k r i s a n d r o

I had an interesting 15.5km long jog this morning.

There was this huge tree that had fallen from Bishan Park, right smack onto the pedestrian road on the park outskirts. Not sure when it fell but it was about 6am when I saw it and I hope nobody was hurt. It then started to rain pretty heavily about 4-5km into my run; the kind of rain that keeps pounding into my eyeballs, disrupting my vision and threatening to dislodge my contact lens. There was also this ghostly wail of a voice that made me jump out of my skin which turned out to be this stealthy cyclist with an umbrella trying to get me out of his way.

Dude, if you are reading this, please install a bicycle bell. I don’t get frightened easily but that was mighty scary. On another note, you have awesomely oiled gears. I had NO INKLING that you were behind me.

Despite dealing with the above, the jog was extremely comfortable. I risked not bringing any fluids along for such a long jog but I didn’t need any in the end. Not that I was drinking from the rain or the flooded drains like some savage but I didn’t sweat much due to the cold weather. Like an over-clocked CPU with good cooling, I guess my bodily engine also enjoyed the dropped temperatures and my timing and level of post-run-panting proved it.

I enjoyed the jog immensely and was reminded of how painful it was to jog/run long distances back in 2009 when I started it all. During runs, I would start to experience sharp jabs of pain from plantar fasciitis in my left sole, right knee aches and the biggest ailment any runner will face; the nagging mind telling me to stop.

“Stop. The pain is so sharp. Stop. Your legs are tired. Stop. Go home.”

So what changed?

3 things: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall, training knowledge & Vibram Five Fingers.

The book gave me purpose and with purpose, comes joy. The knowledge allowed me to embrace safe & productive things like training in heart rate zones. The Vibram Five Fingers simply allowed me to run like how humans were made/designed to; pain free.

I may have started quite late on this journey and still have a lot to learn but I am pretty sure I have a long and enjoyable road ahead; preferably with bell equipped cyclists and upright trees.

My training has been smooth so far after making a full recovery from Pneumonia. Come tomorrow, I would have hit 146km for the past 37 days with about 420km to go before Sundown 2011 on 28th may, 2011.

Looking at my training data, I am very close to the peak of my fitness last year and the road ahead, beyond 240km, is pretty much uncharted waters for me as I have never ran this much before. Although I’ve been reading up on training, the journey of every training cycle is very much a learning process and an ongoing experiment on the limits of the human body. Single human body; my body to be exact.

History (for all of the past 2 years) has proven that I tend to hit a wall of bad health or injury before races but the same history also show that I push my boundaries of fitness each time I tried like the stubborn man I am. So with fingers crossed, I hope that I make it this time for a race and shatter the shameful personal best of 2 hrs 43mins for a 21km run in 2009.

On other news, my trusty pair of Vibram Five Fingers (VFF) KSO have accumulated 568km of mileage so far since I 1st wore them January last year.

Pic taken before I put another 5km in them

The rubber of the “toes” are worn off in quite a few spots where I land and push off during runs and I will have to retire them as soon as my socks show through. As minimalistic as I am, I don’t need holes in my socks. Despite the sadness of the inevitable parting with my very 1st pair of VFFs, the KSO has served me well and seeing that the recommended lifespan of regular shoes are between 500 – 800km, this pair of KSO has lived a pretty good life.

Stay strong my Vibram Five Fingers KSO! With any luck, you’ll live to see yourself break the 600km mark.

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?

As I approach the dreaded big 30, the topic of marriage always lurk around corners. There will be friends of similar age who are getting hitched and are waiting for their HDB to be ready within the next few years. There are those who are already married with a kid or even two. And then there is the girlfriend like mine who is just waiting for me to pop the question.

Credits to hammer51012

The thing about marriage is…… I don’t believe in it if it’s about love.

I always have big notions about love and relationships and it might seem contradicting to my view above but I think marriage is one of the worst things that can be done for most people in love. It makes leaving each other harder if the love is gone.

“The root cause of divorce is …… marriage” - heard over the radio

In many ways, doesn’t it ring true? A marriage is a contract. If two are in love, why is there a need for a contract to bind them together? If one cheated on the other and decided to stay together because of a contract, is it love? If you know of an old couple who has been married for the last 50 years, would you think that they truly love each other? If you know of an old couple who stayed together for the last 50 years without marriage, wouldn’t you think that the latter couple is DEFINITELY much more in love than the former?

If you love someone, you just do; you don’t need to be legally bound to remind you that you should love him/her do you? Marriage is an administrative procedure that allows a couple to do many things legally but does nothing really good for the relationship in the love department. Some might say the marriage protects the woman. When the relationship turns south, the woman is helped legally in many ways. I say, unless the woman is a money grubbing one, she loses more than she gains from a divorce.

Divorce and the social ramifications that stem from it makes it troublesome and difficult to go through.

My point is that marriage is not the ultimate nor the final thing one can do for love. Marriage and love are mutually exclusive. Love can exist without marriage and marriage can be kept without love.

If you want to know if a person is available, don’t ask if he/she is married. Ask if he/she is in love.

I love KuKuNehNeh, and thus I shall comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health and forsaking all others, be faithful to her, so long as I shall live. Sounds familiar? It’s an adaptation of a version of wedding vows that one will take in Singapore and it’s ALREADY true for me. Note that I love her and thus I am/will do all that follows (comfort, honour, faithful….). If I am already doing all that without marriage, why do I have to marry her, take vows of love, promise of eternal faithfulness and care when it can all end with divorce.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll marry my dear KuKuNehNeh in the not so distant future. In fact, I’ve been constantly thinking of ways to propose to her for the last year and more. I know she’ll say ‘yes’ of course but my motive is to make her cry buckets with the proposal. So why do I want to marry her when I don’t believe in marriage?

I’ll marry her not because I love her. I’ll marry her because of all the advantages that society only gives to those who are legally bound by marriage; kids, housing and all. Sounds shallow doesn’t it? But if you really think into what I said, KuKuNehNeh is a very lucky woman because I love her and already treat her as well as a husband should.

Now, to save up for the money sucking activities that society demands for a piece of paper.