The Start Matters. But What Matters Even More Is The End. How Are You Gonna Finish?

Finally. Today. The Day I've Been Training So Hard For The Past Few Months. Just For Today. It's Sundown Marathon. Flag Off Won't Be Anytime Until About 23 Hours Later. Which Means I Still Have Time To Mentally Prepare Myself As Well As To Do Lots Of Stretching And Really Have A Good Sleep (After I'm Done With This! HAHA!)

Actually I'm Not To Sure How I'm Going To Treat This Race. Starting Well Is Definitely Important. Got To Pace Myself Evenly Throughout The Race. Am Really Nervous To Be Honest Cause I'm Not Sure What The Consequences Are For Finishing The Race And How Well I Will Perform Because It's A Distance I've Never Covered Before. And Most Importantly, I Want To Finish Strong As Well.

So The Plan Is: Take A Marker And Draw On My Hand The Different Checkpoint Timings (Probably Every 2.5km) Target Is Still Low 4 Hours Or If Possible, Below That To Really Give Myself A Really Good Challenge.

Actually That Is Not The Original Plan At All.
The Original Plan Was To YOLO!!! HAHAHAA!

At Least I'm Done With All My E-Learning Assignments, I Can Just Focus On My Race. But Common Test Starts In Just 1 Week Time. And It's On A SATURDAY!!! I Haven't Started On Any Revision Yet Because This Is Such A Busy Semester And I Haven't Really Manage My Time Well. Which Means It's Another YOLO.

Just Gonna Take Things One Step At A Time. All Focus.

Sundown Marathon.

Let's Do This.

做的事越疯狂

过程就会越难忘

Because I Know I'm Strong Enough To Handle This.

Finally 18!!! Busy These Days Really Couldn't Find The Time To Blog Any Sooner!

And So Here It Is. Did 18.18 Km Run And Surprisingly The Seconds Were 18 Too! Something Unique I Guess. At Least I Enjoyed Myself And It Was A Test Run For My Actual Marathon Coming In Just 5 Days Time.

And Yup Didn't Expect To Be Celebrating My Birthday But My Parents Insist On Dining Out And So I Had Dinner At Jack's Place!

And There Was A Free Cake From Starbucks Too! Phewwww. So Much Good Food In Just One Day I Just Can't Explain How Much I Really Enjoyed Myself!

Am Really Thankful That Some Of My Friends Still Remembered My Birthday Though I Didn't Expect Any Too. And Like All The Wishes Through Voice Messages, Messages, Tweets And Facebook. Did Not Receive And Gift Or What But It's Always The Thought That Counts. The Rest Doesn't Really Matter.

And On Saturday. BA CARES Inauguration @ Sentosa! Woke Up So Damn Early Just To Be On Time To Discuss Some Cheer Thing Which We Did Not Use In The End Because Garfield Combined With Pink Panther As We Had Too Little Members, And So We Had A Combined Cheer. There Goes My Sleeeeep. Overall Was Fun But Really Tiring.

Anyways This Week Is E-Learning Week. But I Always Believe That It Is Just An Excuse For Tutors To Give Us More Work To Do And It Is Important That We Plan Our Time Wisely. The Problem Is Whenever It Comes To Studies, I Don't Have Discipline. HAHAA! Whatever~

因为我们慢慢了解批次

我开始渐渐有把握

能够让你快乐的是我

Being Independent Just Makes You So Much Stronger.

Time Fliessss OMGGG! Shouldn't Even Be Feeling Calm At All.

Don't Even Know If I'm Ready For It. 10 More Days. Not Much Difference I Can Make But I Got To Try My Best. 'Run Like There's No Tomorrow And You'll Make It.' That's What I Always Tell Myself. Got To Just Keep Going. Am Really Happy For The Good Training Sessions I Had For The Past Month.

Guess It's True That Sometimes We Just Rely On Others To Give Us The Strength. But That's When I Actually Realise I Don't Really Do That Anymore. I Used To Do That. Use Someone As My Motivation To Go Further And Faster And Really Push Myself To The Limits.

But What's Amazing Is I'm Running These Days And The Strength All Comes From Within. It's Probably The Mind Playing Tricks. Or Maybe It Really Really Means I'm Getting Really Independent And This Also Means I Am Not Attached To People Though I'm Still Making Lots Of Friends These Days.

I Like This Feeling Totally. You Have No Expectations Of People And You Don't Get Disappointed. You Have No One To Talk To And Yet You Can Just Entertain Yourself And Not Feel Affected At All. You Don't Rely On Others And Therefore They Don't Affect You.

And What's More, My Birthday In Two Days And Unlike Past Years, I'll Probably Hint My Friends Or I'll Just Ask Them Out Directly Cause They Don't Usually Remember Mine Like How I Always Remember Theirs.

I Don't Feel Like They Have To Celebrate My Birthday Honestly And I'm Not Expecting Anything At All. Not Even Wishes HAHAA! I Just Don't Care. What Matters Is I'm Still Happy. If They Remembered Than It'll Be Good, If They Don't It's Really Okay. I Can Celebrate My Birthday On My Own If I Want To - This Is The Power Of Being Independent. Sounds Like Forever Alone But Sometimes You Are Alone But You Just Ain't Lonely.

And I Have Planned A Nice Sweet Challenge For Myself On That Day. At Least To Me, The Most Unique Thing To Do On Your Own Birthday.

Be Special. Be Unique. That's Me.

独立只不过代表

快乐掌握在自己的手里

虽然悲伤也是自己承担

但是这只会让你更坚强

I Love Running, Because It Teaches Me So Much About Life, Almost Everything I Need To Know In Life.

It's Been A Really Really Long Time Since I Blogged. Busy Like Mad For The Past 2 Weeks. 

I'm Back In Track & Field. A Shocking Decision, But So Far, It's Been An Amazing Decision. Used To Be Running Competitive Back When I Was In Primary School. But Somehow In Secondary School, I Did Not Train As Hard And I Wasn't Able To Finish Strong In The National Cross Country Even Though My Form Was At The Peak.

Year 1 In Poly. Signed Up For 7 CCA's. End Up In Entertainer's Club. Learnt Balloon Sculpturing. Got Kicked Out Because They Had Some Test Which I Failed, But Still I Did Try And I Really Enjoyed Myself For That 2 Months. Something That I'm Gonna Strike Off My List Of The Things That I've Not Done In My Whole Life. Used To Be Active In Camps, But Stop At Some Point Of Time Because I Feel Just So Lazy. GPA Wasn't That Great Either.

Year 2 In Poly. Amazing So Far. Things In My Life Changed So Much. Got No Idea How Or When Or What, All Of A Sudden, I'm Signing Up For Tons Of Volunteering Events And I've Learnt So Much. Great Experience Which I Really Enjoyed.

Track & Field. Running. It's All About Running. I Look Back To January When I Made The Decision To Sign Up For Sundown Full Marathon. I Was Really So Inexperience. Thinking I Had Completed 2XU Half Marathon At A Great Timing And Escape Injuries, I Really Thought It Was Going To Be Easy.

"I've Completed 21km, How Hard Can 42km Be" 

Was All That Was In My Mind. It's A Stupid Proud And Naive Thought.

Coach Called Me "Ah Siao". Running 42km At The Age Of 18, There's No Way You Are Gonna Escape Without Injuries. It's Gonna Damage Most Muscles In My Body. 

But The Thing Is I've Already Signed Up. Looks Like Backing Out Isn't An Option. Listening To The Advice From Many In Track Who Have Experienced The Marathon, They Told Me Regular 10km Isn't Even Enough If You Are Running A Full Marathon. There Will Still Be Injuries.

For The First Time In My Entire Life, I've Actually Clocked About 50km Of Mileage For The Past Week, Doing 10km On Days Without Training Which Falls On Mon, Weds & Fri. One Month Ago I Wasn't Even In Track And Was Doing A Pathetic 5km On Alternate Days Covering Less Than Half I Am Doing Now.

I Look At The Mileage Myself And I'm Really Amazed. I Feel Like I Can Go Further Than That. My Form Is Back. In Fact I've Already Surpassed My Current Limits And Have Established New Limits For Myself Without Even Realising It. That's How Being In Track Has Changed Me.

Don't You Wanna Train Harder When You See People Training Hard?

Running Marathon Is About The Mind. But If I Do It With Just The Mind Then Sure As Hell I Can Finish It And Sustain Injuries That Can Last For Months Or Such May Even Be Permanent. Worth It? Totally Not.

Instead Of Feeling Like I Am On Top Of The World, I'll Probably Be Crying In Pain.

Track Just Put My Life Back On Track. I'm Training So Hard Now And I Want To Push Myself Even Further. Train Hard. Train Hard. Train Hard. 19 Or Rather 18 More Days To Sundown. Seems Rather Near, But I'm Gonna Persevere Hard.  Pain Aside. Pain Aside. Pain Aside. Getting So Used To All The Aching But Look At Me, I'm Still Alive And I'm Even Stronger Than Before Because

What Doesn't Kills You Makes You Stronger.

The Only Problem Now Is Studies. Having A Difficult Time To Juggle Both Together But I'm Trying Really Hard. No Time For Any Volunteering For Now But I'll Make Up During The Holidays.

42.195KM 
Not Going To Give Up. 
I'm Coming For You. 
Faster. Stronger. Higher.

比赛输了

但你还是赢了

不是胜过跟你比赛的人

而是胜过自己

这才是人生最大的快乐

Giving Is Always Better Than Receiving, Because What You Get From Giving Is Priceless.

What A Busy First Week, Especially Since School Has Started, A Whole New Semester With Really Challenging Modules And It's Only The First Week, I Can Already Feel How Tough All These Modules I'm Taking This Semester Are.

Still, Definitely A Great Week. Weekends Were Awesome. Visited Soup Kitchen Yesterday Early In The Morning To Do Some Helping Out At Their Central Kitchen. Helped To Do Some Chopping Of Tomatoes, Cabbage, Cracking Of Eggs, Plucking Of The Roots Of Vegetables, Trying To Find Carrots That Aren't Spoilt From A Rotten Pile Of Carrots (Which Is Seriously Disgusting And The Smell Is..) Cooking Of Eggs Etc. Really Makes Me Feel How Lucky I Am. If This Is The Least I Can Do, Then I Won't Hesitate In Helping Out Those Less Fortunate.

Tiring Morning But Only 3 Hours Of Afternoon Sleep To Get Me Going For A Full 15 Hours Outside Of Home Without Any Sleep. NTUC Income 350. Reported At 11pm And Event Lasted Till 10am. Got Me So Freaking Tired I Slept 6 Hours Just Awhile Ago And I'm Still Feeling So Lethargic.

4am In The Morning

Basically My Job Is To Be At The Start Point To Carry This NTUC Income Banner Before Every Flag Off And Carrying Some Stuffs. The Rain Was Kinda A Disappointment Since The 21 km Was Canceled And Though I Did See Singapore's Top Marathoner, But I Don't Think He Did Run In The End.

The Finish Point Was Very Near And So I Manage To Cheer On Most Who Were Completing This Race. And I Really Felt Like Running Myself Too. I Mean I Was A Runner Under Such Circumstances And There Were People Cheering Me On. It Feels Really Good, That Extra Bit Of Motivation. Ask Yourself, Are You Going To Finish Strong? Brought Back So Much Memories Of Last Year's 2XU Half Marathon! Last 200 Meters And I Was Sprinting To The Finish. Mind Over Body.

All The Energetic Cute Kids In The Kids Dash

In Fact Sundown Marathon Isn't Even Far. Just 1 Month Away. I May Not Be Physically Ready Yet But All This Months I've Been Building Up Mentally. Because Running A Marathon Isn't Only About Your Physical Body But Rather More On The Mental. Pain. What Is Pain? No Pain No Gain. In Fact It's All About Mind Games. I Am Going To Finish It Like No Other. Finishing Strong Is Not An Option. It Will Happen. Reality.

Hectic Week Next Week And Still Have A Camp During The Weekends. Time Is Really Gonna Fly.

要知道别人的痛

就只能自己去做

去感受

这是人最大的缺点

也是人最大的优点

Trip To Japan!

Prepare......

For An Extremely Long Post. 4 Days Trip In Japan. My Best Overseas Trip So Far. If You Are Reading This, After You Have Finished, It Will Feel Like It Has Been A Trip To Japan (Just Kidding) HAHAA. But Anyways, 500 Over Photos Took And I Managed To Cut Short The Number Of Pictures To Just Over A Hundred. But Still, Enjoy, Because It Took Me 2 Hours To Blog.

Took ANA (Japan) Airlines To Japan. Economy Class. Love Their Service And The Food On Their Plane.

Bought A Travelling Card (Pasmo) For Travelling For The Next 4 Days Because Taxi Is Too Expensive And It's Calculated Per Pax.

Only To Realise How Insanely Complicated Their Train Map Is (And Not All Stations Are Shown On This Map). Love How Their Train Have Cushion Seats Though, But During Peak Hours, The Train Will Be So Crammed That There Would Be Physical Contact. It's Two To Three Times Worst Then Singapore As I've Personally Experienced It.

And Finally Arriving At The Hotel I Was To Stay For 4 Days. It Has A Really Really Small Room And Look At The Cupboard, It's Simply Pathetic. But Guess It Doesn't Really Matter Because What Matters Is What We'll Be Doing The Next Few Days.

Finally Arriving In Town. You Can See How Crowded It Is. Original Plan Was To Visit Harajuku - A Place Whereby People Will Dress Up Showing Their Fashion Sense And Walk Down Along The Street.

Vending Machines Everywhere. Selling Cigarettes, All Kinds Of Drinks, Ice Cream And Many More Including Ramen!

So Basically You Order From The Machine, Get The Ticket And Change It For Ramen. Love The Ramen. Can Finally Truely Say That I've Tasted Authentic Ramen. The Taste Of The Pork With The Soup Is Simply Delicious, Not Forgetting The Texture Of The Ramen. It Suddenly Feels Like All The Ramen Sold In Singapore Is A Lie.

Flowers Everywhere Along The Streets.

Takoyaki!!! 

Day 2 : DisneySEA!! Many Many Attractions! Many Times Better Then The Hong Kong DisneyLand I Went To! My First Time Attempting A 360 Degrees Loop Roller Coaster But Wasn't As Scary As I Expected, In Fact It Was Alot Less Scary Then Drop. Dropping Feels Like Suicide. Like How Their Popular Attractions Allows You To Get A Fastpass And Queue In Advance So You Don't Miss Out Any Of Those! (:

Learning How To Fire A Canon! :D

Flame On The Water.

Milk-Tea Popcorn! Unique Taste!

8 Stories Drop Haunted House. Quite Scary! HAHAA!

Love This Cute Looking Mochi! Best Mochi I've Eaten. No Flour On The Surface And Yet It Doesn't Stick To Your Hands. Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry.

Performances Everywhere.

Day 3: Visit To Mount Fuji, Followed By Confectionery Museum, Strawberry Picking And Then Wine Tasting! Didn't Went All The Way Up Though As A Tracking Expedition Is Required. But Still, Magnificent View!

Fantastic BBQ Lunch.

Peach Blossom Everywhere!

Confectionery Museum.

Huge Strawberries <3

Lovely Flowers <3

Wine Making Process And Of Course, Tasting.

Udon For Dinner!

Double Decker Train!

Day 3: Visit To Shopping Street, Tokyo Skytree And Local Market.

Japan's Famous 人形烧!

Bad Luck Fortune. ):

Cherry Blossoms.

Rice Cake With Red Bean Baste. Somehow Their Red Bean Soup Is Super Delicious And It Gives The Supposingly Plain Rice Cakes A Sweet And Chewy Flavor. Noodles Looks Simple But Sometimes, Simplicity Is The Best.

Road To The Top Of Tokyo's Skytree (Japan's Tallest Building). First Man To Climb Up - Pang Tun Yang! Just Kidding (:

Magnificent View At The Top.

Soba Noodles With Pork For Lunch! Yet Another Delectable Meal.

Saw This Really Cute Way Of Advertising Ramen! (:

Local Market Selling Many Stuff. Huge Apples. Huge Tomatoes. Everything They Sell Is Simple Magnified Size Compared To The Stuffs You See In Singapore. The Price Is Magnified Too :/

Most Worthy Dinner I've Eaten Throughout My Trip In Japan. At Just 900 Yen (About S$11.25), You Won't Believe What I Found Inside. This Is Basically Seafood Curry Baked Rice And Somehow I Found One Medium Sized ABALONE And SCALLOP Inside. What A Steal.

Day 4 : Was Visit To Fish Market. Huge Fishes Everywhere.

Had Flu ): So While The Rest Of The Family Had Sashimi, I Had To Do With Cooked Salmon. Sighhh.

Followed By Visit To The Imperial Garden.

Bento Set For Lunch!

Visit To Shrine And Museum.

Delicious Mochi!

Final Meal In Japan! Beef Bowl. Simply Toothful.

Haneda Airport!

To Sum It Up, There Is So Much To Love About Japan And To Be Honest, What I Love Most Is How They Are So Polite And Helpful People. They Are People I Really Respect. Ask For Directions And They'll Try Their Best To Help You Even If They Cannot Speak English. Buy Something From Them And They'll Bow To You And Thank You Sincerely. Love How Their Streets Are Always Clean Even Though There Isn't Any Dustbin Around The Streets, Only To Learn Later That They Actually Bring Their Rubbish Home To Dump It Off Which Is Simply Amazing. Love Their Food So Much. Any Food That You Find Along The Streets Just Tastes Simply Delicious. Love Their Weather Because Isn't It Simply Amazing To Be Able To See Flowers Everywhere Along The Streets? Love The Way The People Dress Up To Show Their Authentic Way Of Fashion. Love How Their Vending Machines Sell Almost Any Type Of Food, From Drinks To Liquor To Ice Cream To Ramen To Cigarettes. The List Really Goes On...

"Would I Ever Go To Japan In The Near Future If I Can?" Definitely Yes.

Guess It's Back To Reality. Time To Prepare For A Whole New Year. A Really Tough Year 2 Ahead. Gonna Be Really Busy Since Next Up Is Volunteering For NTUC Income Run, Followed By Camps Then Sundown Marathon Race Pack Collection, SDM 2014 And Finally Exams And Holidays.

你看到的越多

你体会的会越多

学到的也越多

也更会做人