I tried another route today, one that I always used to run. It’s the park by the lake at Lakeside. I always thought the distance was about 5 kilometres, but I guess I was wrong.

Here’s the route and analysis of my run today. I doubt the thing is accurate as the start and stop points are different, but I knew I started and ended at the exact same location. So maybe there was about 200 metres more, making my run about 4.7km. It would make my average speed about 9.9kmh. It would be an improvement over the last run, and I know I ran a little faster.

Well, since I know the distance of the route, I guess I am in better position to know how many laps to achieve the desired effect!

My friend today mentioned that it was stupid to run the standard chartered marathon just to feel good about it and get the Tee shirt. He thinks it is a waste of money. He says he can drive and I can run and then provide the same support. -_-”

Although he is probably not talking about me, but I don’t really like it too. The reasons for me wanting to run 42.195km is because I wanted to do it. That is all. I wanted to run it, and hence I chose to do it at Standard Chartered, where they provide water points and medical support. I wanted to feel proud of myself. Call it personal glory or what, but I’m not running just to get a tee shirt I could boast to everyone. I hope everyone will respect this.

I still think 45 dollars is worthwhile. The feeling of running through Singapore, knowing that the roads are closed and you can run uninterrupted; the comfort in knowing that there will be water points, and that there will be proper medical support; knowing that you are indeed running 42.195km instead of having to rely on a GPS to track your run and then make sure you really did 42.195km. And the feeling of running with everyone else who are running for their own personal reasons. I guess it is an experience that cannot be gotten by running on our own. I’m not running for shallow reasons. I’m running because I wanted to show myself that I can do it. I’m running because I promised myself I would, and hence I have to. I’m running because this is a challenge to myself, and I wanted to do the mind over body thing again.

I wanted to run the 42.195km and feel good about it, before I become too old to start running.

I guess, as long as I 问心无愧, it’s fine. No matter how others perceive me in my aim to run this, I am going to run it for myself. Remember the video where the man ran a marathon pushing his disabled son in a wheelchair? He didn’t run it because he wanted the world to know. He didn’t run it because of a tee shirt.

He ran it because his son would never know the feeling of finishing a marathon, and he didn’t want to deprive his son of that satisfaction. God might have taken his son’s ability to run, but God cannot vanquish a determined man’s heart to give his son this pride and joy. He ran it because he could. He ran it because it was a challenge. He ran it because he could feel the joy and satisfaction doing it with his son. And we can only stand at the side and be glad that he did it.

And I am going to run it. No matter what anyone say.

I would just like to say that I have signed up for this year’s Standard Chartered marathon. It’s going to be held on the 5th of December 2010, and I would be running the full marathon, which is 42.195km long. Perhaps it might seem surprising since I was never the really sporty type, and I only engage in the occasional badminton sessions which recently became less occasional.

In reality, I had been thinking about running the Standard Chartered marathon for quite some time now. It would have to be at least a year, since I was thinking about doing the marathon last year, but I ended up not doing it due to school being too busy. Or actually it might just be an excuse. Nonetheless, as of last year, I had already told myself to finish the marathon before I graduate, since I doubt I would have much time to train and prepare for a full marathon once I find employment.

Since I would be a year 4 student in about 2 more months time, this would be the last December of my undergraduate life. Hence I would have to clear the 42.195km this year, if not I would have to do it whilst I work.

Clearing the 42.195km is probably just a challenge I set for myself, having once cleared 22km (slightly more than a half marathon) in SISPEC. In SISPEC, they made us run 22km because they wanted to tell us that we can run a half marathon. In fact, they wanted us to know we could run further than a half marathon, so the symbolic addition of about a km more to the route.

Perhaps I needed some motivation in life, or some form of challenge that make me feel committed. A sense of purpose? I guess to physically run this 42.195km and clearing this huge hurdle of mind over body would be something I would feel proud of myself about. And a sense of devotion to this mission, to start training and keeping myself fit at the same time. When I put on my finisher T shirt at the end of the entire run, I guess, I would feel the sense of pride and excitement.

This time I am going for the run no matter if anyone else is joining me in this 42.195km. I guess in our circle of friends, everyone will have their own interests and priorities, and I would not push them to join because I am joining. I am thankful that people do respect my own wishes too. This is something I have to do for myself too, because I promised myself I would do it, and hence I have to. And I guess I have to be independent about it. Furthermore, everyone runs at a different speed anyway, so it might not be good if the group ends up splitting anyway.

As part of preparations, I downloaded an iPhone app called RunKeeper, which tracks where I run via GPS. Hence I can see my route that I took, as well as the distance, time and speed at every portion of the run. I liked the average speed that the app calculated for me, since speed at every portion is something I had no use for. But when they plot the graph of speed vs time, I could see that my speed was reduced from the beginning and never recovered. I still managed a decent 9.5km per hour, which was slow. I did 10km/ hour during my Guards days, and I would have to catch up soon. And if I can, I would like to eventually meet the 10km in 50 minutes timing that I couldn’t do whilst I was in Guards.

Just to show you my route. I went out of my condo’s side gate, turned right and ran 2 loops. Which would explain why the numbers of the km I ran would appear not to be in sequence. Each round is 2.6km as I found out today. No wonder I couldn’t run my 2.4 properly using this route. The distance is already greater. The red line is the route I took. The blue one is the one I drew for the purpose of grouping similar runs and comparing the data in the future.

This is a great start of my journey towards finishing the 42.195km, and I would need to get a water bag or something for my subsequent trainings of longer distances.

I think running is a great way to start your day. I would know, I just did it today! My Primary School friend called me up and asked if I wanted to go jogging at the Lakeside Park. There’s this new (ok maybe not so new) park at the Lakeside area (Lakeside MRT), part of the ongoing process to link up all the parks in Singapore. Hence there’s running and cycling tracks built there.

So I agreed and I went down. We ran from the start, then into Chinese Garden and ran to Japanese Garden before looping back to Chinese Garden and my friend wanted to climb the 7 Story Pagoda. For a moment I thought he wanted to run up there, and I was bracing myself for it. Then, at the foot of the Pagoda, he said “Yes we made it”. Oh. Haha. Thankfully we didn’t run up because I think that is quite sick and we were quite tired. I am not sure what’s the distance I ran, but I doubt it’s very long. Perhaps we should increase the distance next time.

But I must say it felt good. It’s nice to run with a friend too. We walked out from Chinese Garden, and he bought a drink. I didn’t bring money, so I didn’t get any. But I tell you, it felt simply shiok when I returned home and drank juice. Even juice tastes super shiok. Next time I will bring money and get an isotonic drink to replenish my salts.

The best thing about a run is the shower. A nice long warm shower for me (maybe you would like it cold) really makes me happy.

But I have no idea why, after a run, I would feel disciplined and want to work. For the past few days I have been slacking and not working. My target for launching the second version of NextTutor is tomorrow, but I am afraid I cannot meet the target. But latest would be this week I guess. For now, I have to work!