Oblivion

I am now at the edge of a mile-high cliff, staring down the precipice, into oblivion... My target is just as far away, and even further. As hard as I try, my efforts have only led me here. One more step, and it's a point of no return. I yearn to go the other way, to make some headway towards my dream, but every time I do it's like swimming in mud, in tandem with strong currents pushing me back. Back until this point...

I have just returned from the Kedah meet, and all I can say to describe it is "total failure". My personal target was not met, modest though it may be. Even worse, I failed to finish 2 out of the 3 events that I signed up for. While I was confident of dipping below 5 minutes for the 1500, the actual race didn't quite turn out the way I envisioned. I felt lethargic from the gun, and I was dropped even before the 300 mark. The rest of the race was a long struggle and I basically ended up where I was 2 years ago. Right after I finished, I ran over to start the 10000. As expected, I dropped out after 2 laps, due to the proximity of these events in the schedule. No complaints about this. I can still reasonably justify my poor results in the 1500 by blaming fatigue, since I had been up for nearly the whole day before.

Unfortunately, I had no excuse whatsoever for the 5000 on the second day. It only served to pooh-pooh that theory and highlight my abysmal physical condition. For a start, I was struggling throughout the race, but quitting the race 4 laps from the end was what made this an unmitigated disaster. For the life of me, I can't remember a track race which I have never finished, the previous 10000 notwithstanding since I already planned it as a glorified cool down. Even in races where I have been stricken with problems, like the 5k in Form 5 and this year's Masum 10k where I suffered from stitch, or the hot and humid 5k in TOT this year, I had always found the will to finish. Says a lot about the lack of hunger and fight in me now.

Comparing myself to 3 years ago, the old me always had the determination and perhaps a little anger to prove something. Ah well, I really need to have a long hard look at myself. It's back to the drawing board...