Everyone of us has fears, we can either overcome them, manage our thoughts, feelings and emotions or we can allow ourselves to be swallowed up by fear.

How does 12th April 2010 makes it a special day for me ? For a start, it just came about from chatting with Nicole over the past few days, sharing with her on my journey into my life journey of personal development, change, motivational, inspirational and goal settings and of course life experiences.

The past 6 weeks had been turbulent for me, even though I went through a similar situation that was much worse and wasn’t trained in personal development, motivation and inspiration fields during that period of time. However, this time round, I managed to cope it better than before, not without some hassles and shutting myself away from the social media channels for a while. I confessed that I was healing my physical wounds as well as mental and emotional wounds, after pulling myself out of the bottom, starting from the phase of rehabilitation and physiotherapy. The journey began for me to climb back up again from the fallen ground, reading and rekindling my passion and knowledge for personal development, change, mentoring, inspirational and motivational.

“If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.” – Mother Teresa

Pay – It – Forward ~ By sharing my humble and personal experiences in my limited knowledge (till date) in the fields of personal development, inspiration and motivation, it reinforces my beliefs and attitudes, bringing myself closer and more aligned to motivating and inspiring myself to get back into good health, recover fast and making a difference, impacting the lives of  the people around me.

During my recovery phase, reading up and finding out on how different people are making a difference in the life across and around the world, we all can do the same thing too ! We can all make a difference out there !

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved” – Helen Keller

12th April 2010 is not a turning point for me, it is the start of my route to recovery …. started and learning how to walk again.

It never occur to me that during the past one month and still counting, I am a patient at the other end of rehabilitation, physiotherapy and occupational therapy. With fractures to my left hip and left shoulder, not your usual areas of injuries happening together, I undergo an intensive rehabilitation program, with physiotherapy and occupational therapy, to take on the route of recovery, learning from scratch – how to walk again soon.

Physiotherapy – “is concerned with identifying and maximizing quality of life and movement potential within the spheres of promotion, prevention, treatment/intervention, habilitation and rehabilitation.” – via Wikipedia. Without the rehabilitation and physiotherapy and occupational therapy program, my one month of recovery might not take place as fast and smooth that I would like and want to be. Occupational therapy helps me in the activities of daily living conditions again and how to adapt in my current medical conditions. Therefore, I am very grateful to the team of physiotherapist, assistant physiotherapists and occupational therapist for my recovery till date.

My injuries sustained belong to the orthopaedic segment, in the post-orthopaedic procedure and fractures. The program gets my flexibility, range of movement, strength back in stages, without rushing, working hand in hand with my doctors and specialist. The program is not designed to rush me back into shape, thus the pace of rehabilitation can be pretty slow compared to the mad rat race society pace. Nevertheless, the period of rest does me well too in the rehabilitation program

- Learning to take life in perspective

- Realigning my goals and objectives in life and career

- Personal reflection

- Rest from work, business and rat race

- Appreciating the finer things in life

While I am currently still undergoing rehabilitation, physiotherapy and occupation therapy programs, the importance of healthy and active living strikes an even bigger than ever importance to me because I see for myself how these 3 areas affect different people of different age groups and medical conditions. I would share this in another post soon, keep a lookout !

Moving forward, how would these 3 programs help me in my quest to learn more about sports science and its application to professional sports, team sports, recreational competitive sports ?

Before everything else, I am back to continue my rehabilitation, physiotherapy and occupational therapy program. The route to recovery continues ………..

What were the deep thoughts going through my mind ?

Photoblog ~ A makeover is in the plans, for the template and theme, metamorphosis from a photoblog into a photography and travel blog, professional magazine style, elegant and attractive. Still thinking which is more suitable, Solostream vs Woo Themes.

Running ~ I have finally kick start my training program and it would be shared in greater details at a later post. My short term running goals would be Passion Run 2010 and Sundown Marathon 2010 and I will look forward to improve my timing.

Goals ~ The Year of the Tiger presents different challenges, opportunities will be there and they will start to reappear again, opportunities in many different areas. With my different goal settings, I am setting Short Term, Medium Term and Long Term Goals. Short Term = Monthly, Medium Term = Quarterly , Half Yearly and Long Term = Year End. With each successfully completed Goal, I would reward myself my own Small Goal, Medium Goal and Long Term Goal.

My Sharing on Twitter “Small goal every mth, small reward every mth for completing my goal, medium term & long term goals too.”

Therefore, I am thinking, planning, strategising and executing my Short, Medium & Long Term Goals and their rewards.

Travel Writing ~ Such opportunities don’t come easily and when I was invited to write for other blog as one of their co-authors/writers, it was an honour and even though I haven’t started anything, I promise that this would start very soon. Besides, I am looking at working together with another travel blogger for their E-Mag, details yet to be finalised and I hope something can be worked out together in the best interests for both parties, Think Win-Win !!

Working Hard / Fighting Hard ~ I promised to strive hard, work hard and fight hard in everything I do, for all the opportunities that presents itself along the way.

A quote from Hills of Africa on Twitter “Make today the best day yet, dream big, make it huge, share your beautiful self with the world, make a difference”

Lastly , my own personal quote !

A New Lunar Year,

A New Hope,

A New Beginning,

A New Journey,

A New Challenge

These wise words came from Bill Gates, a person that needs no further introduction, somebody who had helped to change the world that we live in today over the past 20-30 years. How does this line of wisdom impacted me ? Well, simply, as I started moving into the arena of teaching and mentoring, with the confidence, skills and experiences in the field, it would be an easy trap into

~ “We think We Know Everything, in fact, We Don’t” ~

Does success make us so much better than the rest that we don’t seek to continuously improve our current skills and knowledge ? Do we think too smart of ourselves ? Have we grown too complacent ?

2010 has been earmarked as my year of mentoring friends and in 1 field of my skill and expertise, I took up the challenge with pride and honour, accepting students in photography, from a National Youth Achievement Award candidate to friends who recently entered into DSLR. Till date, I would have 4 students However, that does not mean that I know everything in photography yet, now I am exploring lomography, studio lighting and portraiture photography. Besides that, I have helped out with junior photographers that just entered the industry.

What other areas have I been involved in mentoring ?

- Blogs setup and advisory , SEO, Social Media

- Blog shop setup and advisory, internet marketing

When I stepped into this arena, it’s not daunting, it’s like a pilgrimage, a journey of an entrepreneur, Pay It Forward, Helping and teaching people, sharing the skills and knowledge. By transferring, teaching, guiding and mentoring, I will bring my current skills and knowledge to the next higher level too !

Looking for Jack Lan and he asked me to go Power Physical Training (PT) Running first with Brian Lam and catch up after that. Since it had been a long time since I went through Power PT and quite some time since I went running, I thought, why not ? Returning from work, packing up some stuff and went off to meet the runners to Telok Blangah Hill Park.

Power PT Running today was running the uphill road followed by downhill road, a loop around the summit of Telok Blangah Hill Park. The time target was 2min 30s for every loop with rest time of 3 minutes, repeating over 5 times. Being an unfit person as of now & a slight age gap, I think my timing was between 3 mins to 3mins 22s for every run.

Whether I am training for sprints, short distance, medium distance or long distance running, Power PT Running does have its place in a physical training regime and must be part of any sports training regime. Reflecting back the time when I learned the techniques of Power PT, the training runs were like 4 rounds of 100m run and 4 rounds of 400m run, within a stipulated time frame, aerobic training and anaerobic training.

A return of (Mini) Power PT Running, I used to be a much fitter person, as age catches up, we have to train harder to maintain the level of fitness that we desire when we were younger. I confess that I have to train more and harder than my younger counterparts, I will push myself, improve my own fitness and I run my own race !

My training philosophy is to train together for a common target – Run Your Own Race and I am NOT here to race against people.

Let this be a start of my regular training runs towards my May 2010 running goal !

~ Goal Settings for Consultancy Business ~

- Still fine tuning my goals, directions and breaking down into smaller bits and pieces that would be more easily “digested” for my goal setting and achievement.

~ New Business Opportunities ~

- Helping a good friend in blogging and online blog shop setup, guiding them through and would be a good reference and testimonial for my future projects in blogging.

- Invited to join my friends in building up their business network and expansion.

- Travel writing for travel websites and tourism bodies, opportunities arising from there.

~ Running ~

- A serious need to start kick off my running for 2010, enhancements needed to my training regime or else my improvements would not be great compared to last year.

~ Mentoring ~

- Got about 5 people of different age groups, coming under me to learn photography, how well I do here would help me to improve my expertise level of photography too. Need to learn how to teach people and transfer my knowledge across to them.

~ Social Media Networking ~

- I am a slow and late starter in social media networking, the world today has embarked on revolutionary growth and changes in media and communications. Social Media Networking would be a very powerful channel and I must make sure that I learn as much as possible and apply them to my blogging and bring my blogs to a higher level.

~ Pay It Forward / Giving / Community Work / Charity Work ~

- As our society advances, in terms of prosperity and wealth, not everybody was able to ride on the waves and rise up high to enjoy the growth and prosperity. I do not know whether is it me, there seems to be more old and elderly people selling tissue papers, collecting junk, living off food scraps. How can I help ? How can I make a difference ? For now, I may not have the answer yet. Nevertheless, I would think of ways to give back.

Taking a step forward

First thing first, my sports and running goal settings for the year 2010. I haven’t finalised my running events for the year 2010, due to the non-availability of the final running dates by the various organisers. Nevertheless, the runs that I would be looking at to run for the year 2010 would be

- Passion Run

- Sundown Marathon

- Army Half Marathon

- New Balance Real Run

- Nike Real Run

- Singapore Marathon

Besides running, I pledge myself to make a return to make up for my failure to complete my number 6th full marathon in 2009 Singapore Standard Chartered Marathon – I will continue to run and finish marathons. Therefore, I am looking at my training schedule, to be finalised at a later time, whereby I would set myself a schedule to train myself in a more consistent and disciplined manner and program, achieving and improving personal best running times.

Beyond Running – Embarking New Arenas

Triathlon – Moving beyond running, I am planning to enter Triathlon, to challenge myself further, personally, physically, mentally and emotionally. For a start, it would in the sprint category, from then on, I would decide how I would advance or explore in this field. Before everything, I would likely go for a medical checkup to ensure I am able to participate in a Triathlon.

North Face 100 – From my roots in scouting and outdoor activities, the North Face 100 had been beckoning me all these few years and I didn’t enter. Finally, I managed to convince another old mate of mine from my fellow batch scout to embark on this North Face 100. Trail running, enjoying the outdoors and it would be tough, tiring and demanding yet fun !

Overseas Marathon – Had my fair share of local marathons and I would like to go abroad and experience how marathons are like and different from us, experiencing different cultures too. That’s many marathons around the region, would take a look and decide to embark on at least 1 overseas marathon in 2010.

Beach Volleyball – This sports had never really caught my interest due to my staunch support for football, basketball, rugby league and rugby union. My friend is a volleyball coach and is running volleyball and beach volleyball classes, and it does gives me a new sports to try out and learn.

Sports Science / Management – Studying and staying in Australia for 4 years during my undergraduate days, I had first hand of how fanatics the Aussies are in sports and the emphasis of sports science and sports management. Till today, I still had strong interest in the field of sports and sports science, if time schedule allows, I might go for a basic sports coach certification.

Cycling – Loved cycling when I was young, somehow or another, didn’t sustain the interest and recently, would like to add on cycling to compliment my current sports training and addition of a new sports/hobby too. This would also help to prepare me for the triathlon eventually, something that I have been looking forward to. Looking ahead, I am looking at a 2nd hand road bike and 2nd hand mountain bike too.

The above goals had pretty much been split into smaller categories, however, each sub-set goal would need more thorough planning and strategy and I look forward to share my training, experiences and knowledge along the sports and fitness journey in 2010 !

Wishing all of you a Healthy and Sporty lifestyle 2010 !

With the recent debacle of my Singapore Marathon 2009, whereby I wasn’t able to fully complete my 6th Full Marathon due to abdominal cramps, it brought a huge interest to research and analyse what could have gone wrong or what really happened to me before or during the run that could cause such discomfort that I had to seek medical attention. I wanted to learn more and make the necessary changes and/or precautions to ensure the abdominal cramps do not severely hit me again during any runs or marathons.

With the google search engine, I found a few very interesting and informative articles on the topic of abdominal cramps. From the various articles, abdominal cramps are common among runners and it is pretty frequent. The common areas are

• he abdominal wall muscles (“stitch”) and
• the gastrointestinal system (GI)

GI complaints comes in the forms of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bloating, intestinal cramps, and stomachache and it happens a lot during running, whereby dehydration and pre-race diet are 2 key factors that might cause GI complaints.

“Abdominal pain while running is most often due to muscle cramps, altered motility of the GI tract, or a combination of the two. In some cases, cramps can be a symptom of heat exhaustion, which can be quite serious. Muscle cramps can be due to electrolyte imbalances, dehydration, muscle fiber fatigue, reduced blood flow to the abdominal wall muscles and diaphragm, and irritation due to mechanical trauma from running.”

Do drop by the article “Abdominal Pains in Runners” and “What Causes Stomach Cramps While Running” for an in-depth research of the above mentioned points.

Reflecting back on my Singapore Marathon 2009, I had

- Museli bar before the run

- Water (not up to 500ml though)

During the run, hydration was taken along the route, except certain skipping certain drink stations with both water and isotonic drinks, power gel was taken on the 21 km point and bananas on the 30 km mark. From a forum discussion about “Bad Stomach Cramps while Running“, dating back to 2005, there was a person by the name of Eugene R. Allen posted on

- “stomach cramps are the result of what you eat prior to your run, how soon you eat before you run and how hard you go out and run”

- “experiment with what you can and cannot eat before your run”

With the 2 pointers in mind, questions were raised -

- Was the museli bar taken before the run suitable for me ?

- Did I have enough water during the run by skipping some drinks stations ? Should I drink regularly at all drinks stations ?

- Was my running strategy flawed because I pushed hard during the run yet my training and condition was not at its optimum and not ideal at all?

- What are the preventive measures or improvements that I would need to work on to improve my marathon running ?

As I absorbed on my research and analysis on abdominal cramps that I suffered during my marathon, it became clearer to me and would allow me to be improve my running and I will be back with a fight to conquer more full marathon finishes !

Taking the shuttle service early in the morning at 0400 hrs from Clementi Stadium along with Brian, we reached there pretty early around 0430 hrs. I started unpacking and preparing for the run to start and there was about 15,000 to 17,000 runners in the 42.195km category and it was a massive group consisting of competitive, regular, fun and 1st timers. The crowd builds up and at 0530 hrs, we were flagged off for the full marathon !

Even though the crowds were pretty big, the route and roads were able to hold the massive marathon numbers. The supporters along the way were awesome and I would like to say

Thank You Singapore Marathon Supporters !!

There was a carnival at East Coast Park, with music and arts performance display, a live band performance by Jack & Rai too ! This really gives us something to distract ourselves from the running ! The supporters at the drinks stations were great and fun, making the efforts to motivate and cheer the runners ! However, I felt there should be more drinks stations to allow us runners to hydrate more especially along the East Coast Park Service Road from the Fort Road side.

My misadventure started around the 15km mark, my abdominal started to feel painful and it just built up over the distances, thought it was gastric and attempts to eat power gel at 21km mark and bananas at 31.5km mark was to no impact/effect on my stomach. Close to the 34km mark, the pain was bad enough for me to seek medical attention and see what could be done. The 3 nice first aiders near the Kallang Riverside Park drinks station were very helpful and friendly while they attended to me before I was given a lift back to National Stadium First Aid Post and checked upon.

The medical staff were very friendly and nice, after checking my pressure and heart rate, all was ok and it was diagnosed to be abdominal cramps instead of gastric pain. After resting, I thought of continuing, however, I was advised by the medical staff not to exert any further with my running. I can’t hide my disappointment because I wasn’t able to finish my 6th Full Marathon, yet I made a decision to seek treatment if necessary and live to “fight another day” a.k.a there’s always full marathons in Singapore or around the region that I can embark on.

There were a group of runners there who also had to seek treatment due to various injuries or aliments, took the bus from the Kallang Stadium to F1 Pit Stop Building, allowing us to complete the final 3km to finishing point. Therefore, I only completed 37km out of 42km. Reaching the finishing point with a cramped up abdominal is not fun and running with with abdominal cramps can hurt and hinder your running.

I would be doing an analysis of my running, routine and food intake to draw out possible causes of abdominal cramps, with the power of google, I found some interesting and informative posts that I was able to relate with regards to my misadventure in Singapore Marathon 2009. Stayed tuned for the post.

Crossing the finishing line, it was a subdued feeling, only 37km out of 42km, my 6th full marathon was a very big disappointment for me. I will let the disappointment not to get into me, learn from my mistakes or running routine, flow that could cause this situation to arise. Running a marathon, like in your life, sometimes things happens for a reason and we must learn to grow, develop and improve further.

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall”-Confucius

I would like to take this opportunity to say a Big Thank You to New Balance for giving us a chance to run (walk) back to finishing line thus allowing to collect our finisher tee and medal.

Since I didn’t finish the race, I don’t deserve to get the medal and finisher tee. However, I am really very grateful that they still allow us to collect the finisher tee and medal as a gift

Thank You New Balance and Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon !

I will take full responsibility for my actions and will not lay blame on any of the points nor everything else, for the those mentioned above – that I wasn’t able to fulfill my training commitments. Heading into tomorrow Singapore Marathon 2009, I would adopt a strategy of maintaining my running speed and pace for my 10km and 15km runs, at least for the distance up to 30km and from 30km onwards to the finishing mark, I will push and motivate myself to Run My Own Race and Finish with a Bang !!!

With a new sponsor New Balance coming on board Singapore Marathon 2009 and for the next 2 years, their marketing and advertisements on the buses and signboards are pretty good, showcasing faces of runners and supporters.

However, their race pack is VERY DISAPPOINTING.

A drawstring bag – save cost ? save the environment ? Acts as a laundry bag for me instead.

Singlet – Still alright, no issues, quality not too bad.

Other stuff inside the drawstring bag – nothing much to talk about.

Nevertheless, I am looking forward to the race day itself, in less than 24 hours away. I hope my disappointments in my race pack will be changed with the race event, atmosphere and carnival itself and thoroughly enjoy myself tomorrow and bring myself to an improved level of marathon running and finishing.

For all Marathon runners going for Singapore Marathon 2009, whether this is your maiden marathon run or you are a seasoned or veteran marathon runner -

GOOD LUCK !! Run Your Own Race !!