1st marathon

yep, after passing many years from the age where my fitness was at prime, old man phua decided to take on his first marathon, coming this 5th dec 2010. many of my frens had long completed their marathon at their early 20s while i only took it up at mid-20s. back problem is one of the main issue holding me back all these while. but since i had already trained up to 20km for x-physique, might as well push a little more. don't think i can wait any longer, as i can feel my body aging, with fitness level dropping real fast. think it will be even harder once i step into the late 20s to train for a 42km run.

anw, thanz lauren for that little push that got me to sign up, else once past the early-bird phase, i'll find the easy excuse, of 'too expensive' to register, and happily miss the chance.

since its my first marathon, shall just aim to copmplete under 4hr 30mins. time for a new shoe!

x-physique 2010 - Odee Acee Again!!!

wahahaha, after all these years, i finally have some time to join and train for X-Physique, the urban adventure race, arch rival of ATC, organised by NTU Sports Club. formed the 3-men team in intervarsity category with yonghan and lauren, all out to win 1st, hence naming ourselves, 'Odee Acee Again!!!', forcing the emcee to announce, 'and the 1st prize goes to Odee Acee Again!!!'. wat an arrogant name to begin with, if win, of cos huat, if lose, wah, our faces dunno go where hide!

the team had been discipline in training for the past 6 weeks for the race. had at 3 runs in school each week, even through the examination period, and conditioning runs at mac ritchie park.

apart from training up our physique, there's many more rubbish that we did to ensure that we secure the victory, bo bian, pride at stake, anything can happen as long we win..

1. deploying e 5 other odac teams to mislead other participants in the directions.
2. get munir to feed marcus with more supper during exams period (they are the best among the 5 odac teams).
3. cycling recce around the southern end of the island to guess their checkpoints.
4. study the southern map like machiam some 10-years series for 'a' levels.
5. planting spies within sports club to feed us with infomation.

yep, its race day, damn stress as we received the good wishes from supportive members of odac, hoping we will bring back the glory, in fact, i'm not exactly confident of winning 1st, as we lack speed, top 3 should be probable. but, pride at stake, must act cool in front of the young odacians, inside scared like dog..

as the race started, we tried hard to be in the lead for the category, and yes, by the 3rd station, we are the 1st varsity team to arrive, i still can't forget the amazed face of the station master when i reported our team number! getting the lead is easy, maintaining it is real hard...

and yes, we tried all we could to maintain the lead, and thank goodnees to all the trainings that we had, we really ran non-stop, and didn't burn out till the finishing line. and here comes the greatest stress point, cos we were flagged off by waves, hence, coming in 1st does not gurantee the shortest race time. my heartbeat gets faster than in the race while waiting for the results. after 40 mins, no varsity teams reutrned yet. definitely, e hopes was high, i like to quote the word lauren used, 'surreal', yep, we can't believe we may be winning it.

lauren was like saying that we were too confident, as last year, she also joined with some donkeys, and they came in the earliest in the category too, but ended up getting 4th place only! come on man! dun compare yonghan and me with some donkey out there, they no brain de, got mouth only! we got brain, got mouth, got everything!

hehez! 众望所归, we really won 1st! whahahaha!! ok, win liao can kaopei! of cos win la! how can the boss of ATC not win some rivalry race, of cos must win their race to show that we are better right? ITS ALL ABOUT PRIDE! that was my intention when i initiate to participate right from the start! but scare later never win, malu, so never say only!

of cos, without the good teamwork from fabulous team mates we wouldn't have made it. without yonghan the mobile GPS and the lauren the duracell rabbit encourager, we wouldn't have that medal on our neck! good job team! we shall join ATC step-up race 2011! and of cos, thank you guys who gave us the good support for the race, lucky we didn't disappoint your hopes. yep!

post graduation - living the HIGH life of unemployment

i'm so gonna miss the daily morning breakfast with jas, darryl, jean & zhang meh, either at Palette or Can 2. yep. spend almost every morning with the 4 of them for the last semester of uni life. no more cheap cheap breakfast in school le! dun miss me k!

and yes, i'll miss supper at ah fang with eugene too! doubt in any time soon, we can have our favourite mee goreng chicken jumbo again!

here comes the many waves of post exam celebration! first was kushinbo seafood buffet with ling! been waiting to eat it all these while! sadly, this time round, the snow crabs ain't that fresh, quite a big disappointment.

next we had a tower defense + outpost steamboat dinner at bugis! woah, i din know that so many of the odac members study together!

on the very saturday, the odac laojiaos joined the xinjiaos at adsports paintball in m'sia! OMFG! the arena is so damn big la! hahaha, so much more fun than those in singapore! bang! bang! bang! was a great gathering for the old folks! i gotta sa, i'm really old le, can only feel comfortable with the presence of the old birds.

the laojiao squad



the ATC 07 team

the following friday was yet another huat adsports programme, where the xinjiaos from different comms mixed around. haha, that's not for old man like me, so gathered some old folks in the evening instead, to have a nice dinner at chomp chomp follow by durian mosse for dessert!

this dessert place at serangoon gardens is really not bad, down the street of macdonalds, on the 2nd storey, the durian moose is a MUST TRY!

following monday was western food at CHIJMES, i'm so gonna grow so fat, a day right after X-physique, nothing seems to fill the endless pit of big tummy, i can eat a bull! haha, no la, but i did ate 2 set meals alone, and still yearning for more, not that the steak was good, in fact, quite bad, but i was just god damn hungry.

yep, the place is 'hog's breath cafe', selling steak meals at $30++, for good ambience, yes, for good food, NO.

last night, the ATC 09 team met for dinner at geylang for 田鸡粥, haha, was really nice, i had like 6 bowl of porridge, yep, still suffering from post race syndrome, i just can't get enough of food. when hui hui, junhua & issey is back, we shall have a nice bbq k!

fatty jas who claimed to have lost 5kg of weight after a 10 km of walk.

ended the night with durian, but no money, can only eat cheap cheap lousy ones. anw, eugene, stand firm k.