Thoughts during a jog

Earlier tonight marked the first time I’ve gone jogging this year. Whooopee thats like being 9 months off the pace. My current body weight before I went jogging was 86 kg. I am back to my heaviest. This corresponds to the month in which I left the army, being inactive and all caused me to balloon. It took 4 years for my weight to drop back to the region of 73 to 75 kg.

 The bull’s eye mark has been locked on 75kg. That will be the target I am going to hit. I want my abs back, I want my energy back and my zest for life!

 I decided to do a modification of this technique, especially since I haven’t been running for such long period of time. My goal was to be out there working my trusty heart for at least 30 minutes. Bearing in the mind the possible benefits of using an interval training system where I would run and walk briskly instead of being in continuous running state throughout the entire duration. This is quite different from physical education lessons back in school or in the army where we were told to try and keep running because the inertia of moving from a walk to run state is huge.

My timing kinda went like this, 5 minute fast paced, 3 brisk walk, another 3 minute fast paced followed by 2 minute walk, after which I went into a slower 4 minute jog with another 2 minute recovery  walk. The pattern followed until I managed hit the 33rd minute mark where I climbed the infamous slope and headed towards home.

I felt that without using such a system I would not have been able to exercise as much as I had tonight. The merits of such a system remains to be proven but at the current rate, I think I am going to stick to it for a 30 day period

 There is some truth when people say that one mind’s at peace when jogging. This time I was running without any tempo devices such as a mp3 player, so everything was based on my timer. I was more goal-focused as a result. If I had some music, I may not have been as conscious of the time.

As I was running at about 11 pm in the park, visibility was pretty low and certain bends were of low visibility. When I run in time segments, I usually set a visual marker for me to run towards and as I hit the marker I toss out another virtual marker some distance ahead. When I was heading back towards home base, I saw two to three exits that I thought was the goal. The place to stop and walk home while cooling down. Even though I wasn’t new to the park, I was surprised that I actually mistaken my goal twice, once almost stopping too early and the second time I almost missed my intended stop. This is pretty much how life is : you set a goal you want to home in on it but when you get close to the goal, you can actually be going off-tangent and if the mistake isn’t realized in time, one may end up further away from the goal.

There are different strategies for running distances in a circular track and running a scenic route. I can see the likes of it in the IT industry. Basically there are two kind of IT projects: one where the specifications are laid out at the start of the project and the other where specifications and length of project varies as the project goes on. The former kind of projects would be like running a known fixed distance on a circuit whereas the other would be running a cross country race in unfamiliar terrain. God knows how much time and how much effort is required.

Personally I prefer the running on a track because I know that satisfaction lies at the end of 6 rounds and the objective is met. Unfortunately, life journey is often like the 2nd classification of projects. There lies much uncertainty in the paths we pick and the decisions we make.

The only way to improve my perfomances in the runs (life) is to hone my stamina, judgement, continually strengthen various muscle groups and mind to handle the vigours and challenges that the run (life) may bring.

This shall be my direction and my immediate current aim – to hone myself to face uncertainty and ride the wave to success!

The 30 day trial

There are plenty of bad habits I have in my life. Bad habits are so damn hard to shake off and the route is never easy. Let me make a list of the bad habits I currently possess and wish to tackle.

1. Laziness to brush my teeth (Sometimes I just fall asleep when I use the computer next to the bed)
2. Lack of Exercise – I keep talking about wanting to jog but procrastination takes over.
3. Too much coffee – I take at least 2 cups daily

Its been two weeks since I started the 30 day trial for coffee. The idea is that if I can keep coffee out of my system for 30 days, I can keep it out for 90 days and eventually I wont take coffee at all! At 14 days and counting, the biggest trial so far must have been at Starbucks last sunday where everyone around me was sipping their brews. It was almost torture that I was reduced to drinking a Mango Frap but I pulled through. Hurrah!

The journey begins

Recent events in my life have piqued my interest in personal development (PD). Thanks a lot of my PD buddy who has been unselfishly sharing a lot of knowledge in this domain still new to me.

So I’ve been reading a lot lately. This is in no small part due to the presence of HP at work. She’s like an elder sister to me and have been sharing plenty of knowledge and great to read books at work. I am also thankful to have a manager who is too interested in personal development and have attended various coaching classes in the past. They have strongly encouraged me to go for such courses in the future. Plenty of inspiration comes from Steve Pavlina’s site and I encourage anyone who is interested in personal development to head over and take a look.

I’ve decided to pen down my journey in the search for enlightenment. I will continue to work on this site.