Track athlete

As I mentioned before, I will be focusing more on the track this year. Well this is mainly because I have access to a track now at uni and also a coach. Needless to say, being a track athlete entails stepping on to a track for training, and this is what I have been doing for the past 2 weeks or so. However, my performances in these sessions have been, to put it gently, underwhelming. At first the transition was literally very painful. After I went through my first proper session on the track, which were 20x200m intervals finished off with a 1000m run, I legs were really banged up. They stayed banged up enough that I had to walk like I had walking sticks for legs for the next 3 or 4 days. Nevertheless, the poison worked. It inoculated me from being crippled by the subsequent workouts. Still, it didn't cure the other problem. I was still being dusted by my training partner Prakash. Sure this guy is no slouch, being last year's Penang Open champ in the steeplechase, but still... Basically it sucks. The last thing you want as an athlete is to see the back of somebody else pulling ever further ahead. I guess things are not quite on track after all...

Resolutions(again)

It's that time of the year again. Yep, after all the food has been devoured and the confetti thrown, it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty of, you guessed it, making resolutions. Hmm, on second thought, before I make some impossibly unattainable target for the year, I think I should compare last year's resolutions to what I actually did achieve.

*The following style of writing might be unpalatable for certain segments of humanity. Reader discretion strongly advised.*

Before any of you slate me for posting about my resolutions this late in the year, let me remind you that it's only 9 days since 2008 existed. Anyway, I do have a reasonably good excuse for this. You see, for daring to spend the first few hours of the new year at a ramshackle bus stop chatting with friends instead of getting drunk and fighting at some nightclub, the ghost of 2007 decided to haunt me, presumably to teach me a lesson. So this ghost proceeds to mess up my internal calendar, leaving me 1 week late in writing what should have been written as soon as the new year starts. Not buying it? Well, me too, but at least I gotta make a shot at making a lame excuse.

Anyway, back on topic. Ah, resolutions, the mere thought of it alternatively bolsters the spirit or sends shivers down the spine, depending on what stuff you are made of. Despite all the hoopla (Who the hell uses 'hoopla' anymore?) surrounding it, I mean the first thing most people say after greeting each other happy new year is 'Got any resolution or not ah?', I have never felt compelled to put my resolutions down in writing. I do have some hope for the coming year, sure, but most of them are kinda vague and subjective in nature, which kinda explains why most of my achievements are kinda vague and subjective, go figure.

Ok crapping aside, here are my resolutions.
1) I want to master driving. (Done) As lame as this sounds, this is probably the numero uno skill I need to have now, because no driving, no 'paktor' (Not done. Not listed as a resolution, but still...), no 'kaului'.
2) I want to be a faster runner. Fast enough to get among the top placings in road races. If you insist on being more specific, I hope to run faster than 38 minutes for 10000 meters (Failed), 17 minutes for 5000m(Failed), 80 minutes for the half marathon(Failed). (okay, I added all those numbers to make my blog sound more sophisticated so fire away) My running actually sucked and I might even have regressed. The first half of the year was going great, but ever since I entered uni in June/July, everything went off the boil. Proof = my last race came 1 week after entering uni in the Ipoh Half where I did 1:27+ for my current PR. Of course, that course was pancake flat and possibly short, if you insist on taking away what little ray of sunshine I have left.
3) I want to get my target. Mega epicly failed. Even switched targets a few times and epicly failed each and every time. 4) I want to sleep earlier. Too many late nights means too many wasted hours, definitely not good if I am to achieve resolution number 2. I am up here at 2.30am typing this, so what do you think?

Phew, that sure was stressful. Now you know why I don't really like to do relections on semesters/years/whatever lengths of time. So the numbers say it all, 1 out of 4. Damn, even blind people can hit the target more often. Still, me being me, I am still gonna go forward and come up with a newer, more unattainable list.

1)Become an awesome runner. How awesome? I want to win some road races. As for the track, maybe go under 4 mins for the 1500, 17 minutes for the 5k and 37 minutes for the 10k. Attainable? Only time will tell.

2)Train harder. No more being a chicken. I want to achieve my targets, I must welcome hard training. I am relishing the pain already.

3)Sleep early. After writing this I am off to bed. Promise.

4)Study harder. Or more specifically get better grades. If this can be attained without studying harder, yahoo. Unfortunately, I doubt the world works that way...

5)Update blog more. I will not go on an extended hiatus from my blog like last year, but please forgive me-lah if I don't update everyday. I got the other 4 resolutions to take care of too.

So there you have it, my little list of resolutions.