RUN AWAY....

I am in my car again heading to Subang 2 to meet my vendor Petro Retail. It is not easy to write my blog at home or at the office with so much work to complete and so many discussions with my Head of Departments. Leslie is next to me directing Sanwa, my driver, to Petro retail office as I frantically glued on my Nokia E90 typing my blog. I reckon I have less than 15 minutes before reaching the destination.

Running is undoubtedly the best form of exercise to burn fat. Well not that I am looking into losing fat but since I started running constantly in the past 2 months, I have gone down from 74kg to 66kg, almost 15kg under-weight for my height of 5’11”.

Is that good? To be a good runner, we must keep our body weight light and to run a full marathon or ultra-marathon, having a light body weight is a good advantage but is that what I wanted? i wandered alone. No, I never wanted to lose weight. I was never overweight and it was never my ambition to be a good runner.

What inspires me to start exercising and running was my blood test result. With my ‘re-condition’ body, having gone through heavy doses of both chemotherapy and radiotherapy prior to the bone marrow transplant almost 20 years ago, it will be a matter of time before each of my internal organs collapse. Now, all my blood test results display high positive reading for cholesterol, glucose, uric acid, stone in the bladder etc. Typical and even parts of a 're-condition' car engine too will slowly collapse. I started my running, cycling and swimming as I turn 30, to maintain my fitness given all the negative blood test results.

Being dissatisfied with 66kg in weight, I ran away from running and focussed more in weight lifting for the past 3 weeks. An intensive weight training can increase my heart beat to a 90% max heart rate giving me enough training to improve my fitness level. Weight training had also improved my physique. My weight has increased to 70kg now. I have registered for the Adidas King of the Road 24km race on 10 August 2008 this coming Sunday and I have not been running for the past 3 weeks. The qualifying time is 2 hours and 30 minutes for the 24km race.

I asked leslie who looked bored beside me if he is ready for the Adidas race? Leslie and at least 9 of my other friends were supposed to run the Adidas race with me. Leslie said, my pa, Azhar failed to register Leslie, Sayf and Azlan in time before the closing date. They took too long to decide if they really wanted to participate. We.. me, nawal, abu, nita, Dato Fadzil, Datin azura and my sister Emi had registered earlier being overly eager to run the King of the Road race. We reached Petro Retail office and I am still half way through the blog post. Petro Retail is the authorised supplier for Facep, Italy car workshop equipments and is the only bumiputra company in the field.

After 2 hours of discussions with Kamarul, Petro Retail Managing Director, we left to the Soul’ed Out restaurant at Desa Sri Hartamas for a meeting with another vendor; Mohan from Shell. Yes, without exhausting my effort to post a blog regularly, I continued writing while Sanwa drove and leslie sitting quietly getting lost in thought.

To complete the Adidas King of the Road race within the time frame given, I need to train for distance and speed running which I will again go back to being 66kg without a good physique, except for being thin. I choose to maintain my weight above 70kg & physique and needed to do more weight training but I may not be able to complete the race within the qualifying time. I guess I will only find out this coming Sunday during the race. Good luck to me.

Contrary to whatever the health, muscle and fitness magazine writes, I do not believe in attaining both a good running distance and a muscular physique. It is an ‘either-or’ gain. A distance running will burn both fat as well as muscles and will make anyone too thin without a well built physique but both will increase fitness level. To those who seek to lose weight, ladies especially, don’t waste time and money at the gym and personal trainer; just invest in a good running shoe and start running. Believe me, it work wonders.