A Fictional Advice Column

An example of how a typical university student these days would answer his exam question:

Dear Cornelius,

I am 44 years old and have an uncontrollable extreme urge for rough sex. Unfortunately, my wife is not agreeable to such sexual habit. She has been complaining to me regularly about it, but I ignored her complaints. Then last night while I was sleeping, my wife used a razor blade to cut off my penis. I woke up in horror and in extreme pain.

I have since been rushed to the hospital and had undergone a surgery to reattach my penis. Now I am recovering. But I don't know if my penis will ever be able to function as it used to before the incident. My wife has been detained by the police. I am lost and don't know what to do. Could you please advise?

Dick

Dear Dick,

Razor blades are very sharp objects, and obviously are potential weapons that can cause serious injuries. Gillette razors, in particular, are exceptionally sharp. But there are several other brands in the market these days. I have found that the China-made razors that are commonly available in RM2.00 shops are not as good because they won't give you a satisfactory shave. If Gillette razors are too expensive for you, I would suggest that you buy a mid-range type that can shave well, although it probably won't last as long. I would strongly advise you to ensure that you keep your razor blades in a locked cabinet, away from kids and your wife. Good luck on choosing a perfect razor blade for yourself.

Cornelius

Against Motherly Instinct

In the movie Rise of the Planet of the Apes, an experimental viral-drug ALZ-112 was administered to a chimpanzee named Bright Eyes, thus greatly increasing her intelligence. Although she was a tame animal, she suddenly became wild when forced from her cage, and went on a rampage. In the end she was killed. It wasn't until after her death that it was discovered that she had recently given birth, and it could be assumed that her reaction was that of a motherly instinct to protect her baby. 

In the animal kingdom, even very fierce predators such as tigers have the motherly instinct too. That motherly instinct is much more powerful than even the survival instinct. Tigers are not known to eat their own cubs even if they're at the point of starvation. However, they have no qualms in killing the babies of other animals, even if they know that that amounts to taking away the babies from their mothers. 

The motherly instinct of the tigers is only powerful enough to offset the survival instinct as far as dealing with their own cubs. But when dealing with the babies of other animals, the survival instinct reigns supreme, even if the tigers can appreciate that they're destroying the mother-baby bond of their preys. Such is the harsh living condition in the animal kingdom. 

Humans are born with the motherly instinct too; and I find it quite amazing that such instinct can sometimes last a lifetime. Perhaps tigers may protect their young ones for a number of years, but they will eventually let them grow and find their own ways. Some human mothers can also eventually let their children grow too, but I have seen some who just can't let go—their children will remain to be the driving passion of their entire life, and the "letting go" process will just never happen! 

Because we are slightly more intelligent than the animals—at least I hope we are—we can appreciate the motherly instinct not only in the context of us and our own children, but also that of others. When we see a woman—even if she's a stranger to us—ask for help to reunite her with her child, our instinct is to help her achieve just that. 

If ever I'm fated to end up with a failed marriage, let me just say now that I shall never deny my wife the right of custody to my daughter; although if I can help it, I would want to have at least a joint custody. That is because I can't see myself making my wife go through the pain of not having her child with her, regardless of whatever differences between the two of us. 

I think if this world is free of religions, money and social status, we can then see clearly that a woman deserves to be with her child. For deep down in our hearts, I know that none of us would take away a child from his or her mother, unless of course if there is evidence that that mother is a threat to the best interest of the child. Any legal system that prevents her that right is just so wrong. We are not like the tigers that only care for our own love for our own children, but couldn't care less about another woman's craving to be with her child. 

Well, I guess that's just wishful thinking; the reality is that religions, money and social status will always make us blind. How I wish that we can put aside religions, money and social status, and just do the right thing. Obviously not everybody agrees with me, and I respect the opposing opinions. If others are still convinced that the child should NOT be reunited with the mother, then so be it. I just hope that it's not done for the wrong reason.

The NeverEnding Story—The Challenge Continues

Shortly after the Ironman Western Australia (IMWA) last month, my friend, Teo Chen Lung, threw out yet a new challenge to me. He said we should bet on dinner for the 113 Sabah Triathlon on 13 March 2016. I was then still recovering from the torture of IMWA and wasn't quite sure how to react to that challenge. Originally, the IMWA was supposed to have been the ultimate challenge according to Teo, because he said he was going to "retire" after the IMWA. He explained that all future races would be strictly for medal-collection only. I was, like, OK, so yet another challenge, I suppose I could still play along just for one more race against Teo. 

After we were done with the IMWA, we decided to visit Tasmania and Melbourne, and it was in Melbourne when Teo surprised everybody; he bought himself a new tribike—the Cervelo P5. Never mind the price of his new bike; let me just say that it's very expensive. I'm guessing that very few average Malaysian wage earners can save up for the cost of the Cervelo P5 within 3 years, maybe even 5 years. The bike is an awesome piece of modern technology. Here's what it looks like:

Notice that the brake and gear-shifter cables are concealed. I'm afraid I'm not an expert on bikes; I know just enough of the very basic stuff. Of course I know how to fix a puncture reasonably fast these days. When I started cycling a few years ago, I tried to help a friend to fix her puncture, but it was a horrible and embarrassing failure. I blogged about that experience here.

Anyway, one of the main reasons for the concealed cables on the P5 is that that can help to reduce air resistance when the bike is in motion, i.e. the attempt to make the bike as aerodynamic as possible. In fact the whole design of the bike—the frame, the wheels, the fork etc—is in such a way to make it aerodynamic so that, according to Teo, the bike can slice through the air with minimal air resistance.

That word aerodynamic has a kind of magical effect on Teo. I fancy that he spends at least half of his days trying to figure out a way on how to improve the aerodynamics of his bike. For example, for the IMWA, he actually designed his own bike pouch by diligently cutting out a cardboard model and then sending that to the tailor to custom-make the pouch; all for the sake of aerodynamics. Needless to say, even his bike accessories such as water bottles and helmet are all carefully chosen on grounds of aerodynamics.

I'm thinking maybe if he searched hard enough, he would be able to find a size XXXL condom in the market, so that he could wear that over his head when racing since that can surely help to make his head more aerodynamic? Umm... I'm talking about the head on his shoulders, of course. This is on the assumption that he has a convincing explanation for his wife. The only downside of that plan is that he may just die from suffocation, but hey, it's worth it for the sake of aerodynamics, you know! Knowing that he is a professional civil engineer, I carefully refrain from reminding him that the human body is very un-aerodynamic. Come to think of it, I never did pay any attention on his legs. It's entirely possible that he shaved his legs too.

So now the 113 Sabah Triathlon will be yet another epic race between Teo and me. Since this will be a Half Ironman distance triathlon, he said he will go "all out from start to finish". The funny thing is that both of us are not very strong triathletes, and our speed is perhaps just average and nothing to shout about. But we behave like we are pros! And that makes us even more entertaining than the real pros!

I think it will be an uphill task against Teo in the coming 113 Sabah Triathlon, because it's a much shorter race than the IMWA and of course the P5 factor, but I'm sure as hell not gonna let him win without a fight! Win or lose, it doesn't matter much to me; I'm happy with whatever outcome as long as I've given it my best shot. Just that winning will come at a cost—chances are Teo will then delay his "retirement" once again and will challenge me to yet another showdown somehow. This kind of NeverEnding story has been going on for far too long, and physically I'm just getting very tired. I just don't know how much longer I can keep it up! I really need a break!

Ironman Western Australia 2016—Mission Possible

The last few months have been very exhausting as I was training for the Ironman Western Australia (IMWA). I have done an Ironman race at Lake Taupo, New Zealand, in March last year which I finished in about 15:32. That was a lonely trip for me. I was supposed to have raced together with my friend, Teo Chen Lung. But a bike crash a few weeks before the race forced Teo to withdraw from the race. I felt like I owed Teo another shot to race against me, and so both of us registered for the IMWA.

Going into the IMWA, I trained an average of about 10-12 hours per week, and then up to about 13-14 hours per week during the last 6 weeks before the race. However, if I had the time, I would have liked to train at least 15 hours per week, and possibly up to 20 hours peak before tapering for the race. Teo was able to log more training hours as he was training mornings and evenings.

We had a bet between us—whoever lost the race would have to buy the winner dinner. Now if you had known Teo, you would know that he only bets when he is at least 90% sure that he would win. I think he was confident because of several factors. He swam several 4km sessions in the pool in his wetsuit before the race; he logged more training hours; and I have a shrewd suspicion that he knew that he would be able to finish the IMWA in under 15 hours. That is of course at least half an hour faster than my 15:32 finish in New Zealand.

But a few months ago, I had a plan. I wasn't sure if it was a sound plan, but I felt like it was worth the gamble. Because of time constraints, I knew that I couldn't train all 3 sports fully, so I would have to prioritize. I decided to focus on the bike, because to me the bike leg is the key for the long triathlon. That is a little strange because swimming is my weakest sport. Logically, I should have spent more time in the pool, but I decided otherwise because not only is the swim the shortest of the 3 disciplines, but I reckoned that although I was gonna be slower than Teo, it would be just a matter of 5-10 minutes. If my bike is strong enough, I can very easily gain back the time in that leg of the race. The mission at IMWA shall be, first and foremost, to achieve a personal best (PB), and secondly, to prevent Teo from beating me.

And so Teo and I found ourselves at the Busselton Jetty on 6th December on a cold windy morning. That was the start of a day-long torture. Teo reminded me one last time that we had dinner at stake for the race, and we even shook hands on it.

At first, I had intended to swim leisurely and conserve energy for the bike and run legs. But that was wishful thinking. The sea was so rough that morning, I struggled almost throughout, perhaps consuming several litres of sea water in the process. Before the race, Teo said he would expect to finish the swim in about 1:30-1:35, but I said I'd probably take at least 1:40. Well, I was still struggling at 1:40 into the race, and I felt like I was hardly moving forward at all. In the end I took about 1:55 to finish the swim; that must have been the longest 4km swim for me, ever.

In my mind, I was thinking Teo might have finished his swim in about 1:40, and the thought that I was behind by a margin of 15 mins was quite heart-breaking. I got into Transition 1 (T1) and spent some minutes struggling out of my wetsuit and then changed into my bike outfit. Then a quick visit to the toilet. I spent a total of about 10 minutes at T1.

As I started the bike leg, the thought of the hard work catching up with Teo began to sink into my head. I remained calm, however, and stuck to my game plan. In terms of cycling abilities, I can ride at an average of 33kph on flat roads these days, but because this was an Ironman race, I had to conserve energy. But still, I had to make up on lost time during the swim. Thankfully, we had tailwind for the first 20km or so of the bike leg, and I took advantage to ride a little faster. And then shortly after an hour later, I had a pleasant surprise. "Is that Teo up ahead? Well, what d'you know, that is him!"

After I overtook Teo, I began to ease back on the pedals. There were several turning points, and at each turning point, I could judge how far ahead I was. Things went as I had planned, I was increasing the gap between Teo and I. I could have easily declared that the bike leg was perfect, except that it's a little boring, and the headwinds at several sections were quite punishing. At the last turning point, I saw Teo again, and I estimated that I was about half an hour ahead of him. I merely maintained my speed for the remaining 20km or so. I was so happy that the puncture god decided to be kind to me!

At T2, I spent another 10 minutes. At that point of the race, I knew that I had achieved my PB even though I still had a full marathon to run. The abrupt shift of focus to ensure that Teo won't make a comeback. Half an hour's buffer against him may seem comfortable, but things can change quickly in an Ironman race! I kept a cool head and was down to a slow jog. I was tired, of course, but all I had to do was to be ahead of Teo!

The run leg of the race was made up of 4 loops along the beach. Very simple, but can be boring. Teo had said that he expected to finish his run in about 6.5 hours, but of course that was rubbish. That kind of trick from him can no longer work on me these days! As I made the first turning point, I saw Teo on the other side of the road. We were both walking by then, and he tried so very hard to show that he's in trouble. He said he could no longer run, felt like vomiting, suffering pains all over. I played along and said I felt exactly the same way too. After about 50metres, when I turned back, I saw him running, of course, and I started running again too.

However, during the second turning point in the second loop, I realised that Teo had gained back about 10 minutes, thus indicating that he had been running a fair bit. So much for 6.5 hours marathon! I knew that he had wanted to make an impressive strong finish in the run leg, so I started to run again to maintain the gap between us.

Then a moment of panic during the third loop. Looking at my GPS watch, I had expected to see Teo on the other side of the road, but he was nowhere to be seen! A little further later, still no Teo! Did he manage to overtake me somehow, and I didn't see him in the crowd? Anxiety...

I ran and ran until it dawned upon me that Teo must have overtaken me. It was such an unsatisfactory way to finish the race. So much hard work, and I lost it all in the end! I slowed down to a walk...feeling disappointed. It was then that I saw Dennis Tan, my friend who took up the role as the photographer for the event. I asked him if he had seen Teo ahead of me, but he said he did not. I still couldn't believe that I've lost the race to him. Dennis said would I like to run? I said there wasn't much point in running. I had already achieved my PB, but no amount of running then would make me win back dinner!

Then the second big surprise of the day. Teo emerged from the opposite direction! Speaking of the devil! At that point, he was perhaps a little over 2km behind me, which must have meant he had been working really hard to catch up, but the good news was that he was still behind me! About 8km to go to the finish line, and if I wasn't careful, things can still go the wrong way! Dennis must have found it a little amusing; suddenly I sprang back into action; I started running and was gone in a jiffy!

I ran and walked for the next 6km, and with just 2km remaining to the finish line, I decided I should not even allow Teo any chance at all. I just gave all that I had left in my legs, and crossed the finish line in about 14:37. Teo arrived about 15-16 minutes later.

A case of a narrow escape from losing dinner to Teo. But now Teo thinks he has it all figured out for revenge in the 113 Sabah Triathlon in March 2016. Will have to come up with another plan soon!

The Phobia of Failure

I wasn't a top achiever when I was in school. At best, I was just an average student. Well, OK, maybe just a little above average. I did realise the importance of education quite early in my life, of course, and how the number of "A"s I get in the exams would make my parents happy. I was basically a lazy bum for the most part of the primary school years, before I somehow developed a sense of wanting to do well in school in my early teens. Suddenly, failure became a dreadful thing.

But then different people had different definitions for that word "failure". For me, a score of anything below 50% is a failure. I reckon, perhaps the Malaysian education system considers that anything above 30% is a pass and anything below that is a fail. However, for some of my friends in school many years ago, even a "B" fell within the definition of "failure"!

I come from an era when the education system in Malaysia wasn't as ridiculous as it is today. Back then, only the cream of the cream got to score straight-"A"s. Today, an average student can fairly easily score straight-"A"s, or at least very near to it. If I were to randomly throw a stone to a group of students today, there is a high chance that I'd hit one who's a straight-"A"s achiever.

I can still remember when I was sitting for my SPM exams all those years ago. In the weeks and days leading up to the exams, I was overwhelmed by the fear of failure. Thankfully, however, as I said above, my definition of "failure" was a score of anything below 50%. So although I was quite confident of passing the exams, I had to make sure that things won't go the wrong way! I studied late into the night. In fact, I studied well past midnight for the physics papers. As fate would have it, my alarm failed to go off the next morning, and by the time I woke up from my beauty sleep, the physics exam was long over! A bit of an adrenaline surge; and then panic ensued. It felt like one horrible dream; except that it wasn't a dream at all! In the end, I was the only joker in my class that failed the subject!

Whenever I set my mind to achieve something, I practically put my heart and soul into it. Meaning that I'm willing to invest my time and efforts, perhaps making big sacrifices. I make proper plans to account for all the ingredients required to achieve my goal. In many, many instances, I'm bound to achieve what I set out to achieve sooner or later. But unfortunately there will be times when I can't control everything; and some things are bound to go wrong at the last minute. It is then that I will have to rise to the occasion; perhaps come up with a Plan B—a bit of a modification of the original plan; or maybe an improvisation. Damage control is a skill in itself. 

But not everybody is a born crisis manager; not everybody can think of an alternative plan on an ad hoc basis. For some people, they plan for things so perfectly all the time, and have all the factors well covered. In fact, so well-planned that there is no room for things to go wrong. But when things do go wrong somehow, they will crumble.

I read with interest about the kid who committed suicide when he felt that he didn't do too well in his math exam. When things didn't go as planned, he gave up just like that. Now I have said before that failure is not an option whenever I race marathons; but my requirement for a "pass" is quite lenient. Apparently, this kid's requirement is much higher—maybe even a "B" is a failure to him.

I think in a strange way, sometimes failure can be a good thing too. Most, if not all, great successful people in the world have had their shares of failures on the way to become successful. Very few, if any, would get it absolutely right on the first try; and keep getting it right all the time. Dealing with failures and then coming out of them stronger and wiser is an important skill to be learned, because nobody's perfect; it's impossible to escape from making mistakes once in a while. All we can do is to learn from those mistakes, and then try not to repeat them in the future. Hopefully we can become stronger and wiser from the experience. There is always hope as long as we keep trying!

Ignorance Of The Law

A young Murut man had recently ventured out from his village in the interior part of Tenom to seek job opportunities in the hope of improving his family's life. He had very little education—as a boy he went to school irregularly in his village, but he dropped out when he was in primary 4. Education did not seem to be that important for people who lived in the interior.

Now in Tenom, he has found a job as a manual labourer, i.e. every day he's occupied in loading and unloading stuff from delivery trucks at a supermarket. After a few months, he found a girlfriend, and to make the long story short, he ended up having sex with her. Little did he know that that girl was just 15 years old, and he has landed in hot soup and charged for the crime of statutory rape. It came as a shock to him because he did not even realise that consensual sex was a crime on account of age. As far as he was concerned he had committed no crime whatsoever.

Imagine what would happen if people could be let off the hook on grounds of ignorance of the law. Anyone of us can then commit a crime, and then pleads ignorance of the law. We can just kill someone we dislike because he has an ugly hairstyle, and then use the excuse that we're not even aware that murder is a crime in Malaysia.

The fact is that pleading ignorance of the law is never a good defense. It is an excuse that can't stand in court. In fact, it is not even a good way to try to mitigate one's alleged wrong-doing. That is why I find the statement by Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob—that he wasn't aware of the law that prohibits the possession and consumption of turtle eggs in Sabah—rather laughable. One has to wonder why he made that statement at all. If it was meant to soften the blow, then I would say it does nothing of the such. In fact, it gives a negative impression of a minister who's not so well-versed of the law of his own country; a law that is quite common to many ordinary Malaysians.

Road To IMWA—Story Of My Swim

It is now about 3 weeks to the Ironman Western Australia (IMWA), and the excitement is mounting. This coming Saturday and Sunday will be my final monster workouts—about 6 hours cycling on Saturday, and between 3.5 to 4 hours run on Sunday. After that I will begin to taper for the race.

I have said in the past that I don't have the time to train fully according to the standard Ironman training programme, not even the beginner's programme. So I had to prioritize. This time I'm putting a bit more focus on the bike, followed by the run. The swim is my weakest discipline, but I've been neglecting it throughout my preparation for the race. Of course if I had the time and energy, I would have liked to spend the time that swimming deserved, but because of time constraints, I'll have to be satisfied with whatever that I've done for the first leg of the race.

About 5 years ago, some of my regular readers would remember how bad my freestyle was as reported here. Well, I'm still not a great swimmer today. Although I have finished an Ironman race at the Ironman New Zealand, I swam a mixture of freestyle and and breaststrokes for the approximate 4km swim. The swim is the shortest discipline in the Ironman race. But although one can hardly win the race on account of the swim, he can surely lose it!

Throughout the months of training for the IMWA, I've been researching on swim techniques. Unlike the good old days, today the internet is a rich source of information on practically anything, and swimming is no exception. A big hindrance to me is the lack of upper body strength. That problem could be addressed by doing some weight training at the gym, of course. But I just don't have the luxury of time.

I'd like to believe that I've improved quite a lot since 5 years ago when nonstop swimming even 50m in the pool at Likas Sports Complex seemed like an impossible task. But there is still a lot of work to be done to become a fairly good freestyler. I have tried out several different approaches in the freestyle, and I have come to a point where I can safely say that a great deal of time had been wasted because for a long time I tried very hard to swim based on the principles of Total Immersion. It looks very elegant, very smooth, and effortless; but it just doesn't work for me! Check out this youtube clip of a beautifully-executed Total Immersion swim by a famous coach.

A friend tried to convince me to swim the length of the pool with the least number of strokes. He said that the lesser is the number of strokes, the more efficient is the swim. It sounded like a romantic idea of energy-saving way to swim, i.e. less work for more distance. For a while I was taken in; that's why I spent a lot of time trying to swim the Total Immersion (TI) way.

Characteristics of the TI is the long glide in each stroke and the 2-beat kicks, thus the purported "energy-saving". But after a while, I realised something very interesting about the TI; if I can compare it to cycling, it is a lot like pedaling once, and let the momentum move the bike, and then when the bike slows down, pedal once again and let the momentum move the bike forward again. Thus the movements of fast-slow-fast-slow. The cadence or amount of pedaling may be reduced substantially over a given distance, but I don't think that is a more efficient way to ride a bike! Although I can gain a slightly longer distance per stroke with a glide, what I realised was that it takes more energy for the arms to launch the body forward again to build up the momentum in each stroke; and it is that snapping action of the arm that I disfavour so much because of the energy requirement.

In the end, I reverted back to the almost continuous strokes, i.e. with minimal glide so as to prevent losing the forward-moving momentum. In this way, I can use slightly lesser energy in each stroke because I can ride on the momentum. But the downside is that I may eventually have to endure more strokes per given distance. It's a trade-off between number of strokes vs energy requirement that I'm happy to take. I don't mind the few extra strokes for a more consistent (lower) energy requirement in the arms. I'm not saying that the TI is not a good technique. I dare say that it may work wonderfully well for some people. Just not for me.

The only thing that I have maintained about the TI up to now is the 2-beat kicks, i.e. just one kick per arm pull. I'm convinced that that can help a lot in saving my legs for the bike and run legs of the race.

Someone asked me if it's entirely necessary to learn the freestyle for triathlon races. My answer is that it's not. My view is that for shorter races, i.e. Sprint and Olympic Distance triathlon, the breaststrokes is good enough. But what I've realised is that for longer distances such as Half Ironman or Ironman, the freestyle if done properly can have huge benefits in the later stages of the race. That's why I'm forcing myself to learn the freestyle. In the end, even if I finish the swim leg within the same time with a breaststrokes swimmer, I'm quite happy because I'm gonna start the bike leg with much fresher legs.

Those are the theories, of course, but now let's see if I can make it work at IMWA in 3 weeks' time!