames.

"Boardgame is to the mind, what Running is to our heart."
Advert: You can find out more about this tremendously fun - and sometimes geeky - community of boardgamers here www.facebook.com/boardgamecafe.net
Hope always springs eternal!

Beyond Newton, I've also signed up for a series of local races beginning with the Nike 10K City Run (and also Hooha's 10.10.10 Fun Run) tomorrow at KLCC (and Lot 10 respectively), the Mizuno Wave Run next Sun at UPM, the Terry Fox Run in Nov, CICM Charity Run in Dec, etc. Wah... like real only! :P

I do maintain my regular treadmill runs at the gym so it's not like I'm bumming at home getting fat. Ahem.. maybe only the bumming part is correct as I did put on a couple kilos lately. Was hoping to bring my weight down to 75 kilos before tomorrow's run but guess that's not happening so this fatboy gotta lug a few more kilos around tomorrow. Haiz.

Would be interesting to see at the end of the year how many runs I signed up and how many I actually did participate!! But in any case, I suppose the upside is that I won't be short of running tees whenever I go for my training runs!!

Let's hope to see a "proper" run report from me tomorrow on the Nike Run! Ciao for now....

The Month of Gluttony

2010-09-06T00:20:00.024+08:00

There's a 3-week (maybe four) period in August & September that brings forth the word "Gluttony". The 3-week stretch begins with my b'day (20/8), our anniversary (27/8) and ends with wife waiyan's b'day (3/9). All three events merit an evening of dining, I'm sure all will agree. J

We did consider doing one big DINE to cover all three but given the richness and variety of KL's food spots, why should we? Hehe... I was just commenting to waiyan that in the past, all the nice makan places used to be centered around Bangsar (the Telawi area). Now they are scattered everywhere and you can have your pick of any country's cuisine including the Middle East!

(Warning: This is long post since I'm writing about three dining in one)

MY BIRTHDAY 20/8

Venue: Gogung Restaurant (Korean)

Location: Midvalley Gardens

The actual plan was to drop in to SAGE Gardens after hearing so many wonderful stories about it's food and how it's a more affordable version of Cilantro (same chef la). So happily we got into our cars, drove to Midvalley Gardens, went up to the cluster of restaurants in L5 and hmm... can't find SAGE.

Asked around...

Apparently it's located inside the Gardens Residence (not the mall). And from where we were (near the Fong Lye Restaurant), we actually have to walk back towards the other end. The walk was a nice stroll through a walkway with nicely done ambience.

We found SAGE. Walked in, asked for a table for two, non-smoking and the leng chai waiter smiled and asked, "Do you have a reservation?"

Uh oh.

Not-so leng chai waiter now continued, "Am sorry if you do not have any reservation, we are full for the evening. " And he smiled... nicely done.

Main reception at SAGE. Next time then...

Haha... okie. Can't blame him. Not his fault any way. He was actually very well-mannered and courteous which gave me a good indication of the level of service inside. So I took their biz card and said will call back for next week. A bit disappointed but anyway that's my fault for not checking out SAGE needs reservation if you are dining on Fri or Sat evening.

We strolled around Gardens trying to decide which restaurants we wanna pop into. We did contemplate going over to Sheraton for Villa Danieli but as it's already close to 9 pm we decided to just pick a good restaurant in Gardens itself.

Go-gung looks inviting and we haven't done Korean recently. So Go-gung it was.

They serve the traditional Korean BBQ style which has been the rage some time back... only after looking at the menu did I realize this is related to Koryo-Won @ Starhill, which I'd dine last year during the management meeting of my past company (DC).

Their dishes are all in Korean names so dun expect me to remember them (my sis Laiwah probably can) but I picked the one with duck breast. Not a bad choice.

But their winner would be the Ginseng Chicken soup. It's large enough for us to share and there's not a hint of salt in it. They even gave us a small bowl of salt in case we need to "flavor" it, but no thanks. We luv it just as it is.

Ginseng chicken soup that's very well done traditionally...

Overall a worthwhile dining experience. They call themselves "fine korean restaurant" but that's pushing things a bit. They are a nice restaurant - and from the outside they do look "expensive" - but I wouldn't say they are in the "fine dining" area. This does not mean their food is not good... they are delicious and they are not that expensive so well worth your money.

My lovely companion for the evening

I'll certainly want to come back here again, for their Ginseng Chicken soup. J

A happy b'day dude

More photos in our Facebook album.

OUR ANNIV 27/8

Venue: Mandarin Grill

Location: Mandarin Oriental, KLCC

We took our anniv dinner on Sat evening (28/8) instead of on the actual day itself. Had wanted to book Sage but thought of keeping this option for her b'day which is next week. Villa Danieli would have been my obvious choice. We luv it's rustic family style Italian setting.

But Mr Pumpkin wins... and off to KLCC we went.

Main recep at Mandarin Grill.. Pretty unassuming

Oh.. They grill their food with fire?

I did call in for reservation, just to avoid getting disappointed again but in all likelihood I guess that's not necessary.

Very nicely decorated, but crappy shots using my non-DSLR
in low light won't show you how beautiful the place really is

They are famous for their Prime and Kobe steaks. However both of us are not beef lovers so that's not likely coming to the table. But if you order their steaks, you'll be presented with an impressive selection of prestigious steak knives from Laguiole, with handles being made of cattle horn. Ooohh...

The first question that'll always be posed to you in such restaurant, "Sparking or still, sir?"

Always the same answer, "Still" J

Wanna guess the price of this still drinking water? LOL

I noticed they carry a "bull-theme" deco through out the restaurant. Notice how the salt & pepper shakers above are in the shape of a bull horn? Nice touch.

My choice of bread for the evening

Their choices are bread are.. Extensive! I think they've like over a dozen different type of bread and the waiter actually patiently described each and every one to waiyan (but dun think she was remembering each and every one, hehe)

The starter for the evening

Again, the waiter actually explained to us each and every one of the ingredients used in preparing the starters. Very the well-trained I must say. J

They have a nice sexy name for the green stuff in the starter but according to waiyan, others just call them "green beans". LOL

One of the must-try - crab cakes

There are two must-trys here - the crab cakes (appetizer) and the pumpkin soup.

Crab cake is certified yummy with the amount of crab meat packed into those "cakes"!!

But we are here for their signature pumpkin soup, supposedly a "secret recipe" of their chef and no one serves them pumpkin soup like this in KL. Hmmm...

Their signature Pumpkin Veloute soup

No complains about the soup though. Except they came in rather large servings... I mean, this is a fine dining restaurant and I was thinking their soup would come in smaller bowl. What we had - for a single person - is large enough to be shared by two. So soup gluttony it was for both of us..

Our choice of main course is their other signature dish, Roast Duck served French-style for Two. When the waitress asked how we like the duck to be served, "Both the breast portions first, or both the drumstick portions, or one breast one drumstick" - I didn't quite get her. Hehe. I did reply that we would prefer one breast, one drumstick.

Waiyan with the first serving of roast duck

The first serving - waiyan got the white meat portion while I'd the drumstick - was your typical roast duck. While not bad, it was nothing to shout about. Think my drumstick was a bit overdone.

At first, we thought this WAS all the main course... and was preparing to order dessert..... when the captain came over to us and gently explained to us, there's ANOTHER serving about to be served soon. Hah?

He explained this is the traditional French style of preparing and serving roast duck; in two portions. The first in usual roast-style, and the 2nd in a softer marinated style.

A-ha.. Now I understand what the waitress was asking us about!! LOL.

The 2nd serving of the Roast Duck

The best always come last, they said. The 2nd serving was SUPERB!! I now stand corrected. There are not "two" must-trys here; you can now add the Roast Duck to it to make three!!

Dessert time, and I ordered the Manjari Chocolate Ganache while waiyan went for the mango cheese cake. The chocolate sorbet that comes with mine was sinfully delicious.. hehe

The Manjari Chocolate Ganache - a must-try if you are a chocolate lover

We washed down all the sinful food with coffee (myself) and peppermint tea (for her)

I really like these two "bull" wooden decos. Wouldn't mind getting one for the home.

Overall this was a superb evening of indulgence. Lots of reasons to come back here... and the taste of the 2nd serving of the roast duck still lingers in me mouth. Pricewise and food-wise, they certainly deserve to be in the fine dining class.

Waiyan with a terrible stomach-ache *after* (hehe) - guess was the peppermint tea

More photos in my Facebook album.

WAIYAN'S BIRTHDAY 3/9

Venue: Sage Gardens

Location: Gardens Midvalley

The last (but not least) of the trilogy would be waiyan's birthday dinner. For this it will be SAGE. This time I made an early call to book our table. Even then, I was informed the early slots were all full and the earliest for us would be 9 pm. Ah well... a late dinner's better than no dinner. Business must be good for them. J

Again the same leng-chai waiter was there to greet us.. And yes, this time we got reservation!! Haha

Their proud display of wine, wine lovers pls take note...

Sparking or still, sir?

The deco is of the minimalist style, but nicely done and I like how they use chrysanthemum to add a dash of color to the otherwise white tables.

Service is excellent... the waiters paid attention to all the guests and we were given a lowdown on the chioce of menus before they left us to our own to peruse the menu.

They have set menus for both lunch and dinner, and even Gourmet Dinner set which surprisingly are not expensive (considering the setting of the place). The set dinner goes for Rm150 and the Gourmet Dinner only Rm170.

The starter...

Waiyan went for the set dinner (always one to spot a bargain but this time, I think she didn't quite know what's she getting herself into, hehe) while I opted for the ala carte as I do not think I can take their appetizer with a main course.

Waiyan's luxurious appetizer!!

She got a shock when they serve her the appetizer of Pacific Oyster. LOL. Probably expecting a smaller serving, she didn't bargain on getting a king-sized serving!! She tried to pass some to them but well, I dun take any seafood (save for fish) so it's still all yours, dear.

They even have bar-style dining seat. Hmm... does anyone really sit and dine at the bar in a fancy place like this? But it does remind me of the game Cafe International where the waiter does get to seat ppl at the bar instead of losing points (hehe). Where can you play Cafe International? Well, at Boardgamecafe.net meetups of course (click here to get an invite).

Note: hehe, can't resist the advert plug-in! :P

Her main course of Atlantic Seabass.... looked very fresh. I went for Smoked Duck with foie gras. Yeah if you have been observant, you would have noticed I chose "duck" in all the 3 dinners. :)

An overhead view of the dining table done minimally mostly in white with a dash of yellow provided by the chrysanthemum.

Dessert was Chocalate Fondant for me and Hazelnut Nougat souffle for her.

Verdict? Have to say after the run-around with the reservation and what-not, the quality of food here is surprisingly slightly underwhelming. It's not bad, just that I can't understand why's everyone flocking here to the extent you may even need a week's reservation (I was informed by a good fren)!

Price-wise, it's not as pricey as Mandarin Grill and you can get a hearty dinner for Rm150++ per pax here (excluding wine of course since there's no upper limit once you start sniffing around the wine). It's still a very good place to dine out (esp if you fancy Japanese-French cuisine). Service is top notch and the staff is all very knowledgeable.

The b'day gal

Hope you enjoyed your b'day dinner, dear and many many happy returns of today. J

More photos in my Facebook album.

Epilogue: After the 3-weeks of dining, guess it's now back to back-to-back treadmill for me to run off those xtra kilos!! Run fatboy run!

Charity Art for the Children of Cambodia

2010-05-16T16:37:00.000+08:00

Siem Reap is a place that evokes mixed feelings of melancholy and happiness. Happy becoz I'd a tremendous time there two years ago during our Angkor Way '08 trip with a group of friends. The temples & ruins of Angkor were magnificent and still holds an awe of a civilization long gone. My blog about the trip has ahem sadly been interrupted but fret no, my faithful readers, for continue and finish the Angkor blog I shall. :)

Melancholy when I think of the life of the people of Siem Reap. The children who were born into such difficult and unforgiving life, yet children whom appeared happier and more carefree than those I see around KL. Through their eyes, you'll understand why happiness is simply a state of the mind, and while money & material belongings can bring you a perceived sense of happiness, true happiness comes from within.

Through a running mate of mine (PuehTian), I got to know of a local charity event hosted by Colors of Cambodia and Kinrara Metta Buddhist Society to draw awareness to plight of the children of Cambodia and to bring joy & hope to their lives through the medium of Art.

They did their first Charity Art & Auction in 2008 and this year, they are doing their 2nd at Penang Village in GE Mall (Jalan Ampang). The event will run from 15 May - 13 June 2010, and you can help by buying their meal vouchers at RM60 (per pax) or RM500 (per table of 10). There'll also be an art exhibition of work done by these children.

Pls click on this link to find out more about this Charity Art event and contact numbers to call if you are interested to contribute or sponsor. :)

Personally, I'll be sponsoring a table of 10 (date to be determined but likely first week of June) and will be inviting some relatives and associates for this event. I believe my Angkor Trip friends are also keen to attend this event as a sort-of Angkor Reunion Meet. :)

I would also like to take this opportunity to offer a special deal to my Boardgamecafe.net members. If you would like to contribute to this Charity event, buy a dinner voucher at RM50 and you'll get a RM50 discount from Boardgamecafe.net on your next game purchase (item above RM150). Now you can do your bit for charity and get games at great discount! How does that sound? :)

If you are interested, pls email or call me or waiyan for details or response to this Boardgamecafe.net Facebook invite (click here).

"You will find, as you look back on your life, that the moments that stand out are the moments when you have done things for others."
- Henry Drummond

To all those who will be contributing or sponsoring to this event, on behalf of all the children of Cambodia, I thank you and may you find success and happiness in all your future endeavors.

Links

Colors of Cambodia
Charity Art 2010
Jack208 Angkor Trip 2008 Collection
Jack208 Blog on Angkor Trip 2008 - Day Zero, Day One, to be continued (hahaha)

Cheng Beng 2010 - Mixing technology with traditional custom

2010-04-08T02:39:00.005+08:00

CHENG BENG. Every year, it comes around usually in late March or early April. To be exact, it occurs 104 days after Winter Solstice (which incidentally tends to fall around Dec 22nd or at least it has been doing that for the past few years).

Cheng Beng is the day when Chinese all-over the world practice ancestral worship and fulfill their family duties by visiting the graveyards of their ancestors in remembrance of their departed love ones and to clean-up the tombs. Well, it's not called the "Tomb Sweeping Day" for no reason. :)

All-Males Club?
With most families, they usually have one or two sites to visit. Each family would also have their own "rituals" of prayers and offerings made to the graves of their ancestors. For ours, we carry a strange custom where only the male descendants need to perform this obligation, while the female members dutifully stayed at home.

When I was younger, I do believe in our custom of male-only Cheng Beng. But for the past years, we've been noticing a high influx of the fairer sex from other families all cheerfully present around the cemeteries. Which lead me to either one of these conclusions.

One, the new generation of the fairer sex thinks it's hip, sexy and cool to be seen around cemeteries on Cheng Beng. Well, this explanation is not entirely preposterous as most of the ladies we saw at Cheng Beng were dressed in short pants, tight-fitting clothes and some in fancy hats who looked like they were out enjoying the springtime of April in M'sia (and not sweating under the hot sun cleaning tombs of old ancestors they've not met before).

(Or) Two, we the male descendants of the Au Family have been hoodwinked by some powderful female matriarch of our family into believing only the males have the honor to fulfill Cheng Beng obligations while the females however willing were not allowed to even step outside. Custom, you see.. they are all powerful and must be obeyed.

There are benefits being an All-Male Club though. We can all ~~oogle~~, sorry I mean observe the various female members parading around the Cheng Beng sites without having to worry about our wife or girlfren giving us the "stare" or worse, threatening to poke our eyes out!

A Marathon!
For most families, Cheng Beng comprises visits to one or two graves and they are done for the day. For us, it's a day-long journey with 9-stops where we've to say Hi to fourteen (14) ancestors! We are a large family, you see... (haiz)

It is not uncommon for our Cheng Beng trips to take more than 8 hours; with most of the time being spent on the road in traffic jams as everyone seemed to pick the same day for Cheng Beng as ours even though Cheng Beng obligations can be performed ten days prior or after the actual day itself.

There have even been years where we split our visits into First Half and Second Half (maybe we watched too much football), with a trip back home for a short siesta around lunch-time before going back on-the-road again for the 2nd Half.

I even remembered a year - when my late father was around - that we were still out there around the cemeteries at close to 7 pm with dusk falling fast on us... And no, it's not because we started late. We normally start our Cheng Beng trips around 6:30 in the morning!

Organizing for a more systematic Cheng Beng
Part of the reason why we took so many hours (in the past) was that we did not have any map/chart/references, and we literally went around searching for our ancestor's graves from memory! Memories that came from my granduncles and late father with their many years of Cheng Beng trips behind them.

Not having any reference is fine if you are visiting one or two sites... but when you have to deal with 9 sites and 13 graves, it can be a liability to depend on our memory.

The first thing I put in place was a sketched map of where we'd gone, and some guides and landmarks to help us locate the graveyards. So you can often see remarks like "Look for light blue grave with large 35 word written on it's back, then two rows behind is ...." Laugh not, for these notes helped us find what we needed to find. :P

Each of the graveyard does have it's own reference number, but you do not expect the cemetery to be properly organized and with weeds and lallang growing profusely around the tombstone, the ref numbers are not at all useful to help locate the graves. They are useful however in confirming the identity of the grave once we've located them given that all members of our existing Cheng Beng troupe have very limited reading ability for the Chinese language.

A ver 1.0 sketched maps shown above. That was probably done back in 1998. The details and notes in the maps were updated and improved with each year of Cheng Beng trips we made.......

The maps proved extremely useful when my father and Taiping granduncle passed away (many years back) and the remaining granduncle from the pioneering group is getting on with his age and decided to pass the baton to our generation!

You can't imagine how relieved I was on the first year when we were going "solo" on our own - without any of our elders tagging along - and being the oldest among our current batch in terms of age, I have to lead the group. The maps, no matter how incomplete or inaccurate they may be back then were such life-saver for us!

A 2nd updated version of the maps (above) were produced after we'd more or less got the details and accuracy to 85% with a few more years experience of Cheng Beng-ing under our belts.

For the past ten years or so, we've been able to successfully complete our Cheng Beng assignments with the help of the maps, and admittedly some beating around the bush here and there! There were one or two years where we couldn't locate one or two of our ancestors' (and we just offered our prayers and offerings in the neighborhood). But for the past 6 years or so, we've notched 100% completion!

While we've solved the problem of "knowing where to find", we were still taking an awfully long amount of time each year to finish our Cheng Beng trips. It's time to consider how to streamline our visits!

We noticed even with the maps, we still take an inordinate amount of time searching for the exact location of the grave. This looks like an area we can easily improve.

Maps ver 3.0?
With the emergence of GPS navigational devices, Google Earth, and my acquisition of a Garmin Forerunner 405 last Dec (which is used mainly for me to record my running events) I now have the tools necessary to map out our Cheng Beng journey using Google map and have exact GPS coordinates for each of the sites we visited. Ain't technology great? :P

The Garmin Forerunner 405

This blog entry will give an overview of our recent Cheng Beng trip, and some quick looks at the Google Map data that was mapped during this trip which we just did on Monday (Apr5), where I'd marked each of the stop we made during the trip.

The Google Map showing our Cheng Beng journey from Cheras to Sungei Besi and Nilai.

The KML file will be distributed to our Cheng Beng group which can be used to playback the journey on Google Earth, and to import as GPS coordinates into their GPS navigational device.

We shall be looking forward to testdrive the precision of the GPS coordinates in our Cheng Beng ver 3.0 maps next year. Let's see if we can take one or two hours off our total time next year! :)

THE THREE STAGES OF OUR CHENG BENG
Our Cheng Beng visits are grouped into three stages: 1) Midah Chinese Cemetery, 2) Kwang Tung Cemetery, and 3) Nilai Memorial Park. An overview of the visits we have to cover for Midah Chinese Cemetery and Kwang Tung Cemetery is shown in the map below; with each of the lap marker indicating a stop at an ancestor's grave.

We start with our patriarch Au Peng Seng's grave at the Midah Chinese Cemetery before moving to Kwang Tung Cemetery to fulfill our obligations to 11 other ancestor's graves. Last stop is at Nilai Memorial Park to pay respect to my late grandmother (wife to Au Peng Seng's eldest son).

Note: You might want to stop here if sights of graveyards are considered too morbid for you. :P

STAGE 1: TAMAN MIDAH CHINESE CEMETERY
This first stage of our visits is always to the Chinese Cemetery in the area bordering Taman Midah and Bandar Tun Razak. My granduncles used to call this cemetery the "Old Cemetery" maybe because it's set up earlier than the larger (and more well-known) Kwang Tung Cemetery. It's small (in land size) and perhaps due to it's lack of expandability, people moved on to Kwang Tung Cemetery for the burials of their departed relatives.

To us, this Midah Cemetery (for lack of a better name) is always a first-visit since this is where my great grandfather Au Peng Seng was buried together with his first wife. The "Au" family would have originated many centuries back in Fushan, Quangdong, China. However to me and my close relatives, our local Au Family Tree in Malaysia started very much with Au Peng Seng who was sent to manage some business here in Malaya.

Au Peng Seng - my great grandfather - has four wives and more than ten children. Due to the difference in ages of his four wives, his eldest son (ie. my grandfather) from his first wife was about the same age as his 4th wife therefore creating a generation age inversion. To cut a long story short, today I've three uncles who are descended from Au Peng Seng's tenth son (from his 4th wife). They are all younger than me but generation-wise, they are one generation above me.

Correction: My sister just corrected me saying Au Peng Seng has 5 wives (jaw-drop!) but only 4 followed him to Malaya. He has total of 13 children.

This blog will make references to the various wives and children of Au Peng Seng, both deceased and surviving. It may get confusing for you - as it took me years to even understand how some of them are related. There are still gaps in our info sheet. For a third party trying to put all the pieces together, this may turn into a TVB drama instead! LOL

It's my hope that with this blog entry my other relatives and siblings reading this will be able to find some perspective of themselves and how they are related within this Au Peng Seng family tree. There's the Chinese saying, "When you drink water, always think of the source of the water". 饮水思源 (hehe)

First Stop (Lap 1) 8:22 AM
Midah Cemetery Na Tuk Gong
- getting here: 12:30 min (from 19P2)
- time spent here: 12:35 min

After the group had our dim-sum breakfast at Yulek, we started on our Cheng Beng trip around 8:00 am. This is an uncharacteristic late start as we normally started no later than 7:00 am in past years.

To get to the Midah Chinese Cemetery (from Jalan Cheras), we take the Jalan Midah Besar way straight into the small industry lots along Jalan Kilang Midah. Just before the exit to the E27 East-West Link, we turn left into the Midah Cemetery.

The way to the Midah Chinese Cemetery from Jalan Cheras

Our first stop is to pay our respect to the Na Tuk Gong (拿督公) at the central temple in the Midah Cemetery. Lap 1 marked our coordinates where we parked our Kembara. We were greeted with the first positive sign that today's a great day for our Cheng Beng visits when we got an all-clear road from the entrance of the Midah Cemetery to the Na Tuk Gong's temple. Usually if we'd done this Cheng Beng on a weekend, this road would be crawling with vehicles all queuing up to get to the Na Tuk Gong temple. It took us only 12 min to get to here from Taman Midah!

You should be able to see the Na Tuk Gong temple building from the Google map above. We dutifully paid our respects to the Na Tuk Kong who resides in this temple (kinda like getting his permission) before we proceeded to our visit (Lap 2) to the final resting place of the patriarch of our family; Au Peng Seng himself.

Second Stop (Lap 2) 8:46 AM
Au Peng Seng and 1st Wife (Mdm Kwan)
- getting here: 11:30 min
- time spent: 22:35 min

The 2nd stop which is to be our first ancestor grave visit is only about 1 km away from the central Na Tuk Gong temple (see map below). This is the resting place of the patriarch of our local Au family descendants here in M'sia and his grave is a well-made large double grave - as was the custom back then for the head of a family - with his wife buried alongside him.

We would normally take less than 5 minutes getting from the Na Tuk Gong temple to this site. However two incidents delayed us.. first, our driver Jacques pandai pandai went straight up the road instead of turning right at the first junction (see map above). He has to then cut back to the proper turning point.

Secondly when we arrived at the "parking spot", a Honda driver who came into this one-way road from the wrong end - and who probably thought he drifts better than Initial-D - tried to do a three-point turn on a penny!

Ended up he arse-bumped his Honda onto someone's ancestor grave (hope he didn't wake up the incumbent in that grave!), car got stuck in the gravel, and needed a few helpful Cheng Beng visitors to come out and help him push-n-heave his Honda out of the predicament he got himself into. All in, a 4-minute wayang for us.

Hello, bro.. this road narrow la. Dun try three-point-turn-on-a-penny....

We usually can locate Au Peng Seng's grave easily as it's a rather large double grave; not many double graves around this area. It's a short walk from where we parked our car.

Visit #1: Au Peng Seng and wife Madam Kwan resting place at Midah Chinese Cemetery

Here Au Peng Seng, my great grandfather is placed to rest side-by-side with his first wife Madam Kwan who gave him two children; the eldest son (ie. my grandfather) and his 2nd child (daughter), whose family now resides in Kajang.

Once we are done with paying our respects and cleaning up the tomb of our patriarch here, the next stage of our Cheng Beng visits would take us on a tour of the Kwang Tung Cemetery with 7 stops and 11 ancestors.

STAGE 2: KWANG TUNG CEMETERY
http://www.ktc.org.my/

Kwang Tung Cemetery (KTC) is one of the oldest chinese cemetery in Malaysia. It's large, covering over 180 hectares of land. It's also historic as this is where Kapitan Yap Ah Loy, the founder of Kuala Lumpur and many other 19th century Chinese leaders like Yap Kwan Seng and Yap Ah Shak were laid to rest.

KTC is located in the vicinity of Sungei Besi, along the Old Airport road and is now bordered by Jalan Syed Putra and Jalan Istana. It has two famous schools situated close to it, the well-known Kuen Cheng Girls School which is more than 100 yrs old, and the primary campus of the Alice Smith international school. Maybe there's something about heightened sense of learning when you place a school around a cemetery. :P

To get to KTC from Midah Cemetery, we exit to E27 East-West Link highway which leads us to Taman Connaught, and from there we take Jalan Cheras, then Jalan Loke Yew and into Jalan Syed Putra via Jalan Istana. We travel along Jalan Syed Putra until we passed Kuen Cheng High School where we then exit into Jalan Robson and turn left into Lorong Syed Putra Kiri. At the end of this lorong is the once famous Le Chateau apartments. It has been known as "Heaven on Earth" by some feng shui masters.

Twenty years ago, the Le Chateau apartments look posh and grand. Sadly when we passed by it this morning, the apartments looked like it has fallen into regrettable disrepair. No, it actually looks spooky given it's close proximity to the largest cluster of chinese graves in the Klang Valley! Hah!

On a good day like today with light traffic along Syed Putra, it took us less than 30 min to travel from the Midah Cemetery to Kwang Tung Cemetery, and we arrived at KTC in good time around 9:30 AM to begin the second stage of our Cheng Beng journey.

This stage represents the major part of our Cheng Beng trip. We've eleven ancestors to attend to, and they are spread over 7 locations. The plus point of this stage is that four (of the 7 locations) are near each other, with another two within manageable distance (less than 3 km). The last one is slightly out of the circuit but still very reachable within a short traveling time. We usually manage to complete this circuit within 3 hours.

The overview of the 7 stops we need to make in Kwang Tung Cemetery (lap 3 - 9)

Third Stop (Lap 3) 9:36 AM
Au Peng Seng's mother
- getting here: 27 min (from Midah Cemetery)
- time spent: 12 min

The first stop here is located less than 500 m to the immediate left after we passed Le Chateau.

This would be the graveyard of our patriarch Au Peng Seng's mother. She was therefore my great-great grandmother and being four generations away from me, none of the current Au family members on this trip has actually seen her in person, nor were there any photos.

Hmm, this begs an interesting question to my elder sister (who's currently the walking encyclopedia on Au Peng Seng history) - does this mean his mom came down to Malaya with him?

The grave of Au Peng Seng's mother

Fourth Stop (Lap 4) 9:51 AM
Au Peng Seng's 4th Wife
- getting here: 3 min
- time spent: 11 min

This stop is meaningful to at least three members of our Cheng Beng group - Jacques & his two brothers, Pak Hou and Pak Soon - as this is the grave of their grandmother (4th wife to Au Peng Seng). As with the previous site, this is also located less than 500 m from the previous stop.

Au Peng Seng's fourth wife bore him two children; Jacques' father Aw Fook Loy (#10 child) who's still running the famous "sunken" chicken rice stall in Pudu (need to remind myself to take a picture of that stall one day) and the late Aw Fook Heng (#12 child) who lived in Taiping.

Since Aw Fook Heng was laid to rest in Taiping, we did not include that into our Cheng Beng agenda. His three children - Yuen Yee, Pak Loke and Yuen Phen (Celine) - are all staying and working in Klang Valley now. They are always back to Taiping for Cheng Beng to visit their father's grave. :)

Au Peng Seng's fourth wife, who's the grandmother to three of our Cheng Beng members ie. Pak Kien, Pak Hou and Pak Soon

Correction: My sis, the walking encyclo (sic) corrected me again saying that the 4th wife has three children, and besides my two granduncles there's an unidentified 11th child. I suppose Jacques father should know.

Fifth Stop (Lap 5) 10:04 AM
Aw Hoi Loy, 3rd child (son) to Au Peng Seng
- getting here: 3 min
- time spent: 10 min

This is the resting place for the 3rd child to Au Peng Seng who passed away at a young age (late 20s). He was not married and has no descendants. Thus we are the ones taking on the responsibilities of making sure his graveyard is visited yearly on Cheng Beng. This site is also located very close; about 550 m from the last stop.

You can see from the map above, all the previous 3 stops are located within a 2 km ring.

The grave of Aw Hoi Loy, my 3rd granduncle

Sixth Stop (Lap 6) 10:20 AM
Madam Tsang (Low family)
- getting here: 6 min
- time spent: 10:35 min

This next stop would be the last in a 4-point loop around the Kwang Tung Cemetery. As with the others, it's located within 650 m from the last stop. This grave however remains a mystery to us as I could not remember exactly how she's related within our Au Family Tree. My elder sister thinks she's the sister of one of Au Peng Seng's wives.

(Hah? Sister of great grandmother also need to take care of. No wonder so many sites to visit la! Just saying. hehe. Filial piety and a sense of responsibility means we'll happily do it la... )

The tombstone stated her name as Madam Tsang and from the Low family (not "Au"). I did remember Jacques' father explaining about her relationship with the Au family many years back but my fleeting memory have misplaced that piece of info. Maybe I need to talk to my granduncle again. :)

Madam Tsang's tombstone in 2007

The above picture was taken on our Cheng Beng visits in 2007, and you can clearly see Madam Tsang's tombstone almost half-sunken into the ground. It's not unusual for us in the past to spend time searching around the area trying to locate her tombstone. Precious minutes wasted. :P

As a testament to some of the upkeeping work done by the Wah Mei Landscaping people, we find they have helped restored her tombstone and made it much more visible and easier to find! Mind you, we need to pay RM30 yearly per grave to Wah Mei as upkeeping cost.

Madam Tsang's tombstone in 2010!

After completing this 4-point loop, we would usually head to Lap 8 (Au Peng Seng's 2nd Wife) before going to Chin Fatt Tze. This year, we changed plan slightly by visiting Chin Fatt Tze ahead of Lap 8.

Seventh Stop (Lap 7) 10:55 AM
Chin Fatt Tze (temple of thousand buddhas)
- getting here: 24 min
- time spent: 22.15 min

Chin Fatt Tze is located about a kilometer from Lap 6 and should take 10 min to get there. But this site has always been the major chokepoint and this year is no difference. We took 24 min to get ourselves here, which is still an improvement over past years where we may be stuck in the slow crawl towards this temple for close to an hour! Everyone seems to be headed for this temple during Cheng Beng (and yes, that includes many ladies who appeared to be dressed out to enjoy the springtime in M'sia so this is also a major cuci mata spot for us hehe).

Long before the emergence of Nivana and Nilai Memorial Parks and with availability of ground burial getting very scarce, Chin Fatt Tze used to be the de facto location to place the urns containing the remains of our cremated ancestors.

Chin Fatt Tze is a major stop for us as there are five ancestral urns for us to pay our respects. Three of them are my immediate family ie. both my late parents and the third being my late auntie. The other two are Au Peng Seng's 3rd wife and 4th child (daughter). The 3rd wife has one surviving daughter (13th child) who stays in Salak South.

From left: My late mother Mdm Chan, Au Peng Seng's 3rd Wife, Au Peng Seng's 4th child Mdm Kheng (daughter), my late father Au Pak Wai, and my late auntie (father's side) Au Sui Yean.\

Chin Fatt Tze is also the busiest - and smokiest - location among all the stops we make... and after the hustle-bustle of completing our work here, we would normally be heading for our last KTC visit (ie my grandfather). Today we've one more stop to make here (in KTC) before my grandfather's site ie. Lap 8

Eighth Stop (Lap 8) 11:50 AM
Au Peng Seng's 2nd Wife
- getting here: 33 min
- time spent: 10 min

This stop should be about 2 km from Chin Fatt Tze yet today we spent 9 km on the road before getting to here. My memory seems to be getting foggy and for some reason, I wrongly thought that Lap 8 is located to the west of Chin Fatt Tze.... We tried going there and ended up in the (dead-ended) carpark of Kuen Cheng 2 (see map below)! Once we realized the mistake, it was a breeze getting to here. :)

This is the resting place for Au Peng Seng's second wife who gave him three children; 3rd child (son) late Aw Hoi Loy (refer Lap 5 earlier), 5th child (daughter) who's now living with her eldest son in Taman Segar, and 6th child (son) the late Aw Kam Loy who migrated to HK, married and started a family there.

While I've not met the 2nd wife (as she has passed away long before I was born), I'd met my late granduncle Aw Kam Loy and his family when I went to HK back in 1998 (and also in 2001 when I was in HK with my wife waiyan). My grandauntie and her three children are still staying in HK now. Hope they'll be reading this blog.

The tombstone that was about to collapse... I think from the loosen earth. What did they do to the grass? Burnt them?

Looks better after we made some improvision and uprighted it and hopefully it'll remain upright until our next visit.

Ninth Stop (Lap 9) 12:08 AM
Au Tzi Meng, eldest son to Au Peng Seng
- getting here: 10 min
- time spent: 13:45 min

The next - and last stop - in Kwang Tung Cemetery is for my grandfather's grave and it's located about 3 km on the other side of the cemetery across Jalan Istana & Dewan Bahasa.

This is the most scenic of all our ancestor's grave sites. It's situated almost on top of a slope that overlooks vast open space! The flip side of being in vast open space is that it's also the hottest as there's no trees to provide any shade from the afternoon sun - and by the time we come around to this stop, it's usually noon or later.

This stop marks the completion of our Kwang Tung Cemetery visits (and end of Stage 2). We've spent close to 4.5 hours in KTC and have paid our respects to 13 ancestors. Not bad for a morning's work. :)

Note: In the past, we used to take 8 hours to complete up to this stage.

All that remains is a long trip to Nilai Memorial Park to pay our respects to my late grandmother (ie. wife to Au Tzi Meng) before we call it a day. As the drive to Nilai will take 30+ minutes, we normally break for lunch to get ourselves refueled with food and water before embarking on the journey south.

LUNCH BREAK
- getting here: 12 min
- time spent: 30 min

Lunch is usually simple sitdown at one of the stalls in Pudu. Nothing fancy here... just chicken/duck/siew yoke rice plus veges and whatever we can get our hands on.... Basically for a quick refuel and a breather before we make the 40 km trip south to Nilai.

STAGE 3: NILAI MEMORIAL PARK
http://www.nilaimemorialpark.com/

When my grandma passed away (in 2002), Memorial Parks were the trend of the month! Instead of placing her to rest at Chin Fatt Tze, we bought a double niche for her - and my late grandfather (see Lap 9 earlier) - in the inner quarter of the Quadrangle Court (see diagram below).

Nilai Memorial Park is a serene, calming and beautiful park. I still remembered our first drive there to visit the place to see if it's suitable for my grandma. Back then, the journey seemed to take an infinite amount of time!!

We were worried about the long distance. However with our yearly visits here during Cheng Beng, we find the average traveling time is only about 30 minutes (depending on traffic obviously) and though it's still long but bearable.

Distance-wise it's about 40 km from the city. Gosh! That's how far the full marathoners have to cover every time they complete a marathon race! I find it daunting even by car, never mind on foot. :P

It took us 36 minutes - and a RM4.70 toll - to get here from KL (via Lebuhraya Utara-Selatan).

Tenth Stop (Lap 10) 1:36 PM
Xiao En Si - Na Tuk Kong
- getting here: 36 min (from KL)
- time spent: 10:30 min

As with our visit to Midah Cemetery, our first stop on arrival at Nilai Memorial Park is to pay our respects to the Na Tuk Gong at the Xiao En Si temple.

The steps leading up to the impressive entrance to Xiao En Si

Another view of the Xiao En Si from afar....

Eleventh Stop (Lap 11) 1:42 PM
Madam Lee Tai Yong, wife to eldest son of Au Peng Seng
- getting here: 2:30 min
- time spent: 20 min

The Quadrangle Court is located just a stone throw away from Xiao En Si. My grandma's niche is in the Inner Quarters which face the courtyard inside the Quadrangle Court.

The courtyard inside the Quadrangle Court as seen from the main entrance.

We bought the double niche for my grandma with the intention of transferring my grandfather's remains from Kwang Tung Cemetery here some time in the near future so that he'll be resting side-by-side with my grandma.

These (above) are the ancestral mansions at Nilai Memorial Park - each custom designed and build - where you can place ALL your ancestors in one place! Saves you time running around north, south, east and west paying your respects to them. Bet they must cost in the millions!!!

BALIK RUMAH!
The trip back took us much longer than we anticipated. It should be another 30 min drive back but we ended up spending over an hour on the road mainly due to an accident near the Sg Besi toll that caused a massive traffic jam. Jacques dropped me and my brother back to my house around 3:00 pm.

That's a total of 7 hours since we started this morning at 8:00 am, and we covered end-to-end about 126 kms. 3 locations. 11 stops. 14 ancestors. Whew! That's the story of our Cheng Beng. :)

LARIAN KUBUR
http://jogathonwarisan.org.my/

Some of you would know me as an avid runner, and incidentally the Kwang Tung Cemetery Association is organizing a Larian Kubur on the 25th of this month. The run is about 11 km in distance and the route (click here) which runs thru many parts of Kwang Tung Cemetery would look familiar to our Cheng Beng group. hehe.

I've registered myself (as it's also a fund raising event for the association) - not sure if I'll be running on that morning but even if I'm not, I'll be there to take some photos and videos. Their t-shirt looks cute though. :P

T-shirt design (c) Jogathon Warisan (original page)

If you have ancestors laid to rest in Kwang Tung Cemetery, it'll be good if you can support them and sign-up for this run (even if you do not plan to run on the 25th). You'll get this cute t-shirt for just RM15. :)

Yoga for Runners

2010-03-31T18:31:00.000+08:00

An interesting short video on some Yoga for runners including a good stretch for your IT-band.

27 Mar '10 - Energizer Night Race: A night of heavy breathing bunny run...

2010-03-30T11:00:00.003+08:00

RUNNING + NIGHT = VOGUE
There are two vogues currently hitting M'sia. The first is "running". There is almost one race every week somewhere in M'sia. In fact this coming 25th April, there are at least 3 races I know of - Bidor Half-marathon, MPSJ NST Subang 10K, and Larian Kubur.

Larian Kubur? (loosely translated as Cemetery Run). Yup.. you read it right... a 11 km run through the Kwong Tung Cemetery in KL. Oooh... exciting ain't it? I felt they did waste a marketing opportunity since Cheng Beng (where Chinese families visit their ancestors' graves) is on this 3rd April. They should have planned it on the same week and called it "Cheng Beng Run" and promote it as a family event where you can run and do your Cheng Beng visitations at the same time! Not to mention if you have everyone running instead of driving their cars to the cemeteries, traffic jams during Cheng Beng will soon be a thing of the past!

Anyway, the 2nd vogue is "night races". Back in the good ol' days, we used to start the races in the wee ungodly hours of the morning. Races would start normally 5:30 - 7:00 am and if you are doing the full marathon say in 5-6 hours, you'll still be on the road when the sun is sweltering hot coming into the early afternoon! Not exactly an image race organizers would like to etch in our mind.

Hmmm... so someone decided "Hey why dun we do night races? This way, we can start the run around 7 pm and instead of finishing the race with the afternoon sun right above your head, they can now finish the race under the cool gaze of the twilight moon!"

Bravo... and therefore Night Races came into vogue!

I only took part earnestly in racing last year so with my limited knowledge of the local running events, I would say the first local Night Races was Shape & Men's Health Night Run held at Putrajaya (usually held around the middle of the year).

Last year, there was only one night run. This year, there are already 3 scheduled night races - the recently concluded Putrajaya Night Run on Feb '10 and this Energizer Night Race (which was just last Sat). Shape & Men's Health is still organizing their annual Night Run this coming July.

Have to say I was surprised no one stood up and say, "Hey, since Night Races are so in trend, why dun we do a Larian Kubur at night! It'll be such an experience to have the runners finishing around 12 midnite at the cemetery!"

Two problems I can foresee.... 1. They need to think of a good solution to manage the additional "cheerleaders & supporters" who would be earnestly appearing around 12 midnite. Some of them can look ghastly frightening.... but then again we shouldn't judge them by their looks hor? :P

2. They have to find better ways to identify those "phantom" runners (pun intended). In runners lingo, "phantom runners" are those of us who did not manage to register for the event but decided to just join the race without a bib number. We'll get to run the route but won't be getting any medals or certificates. In a Night Race at the cemetery, the organizer might have to deal with another type of "phantom runners". LOL

Back to topic ie. the Energizer Night Race (ENR) which was held at Cyberjaya last Saturday. I think this was the first race done at Cyberjaya so it'll be a opportunity to see how Cyberjaya holds up as a running venue compared to Putrajaya (which I've to say has been successful as far as running events go).

RACE KIT COLLECTION
The organizer has been doing a great job in terms of promoting this event and keeping the excitement level through an active Facebook fan page. Besides StanChart Marathon, ENR is one of those who understood how to tap into social media for their event marketing!

However... the first sign of trouble was spotted way back when they announced the online registration link! Runners were posting to the ENR Facebook wall asking why the online registration page did not ask them for their running vest size? Mr Energizer, the mascot for this run, merely replies, "Dun worry, we promise to get this right for everyone. You'll get the size you wanted."

Looking back, we shud have spotted something fishy there and then. If they didn't even bother to ask us for our vest size, how the heck would they be able to know how many of each size to get? I'm sure there's no country-wide runners database profile with chest/vest measurement for them to cross-reference.... so?

Come Race Kit Collection day, the ENR Facebook page were literally bombarded on the very first day with complaints from runners who were unable to get the sizes they wanted! It seemed for male runners, size M & L were in such short supply, they ran out of them within 45 minutes of opening the collection centre (11am) on the 1st day which is on a working day! I dun think everyone took the day off just to collect their race kit so it must mean they have only a very limited quantity of M & L to give out.

Oh.. it's not that they ran out of running vests. The other runners still have plenty of choices.. .plenty of XL, XXL, XXXL, XXXXL, XXXXXXL, XXXXXXXL sizes on offer. sigh. With most runners of Asian sizes, you can imagine where this is going.

Fingers started pointing.... Organizers - and by organizers, I meant Energizer & Pacesetter - said Adidas didn't give them any choice of sizes, they just dump the vests to them. Adidas in reply said there was some miscommunication. In short, EPIC FAIL.

Sad that Adidas chose to use running events as a "dumping ground" for their leftover sizes instead of sincerely supporting the local running community. Sorry, in Adidas PR lingo, we do not call it "dumping old stock", it's simply called "miscommunication".

What size did I get? Well, an XXL!! Any ENR runners out there with a M or L size vest that wants to swap for an XXL? :P

I must be one early bird... think "13001" is the first in my N (Men Veteran) category

The other issue which was swept under by the deluge of complaints on vest sizing is that when runners first questioned the organizer why was the event so expensive (RM60 to sign-up), Mr Energizer replied that you get 1) a good quality Energizer headlight, and 2) an imported Adidas running vest.

The label on my ENR vest said "Made in Malaysia". Eh... imported from where ar? Ah I know... solly... "miscommunication" again. :P

I understand the logistics of organizing a running event is huge and there'll be issues and problems here-n-there. However to so completely screw up the sizes of the running vest demands a disorganizational competence of such mega black belt level which these three Amigos (Adidas, Pacesetter & Energizer) collectively known as APE delivered to their best capability. Well done!

The one saving grace in the Race Kit is this Energizer Headlight. Supposedly costing RM30, it's quite sturdy and fits snugly on your forehead. It gives out two types of light; a very bright white light and a dimmer red glow. The white light is very bright and shines the way forward even in near darkness while the red light is useful for you to put behind your head to warn incoming traffic of your presence. Cool!

Note: I felt compelled to add; using the headlight to warn incoming traffic of your presence on the road in M'sia DOES NOT mean they'll safely avoid you. Pls note some M'sian drivers have the inexplicable urge to drive towards anything that has lights on.

Apparently this race coincided with Earth Hour which was to happen from 8:30 - 9:30 on the same Saturday. Looked like the Energizer headlights would come in real handy when Cyberjaya switches off all lights during that one-hour period. :)

GETTING THERE
With MEX, it's a breeze to drive to Putrajaya/Cyberjaya. Think we spent only like 15 min on MEX before we reached the exit to Cyberjaya. With MEX, running events at Putrajaya/Cyberjaya is not such a hassle to get to anymore. Thumbs up!

Mr Energizer posted a very useful "Getting There" guide including locations of the seven public carparks (designated P1-P7) where we are advised to park our cars and take the free shuttle bus to the starting point.

waiyan did not take part in this run but she's so nice to offer to drive me there, and to take some pics while waiting for me to finish my run. *muacks* :)

We ended up in P2 which is the Cyberjaya Sports Arena (eh, got futsal?!) and within 5 min, the Route 2 RapidKL shuttle arrived and picked up a handful of runners..... we did get stuck in traffic on the way to the starting point as the 42K runners have started (6pm) and the traffic police were closing off certain roads to allow the marathon runners to pass.

It was interesting watching the expression of the marathon runners as they marched on with such determination and commitment. It was close to 8pm so these runners have already been on the road for 2 hours! I'm only glad my run will finish in an hour or less. :P

The shuttle dropped us at Main Gate 1 of Multimedia University (MMU), and when I noticed a queue forming up in the guard house for the loo, I decided to join them so as to empty my bowels before the run.

Gotta take off our shoes/socks for the guardhouse loo

I usually wear my dark blue Adidas tee in races, however I decided for races where organizes provide running vest (not t-shirts), I should wear the official running vest instead. Promote la sikit the event.... :P So this time I am decked out in the Adidas ENR vest even though it's oversized for me.

While waiting for my turn to the loo, there were noises coming from the padang next to the starting point. Think the 21K runners were assembling for their flag-off. Good luck!

The padang near the Starting Point

Shoe owner in the loo doing his "business"

After I'd done what I need to do at the loo, another shuttle bus arrived with more runners. These would be only 10K runners since the 21K have already flagged off sharp at 8 pm. Ours start was at 9 pm.

More peeps for the loo? :P

After a short 10 min warm-up, it was time to get into the starting pen. I find the starting pen to be rather narrow thus runners were packed deeper in rows. I did not get as front to the frontline as I did for Bareno Run but then again, from past experience the rabbits would probably sayur me at the start regardless of where I stood. It's still important not to stay too far behind as otherwise you'll be "forced" to do a walking start until the front crowd disperse.

Note: By "rabbits", I am not referring to the elite runners. Elite runners obviously start at a fast pace but theirs is usually a pace they can maintain till the end. Rabbits on the other hand, pecut out the starting pen at sprinting speeds which they can hardly maintain for more than 3 min. :P

Runners eagerly assembled at the starting point awaiting flag-off

The organizer has arranged for entertainment to keep us occupied while we wait for flag-off time - not that we need any. Listening to the chatters of the runners around me is usually good enough entertainment (tsk tsk).

Mr. Energizer has promised "belly dancers" on their Facebook page and it turned out the belly dancers were the round-tubish Energizer mascots!! LOL

"Belly dancers" doing their belly routines...

We did get some pom pom cheerleaders later....

Runners with their Energizer headlights on.... ready to rumble...

With 5+ minutes remaining to 9 pm, someone suddenly walked up to our starting line and announced Mr So-and-so from Energizer will now flag off the run! Eh? still got 5 min more wor!!

Anyway early flag off it was... and BAM! off we go...... at around 8:54:30 pm on my Garmin.

What gives, bro? Walking from starting line already? keke

Ah.... resumed running after the crowd dispersed....

This is how dark and quiet the road was after all the runners have ran off

This was marked as a 10K run, and it basically looped around Persiaran Apec, Persiaran Multimedia and back to MMU via Taman Tasik Cyberjaya. Hilly-wise, I would think it's relatively flatlands compared to Bareno Run. Target wise I'd hoped to keep to a 5:30-5:45 pace.

The Google Earth map showing the 10K route around Cyberjaya

The Lap markers in the map above are wrong. What happened was that due to the "early" flag-off, I was fumbling with my Garmin when we started... and accidentally pressed the Lap button to force-lap the 1st Lap while I was still at the starting point! Hence Lap 2 in the map is really Lap 1 (ie. the 1st KM mark) and so on.... In subsequent maps (below), I'd corrected those wrong lap markings with a blue lap marker box.

I'd marked the route earlier and identified certain landmark buildings as my distance/pace targets. However the first sign of trouble came when we were asked to turn right after about 1 km along Persiaran Sepang. The original route said we were to run 2 km along this road before turning right into Persiaran Apec.

Hmm.. change of route? Why weren't we informed? Surely this was not a last-minute thing the organizer just decided this evening?

Anyway we just carried on and we did eventually turn into Persiaran Apec and continue along this road until we reach the Bomba / Dell junction where we then turned into Persiaran Rimba Permai. Across the road, I could see some 42K runners coming back and the Bomba peeps were there with their fire engine and hosing cold water over the 42K runners. That was a nice thing for Bomba to do!!

There was another change of route here as we entered Persiaran Ceria (see map above).

I've passed the 4 km mark now and have been doing a steady 5:40 pace on average. Good good... But for some reasons, I began to slow down to a 6 min pace after this. Wasn't any hill or slope to trouble me... maybe it's just me not able to focus on my cadence to ensure I'm keeping to the target pace. Need to make a note to myself to ensure I train to keep to a consistent cadence.

There was a water station around the 4.5 km mark (and another at the 7.5 km mark). I stopped at both water stations to ensure I got some water into my body to avoid dehydration considering how hot Putrajaya can be (and by extension Cyberjaya).

In hindsight, I could have just carried on and drink from the small water bottle I carried on my waist pouch. Cyberjaya seemed less humid / dry than Putrajaya.

Earth Hour? It should have been Earth Hour time yet everywhere I see lights are left on around Cyberjaya. Seems like Cyberjaya is oblivious to Earth Hour?

After we exit Persiaran Ceria, we then ran across Persiaran Multimedia which bordered the back of MMU. We turned into Persiaran Bestari (from Lap 7) which would lead us towards Taman Tasik Cyberjaya (at the end of this road) for the last 2 km leg of this run.

A bit of an uphill road here... nothing major and as soon as we hit the flats and with only 2 km to go, I made the final push from the 8km mark towards the finishing line. Was doing 11.5 kph now as I went for a strong finish.

A quick glance at my Garmin showed I was finishing at around 9:49 pm so I'd completed this in 55 min??! I knew I did not run a slow race but I dun think I wud be clocking 55 min on this race (for a 10K distance ie.). Or was I so "energized" for this race, I did such fantastic timing! LOL

My Garmin then refused to respond to my tap or touch! Probably becoz my fingers were wet as the Garmin's bezel is known to be unresponsive to wet touches. God knows how long I stood there trying to get my Garmin to stop the timer and save the run data.... grrrrr....

Garmin not responding to wet touches.... haiz. And notice how "loose' the XXL running vest is.

Once I managed to get my Garmin working, I saw the distance recorded as just 9.3K. So this appeared to be an under-distance 10K race. Later back home, confirmations from the ENR Facebook page verified this - and also the 42K - to be under-distanced. Now I dun feel so "energized" anymore... :(

RACE RESULT
Category: Men Veteran 10K
Distance: 9.3 km (Garmin)
Time: 54:15 min
Average Pace: 5:50 min/km

My average pace was higher due to those 6 min/pace laps I did in the middle of the run, for no particular reason other than loss of concentration I suppose. I did not feel any overexertion in ths run so should have done closer to 5:30 pace. Back to the training room... hehehe.

The two dips in the pace at the 25th and 43rd minutes were for my water-breaks, and the whole flux at the end was me trying to get my Garmin to respond to my sweaty fingers! LOL

Crew waiting at the finishing line...

Carnival and concert at the padang next to the finishing line

REFUELING & GOODIES BAG
waiyan was at the finishing line to meet me, and since the crowd was still relatively thin then, I quickly went to collect my goodies bag (which has the finisher medal in it), got myself replenished with lotsa Gatorade drinks... Goodies bag not bad... at least it has beter value than SCKLM's, and Putrajaya's Night Run has no goodie bag.

Did not want to stay too long and after taking some snaps in front of the Snap-attack booth, we decided to start leaving.... as we were walking away from the finishing area, we saw Yimster in the queue for goodies bag. He was all drenched (from his 21K run) and I think he was in the wrong queue for goodies bag. He went into the rather long queue for 10K goodies bag whereas his 21K queue would be much shorter I think. hehe. Have to say the signages for 10K, 21K and 42K goodies bag were not helpful to say the least.

CHAOS AT THE FINISHING LINE
To walk out from the finishing area to the main gate (where the shuttle bus is waiting), we were literally walking along the same narrow road that the runners were coming in for their final straight! When I was running back, there were less finishers so the finishing lanes did not look so chaotic to me. But when we were leaving (must have been around 10:15 pm), a lot of runners have returned and were leaving as well....

This caused the finishing lanes to resemble a busy pedestrian walkway with ppl walking on one direction (ie. going out from the finishing area) and runners coming back on the opposite direction (heading towards the finishing lanes). Some of the finshing runners looked confused... as if they ran slam-bang into the crowd and wondering if they were on the right lane to finish.

I even read from the ENR Facebook wall later that some peeps who parked their cars along the finishing lanes (yes, it appeared possible to do so if you came real early) decided to just drive out with the runners coming from the opposite direction! Was told there were a few near-misses of these outgoing cars hitting into the incoming runners.... aiyo!

HOW DID THE EVENT FARE?
Overall (leaving aside the APE running vest issue), it was just an averagely organized event considering Energizer's global reputation of their Night Races and Pacesetters supposed-experience in organizing road races.

On our way back, we could see some of the 42K runners who were still on the road having to brave traffic and even cross the Cyberjaya roads on their own with no police assistance! These runners have been on the road for over 4 hrs... they must be very tired.. and it is dangerous for them to cross the rather wide road on their own.

Some FB reports were saying there were Mat Rempits in their Protons "racing" and vrrrooming with the runners!! (shake head). Another running fren of mine said he was chased by a lorry for 500m!! :O

Perhaps Cyberjaya is a more challenging location to hold longer distance runs as compared to Putrajaya where I think the road access is easier to close off. Organizers need to consider this factor - road safety - in future.

Water-wise, there were 2 water stations for my 10K which is more than enough as I usually do not stop for water in a 10K run (which is not a long distance). But for those runners who do, the water stations at 4.5K and 7.5K should suffice. On the plus side, the route represented a "change of scenery" for us compared to the familiar Putrajaya route and being able to run past those huge Cyberjaya MSC buildings were nice!

With goodies bag in-hand after finishing the race

The finisher medal looks cute. It's much smaller than the Bareno medal (about half its diameter); but I like this better. Well done here.

Next Race? Most likely Larian Bomba on 2nd May before the biggie SCKLM in June.

p/s While Earth Hour comes around only once a year, we find the Energizer headlight to be extremely useful for the other random event sponsored by Tenaga called "Blackout" which happens more frequently than Earth Hour. btw we just had one Blackout event last nite (Mon) that lasted more than an hour.... :P

Come to think of it, with Tenaga's success rate in organizing "Blackout" events, do we still need Earth Hour ar?

14 Mar '10: Bareno Run 2010 - If the hills dun kill you....

2010-03-29T16:20:00.003+08:00

There were two reasons for me signing up for the Bareno Run (which was concluded two weeks back). Firstly, I had only done one race this year ie. the Putrajaya Night Run last month (Feb) and my running goal for this year is to enter one race per month. With no race in January, I'm one race short. Secondly, this event has both the 10K and 5K races and since waiyan does the 5K, it's a good opportunity for both of us to run together.

The race being held at Bukit Jalil was another added convenience as it's only 10-15 min away from our place. Bareno (http://www.bareno.com.my/) as a manufacturer of bathroom and kitchen appliances is a rather odd sponsor/organizer for road races. I suppose it's a good marketing approach for them as they'll be able to reach out to a large number of people fairly quickly.

Since Bareno's core competence is not likely in organizing running events, they did the right thing by partnering with Taman Bukit Jalil Running Club to organize this event which comprised three distance categories - 15K, 10K and 5K.

Anyway as a runner, I've no complain as to which company is doing this as long as there's someone who's willing to sponsor and organize more races for us. :)

RACE KIT COLLECTION
Was done a day before the event at Bukit Jalil stadium. Went smoothly except for a minor hitch - they have ran out of size for waiyan's t-shirt (she got an L-size instead of M). For 15K and 10K you get a New Balance running vest and for 5K you only get a t-shirt (also from NB). We were asked to select our vest/t-shirt size during registration - so again, you do feel disappointed when they couldn't keep the sizes for you?!!

After getting the bib number "24" for the Putrajaya Night Run, I got another not-so-ong bib number again - this time I got "554". But let's not get too superstitious.. hehe.

RACE DAY
Slept early the night before - those who knew me, would know that being a "night" person, sleeping early is not something that comes naturally for me tsk tsk - so was well rested on the morning of the run itself. With Bukit Jalil being very near to our place, we did not have to rush ourselves.

Took the usual "running breakfast" of cereal, soya, hard-boiled eggs and a powerbar.... and off we got ourselves into the car and within 15 min were already parked inside Bukit Jalil Nasional Stadium. It was still pitch dark when we got there... We can see some runners actually walking to the stadium. I guess these are the runners staying in the houses and condos around Bukit Jalil.

Did a 15-min warm-up, and we can see the organizers getting the 15K runners into the starting pen for flag-off. The MC even gave us a breakdown for the number of runners in each category. In total, they got about 2,800 runners and about 1,000+ of them were in the 10K category (male & female), with bulk in the 5K category.

The 15K runners were flagged off at 7 am sharp. It was now the 10K runners' turn to get into the starting pen. As there was relatively low number of runners (1,000+) I was able to make my way almost to the frontline. I must be like just 2-3 rows behind. Compared to my first run at SCKLM09 last June where I was dead right at the back of the row of runners - that was like 10,000+ runners - it took me 4 min just to crawl from the back to the starting line! This should give me a good headstart. :)

Here's how the starting lane looked like from where I was. Still dark even though it's close to 7:15 am

We were flagged off 5-min late (no big deal) and as soon as the "gun" went, everyone seemed to be rabbiting (ie. sprinting) straight off the mark! By the time I got into my stride, I think a couple hundreds of them must have sayured past me! So much for my grand scheme to get a good head start. LOL.

The map above shows the 10K route, starting from the "green marker" at the right side of the map. Each Lap marks my 1K split.

Once we exit the starting lane inside the Stadium, we turned left and ran along underneath the elevated KL-Putrajaya highway. Not more than 0.5km from the starting, I can see some 15K runners joining us from the junction on our right. They were flagged off about 20 min earlier and would have completed about 4 - 5km of their run before they converged with our group. These early runners would obviously be the fast 15K runners as they would be running at faster than 5 min pace.

I started off pretty well, maintained a 5:10 pace for the 1st two KMs before I hit the first - of many (sigh) - uphill slopes in this route! My initial target was a 5:45 pace, with a stretch target of 5:30 pace but the moment the slopes came up on me at around the 2km mark, memories of my Adidas King of the Road (KotR) DNF came flooding back, tsk tsk.

The red arrow indicated where the slope goes uphill; the yellow arrow shows downhill

I decided finishing this race would be more important to me than getting a good timing, and I adjusted my pace to tackle the slopes without zapping too much energy from me too soon. The positive thing about this route compared to KotR is that after each uphill slope, you do get a downhill respite (the yellow arrow in the map above).

So far, we are running on the same route as the 5K runners (who were flagged off 15 minutes after us) and it's not until the 3km mark where both the 10K and 15K runners were asked to turn right into one of the roads bordering the Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil, effectively breaking-off from the 5K runners.

Guess what? More hills here! haiz.... But what do you expect? As one runner - whom I met casually at this race - remarked to me, "You know, they dun name this as Bukit Jalil without a good reason right?"

("Bukit" being the Malay word for "Hills")

I was still maintaining below 6-min pace so far... as we went round the roads bordering the Rekreasi park. So far so good..... until we get diverted INTO the Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil around the 5.5km mark (see yellow arrow in the bottom-right of the map below)!

The yellow arrow at bottom-right indicated our entry to Taman Rekreasi Bukit Jalil, and the second yellow arrow at the top (pointing to the circle) indicated our exit from the park, resuming from where we first broke-off from the 5K runner group

haha.. this was where the ~~killer hills~~ FUN started! If you have ever jogged inside Taman Rekreasi, you would understand how "nice and gentle" the hilly trails are... LOL.

One of my running buddy, Yimster regularly jogs/trains in this park and as I was huffing and puffing and trying not to die on the spot thru the trails, I was thinking how he must have been enjoying this part of the run!

We ran about 1.5km thru the hilly park...up and down and up and down and up.... whew...

Having said that, there was a deep downhill slope as we exit the park so that again offered us a respite as we kinda race down the slope. It was quite steep though and I was mindful not to go too fast lest I actually rolled down instead.

The exit took us back to the point where we were first separated from the 5K runners (ie. around 3km mark) and we then followed the road heading back towards the Bukit Jalil Highway. Some slopes here and there but after the Rekreasi Park, nothing much that fazed us now but my pace has now dropped to a 6:30 since the Rekreasi Park. haiz.

If you think it's now a cruise back to the finishing line, remember they said the BEST is always saved for the last! hehe.

As we exit the Rekreasi Park into the Bukit Jalil Highway, the BEST of the uphill slopes was right in front of us - a straight 800m uphill crawl along the highway! Grunting and wheezing my way along the climb, my pace dropped to a ponderous 7+ min pace and the road seemed never-ending..... was I imaging things or did the road get longer and steeper as we trudged forward?

I finally gave in to the temptations to take a walking hike up the slope instead of jogging... walked for about 100m mainly to take a breather... and then reverted back to a jog as we finally reached the summit of that (whew) long steep road.

I've to make a safety observation about this stretch of the route. We were running in the same direction as the traffic along the highway (ie. the cars were coming up behind us) and we only have the triangular traffic cones as a safety divider. Some of the slower runners were literally walking at this stage... and instead of walking one behind another, they were walking in a row across! So you can imagine if there's a row of 3-4 runners walking slowly in front, you have to cut out to the right-most to overtake them and that's when it can become dangerous!

We now turned off the highway into the residential areas, and with the roof of the Bukit Jalil Nasional Stadium in sight, I realized we were very near to the finishing point. Time to pick up my pace for a good finish. At this moment, I do not even care about my timing... more than happy that I managed to complete this horrible hilly run without succumbing to a DNF.

"DNF" is runners lingo for "Did Not Finish"

We finished where we started, and the finishing lanes were properly labeled with A, B, C... so it was easy for us to get ourselves into the proper lane based on our category. I took a quick glance at my Garmin. Think I'd ran for about an hour. Okie.. I can take that timing. :)

RACE RESULT
Category: Men 10K
Distance: 9.86 km (Garmin)
Time: 60:21 min
Position: 112
Average Pace: 6:07 min/km

You can see the various spots where my pace dropped (ie. the graph points are higher).. those were the hills :)

I got a surprise as I saw waiyan waiting for me at the finishing line! Wow.. she's back even earlier than me so she must have ran a good race. Her 5KM category has finisher medals only for the first 100 finishers and initially she was not expecting any. She did better than her expectations to finish #52 and thus got herself her first finisher medal for this this year! Kudos...

waiyan with her first finisher medal for the 5K category

The prize-giving area in front of the Stadium's main entrance. Bareno provided nice trophies for the elite runners.

POST-RACE LEPAK
There were plenty of drinks, fruits and food for runners. The Milo & 100Plus stations were more than sufficient to cater for all the runners, and they even provided fresh watermelons which were so refreshingly cooling as the sun started to creep up on us.

The Gardenia people was so busy giving out their breads/buns. And they looked happy doing so! Hah...

We noticed a long queue which we thought was for the ice cendol stall but later found out it lead to the Soya King stall. Hmm... tau foo far? Nice..... it's a long queue though. Then again, you don't say No to tau-foo-far.. LOL.

The Chap Ayam Runners were out in full force for this run. Check out their blog to find out more about them
http://chap-ayam-runners09.blogspot.com/

The race itself was organized pretty well. Runners were efficiently ushered into the starting pens and flagged off timely, sufficient markers along the route to ensure no one got lost, enough water stations sprinkled along the route and a well channeled finishing lines.

Some of the improvements could be better safety along the route especially when we were running at the highway stretch as we were running in the same direction with the traffic (meaning the cars were coming behind us) and we only have those triangular cones to keep us cordoned.

The Finisher Medal is large.. close to 3" in diameter and considering we got a medal and a nice NB running vest for RM35, it was a worthwhile run. Will certainly be back next year if they are still doing this.

Next Race: Energizer Night Run @ Cyberjaya 27/3/10

The Run of Your Life

2010-02-24T05:30:00.003+08:00

"You start at the Hawara Pyramid at Fayoum (which is located 100 km from Cairo), and your run will take you past the pyramids of Kafren & El-lesht, and to the bent pyramids of Dahshor before you head for the end-point at the step pyramids in Saqqara just south of Cairo."

Some of you may already be asking, "Why not end at Giza, the most famous of them all?" Some of the more observant are likely thinking, "Did I read this right? Was the route just described 100 km long?"

The Meidum Pyramid, site of the first pyramids built in Egypt will be one of the few you'll run through

Yeah... the observant ones are correct... this is indeed a 100 km run and I suppose given that you've traveled 100 km by foot from Fayoum, the organizer probably thought you might want to visit Giza on another day.

The step pyramid of Saqqara, where you end the race

The route takes you through some of the lesser known pyramids of Egypt which I would think likely escape most tourists if you are on those 5-day Europe/Africa tours thingie. Even if they do get to visit, it's one thing to be driven by car from one pyramid to the next; and another thing altogether to tell your frens or children that you ran from one pyramid to the next!

I suppose the only (ahem) slight problem is the 100 km distance. Ahh... but me thinks you are not one to let a little problem like this stand in your way. LOL

They call this an Ultra Marathon (ie anything more than the usual 42K). In Egypt, they call this the Pharaonic Race and is held yearly. The upcoming one this November will be their 10th race.

It all started when someone found a rock (no, not this Rock) way back in 1977 that suggested this race took place around 690 BC (now you understand the power of rock-o-logy ler). This race was conceptualized to remember that historical event, and takes place at the same area covering almost similar route.

The route map for this 100K Pharaonic Run

According to the rock, the winner of this race back then completed the route in about 8 hrs. So what's the qualifying time for you to get a finisher's medal? Well, I suppose they are pretty flexible with that.. considering you likely want to hang around some of the pyramid sites and take a photo of two.

This will be the most beautiful sign you want to see when you are in this race! :P

But try to come back before it gets dark, as it's very hard for the sweeper bus to find you in the desert when it's all dark. :P

Link to official site: http://www.egyptianmarathon.com/EgyptianMarathon/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=48&Itemid=41

p/s On closer inspection of their race categories, it seems they now have a Relay Option where you can form teams of 2-5 and take turn running the route provided each leg is at least 10km. Hey! If we get 5 ppl then we are talking just 20 km each... anyone interested?

Band of Brothers 2 (Pacific) to premier March 14 (HBO)

2010-02-08T17:11:00.000+08:00

From the people who gave us the awesome "Band of Brothers" TV series, comes the sequel "The Pacific" which premieres in the U.S. this March 14.

Official site: http://www.hbo.com/the-pacific/index.html

From the HBO Official website, here's the summary for this mini-series

The Pacific is an epic ten-part mini-series. The Pacific tracks the intertwined real-life stories of three U.S. Marines Robert Leckie, John Basilone, and Eugene Sledge across the vast canvas of the Pacific Theater during World War II. The mini series follow these men and their fellow Marines from their first battle with the Japanese on Guadacanal, through the rainforest of Cape Gloucester and the strongholds of Peleliu, across the bloody sands of Iwo Jima and through the horror of Okinawa, and finally to their triumphant but uneasy return home after V-J Day.

The Pacific is based in part on the books Helmet for My Pillow, by Robert Leckie, with the Old Breed, by Eugene B. Sledge, with additional material from Red Blood, Black Sand, by Chuck Tatum, and China Marine, by Eugene B. Sledge, as well as original interviews conducted by the filmmakers.

Enjoy the trailers...

If you enjoy the Band of Brothers miniseries, you'll want to watch this! Can't wait for it's blu-ray release.

Fried-out Kombie to pay Kookaburra royalties...

2010-02-07T23:09:00.001+08:00

,Oops... an Australian court rules that Men-at-Work, an Aussie band famous in the 80s, used part of the melody from a popular children song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree" for their hit single "Down Under".

Traveling on a fried-out Kombie, on a hippie trail, head full of zombie....
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast and she said...
Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder...

Source: NY Dail y News

Those who knew me would have heard of their other popular & catchy song "Who Can It Be Now?" as a ringtone on my HTC. :)

Sad they now have to pay back royalties to Kookaburra...

How NOT to do sms marketing!

2010-02-07T22:35:00.000+08:00

I received this sms a few days earlier...

CNY 2wks special starts now till 12th FEB. *Storewide 30% ! Check out our new arrival too &Join us at facebook for latest news. Happy Chinese New Year!

Interesting offer.... they even have a Facebook page!! But alamak.... I've no idea which company sent this!! :P

Pretty smart, they are.

6 Feb '10: Putrajaya Night Run 2010

2010-02-07T16:51:00.002+08:00

This Blog Looks Dead.... :P
Gosh.. has time flew past that fast? I just looked back at this blog and realized the last update I made was July last year! phew....

That last entry was for the Jog for Hope event which preceded the first run I did at Putrajaya ie. the Shape & Men's Health Night Run 2009. I've a draft copy of the Shape Night Run's entry in my laptop... will promise to review and upload that soon.

Given that I've now resumed my blogging on the Boardgame meetups, I'll also allocate time to do regular updates here as I've given myself a target of doing one run per month for this year (oops.. I missed January!).

After last July's Shape Night Run, I did one more run at Putrajaya ie. the Ekiden International Relay with my Datacom colleagues. That was a short 5 x 3km relay.. but it was fun (and different) taking part in a relay race for the first time. :)

Besides Ekiden, I did another 3 runs last year including the DNF* (haiz) Adidas King of the Road and ending the year with StanChart's Singapore Marathon. Rest assured, all these will be blog-back retrospectively here. hehe.

*DNF = "Did not Finish" in running lingo

BACK TO THE PRESENT
Hope that was a quick enough summary of what were "missing" here for the 2nd half of last year. Let's move on... and come with me to the just concluded (and also the first in M'sia) Night Marathon held at Putrajaya (again).

URL: http://www.putrajayanightmarathon.com/

Technically, Shape & Men's Health holds the title for organizing the first night run in M'sia. However the Shape Run did not include a full marathon (42km) category. Yesterday's Putrajaya Night Marathon 2010 have all the key categories ie. 42km (Full), 21km (Half), 7.7km (supposedly the 10km Quarter) and 5km (Fun) hence they laid claim to the title "First Night Marathon in M'sia".

That's Marketing for you... :)

Wayang during Running Kit Collection Time
We'd registered for this event rather early (16 Dec 2009) and I'd somehow misplaced our registration receipts which we need when collecting our running kits!! Duh...

We tried to search high-n-low to no avail, and on Friday (5-Feb), the last day for the running kit collection, I decided to make a desperate long-shot by just dropping into the collection point at Wisma OCM; walked up to those I-hope-they-will-be-helpful people manning the collection booths... and told them, "I lost my receipts. Can I still collect my running kit ar?" while putting on my most forlornly sad look.

Silence... a few looked at each other... but no one said anything. Hmmm....

Now I was trained that in a negotiation, once you put the "proposal" on the table, you don't say a word coz the next party to open his mouth loses the balance... so I kept quiet... :P

Someone finally spoke.... "Well, since it's now 6pm and there's no crowd, let's see what we can do. Which category did you sign up for?"

YES! :)

They located the large ring binder file that contains all the registration form... and started flipping thru the forms one-by-one starting from the first registration. The forms were loosely sorted by date; I say "loosely" coz there were quite a number of forms that appeared out-of-date sequence.

Took them about 15 min.. but they finally found my registration form!! The other guy was quick to locate my running bib number, and gave me a M-sized t-shirt (no running vest; they are for the half- & full-marathon runners only). I asked them to cross-reference to the Fun Run category to locate the reg form for waiyan - which they did, also without hesitation or complain. Aren't these people nice? :P

I've to say I need to take my hat off and express my grateful appreciation to those who helped me search and find my registration form. They do not have to do this... by policy, they could have just asked me to bugger off... try again next year and oh, dun lose your receipt again.. now go away, horrible man.

But they didn't... and were more than helpful! Now that's GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!

My bib number was M024 (I did say I registered very early la) and it's not a very "ong" number for Chinese.. it means "easy to die". gulped.

I was thinking, hmmm since these people have been so nice and helpful perhaps I can ask them to change my number... given there appeared to be some running kits left uncollected - and it's like 10 more minutes to close of collection.

A man who appeared to the be supervisor, seeing that I'd already found my reg form and running kit, said gently to me, "You are lucky you came at this time when we are free else we won't be doing this for you. Don't do this next time yeah?"

Hmm... maybe I better not push my luck too far. M024 looks just nice to me!! hehe...

THE RUN
The trip to Putrajaya was smooth, traffic-free and took us only 30 min (probably less) via MEX (Maju Expressway) from MRR2. We reached Putrajaya Presint 3 in good time; parked our car a couple blocks away from Istana Kehakiman - where everything starts and ends for the run.

I took a few minutes to do a quick jog to warm my body up, went to the portable toilet to do what needs to be done, and then wriggled my way into the starting pen where runners gathered to be flagged off.

My 7.7 km run (which was supposed to be the 10 km quarter-marathon) was to start at 9 pm. waiyan's 5 km Fun Run starts 15 minutes later. Qualifying time for the 7.7 km is 80 min and medals given to first 400 finishers only.

I think I'm about 20-line deep inside the kandang (starting pen).... which would probably take like 20 secs before I reach the starting line (where the arch is). Given that I'm not racing for a podium finish, this is not an issue. Anyway I normally start the timer on my Garmin only when I crossed the starting line. :)

Putrajaya at night can be very beautiful. Too bad the crappy phone on my HTC can only do so much... and my sis laiwah who carries a behemoth Canon DSLR did not come along for this event else you can see photos of this quality -> SCKLM09. hehe.

GETTING READY TO START
The race was started 3 min before 9pm! It caught me slightly by surprise as I was still fiddling with my MP3 player when I noticed the rows in front my me started moving off....

Seems like some runners carried water bottles into the starting pen.. and after finishing the water, they just chucked the empty bottles on to the street! The empty bottles can be a danger to the runners from behind if they stepped on the bottles and slipped... aiyoh, learn some civic-mindedness la!!

The 7.7 km route is very similar to the 5 km Shape Run route. We essentially take a straight line (flat terrain) towards PICC in Presint 5. Where it differs is that in Shape Run, we do a short turn around PICC but in this run we take a larger circle, and there's a branch-out at the 5 km mark to go around Presint 4 before coming back to the straight stretch heading back towards Istana Kehakiman.

The 7.7 km Route

Why does everyone run so fast at the start? tsk tsk
After having been to a few races, I always noticed (especially in the short distance category) that people seems to RACE off at the starting gate... vvvrrrooomm, vvrrroooommm.. zzoomm!! Why the rush ar?

In the past, I tend to follow their pace... Nowadays I just ignore all these ppl running past me and followed my own starting pace which is usually just a slight notch above my target pace for the run (in this run, I'd intended to target 5.30 pace).

"Pace" means minutes per km; so a 5:30 pace means I intend to do one km in 5m30sec

I kept this pace until I reach the Equilibrium Point ie. when the number of runners overtaking you has dropped to more or less equal to the number of runners you are overtaking. :) In this run, I noticed that it happened around the 1 km mark (ie Lap 1 below). hehe.

We flagged off at the Istana Kehakiman (top of the picture)

If you then maintained this pace for another half km or so (actual distance differs from race to race), you'll soon find you have reached the Overtaking Point ie. when you are overtaking more runners than being overtaken!

You can upped your pace or just retained the existing pace... either way, you can be sure you are slowly improving your finishing position with each forward step you take. Obviously the sooner this point is reached in the run, the stronger you'll finish.

At around the 2 km mark (see picture above, Lap 2), I got a little scare when I saw a large group of runners coming around the opposite side of the road. OMG, am I so FAR BEHIND!! I thought these were the lead runners of my 7.7km category who have already went one loop around PICC Presint 5 (see map below) and were coming into their 5 km mark!!

That would mean I'm probably more than 500 pax behind!! And they are like.. 2+ km ahead of me!! I'm so dead.... all these ponderous talk about Equilibrium Point, Overtaking Point must be slowing me down!! LOL

Thankfully, I noticed the blue bib on their vests and realized these were the half-marathoners who were coming around the bend. They flagged off half an hour earlier than us. Phew.... still got hope for my finisher medal!

It was at the 3 km (Lap 3) point that I saw Mdm N3271 (aiyoh.. I didn't get to ask for her name!) whom we first saw at the SCKLM09 (see picture below) where she clocked an impressive 60 min for her 10.4 km run (and I did hehe, 68 min for the same race, oops).

We chatted with her after the run but still I forgot
to ask her name (where's my manners, duh!)

I first overtook her during an elevated stretch of the run but she caught up with me a short distance later. I decided to just pace with her as I noticed that she runs at a steady brisk pace of 6:00 min/km.

At this point, both of us were very much running by ourselves with some runners scattered in front and some at the back. The gaps were widening both front and back. Occasionally a few strong runners will go past us.. but we were overtaking more runners than being overtaken.

I would probably say those casual runners were behind us and in front of us would be the strong runners who are likely running at a faster pace than us. To catch them, we need to put on Turbo mode... (if we do have a Turbo mode, hehe).

Both of us kept pace with each other until the 6 km mark.. when I decided to step up and go for the home stretch of the last 1.5 or so km. I bet she was not too far behind either... If she had kept to her steady 6:00 min/km pace, she should finish this run around the 46 min mark.

I really admire her stamina and endurance given her age. I'll be happy if I can still complete a 7.7 km run at that age; never mind in 46 min. :P

RACE SUMMARY
There were only a few runners coming into the home stretch together with me so there was no crowding and we were smoothly ushered into the finishing queue. Were given a card indicating our position, then hurried along the queue to collect our medal and certificate before getting a pack of food and a bottle of water.

Distance: 7.66 km (Garmin)
Time: 43.5 min
Position: 167
Average Pace: 5.42 min/km

Target pace was 5:30... so FAILED... hahaha

My timings (above) as shown from my Garmin FR405. Kept a pretty even pace. The vertical axis should be "Pace" (ie min/km) and not "Speed" (which would be km/h).

Here's another look at the 7.7 km route as shown using Google Earth below. You can the PICC building which is like the halfway point for this run.

WINDING DOWN
Drinks were a-plenty everywhere... ais milo, 100plus, Nescafe.... they'd a few stations set up so it's not like all runners cramming into one long queue. Well thought out.

I refueled myself while waiting for waiyan to finish her 5 km Fun Run. She came back around 10 pm which was pretty good timing. According to her Garmin, she clocked 42 min but the distance was marked as 5.4 km. Not bad...

waiyan with her 5 km certificate

me with my first running medal for this year :)


Front & Back of the 7.7km Finisher Medal

My Adidas running flats that's been with me since SCKLM last June... It's mileage is around 200+ km so it should still last another 300+ km for me.

We also bumped into Yim who was doing the half-marathon. You can bump into him at almost EVERY RUNNING EVENTS in town!! LOL He's aiming for his sub-2hr half-marathon which I've no doubt he'll crack that soon.... before moving to do his sub-4hr full marathon (kekeke).

Hi, Yim! :P

REPLACING LOST CALORIES :P
We were supposed to take MEX (Maju Expressway) back to MRR2... However I took the wrong turning and we ended up driving along the old Putrajaya highway which took us towards Kajang. We ended up having Kajang Satay for supper....

Wow... the Haji Samsuri stall was brimming with runners from the Putrajaya Night Marathon! Seems like everyone has the same idea that satay is good for you after a good run... haha.

NEXT RUN
Yep, that's it for my first 2010 run! My next run was to be the Energizer Night Race on the 27th March (hmm, "night run" seems to be the trend now) but we could be doing the Bareno Run @ Bukit Jalil which is two weeks before the Energizer Night Race.

There was also another run held on the same day Nuffnang's Tiger Run 2010 which is *not* your typical run. A FB running fren of mine took part in it and came out 1st!

19Jul09 Jog for Hope - A leg forward for charity

2009-07-29T22:25:00.010+08:00

A missed call in the morning apparently came from a running fren Yvonne - read her blog on tis run here - (whom I first met thru boardgaming) asking if I was willing to help support some teens in their charity work. Why, yes.. why not?

The event is The Treehuggers Club's Jog for Hope, organized to raise funds for the spastic children of SCASF&FT. The Treehuggers Club is a society from Taylor's College Sri Hartamas.

Official website: http://jogforhope.wordpress.com/

Was told the run was a rather last minute event, and it double-dated the Siemens Run which was also slotted for the 19th July (Sun) morning. As I did not register for the Siemens Run this event provided another running opportunity for me.. plus doing something for the underprivileged children.

Was there quite early actually and got myself parked inside Hartamas Shopping Complex, registered, got my bib (#089) & JoH t-shirt and it was just 5 min shy of 7 am. Run was set to flag off at 8am.

Met Yvonne and Ling (hope I got her name right), chit-chatted until 7.50am and still no sign we were going to start. Finally close to 8 am the emcee came up - not to flag us off - but to announce some Datuks need to give a speech or two! Duh....

Run was finally flagged off around 8.07 am. The no. of runners were low (partly due to Siemens Run I suspect) and most of them were in the Taylor's category, so we in the Open category were very much left to our own small group at the front of the starting line.

Strange feeling being in the front first 4-5 rows compared to SCKLM's start where I was right at the back of like 4000+ runners which took me 4 mins just to slowly crawl to the starting line. :P

The Open category route was 9 km while the Taylorian's category was 6 km. Since I'm doing the Shape & Men's Health Night Run next week @ Putrajaya where I registered to run the 5 km, I was not keen to do a full 9 km this week (even though the week after next I'll be at the Adidas King of the Road for a 11 km run). Wah.. so many runs, week on week... as if I'm a seasoned runner. tsk tsk.

My two-mind on whether to do the 9 km or curi-ayam on the 6 km was resolved when I saw their route map. It seemed all runners take the same route for the 1st 6 km and while the 6 km runners end their run there, the 9 km runners continue for another 3 km loop.

So this meant I could just go for a fast 6km (I mean as "fast" as I could manage hehe) and when I'm back at the 6 km mark, to decide if I want to continue the remaining 3 km or call it a day.

I started at a brisk pace close to 11.7 kph. The run started off along Jalan Sri Hartamas 1 heading towards Jln Duta so it was a downhill run. Well.. since we were coming back via the same road, it meant we'll be asked to navigate this uphill run in the 6th KM... aiyoh.

In this run, you get to meet lots of the "sprint-walkers". They are the runners who'll sprint as fast as they could... until they pancit. Then they'll walk until they recover... and back to sprinting.. then walking.

Can be irritating sometimes.... you see them sprinting past you... wooo hooo... then while they were walking as they recover from their pancit, you overtake them, yah.... only for them to sprint past you again not too soon.. .woo hoooooo.... This sequence repeats itself until they put you out of your misery by sprinting away.

hehe, kids have that luxury of pace.

There were 1 KM markers along the whole route and I think there's a water station every 2 KM. Traffic police were around to control the cars and volunteers were stationed at key turning points to ensure you were headed in the right direction. Things looked pretty organized.

Managed to keep a rather even 5:41 min/km pace for the next 3 km even though some of the roads were sloppy. Until we hit the uphill climb from Jln Duta heading back into Jln Sri Hartamas 1 (yes, that same stretch of road we started downhill)....

And that climb seemed like an eternity.. eerr.. okie la.. mebbe it's just about 1 km but it sure felt like an eternity then. My pace dropped to 6.22 and I was most tempted to just walk out the last few hundred meters.

Until I saw Mr Ironman overtake me around the 5.5 km mark. Now, we've seen him earlier during the warm-ups and around the Starting line. He was then clad in a sarong - yup, a sarong - and he was doing his warm-up jog barefoot! We were just not sure if he was waiting for some buddies of his to bring along his shorts and running shoes. :P

Seemed like the sarong and kaki-ayam are his running trademark! LOL
Click here to see his photo in another run.

That kicked up my reserve tank and I pushed my way to the finishing line. All-in my Garmin recorded a time of 33:29+ min for this 6 km run. Should set me up nicely for next week's Nite Run.

HOW WAS THE FORERUNNER 50?I mentioned in my blog about the Forerunner 50 (FR50) sports watch that I'll write about how the FR50 performed in this run where I get to use the sports watch and foot pod for the first time.

Let's talk about the footpod first. Works like a charm without much calibration out-of-the-box. Just clipped it snugly to my Adizero laces and it started tracking my speed & pace thru-out the run. Told me I started brightly at 5:30 pace and dropped to 6:22 towards the end of the run. Average pace was 5:50 (this is slow as I shud be aiming for 5:40).

The package I bought came with a heart-rate monitor (HRM) but since I only got the package last nite (Sat), I didn't have the time to get the HRM set up for this race. Will do that for the Nite Run so expect another update from me there.

Back home, the sports watch wireless synced my running stats into my laptop and once the data got into the (free) Garmin Training Center (GTC) software, it provided some useful analysis on my run (see below).

Beside tracking speed, average pace, calorie, etc I can also see how much time I spent in each running zones (eg Zone 6 is a Fast Jog were the speed is from 9.66 - 12.07 kph). Apparently I spent 26 of the 33+ min at this level. My target is to spend most of my time in Zone 7 (10.71 - 13.79) :)

Lastly it provided a nice chart to show your run's progress... Looking at the chart, I know that I generally maintained a >10 kph speed and you can also see where I hit those "slopes" ie where my speed dropped, especially at the 5km mark, hehe.

WILL I BE BACK AGAIN NEXT YEAR?

Overall this was a quite well organized run (except for the late Datuk speech) considering the organizers are just college students. If they are doing this again next year, I'll certainly be back!

More photos available from the official Jog for Hope Flickr set.

Garmin Forerunner 50

2009-07-24T03:09:00.002+08:00

After my first run at SCKLM a few weeks back, I realized my biggest challenge on Race Day is not knowing how to pace myself. I did most of my running at the gym (True Fitness) and only does one on-the-road (OTR) run on Sunday evening at KLCC.

On the treadmill, it's easy to pace and vary the speed coz you get all the info right in front of you! You can get to set speed, elevation, distance and even monitor your heart rate using the treadmill's control panel. Guess I am spoilt by the treadmill. :P

The obvious way to solve this - beside doing more OTR runs - is to get a "running watch" which can help me track distance, speed and pace during run days. These devices can also monitor your heart rate and if you get those with GPS built-in, you can even map your run on Google Maps. Cool eh?

I do not know what's the official name for these devices; some just call it "sports watch", some use the term HRM (heart-rate monitor) while I've also seen them refered to as pedometers.

Nike's sporty looking SportBand

A quick google narrowed me down to two choices - Polar or Garmin. There are a few other brands on the market - Timex, Suunto, and even Nike has their own Nike+ built into their new running shoes - but Polar and Garmin seem most popular with our local seasoned runners.

Here's the Nike Sportband shown next to their running shoes.

What these devices basically do are to track your movement as you run so as to be able to provide you with stats such as pace, speed, split, finish time, heart rates and calories spent. They do this via two common methods - i) a footpod device attached to your running shoes that transmit movement data back to your device, or ii) a GPS-based device that uses global positioning to measure how far you've run.

A footpod from the Garmin series

I'd wanted to know how Polar and Garmin are different and which target market they are aimed at. Couldn't seem to find much info about this from Google.. all they'd were mainly product specs etc. And what I knew about Garmin were their popular GPS navigational devices for cars! Didn't know they sell something for runners.

Luckily I came into contact with phoenix, a seasoned runner in the LowYat forum, who carries the Polar brand here in Msia and is knowledgeable enough to know how Polar and Garmin target their products.

He told me Polar is a heart rate monitor (HRM) centric company while Garmin is GPS-centric. This means if your primary need is to have a device to monitor your heart-rate, go get a Polar. Add a footpod later if you wish to track distance/speed.

The Polar RS300X recommended by phoenix

Note: Feel free to contact phoenix (at his website) if you wish to know more about Polar devices.

However if your need is more like mine ie distance/speed is primary and heart-rate monitoring is secondary, a Garmin might be a better option (especially if you intend to use GPS to map your runs). Garmin has made its name in its GPS navigational devices and it's carrying over it's GPS technology into it's Forerunner series of running devices.

The latest catalogue of Forerunner sports watch from Garmin

Initially I was going to get myself the Forerunner 305 but hesitated at its price (rm1,280) and the fact that the FR405 and FR310XT are newer models made it hard for me to splash the cash on the (older) FR305.

After careful study of their manuals (downloadable from Garmin), I decided the Forerunner 50 (FR50) would best serve my needs. The FR50 is fairly basic - compared to the newer FR405 - and it doesn't have GPS built-in but it has the two essential components; the footpod and heart-rate monitor. Not to mention the FR50 looks better on my wrist than the bulkier FR305.

The FR50 which looks just like any sportswatch

The full package (ie FR50 watch + footpod + HRM) is a few hundred ringgit cheaper than the FR305; and it does seem to do all that I need ie track my distance, track how fast I'm running and later analyze my splits, pace, and heart-rate.

The only thing missing is the GPS function but since I'm not going to run that many races in a year - with most of my training runs being done indoors at True Fitness - I can't justify getting a GPS device for the sake of being the Joneses with the latest gadget. Call me cheap. :P

Hunted around for shops that carry this product... and found one at Low Yat ie. Premier GPS in UG Floor. They made me an offer I can't refuse.. hehe. Well, actually it was more like I needed it the following day for the Jog for Hope run which would be the best run for me to testdrive this before the following week's Shape Run.

The picture above shows the Garmin footpod attached to my Adizero Tempo trainer. That was when I used it on the Tempo at the gym to compare the stats taken by the FR50 and those from treadmill. The footpod's more permanent home would be on my Adizero Ace (race day).

How well does the Forerunner 50 perform up to my expectations? Was it useful to help me pace throughout the run? How can it be used as a training tool? Stay tune for my Jog for Hope report where I'll also write about my first impression of the FR50 in my first run using it.

Now the only thing left to do is to find that dude who told me "running is a cheap sport, all you need is yourself and a pair of shoes." hehe

p/s: To those wishing to get the FR50, pls note that Garmin has just released the FR60 which has newer features plus a much smaller footpod.

SCKLM '09 - Interesting Photos

2009-07-07T03:31:00.007+08:00

PHOTOS FROM AROUND SCKLM '09
Just sharing some interesting photos taken by laiwah during the run. :)

#1926, that's the bib number for Muniandy Ramadass who's the first local finisher for the Full Marathon. He clocked 2 hrs 31 min for this run. That's about 36 min for 10km (it's a 17 kph speed) sustained over 2.5 hrs!!

The overall winner is a Kenyan clocking in at around 2 hrs 17 min! :O

#2516 is Ruburn Kummar (MAS) who's first in the 10km category. He completed in 36.5 min.

Some of the Kenyan runners coming in for the 42km finish.

#1246 Georgine Beech was the winner for the Women's 10km category. Her time was 44 min.

Running is not all about winning. You also need to do it with style like our young fren here. :P His time is not bad though at 52+ min for the 10km.

I like #0439; she's a half-marathoner (see her blue bib tag) and she's clocking in at 2 hrs which's impressive. I like her running posture/form where she is a forefoot strike runner (vs "heel strike").

The runner next to her #2480 is also a forefoot strike runner. He's from the Pacemaker group, easily recognizable with their red running vest. They sent in quite a large number of runners.

What is "forefoot strike" running?

Never too old to run... and the grandma (above) deserves a bow from all of us! She not only completed her 10km run but did it in around 60 min!! That's a good 10 min faster than my finishing time.. aiyoh!

Next time anyone tells me he or she is too old to run, I'll pop this photo as my response, hah!

Interesting "twist" she has on her calves as she ran... looks dangerous to me oh.

Saw a few of these pairs of runners. Basically a runner leading another runner who's visually impaired. Warms the heart. Pity the photo is out-of-focus.

Turning into the Big Walk now... :P

Yes, that's the way to finish - smile and wave!

Okie.. now let's come to the "baby strollers". Firstly, how did the organizer allow non-registered runner to get into the route? Only those who clearly displayed bib numbers shud be on the running route, no?

Secondly while I understand why they are doing this ie strolling the babies - must be all nice and warm to have baby running along with daddy towards the finishing line - but HELLO, this is an International Marathon. Do they not realize they could be road hazards to the other runners who are coming in strongly to the finishing line either for their personal best time or position??

ah.. see.... #1240 is a Full Marathon runner and he's almost going to crash into the stroller as he tried to wriggle his way past the crowd.

Ah... eye candy :) The #0002 kid is super cool... btw I was not referring to the kid as eye-candy ;)

This is Peter Lee (#0169), who's leading his visually-impaired fren for the kids dash. Good for you, Pete!

Luv the way kids run... with such abandonment and stamina!! Go Kiddo Go

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The full set of 170+ photos can be viewed at my Flickr site - click here. If you find your running photos in it, email me and I can send the source file to you.

SCKLM '09 - Run for a Cause!

2009-07-06T01:18:00.017+08:00

Sunday, June 28. Finally... Run Day is here! After weeks of anticipation, THIS IS IT!

A sell-out crowd of 12,500 runners... from over 30 countries. All converging this day to Dataran Merdeka to run a good race, be it the full marathon at 42km, the half- at 21km, the quarter at 10km (which is what I'm taking part in) or the fun run at 5km (which turned into the "amazing race", but more of that later hehe).

Woke up as early as 4.30am, quick breakfast of banana, oats, milk/soy and after checking to take sure we've all the necessary items - bib number, GoGear, ID docs, running shoes, some cash - off we left for Menara Olympia. Laiwah's following us along as "official" photographer with her 450D. Her first time shooting marathon/running event. :P

Reached Menara Olympia (where my office is located) just shy of 6am. No road block along the way to detour us. Intention was to park here and then walk to Dataran Merdeka as I do not suppose we'll be able to get any parking near the Dataran area since the full- and half-marathon runs flag off at 5am and 6am respectively, while our 10km starts at 7am.

Met up with the Datacomers - Ron, SuE, Daren, Wong, Patrick (and his two frens Yeoh and Chin). Two FFKed last minute - Aaron and Nicole. :S A quick change of clothes/shoes, bib numbers and off we strolled towards Dataran Merdeka.

We did not reach Dataran as early as I'd wanted and we ended up at the back of the block. This means we'll be slow off the block. Started with some warm-ups and stretching while waiyan seemed more busier catching up with many of her "long-lost" frens whom were taking part in the run. Anyway her category (5km) only starts at 8am.

The customary "Before Run" photo of the Datacom Team (from left) - Patrick, me, SuE, Ron and Daren

We were flagged off at 7am sharp... but from where we were standing/waiting.. we were still stationary. Duh! The front block took a rather long time to disperse up the route.

We did finally make it to the Starting Line (which is where our bib registered itself with the timing device to indicate our net start time). I glanced up to the digital timer and close to 4 min has elapsed since gun time. I knew it'll be slow to get off the block if we stayed at the back but I didn't realized it's THIS slow... aiyoh.

This is how it looked from my view while waiting for the other runners to disperse... (Photos taken from another site (c))

MY RUN
Anyway once I was past the Starting Line, slowly got into jogging pace. There were ppl everywhere!! Last I heard, the 10km category has about 4,000+ runners. It can be really difficult navigating your way past the sea of runners, each running at their own pace (some just walking along, aiks at just 500m off the starting line?)

I quickly picked a "pacer" ie someone who's running at a pace slightly faster than me whom I can follow and pace myself until I'm ready to move up a gear. I did not get this man's bib number but I would like to appreciate him for pacing me during the early part of the run.

The first water station was at 3km. I saw a huge crowd jostling for water so didn't bother to stop. I did see SuE going into the crowd to join the water-jostling. So she was keeping up with me then. :)

I continued to follow my pacer till close to the 5km point when I thought the pacer might be going at a pace that's too slow for me. After getting some water at the 5km water station I started to break away and picked up pace for the last 5km. Later SuE told me she saw me overtaking her at the 5km mark. Hmm.. so she was even ahead of me till the 5km point - not bad wor!! :P

Continued at a brisk pace till we reached Bank Negara. That's when we were approaching the last 3km of the 10km run. It was about 5 min to 8am then and I knew I was not doing fast enough splits to finish this race in my target 60 mins.

Picked up a faster pace hoping to finish strongly. Towards the last stretch along Jln TAR, I found I was even able to sprint towards the finish line! If I can "sprint" at the end, it's definitely poor pacing by me. :(

Here's how I did for SCKLM run:

Category: 10k Run 10km (Men)
Position: 766
Net Start: 07:01:40
Net Time: 01:08:53
Finish Timing: 01:12:28.03

DATACOM
Here's a quick snapshot of the other members from the Datacom team. Happy to report all of them completed the race, yeah!

Datacom Team (from top): Daren, Ron, SuE, Patrick and Wong

The Datacom team with our 10km finishers medals. Missing in the group pic here is Wong. I did meet him at the finishing line and asked him to join us at the rendezvous point... but didn't see him around.

The Datacom Finishers (from left): Jeff, SuE, Ron, Patrick and Daren

THE AMAZING 5K RACE
waiyan signed up for the 5k Run together with a few of her frens. She has been training and pacing for a 40+ min finish and imagine her surprise when in the actual run today, she ended up back to the finishing line in just 20 min!!

waiyan doing her 5km run ;)

Turned out there was some miscommunication and the runners were misdirected to a shorter 2km route!! What a downer!! Imagine signing up and paying for a 5km experience and getting shortchanged becoz someone didn't do their job properly (I'm blaming the organizer Octagon, and not the volunteers).

You bet there's plenty of talk about this "Amazing 5k Race" at the SCKLM Facebook page. Is it too much to expect the organizer to put up proper signages at each turning point in the route to direct the runners properly?

And when she approached the Race Director wanting to find out why they had such a "short run" - well, he was wearing the t-shirt with the word "Race Director" boldly printed on it - the answer she got from him was downright rude and shocking... that I chose not to print here.

A BADLY ORGANIZED RUN
While my 10km run was relatively without incident, it was not so for the full- and half-marathons. In addition to the Amazing 5k Race (above), the marathons were plagued with water station problems, traffic control, dangerously placed mobile toilets (imagine placing the mobile toilet on the opposite side of Mahameru highway such that when runners need to pee, they have to play "Why did the chicken cross the busy highway" game), marred the experience for many of the runners.

All of these have been widely cerita in the SCKLM Facebook page so I won't want to repeat them here. Go to the Facebook site if you wish to read about the hoo-has. :)

They even made a boo-boo about giving the first prize to the second placed runner during the prize giving ceremony. Aiyoh!

RUNNING FOR A CAUSE - Nature, Our Heritage, Ours to Protect
Part of our involvement in this run is taking part in their Run for a Cause event where we use this event to create awareness and raise funds for one of five selected charity organizations. I picked Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) http://www.mns.my/ as I wish to help create more awareness for MNS in their effort to preserve our natural heritage.

The result is a total of RM1,200 raised from my personal contacts and Datacom. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who have generously donated to the MNS cause. And a note of appreciation to all the Datacom runners who took part in this charity run. :)

Group photo of both 10km and 5km runners. Congrats to all of you... you've successfully Ran Your Race!

Special thanks to my sis laiwah for coming along to take all the nice photos you see here.. The problem being the photographer is that your face doesn't end up in the album! So I searched for other marathon blog & photo sites, hoping someone would have taken a photo of laiwah in action.

Lo.. I found it at Winnie Wong's photo site. Thanks again, laiwah :)

(c) Winnie Wong

SCKLM '09 - Pre-Run Days

2009-07-06T00:01:00.014+08:00

Friday, 26 June (T-2). After weeks of preparation and anticipation, the day is almost upon us. The Run Day is just a couple of days away and today's the first day for the collection of our Race Pack!

With Datacom sending a team of 8 ppl for the Run for a Cause event, I took the team out for a pre-race lunch at Hoong Hoong Yong Tau Foo at Ampang before we adjourned to Dataran Merdeka to collect our race packs.

It rained while we were having our lunch at Hoong Hoong but by the time we reached Dataran, the rain had stopped and it was a cool nice Friday afternoon while we waited in the queue for our race collection.

We'll be starting off against the backdrop of this historic building

As expected there was a large crowd... hmm, dun all these ppl got to go back to work? Then again I suppose they would be asking the same question of us. hehe....

I'd expected a long queue since we've 12,500 runners all coming to collect their race packs in only a 2-day period (today and tomorrow). Can't understand why SCKLM didn't spread the collection into more days or (even better) offer to have the race packs delivered to your doorstep (like what HooHa.asia is doing for the Putrajaya Night Run).

I think we started to queue around 1.30pm and the queue didn't seem to move much as the hot afternoon sun slowly started to trickle back, and the afternoon was not so cool & nice anymore. :(

The queue didn't seem to move AT ALL... the ladies in our group were starting to hide behind umbrellas, shades or watever cover they could find! A few started calling back to the office to make arrangement for their backups as it did not look like we'll be able to get back to the office anytime soon.

When it reached our turn, we finally understood why the queue moved so slowly.. the volunteers have to search for our running vest by size, and they also have to locate our bib number (ie the runner number we attached to our chest on run day) as the system already pre-allocated the bib number for us.

haiz... you can guessed what can turn wrong in such situation? Some people asked for change of vest size.. some bib numbers cannot be located... Murphy's Law cropping up everywhere.

In the end, six of us managed to get our complete race packs but two couldn't find their bib numbers! Another colleague who's collecting for two of his frens also hit the same snag - no bib number.

We reported the bib number issue to the Info Center and not surprisingly there was already a long list of runners who did not get their bib numbers too. I was told someone will call us back once they sorted out our bib number. Nothing much we can do but to leave Dataran and hope someone "will call" us back. It was already past 3pm when we left.

That was for the 10km queue. My colleague who's collecting for the 5km race was stuck in the queue till 4.30pm!! For his patience he got two bonus events - afternoon rain and computer system down.. kaka.

The irony was not lost on us that we actually spent more time waiting in-queue to collect our race packs than we would have spent running our race! haiz.

And on that evening, the SCKLM page on Facebook were bombarded with complaints from runners facing the same problems as us! tsk tsk....

As to the contents of the Race Pack, I like the quality of the material for the running vest, and the bag looks nice. Other than that, it's quite "bare" with only promotional brochures from StanChart and the sponsors masquerading as "contents". Aiyoh...

Saturday, 27 June (T-1). I'd tapered off my training runs at the gym since last Sunday to give my legs the proper rest before run day (I'm not 18 yrs old anymore la). To get my body back into readiness for tomorrow's run, I woke up early in the morning and went for a slow easy 3km jog at KLCC with waiyan. Nice to have a spouse who shares your luv for running. ;)

I usually do my on-the-road runs at KLCC in the evening.. and a morning run was so .... different. The air was very refreshing and you could almost smell the morning dew. Must make a note to do more early morning OTR runs.

At noon, I returned to Dataran to see if the missing bib numbers from yesterday were ready. I was expecting a large crowd at Dataran since the SCKLM page at Facebook said only 5,000 runners collected theirs yesterday.

Well, I was surprised to find that Dataran was rather... empty. Hmm.. did they get super-efficient in disbursing the race packs today? Or did the 7,000 just gave up after reading all the ceritas on the SCKLM Facebook? hehe...

The "empty" race pack collection counters that greeted me at Dataran

Anyway I quickly got the missing bib numbers sorted out, and can even leisurely walk over to check what the other booths were promoting. MGIS was doing their sports insurance and Reebok's there as well with their sports attire/gear. Bought a box of Powerbar at 50% discount and signed up for the Adidas King of the Road run (which is on Aug 2).

The lesson of the story? Pick up your race pack on the 2nd day la!! LOL

We met this couple who came all the over from HK to participate in this run! I should have asked but I supposed they took part in the StanChart HK Marathon as well. I really admired their dedication to running.

Yeah, the 1-Malaysia thingie... hehe

Guess what? I forgot to ask their names or to introduce ourselves. Duh? Where were my manners... sigh.

This is where we'll start (and finish) the race tomorrow...

Alrite, race pack collected, bib numbers ready... get an early nite's sleep and we are all set to Run our Race tomorrow!

p/s If you want to know more about all the hiccups on Race Pack collection days, drop in to the SCKLM Facebook site. :P

To view the full set of photos at Flickr, click here.

Love & Suffering

2009-07-02T05:49:00.002+08:00

Saw this from a fren's blog.. haha.. I luv the convoluted humour that's Woody!

“… To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; to not love is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”
- Woody AllenAmerican Actor, Author, Screenwriter and Film Director, b.1935

11 Reasons Top reasons why ladies today are still single??

2009-06-18T04:07:00.003+08:00

Saw this from another blog... funny... like to share it here. :P

11 Reasons Top reasons why ladies today are still single??

1. The nice men are ugly.

2. The handsome men are not nice.

3. The handsome and nice men are gay.

4. The handsome, nice and metrosexual men are married.

5. The men who are not so handsome, but are nice men, have No money.

6. The men who are not so handsome, but are nice men with money think we are only after their money.

7. The handsome men without money are after our money.

8. The handsome men, who are not so nice and somewhat metrosexual, don't think we are beautiful enough.

9. The men who think we are beautiful, that are metrosexual, somewhat nice and have money, are cowards.

10. The men who are somewhat handsome, somewhat nice and have some money and thank God are heterosexual, are shy and NEVER MAKE THE FIRST MOVE!!!!

11. The men who never make the first move, automatically lose interest in us when we take the initiative.

"Men are like a fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it's our job to stomp on them and keep them in the dark until they mature into something you'd like to have dinner with."

Adizero Ace

2009-06-15T00:14:00.004+08:00

Since I've had the Tempo (trainer shoes), I've increased my mileage to 10km per session in the gym without "killing" my legs. :P There was a day in May when I happeend to be in Gardens and I thought I might check into the Adidas Performance shop and have them do a scan of my feet to determine my foot type and what type of running shoes would fit me.

I've done the standard "wet foot test" and it showed me as having a normal feet type. The foot scan at Adidas Gardens confirmed I've a neutral foot type - except it showed I'd a slight overpronation on my forefeet when I land (but that's getting technical) - and thus it'll be easy for me to pick up running shoes off-the-shelf.

The shop assistant was very helpful and knowledgeable. He explained the types of running shoes series produced by Adidas - AdiZero and Supernova - and since I already have an Adizero Tempo as a trainer he suggested I get my running flats from the same series.

He recommended either the Adizero CS or Manna since all I'm interested is running 10-15km races. However I couldn't seem to find either the CS or Manna in stock at most of the Adidas shop. Was told by the shop assistant at Adidas Performance Pavilion that these shoes tend to come in "seasons". Duh....

A google thru running forums said Adidas is replacing the RC, CS, and LT with new models; the Ace and Adios. Anyway I saw both these new running shoes at the Adidas shop in Times Square - one black/yellow shoes (Ace) and the other a striking yellow shoes (Adios).

The Adios is a little high-end for me - but it's best if you are doing the half or full marathon (nope, that's not me hehe) - so I settled for the Ace. At 7.5 oz (that's 3.5 oz lighter than the Tempo), it's a very lightweight running shoes. Not to mention being fashionable in black, hehe (and not the boring conventional white).

The downside with the weight is that it has less cushioning than the Tempo so it's more suitable for use in Run Day itself rather than my regular training runs at True Fitness.

Have been breaking-in the Ace for a few weeks at my Sunday KLCC on-the-road runs... and just now did a full 9km run using the Ace. Feels great and everytime I picked up pace, the shoes' "quickstrike" (on the forefeet as you bounced off) felt good! Took me 57 min though (that's a slow time).... need to learn to tackle the "hamburger hills" more efficiently. haiz.

waiyan came along with me and did about 3 rounds (that's 3.9km) in preparation for her 5km run for SCKLM. Think she went over the pace in the 1st round and had some problems with side stitch. Need to help her to pace properly.

Will be going back to the gym over the weekdays to do speedworks for one more week. Need to push my 5km time down to 25min and that means a solid 12kph from start. :P

Two more weeks to SCKLM...

Running for Charity

2009-05-14T01:23:00.003+08:00

It's not always that we get to combine our passion for life with charity work. When I first saw the StanChart KL Marathon (SCKLM) event, I was not sure of taking part. I've been increasing my mileage at the gym but a 10-km run is still a mid-distance run and if you intend to finish the run in reasonably good time, then you need be ready for it.

However once I saw that it has a Run for Cause (charity) option, that made up my mind. Yes, I'll run for charity and I'll get myself prepared for it. :)

The SCKLM event supports 5 charities;

Standard Chartered Trust Fund
Shelter Home for Children
DHRRA Malaysia - Development of Human Resources in Rural Area
NASOM - National Autism Society of Malaysia
Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) - Protection of Malaysia's Natural Heritage

Since GREEN has often been a recent topic of discussion, I picked Malaysian Nature Society (MNS). Would have picked WWF if it was on the list *wink*

The deal is simple:

I sign up as a charity runner, select the non-profit org I wish to plege my donations to and then promote the charity event to solicit donation.
Those who wish to donate can just do so at the SCKLM website where each of us charity runners have a page of our own.
Once we managed to raise RM500, we'll get to take part in the run (Jun28).
All dollars raised by this initiative will be donated to the nominated charity organizations.

Of course, I could just sign up as a normal runner and paid RM50 and not have to worry about having to raise RM500 donations. I suppose being able to help raise some funds for one of these non-profit organizations would make the run much more meaningful.

If you wish to support me (and MNS) in my run for charity, you may donate via Stanchart at this webpage.
http://www.kl-marathon.com/charity/profile.asp?id=7&ch=5

On behalf of Malaysian Nature Society and our environment, I thank you in advance. Your kind support will go a long way to helping MNS achieve their conservation goals and help preserve the environment for our future generation. You can read more about MNS and their activities at their website: http://www.mns.my/

NATURE - Our Heritage, Ours to Protect!

Note: Stanchart can issue you tax-exemption receipt for your donation.

The Midnight awaits...

Killing two health birds with one well-placed kidney stone?

27 Sep 2011: Siemens Run 2011

What dreams wouldn't we dream if we knew we wouldn't fail?

Lord of the Rings Chess Set

BIM2011 - Running along the coastline

Borneo International Marathon 2012 date announced!

BIM2011: Race Pack Collection

The Bladerunners

Change.Work.Shop

Meet-n-Greet makes for a Quiet Day in Oslo

OSLO - The 2nd Most Expensive City in the World?

HUKM Run for a Ray of Hope

Busy As Busy Is

Terry Fox Run 2010

Short & Sweet Theatre Gala Finals 2010

Kings & Queen of Comedy Asia 2010

Zumba your Way to Charity

It's Show Time!

Mandarin Grill Once More

Terry Fox Run 2010

10 in 10 makes another 10

Kanban

Adidas Refresh Your Gear Promotion

K-SWISS, the new Swoosh?

BEATLES here there everywhere....

My long awaited report for the recently concluded Newton 12K Run

The Month of Gluttony

Charity Art for the Children of Cambodia

Cheng Beng 2010 - Mixing technology with traditional custom

Yoga for Runners

27 Mar '10 - Energizer Night Race: A night of heavy breathing bunny run...

14 Mar '10: Bareno Run 2010 - If the hills dun kill you....

The Run of Your Life

Band of Brothers 2 (Pacific) to premier March 14 (HBO)

Fried-out Kombie to pay Kookaburra royalties...

How *NOT* to do sms marketing!

6 Feb '10: Putrajaya Night Run 2010

19Jul09 Jog for Hope - A leg forward for charity

Garmin Forerunner 50

SCKLM '09 - Interesting Photos

SCKLM '09 - Run for a Cause!

SCKLM '09 - Pre-Run Days

Love & Suffering

11 Reasons Top reasons why ladies today are still single??

Adizero Ace

Running for Charity

How NOT to do sms marketing!