Borneo Marathon—Surviving The First Week

Yes, folks, It's been slightly over a week since I started training seriously for the half marathon. During the first week, I ran a total distance of 22 km; seven of which was covered in the Sutera Harbour Sunset Run 2008.

Overall, I can say that my training is progressing quite well. I have since lost about 1 kg in body weight. My knees are getting stronger. In fact, I feel my whole body is getting stronger. A bit tired in the mornings after the long runs, but otherwise I'm doing great.

Two days ago I received a call from the lab. The formal report on my medical examination was ready. So yesterday, I made an appointment to see the doctor. I was found to be healthy; even my lipid profile turned out to be very good:

Total cholesterol = 4.4 mmol/l

Triglycerides = 1.6 mmol/l

HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) = 1.5 mmol/l

LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) = 2.2 mmol/l

Total chol/HDL ratio = 2.9.

I am also happy to note that my blood pressure had improved dramatically to 120/80.

At the rate I am going now, I'm sure I will continue to lose weight over the next couple of weeks. And this Saturday I will check out the marathon clinic at the Likas Sports Complex. Perhaps I will also buy a new pair of running shoes later this week.

I have a lot of stories to tell about running gears, but I will tell you later. I'm seeing some other people running longer than usual in the gym, so I suppose they're also preparing for the marathon. It's quite interesting to see an increasing number of women runners too.

Good to see some sexy women in the gym for a change. Women are generally not very keen on doing physical exercises, you see. They only do it when they are already fat. Otherwise, the best formula for them is to go on a strict diet; which means refrain from eating.

But of course some women are exercise freaks too. They train so damn hard until they become something like in the above picture. I don't have anything against active women; in fact, I admire them. But I am still inclined to obey my masculine instinct; it is scary to see women without any breasts, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I have been corresponding with Shan Sandhu, the Event Coordinator of the Borneo International Marathon. And she has a blog too; she posted an article about the marathon clinic in her blog. This is one interesting information that I've found out from her. These are the important stations throughout the routes of the various runs:

It's good to know that there will be plenty of opportunities to rehydrate the body during the run.

Now I shall look for Shan again; let's see if I can get my RM50 Adidas voucher for my shoe-shopping this weekend. I'm sure Mia could use a RM50 discount too.

Last Tango For Old Time Sake?

Going through a divorce is a lousy experience for most people. First of all, there will be many busy-bodies; those who want to have the juicy details of what actually happened between the couple. Everyone in the family would want to be a private investigator.

Then there is that hassle with the formalities—this documents, that documents to sign. A lot of the times lawyers are also involved, especially if there are issues relating to children's custody or visitation rights, and properties etc. Not to mention the heartaches and sudden feeling of loneliness, sadness etc.

That's why a lot of the times, people will try very hard for reconciliation before deciding on a divorce. Couples have many, many sessions of discussions upon discussions to iron out their problems in search of possibilities of reconciliation. Some couples will choose to live separately for a while—to think things over for a bit.

And then imagine meeting up for one more final discussion in the hope of a compromise. Somehow during that discussion, there is a bit of spark from old times...

The guy looks at his wife, remembering those happy moments they've shared. They've been separated for three months now. Suddenly his wife looks "beautiful" again to him...

The woman looks at her husband, remembering all those lousy moments she's had. Three months she's been living without this jerk around; it's one of those best moments in her life.

But now the husband has that "look" in his eyes. The wife knows what's happening; she knows what her husband wants. And he's making his move now. She refuses to cooperate. He somehow manages to get the headscarf and underwear off. She fights him off. And then suddenly he pulls out a sharp object and slashed her neck. [The Star]

Makes you wonder why he brought along the weapon in the first place, huh? Was it for scaring the wife? Or was it for killing her after the last tango?

Sutera Harbour 7K Sunset Charity Run 2008

Yesterday was the first time I participated in the Sutera Harbour 7K Sunset Charity Run. My friend, Teo, told me earlier that it would start around 5:30pm. I arrived there at about 5:10pm, but had to spend several minutes to look for a parking. I finally found one at quite a distance from the starting point. While Mia and I walked to the starting point, we were informed by a guard that the run was scheduled to start at 5:17pm. I don't know what's the significance of that time, but I intend to find out soon.

Anyway, we were about 100 metres, walking towards the starting point, when we heard the countdown on the loudspeaker; and then soon after we heard the loud blaring of the starting horn. We ran the remaining several metres to the starting point, but had to stop again because of the huge crowd—it was impossible to run. About 300 metres later, the gaps were building up and it was then possible to start running.

I turned back and saw Mia was still close behind me. It wasn't a very pleasant run because we had to maneuvre our way in between the big crowd. That was the condition of the run until almost 2 kilometres into the run.

The route was from the Marina Clubhouse to the internal Sutera Complex road; then making a turn all the way out to the coastal highway. Thereafter, turn towards Wawasan Plaza and up to the roundabout; and finally all the way back to the Marina Clubhouse. A total distance of about 7 kilometres.

By the time we were approaching the coastal highway (perhaps 2 kilometres into the run), the crowd had more or less spread out and it was finally possible to build up speed. I looked back again and Mia was no where in sight by then. The coastal highway to Wawasan was a straight stretch.

There was a "water station" just after the corner out from the Sutera Complex. I grabbed a cup and gulped down the whole content within a few seconds. Actually I had no plans to stop for drinks; it's after all a fairly short course of 7 km. But the sun was hot and the air was burning my lungs. After a dose of that 100 plus, I stepped my pace throughout that stretch up to Wawasan Plaza. There was another "water station" there, but I decided not to have any drink.

Well, I approached the roundabout, made my turn and head back towards Sutera Harbour. Just as I was making a turn at the coastal highway, I saw Mia coming from the opposite direction. At that point Mia was about a kilometre behind me. A little wave and smile to each other. I was feeling pretty OK then, so I decided to increase my pace.

Perhaps it had something to do with psychology, but it's strange that as I was approaching the final 500 metres of the run, I felt extremely exhausted. I had to fight the inclination to stop running.

It was quite a relief to finally see the finish point. A fellow Rotarian, George Ngui, was there to congratulate me. By the way the day before that George said he would join the Sutera run too. I did not know that by "joining the run" he meant as a spectator only.

Well, 7 kilometres in 39 minutes 16 seconds. Perhaps it's possible to shave a few more minutes if not for the big crowd. I must try to do better next year.

I was having my second cup of 100 plus when I saw Mia arrive with a time of about 47 minutes. I think she'll be just fine for the 10 km run this coming October 12. As for me, I can't imagine how I am gonna be able to complete the 21 km. Still so much more work to do to improve my pace and endurance.

So that adds up to an accumulated 22 km run for this week. Next week, I need to improve that to about 25 km somehow. I have stopped taking Lipitor for the time being; but instead have embarked on B complex and cod liver oil capsules. About 10 weeks to go for the half marathon. Bring it on!

Credit Cards

At one time owning credit cards was considered something grand. Back then only some people were entitled to own credit cards. In order to qualify for them, one had to have a minimum steady income; and there was a fixed annual fee charged.

But over the years, as the earning power of Malaysians improved, many more people have reached that minimum income level to qualify for the ownership of credit cards. And because of the competition among the many card merchants, the annual fees have generally been abolished. Even if there were annual fees, they are quite easily waived upon request.

Nowadays almost everyone has a credit card. In fact most people have several each. Every now and then we get to see credit card promotions in shopping malls or any other high pedestrian areas. There is in fact nothing special about having credit cards.

There are basically 3 types of cards—classic, gold and platinum. Broadly speaking, each type is meant for a certain income level, and therefore the credit limit would normally increase with each type. For example, the gold card has a higher charge limit over the classic card; whereas the platinum card has the highest charge limit over the rest. There are of course some exceptions.

I have several credit cards too. And I am not paying any annual fee. Each month I would receive an average of 2 phone calls from card promoters, some from west Malaysia. But I turned down the offers. Presently, I have at least 5 credit cards. Perhaps I have more than that, but I kinda lost track of the rest. Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy collecting all those cards. In fact I hardly ever used them. But sometimes, because of trying to be nice to some people who I do business with, I had no choice but to accept those credit cards which were forced upon me.

I only use 2 of my credit cards, sometimes when I travel, sometimes when I do my grocery shopping. I am not very crazy about expensive branded goods, so I hardly ever charge a big amount to my cards—at most a few thousand bucks, but even those are very infrequent and far apart. I am also a bit paranoid about leaving a debt hanging when the payment is due. So I make it a point to make full payment when it's due, however much I've charged to my cards. To be very sure, I even signed an instruction to my bank to automatically deduct whatever payments, in full, from my account. That way it's not even possible that I can forget to pay. It's nice that all these could be arranged by the bank, isn't it?

However, as I said earlier, each card has a credit limit. Since I hardly ever charge a big amount to my cards anyway, I can't be bothered about credit limits; I'm not likely to reach those limits anyway. Therefore I don't really care if I hold a classic card or gold card. As far as I am concerned all these cards are the same.

Then about a year ago, there was one time I went to pay my life insurance policies. I have two insurance policies, you see. And I've opted for lump-sum annual payments too. It happened that the amount for those 2 policies came up to a little over RM10,000. I had to use both my cards to make those payments.

More recently, we had our annual dinner. At the end of the dinner, the bill came up to over RM10,000; and again I had to use both my cards to make the payment. Luckily the restaurant manager was kind enough to agree for a credit, which was to be settled by cheque at a later date. After that I started thinking of the inconvenience of the credit limits. It's still true that I hardly ever reach those limits, but it's still better if I have cards with higher limits.

I was having a yam-cha with a friend one day, and I told him about this credit card story. He said why not apply for a platinum card? Platinum cards are supposed to have higher limits. And I thought that's a good idea. But I never really looked into it, so the matter died off there and then.

Then about 2 weeks ago, I happened to be doing a small transaction in a bank wherein I have an account. While waiting in a queue, I noticed the application forms for credit cards. I took one and brought it back to the office. The general requirements for a platinum card are the same, except that the annual income is much higher than the other cards.

I filled up the form, made photocopies of some documents to prove my annual income, and then dropped it off at the bank. I was told that it would take a week or two for processing my application. But I told the clerk I don't really need it urgently, so they could take their time.

About a week later, I received a letter from the bank. I was surprised to have been informed that my application was rejected. I have never missed any payments for any of my credit cards before. I have an existing home loan with another bank, of which I am "over-paying" each month so that I can redeem the loan earlier by about 5 years (of a 15-year loan). As far as I am concerned, I have satisfied all the requirements in the application form. Of all the things that could go wrong with my application, I did not expect that it would be rejected. How embarrassing!

I don't really need the platinum card, and I don't intend to pursue the matter. But I wished the bank would at least give me a reason for rejecting my application. When I asked the clerk at the bank, he told me to call a toll-free number to get the answer. Now why would I make that call?

Promising Cure

Just the other day I was chit-chatting with a fellow Rotarian, Immediate Past Secretary, Dr Ravi. We were talking about heart diseases. He said it's strange that the Chinese are generally blessed with huge arteries whereas the Indians have relatively smaller arteries. Therefore when the Chinese have, say, 80% - 90% clogged arteries, a lot of the times they are in time for medical help. But when the Indians have that same degree of blockage, they will most probably not make it. I am not sure if this was based on his own clinical observations or from a madical literature.

On the other hand, the Chinese are prone to many kinds of cancer, e.g. colon, liver etc. Comparatively lesser number of the Indians suffer from these cancers. He said the "big guy up there" has a way to balance things up.

I don't know about the Indians, but as far as my family is concerned, there is a lot of truth in what Dr Ravi said. My grandmother died of liver cancer at the age of 65. Actually she had cervical cancer which she fought for quite a long time. The doctors recommended surgery at an early stage, but my grandmother refused. Some old people wouldn't go under the knife no matter what you tell them.

Instead, she went for the so-called traditional methods for healing. This sinsei, that sinsei; this bomoh, that bomoh. In the end, she couldn't stand the pain and agreed to go for the surgery.

By the time she agreed to the surgery, the doctors gave a 50%-50% chance of survival. Surprisingly the surgery was successful after all. However, her condition continued to deteriorate after the surgery. Upon further checks, the doctors realised that she had liver cancer too. Well, it was too late to do anything, and grandma died about 3 months after the surgery.

Last year, my niece died of cancer at the age of 21. It started on her left cheek. She went through a series of surgeries to remove the cancer and to repair her face. But a few months later, it was found that the cancer had spread into her brain. She died after fighting for about a year.

It was during those few months when my niece was fighting for her life that we heard of someone from Sarawak who reportedly could cure cancer by using herbal cocktails. He claimed to have cured many people. But by the time we found him, it was already too late. When my brother, Dennis, told me about this Sarawakian healer, I dismissed the claim of a cure for cancer. I remember telling Dennis that if indeed he had the cure for cancer he'd be a multi-millionaire by now.

But now that I have found this article, maybe there is hope for a cure for cancer after all. 70% success rate on an "incurable" disease sounds fantastic to me. Perhaps it won't be immediately available yet—many more clinical tests will have to be performed first—but who knows, in a couple of years from now, cancer might no longer be such a dreadful disease. At least we have now reached human testing stage, so I consider the vaccine as very promising. I am also glad to note that we have found a more useful purpose for tobacco.

With any luck, I might be able to see the cure for cancer during my lifetime. I hope so...

Healthy Project

These days it is becoming increasingly difficult for me to find the time to do physical exercises. By the time I come home from the office, I am always overwhelmed by laziness. There is this tendency to blame it on mental exhaustion from work, whatever that means. At other times, it would be raining in the evenings, so the jogging track would be out of the question.

I’ve asked many people which one they prefer to have more: wealth or health. The universal answer is health. Yet most people hardly ever spare the time for their health. They don’t really do any forms of decent aerobics exercise. Interestingly, however, quite a number of people spend a fortune on food supplements and some other vitamins in the hope of maintaining or improving their health. Anything but the forsaken physical exercise!

Last November, Y-Fitness was established in KK City Mall. That is very close to Taman Iramanis where I live. Membership is not exactly cheap as far as I am concerned, but I signed up anyway.

Now I have no more excuses not to exercise. Since all the equipment are located indoor, I can visit the gym any time from as early as 7:00 am in the morning up to 10:00 pm at night. I have been visiting the gym at an average of 3 times per week. And I would normally spend about 30 minutes running on the treadmill on each session. Depending on my mood—yes folks, men have moods too—I’d cover about 4 to 5 km per session. I have to force myself to keep it up, not only because my waistline would otherwise expand extremely fast, but also because I have a family history of diabetes and obesity, leading to heart problems.

Then I read about the Borneo International Marathon scheduled for 12 October this year. We don’t have many marathons organized here in KK. In fact, I can’t remember if we have had any before this. What we had in the past were short courses of 10 km and below; not marathons.

I have never joined any marathon before. The mere thought of 42 km makes me cringe with pain. I don’t think I have it in me to run—and keep running—for that distance. But upon reading up the Borneo International Marathon website, I noticed that there is such a thing as half-marathon, which means a distance of 21 km only. That is still a great distance for me, but at least it doesn’t sound so impossible to achieve.

Would it be possible for me to stretch the 4 to 5 km I normally do in the gym to 21 km? I think I can do it. There is only one way to find out. But I will need to train up my body for the feat.

And so yesterday morning, I went for a comprehensive medical check-up. In particular, I wanted to know if my heart is up to it. I think not many 43-year olds would go for a comprehensive medical check-up, but you know, with my family history and all, I decided not to take the risk. Well, it turned out that my blood pressure is borderline high, but not serious enough for me to have sleepless nights. And after doing a short session on the treadmill, the doctor gave me a clean bill of health. All those high-tech machines did not find any inconsistency in my heartbeats etc.

So bring it on! It's probably a good excuse to buy a new pair of shoes anyway. I heard that Adidas is offering RM50 discounts at selected outlets in KK in conjunction with the Borneo International Marathon. Not that I don't know that the original prices are several hundred percent overpriced anyway.

I have a little less than 3 months to train up for the 21 km run. Time is running short, so I will have to build up the distance within quite a short timeframe. I will have to make more visits to the gym—perhaps at least 4 to 5 times a week. Next week, I will try to accumulate up to 20 km. Then gradually increase that to 25 km to 30 km to 35 km and so on in the following weeks. Such a great jump from the average 15 km I usually accumulate per week.

I searched through some of my old stuffs and found this old bathroom scale. As of yesterday morning, I weighed about 73 kg. I‘m aiming to reduce that to at least 65 kg by 12 October.

I reckon that the treadmill sessions and the weight-loss (hopefully) should be able to help me to build up my speed and endurance. I was told that there is a time limit of 3 hours to complete the run. If I’m going to do this at all, I might as well do it within the allocated time. There is not much point if I were to walk all the way and reach the finish line when everyone had gone home.

So much to do in such a short time. While I am a bit worried of the task, I am also excited of the challenge.

I hope I will survive this to tell you all about it after 12 October.

KK Challenge 4—Acidic Acid

Another question from my recent KK Challenge 4, which was discussed with the masters shortly after the hunt. I had intended to discuss it in this blog earlier on, but had somehow forgotten about it until it came up again in a recent exchange of emails with the master.

Q) Partially dry acid at this retail outlet?

The kind of question that might be considered as "loose" when the components are treated independently. For example, "partially dry", if taken independently (and literally) might be referring to the word "damp" or "lembab". It can also mean "dr" or "ry" cryptically (partial of the word dry). In that sense one might say it's not an exclusive fit.

Then the word "acid" might be referring to, say, amino or hydrochloric; "retail outlet" might be shop, supermarket etc.

Three components with several possibilities with not much else in the clue to help the solver. The way to solve this question is to scan the sector and hopefully find something there will fit all these 3 components.

A) Dr Phone Shop

Partially dry = DR

acid = PHONE (pH1)

retail outlet = SHOP

The answer on the board covers all the components found in the question. But although the master found this answer, she wasn't very happy with ACID = PHONE.

Now we all know our basic science—pH7 is neutral; above pH7 is alkaline; less than pH7 is acidic. The question we need to ask ourselves now is: Can we agree to equate pH1 to ACID?

After all, pH is a measurement of acidity/alkaline. Therefore, shouldn't we say that pH1 is acidic rather than acid?

My answer is yes, we can equate pH1 to ACID. When I was working on this question, I foresaw this argument coming. In fact, I tried very hard to adopt the word acidic instead of acid. But I couldn't make a decent sentence with acidic. Since I was forced to use the word acid, I had to think hard and long on its accuracy in this context.

One of the many meanings of the word acid is "having pH less than 7". After a lengthy consideration, I decided it is OK to use acid because pH1 is acidic. And an acid is most certainly acidic.

Consider this hypothetical question:

Q) Acid?

A) pH1

If you can't find, say, amino or hydrochloric within that sector, would you opt for pH1 as your answer, assuming there is a board containing that? And would you be happy with that answer?

Now consider this famous question discussed in the RR Blog some time ago:

Q) ELIAM

A) YONEX

Now this is a little bit more complicated. The "I" in the middle of the question is a roman numeral for ONE; and it is contained by the word ELAM (MALE reversed). The setter had intended to equate MALE to XY.

Let's ask that question along similar lines again: Can we accept XY = MALE?

Scientifically speaking, X and Y are names given to the sex chromosomes. The combination of the X and Y chromosomes would result in the male gender. So strictly speaking, XY = CHROMOSOMES or at least GENES. But to equate XY to MALE is a bit loose. One might question the possibility of XY referring to other mathematical formula?

But, if taken as a whole, the ONE supports and confirms the XY, which is reversed to become YONEX.

My view is that if we have a hypothetical question of, say:

Q) XY

A) MALE

I would not accept it.

XY need not necessarily refer to the sex chromosomes. But in the actual hunt question, there is that ONE to confirm the answer. So in that case, I would accept it.

I think sometimes we need to look at the question from the overall point of view. But of course if we can come up with a perfect fit for all the components of the question, even if treated independently, that is even better!