Aduhai Ahmad Jauhari

 Just got this in the mail a few days ago. It's the Malakoff Penang 26K Finisher Certificate.

Once again ( sigh), my finishing pic is a mess so you won't get to see it here.

I'm allright with the timing, I'm happy with the ranking but the category?

Ermm.. ( staring blankly at the ceiling)..ah..ooh-kay.

Yang ni lagi kesian. Muka pun tadek.

Ha ha ha hampeh.

Kenapa saya malas update minggu ini

• Writer's block.
• Very busy with work
• No races.
• Not much patients ( so tak banyak ' kejadian menarik hari ini')
• dan saya digeget M-Bug of blogging ( which brings on the question : who first coined the term Mbug? Nik ke)
• today I the very malas-malasan ( I'm blogging from the office despite the high probability of  big boss appearing from nowhere to catch me red handed)
• It's only 10 days of Ramadhan and I'm already craving for kuih raya ( " Saya nak order kuih ini, ini, ini, ini dan itu, oh dan ini juge" what I said to the staff taking kuih raya orders)

Oh, oh, but I only got 12K to go to reach my 50K goal. Should be done by this weekend, InsyaAllah.
So I guess I should change my target mileage for August, huh?

Eh, already on the 13th line? See, malas-malas pun ada entry jugak. Hehe.
Happy weekend!

Ice cream flavoured dreams.

It's been a tough week at work. I'm super busy and I think I need a P.A. In the mornings, I turn on my computer, log in my FB account, don't even read through anyone's updates or messages, then proceed on  writing up reports for either the department, state or Putrajaya. Then I have to shuffle and reshuffle everyone's weekly schedule and try to devise a plan on how to reject some people's cuti raya ( untuk kepentingan jabatan) without them hating me to bits. Everyday, people have to line up to talk to me or give me updates, literally. And I'm like pointing to so and so and say, " Okay, you. Go!" while trying to get some filings done at the same time. On top of all that, I still have my clinical work to attend to.

So you can see why I've been so quiet this week. No blog updates, no comments on other blogs. I've been missing out on some of you guys' entries. Sorry bout that.

And I'm really happy to read ( once I caught up) that some of you are logging on some impressive mileage. Good for you! Can't say the same for myself, though.

Since the 1st of Ramadhan, I've only been running 3 times and that only accumulates to roughly 14K. My justification? Well, I don't run outside during Ramadhan. Where got time, meh? After work, I cook for iftar ( boycotting pasar Ramadhan for 3 years now), then bukak puasa, then after our terawikh at 9 ish pm, I get the house in order, then tuck the kids in at 10 ( with yours truly zonking out also). I try to squeeze in my runs at lunch break time, but I can only get roughly 2 miles.
Tonight I managed to selit-selit 4 miles, starting at 9.30 pm, finishing at roughly 10 ish. The kids were angels while I was on the thrillmill ( psaiko diri jap) for 40 minutes, the boy reading and doing activities on his preschool magazine and the girl drawing little female caricatures she fondly calls Bar-de-bi ( that's Barbie to the rest of us). I was parched on the 2nd mile but dare not stop to take a drink in fear that my kids will think I have finished and whine for this and that. So I sucked it up and got it done. I know I could do more but kesian la budak-budak tu. Oh and where was Papa all this while? He went off doing his 24K outside till 12 am. ( which I don't really mind because I wouldn't want to do the same during Ramadhan)

So after the run, I fed them some late night snack, brushed their teeth, and tucked them in, their hair smelling sweet like ice cream ( courtesy of the strawberry scented shampoo their dad bought earlier). Sigh. My babies.

Sometimes you can't be a runner and a mom at the same time.

And I think at this rate, cemana nak capai 5OK accumulative mileage for August ( tiru goal Sun)? Hohoho.
Or should that be huhuhu .

Running in Baju Melayu

Me? Ha! Fat chance. Not me. Him.
And this wasn't his first time. I think I've blogged about Larian Merdeka last year.
Let me check. Oh, ok. Here it is.

Anyway, last Sunday was Larian Merdeka 2010 in Esplanade Penang. It's pretty much the same as last year. Same organizers. Same sponsors. Same route. Almost the same shirt design. Difference was, I wasn't running. Hehe.

Hub has given up a couple of races to take care of the kids while I ran. So this time, I decided it was my turn to be the supporter. Rah rah.

And same as last year, hub decided to run this race in a baju melayu. Kira menghayati semangat kemerdekaan la ni. He planned this like for days but only took the effort to search for his baju melayu the night before the race. Of course la tak jumpa. Turns out he left it at our old home so pepagi bute we had to go there to get the darn thing.

When we arrived at about 7 in the morning, it was quite cloudy and we couldn't tell whether it was post rain or was just about to rain.

" Butang baju aku mana, Pah?"

Whatever it was, 5 minutes before guntime, it poured elephants and tapirs.

 Gile lebat. Worse than Ipoh Run 2009. But the officials were smart to gun off anyway.

Okay. You're dressed for a run. All geared up. Dah datang pun. So RUN ALREADY! But some people so manja, don't want to get wet. Thing was some had the audacity to demand the officials for certificates even though they didn't run with the argument that they paid. Dey?And then when the officals brought out 100 plus for the finishers, guess who helped themselves first. Dey?

( Gambar adelah contoh, takde kaitan sama ada hidup atau mati)

The kids and I waited for their dad to cross the finish line. The kids were in awe with everything. From the rain, to the crowd, to the DJ ( they kept staring at him). But they were captivated when they saw runners making a dash to the finishing line. Nganga. Kagum.

Hubs came in so fast, it was all in a blur.  Or, maybe I'm just a bad photog.

Apapun he came at 31:47 for that 6.5K. Not bad for running all clad up like that, plus barefoot.
You go, honey!

  And it only stopped raining after the race was almost done.

Post race 2010

Post race 2009

Kantoi takde baju melayu lain dah...kuikui.

And this may look like bad parenting, but I let my kids play in the rain.
Hey, you only live once. Let them have fun.

All in all, a very much recommendable race for larian geli-geli. Top organizing. Fees sangatlah murah. No hassle pre and post race. And I know somebody in particular who would love to be there last Sunday. It was raining. The official shirt was white. It was raining.
You do the math.

Oh, and selamat berpuasa everybody!

Walk-Walk Find Food.

So we were a bit stressed out from work so we decided to have a mid week holiday. It all went fine except a few things ;

1.   I went a bit overboard at the buffet desert section. Note that this is my second plate. My first plate was piled with cakes.
2. When we decended down the hilly resort, my ears popped so loud, half of my face hurts.
3. A 20 year old-ish boy called me makcik. Adoi.
4. We watched a movie about a boy moving into a new place, sangat berlagak, tried to get the local belle then got beat up, and then has the nerve to learn some chops to beat up the locals pulak. Huh. Penjajah betul.

But all in all , our short break can be summed up by this:

WOO-HOO!

 And best of all :

Sayang, kita ketemu jua

"Open the box. Peel back the tissue paper. Behold those pristine shoes. Then lift the box to your face and breathe deeply. 
Mmmm..Smells like potential.
And possibly formaldehyde. But mostly potential "
                                                                                                                  Mark Remy. 

But because we mutually agreed on a no hoarding policy when we moved in our new home, once  new shoes go in, old and seasoned shoes go out. 

                                                                                                  Old. Seasoned.

                                                                                                                 Out.

Cuma, saya berharap ianya tidak menulis karangan " Saya sepasang kasut" kelak.
Huhu.

Prevention vs Intervention

Lemme tell you a funny story. Not funny in the ha ha ha kind of way, but more of funny quirky way.
So we were at this Majlis Menyambut Ramadhan thingy at our neighbourhood last night. Apparently, the community here are close-knit so they celebrate almost everything together. Anyway, at the end of the gathering, the host gave each adult a parting gift- a 1kg packet of sugar. Beats me what it's supposed to symbolize.
I accepted my gift and piped out loud :
" Jenuhla nak perabih gula nih "
The women sitting around me gave me weird looks. I was like "What?"
" Honey, take it from me, the sugar will be long gone before Ramadhan" said somebody in the group.

Not in my house.

The packet of sugar we bought when we first moved here ( 2 months ago) is far from finished. Heck, half of the packet is still in its plastic stored away in the freezer. The other half stored in a small container mmg tak luak pun. I guess we're not much sugar eaters.
This wasn't planned. It's not like when we decided to get married 7 years ago, we pledged to reduce our household sugar intake. I've always been lazy to bancuh-bancuh  air manis and turns out he's the same. So we don't have our tea/milo/coffee breakfast, afternoon or evening. I only occasionally make kuih ( occasionally means like once in 4 months). I don't do cookies, cakes or whatever ( that's what bakeries or borang pesan kuih raya is for) and the sugar is only for cooking-sometimes.
So you see, it takes forever for our house to run out of sugar. Especially in Ramadhan.

So I told this to hub once he got home ( He stayed back for some neighbourhood men meeting -whatever that is). " It'll take us eternity to finish all that sugar" I said.
"I know," he replied. " That's why I left it behind" ( The poor host was like, " Whose is this? Whose is this?")
Hee hee hee.

Ok, satu lagi cerita. I ran with a Garmin on, leisurely for the first time. Usually, I run with my koroi watch but as I plan to purchase a Garmin, I might as well get used to running with one ( hub's). It was weird. First, it was so huge, it covered my whole wrist. And even after I tightened it to the maximum notch, it still slid freely on my wrist. So as I was running, it was jiggling up and down in the most uncomfortable way. I decided to ignore all that as I ran.
It was quite cool to see my actual pace. The Garmin records my average pace per mile. Before I was quite sure I ran 10:00 per mile on my easy runs so I was quite discouraged when I saw 10:45 before reaching my first mile. Oh well, I thought, kalau dah perasan tu perasan jugak.
After a while, I was startled by some vibrations on my wrists. I knew the thing buzzed  every mile but I didn't knew it vibrated. Cool.
So lari dan lari dan lari,34 minutes  and 3.39 miles later I glanced at the Garmin. Wah, it showed my pace as 9:51. Puh! And I thought I was slowing down on the last mile.
Kembang kempis idung.
Tup-tup, after Hub downloaded the data from the Garmin to our PC, the 9:51 was just the avearge pace for the last 0.39 miles. My average pace was actually 10:15 mins per mile.
Huh, kalau dah perasan tu perasan jugak.

Wah, I'm getting technical!  And I'm counting in miles.

p/s: the title comes from my public health talk this morning. I sweated myself out trying to convince people I knew what I was talking about. Boy,I suck at public health.

Denial. Revisited.

So as it was raining and hub wanted to do his 4 miler anyway, I decided to run on the dreadmill instead. To tell you the truth, the poor thing has been neglected these past few weeks, sitting there in the corner, quietly collecting dust and cobwebs(!). I found segala mak nenek on the tread in bits and peices, dried rice ( the dining table is next to it), color pencil stubs ( little boy likes to do his coloring there despite my repeated warnings not to) dan lain lain lagi.

I decided today, I'm bored of doing the usual 5km at such such speed. I'm bored of such monotony, bored of waiting when the run will end. I noticed there were 6 preset programs and I don't remember the last time I tried one of those. So, I chose on of the incline programs for 40 minutes and just followed the routine while little boy busied himself doing homework and little girl sat there nibbling on her snack.. And whaddya know, it was quite allright. I huffed and puffed on the incline especially the maximum 10 but it wasn't as hard as I dreaded it to be.And although it was less than my usual mileage, according to the digital screen, I burned twice more calories. Tapikan, to tell you the truth the thing hasn't been calibrated since we bought it 5 years ago so leh caye ke? heh heh.
But anyway, 40 minutes felt more like 20 so it wasn't that bad. It kinda reminded me that running on the dreadmill is not such torture once you get it over with. So could possibly dreadmill turn to a thrillmill?

Err..I still seriously doubt that. But I shouldn't kutuk2 sangat my dreadmill kan? It was my savior when once I thought running alone outside was imposible. Dulu boleh je buat kan?

Ngengada betul.

On another note, some junior collegues have shown interest in running . One even wanted to run her first marathon in PBIM. Thing is they're all talk and haven't done squat. I've given tips and stories. I've even suggested joining the FMVs. I've even handed one of them a form for a run nearby for 6K.
But when I ask for their progress they give me truckloads of excuses : we couldn't find the right gym, I'm asthmatic, it's raining, too tired from work.
And it's beggining to feel like I'm the only one enthusiastic about it all. Cam poyo je.
So I've stopped asking. Ive stopped hoping.
.
.

Lantak ko le labu