k r i s a n d r o

Inspired by the brilliant Yasmin Ahmad‘s commercial above titled “Funeral” in 2009 and from my company’s interns who wrote amazingly witty things about each other on rediscover.sg, I find it very sad that many people only stop to say (or think) deeply about people whom have passed on.

I am agnostic and I am not sure if I can attend my own funeral after my death (if spirits existed) or if I can have access to Facebook in heaven/hell (if they existed) to check on wall posts from my friends. Even if Facebook is available after death, connectivity probably ain’t that good up so high and underneath the ground.

Won’t you be interested to know what people will say after your death WHILE you are still alive?

So I died! What say you?

For those who have not been following my social updates on Twitter and Plurk, I was actually diagnosed with Pneumonia in my left lung in Nov last year after a long bout of flu, sore throat and a persistent cough. I really have to thank the Medical Officer during my reservist for referring me to Changi Hospital’s A&E. Else, I would have stubbornly stuck to the “miraculous healing powers of the human body”.

In the short few weeks of November, I lost a good 4kg or so.

After seeing a specialist once in December and in January, my lung was declared free of the disease and I even helped to complete my doctor’s sentence,

“Okay, your x-ray looks good. So I guess you are free…”

“.. TO DO ANYTHING I WANT!”

The doctor broke into a grin and knew I was referring to running.

It was really difficult to stop all the training. Besides the fear of wasting all the effort and improvement from the training cycle, it was painful to not sweat it out on the pavements and roads. I lost count of the number of times in the last 3 months where I would stare longingly at someone breaking sweat on a run. Any onlooker would have mistaken the stare for something else.

I finally got back to jogging last week and it felt so good getting my feet moving along that I was smiling to myself like a smitten puppy in love. Many have professed their admiration for my persistence in running but I have to say that I really have it easy considering how much I really, really love running.

Every setback is a lesson and although I might never pinpoint the reason why I acquired pneumonia, I am definitely putting more thought into the post-exercise recovery process. Downing myself with vitamins after hard workouts, eating healthier (not doing it for now. I blame the back-to-back festivities), rest and compression.

Compression is a sports science proven way of helping performance and recovery and I do have a full length compression tights but KuKuNehNeh forbids me to wear them for prolonged periods for fear of the death of my “soldiers” in the crotch area and so I have resorted to the following attire after workouts.

The black portion are are 2XU compression calf sleeves. The white portion are Phiten Knee sleeves that I doubled up as thigh compression sleeves.

The ugly red portion is just a pair of shorts that I bought many years back on a day with a bad taste in fashion.

Some of us humans has this ability to create a connection with anyone they meet and I think that although I am lacking in this aspect, I seem to have this ability with animals.

For example, KuKuNehNeh loves animals and likes to play with the neighbourhood cat who is lovingly named as “Or-Ki” (mole) or “Or-Bak-Kak” (eye bruise). Even when she is doing all the weird cat calls or petting the cat to get it’s attention, the cat will still tend to give me more affection.

The 6 lovebirds we have at home also seem to be more interested in me and even the office cat, Yuniko Lim Fei Mao has this affinity with me. Okay, maybe the latter’s connection was based on the food that I gave it but the fact is, they all like me!

So KuKuNehNeh has this conclusion that in my past life, I was a…

…Tree

Her reasoning is that birds love trees because they like to perch on them.

Cats love trees for scratching and climbing.

Dogs…. Well… Dogs love trees because they pee on them.

Once again, the curse of the pre-race strikes. It started with a sore throat last week, followed by flu and then fever. I haven’t been well for the last 8-9 days and I haven’t been running when I should be peaking for my half-marathon training.

This simply sucks. It’s like taking huge leaps to be only picked up by an undeniable force and then flung backwards. Who knows how long this bout of illness is going to last.

I’ve been coughing till my lungs hurt and I’ve spouted enough phlegm to unsettle any steely man.

I really wanted to race so much at the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2010. I’ve been training hard for a personal best and I knew I can do the half-marathon under 2hrs. I even felt that I can push it further and aim for a 1hr 50min finish but now I don’t even know if I can recover in time to condition myself to finish 21.1km. It’s only 20 days left.

Long distance running is a life long sport and I should take it in my stride but these pre-race curses are happening back-to-back and I feel quite defeated.

I just want to run.