Back to Climbing

I had finally (after repeated requests by Junjie) went rockclimbing at Yishun Safra yesterday! Our group comprised Nicholl, Junjie and myself. It was also really great to see familiar faces like Bernard, Angie and company.

Looks like in addition to the belly I'm growing, I'd also grown weak. Only managed 2 climbs, and I had rested 3-4 times along the way up for each climb! That speaks volumes! Well, I'm not left with sunburns and aching forearms. But all in all, it was great fun climbing again, somehow, people crap more when they climb, hahaha!

Getting Fat

And I don't mean my wallet getting fatter.... conversely, my wallet is actually getting thinner! I need to get new shoes (current one is losing its soul), new working clothes (they are getting holy). Last month we had two weddings, and my forex trading is still making a net loss although its catching up now.

But the point of the matter is.... I'm getting physically fatter!! ARGH. Last night a friend asked me why I had stopped climbing - I used to be quite a regular then. My excuses (yes, I know they are excuses) are (a) I'd been learning new stuff, like trading, (b) I need to spend time watching the markets, (c) I'd lost momentum, (d) I'd gotten lazy.

There we go... a good list of 'reasons' why I had no time to exercise and get rid of that horrible spare tyre.

The year is ending pretty soon, my goal of actually making profits before re-joining the gym isn't quite here yet. I'm wondering at some level if I should join the gym first, then look at recovering the costs from trading. But if I do that, its like spending cash before I make it.... so I need to be focused on my goals. Well, at least for now I'd been exercising abit more thanks to Weng.

Man... I need to train up more....

Needing Motivation

Been feeling somewhat less motivated these days. And it seems to permeate most areas of my life right now.

Personal
I had not been able to follow the plan I designed at the beginning of the year. Somewhat behind most of my goals such as reading of books, learning things... etc.

I'll need to sit down and re-plot my goals from now... actually its a good thing to review my goals every quarter or even more frequently. Actually... right now is a perfect time if I want to do quarterly reviews!

On a brighter note, some things did get moving. I had finally stopped the GIRO payment for my ILP (Bad idea to get into one in the first place...) and starting another insurance policy at the advice of my Financial Advisor. Next step is to get my SINGPASS and check how much CPF funds I have left to invest.

Career
Its coming to 2 years since I started work. To recap, I decided to go to where I am instead of doing technical work or programming work, and one of the key reasons was to put myself out of my comfort zone and see what other things I can learn. There are other skill areas to pick up.

Being in the same division for the 2 years, I think I'm now yearning for a change. To be honest, my bosses now aren't bad, so it is kind of a risk if I were to request for the change. I guess the same concept of moving out of comfort zone applies.... how else can a person grow?

Firstly, I'll need to check with my scholarship officer to find out what my options are.... I might rotate out of the organisation and try my hand at tech stuff again if that's possible. Alternatively, I can also rotate to another division, if I can quickly decide which one is the best route to take.... argh... I'm so confused!

Health & Fitness
Had stopped climbing for quite awhile.... Chow's been busy studying... I'd been slacking off, and apple had been asking me when we're going to climb. Actually, Jason had been asking too.

Think I'll get back to climbing again soon... haha, its so seasonal for me....

I had also stopped going gym for quite awhile.... well, the lacking of motivation part is one of it, the other I suppose is that I want to get too many things done at the same time. The concurrent pulling in multiple directions doesn't get one anywhere, and that's why I need to sit down and sort out my priorities again....

ZZZzzz... feeling rather tired now... haha... well, it is ridiculous to be up so early.... zzzzzzz

Sprain Back

Was playing badminton with Dave on Sunday night, and ended up spraining my back. Argh, that evil man made me run all over the court! Left! Right! Front! Back! What's worse is that he loves to give those super near the net, super low shots that you must almost dive for.

I think I sprained my back receiving one of those shots!

Must really admit that I'm getting old liao le.....

Standchart Training

Just another quick update.

I've cleared 10km on Thu, and I think the timing is just a little over an hour.

I've been thinking if I should now start taking my training beyond the treadmill. Running outdoors is naturally more pleasant with the fresh air, change in scenery, etc. But the key disadvantage to that is hydration.

I have my bottle of water placed right in front of me when I'm running on the treadmill, but carrying a bottle of water with me when running outdoors is quite a hassle. I prefer to run without carrying anything.

Maybe I'll just give it a shot by dropping by ECP to run one of these evenings.

Standchart Training

I'm on track with training so far, and cleared 8km in about 50mins. Nothing impressive in terms of speed, but I'm glad to be hitting that distance. The target of the week is to hit 10km by this Friday, and perhaps after that, I'll take running out of the gym (I'd been running on treadmill to track time and distance) and go ECP for runs or something.

I realised that it takes me loads of time just to cool down. I ended up sweating profusely on the MRT and had to exit at Bugis to seat down and cool it abit. I looked like I just came from the sauna! Understandably, I had quite a comfortable circumference of space around me.... :P

Next time, I'll make an effort to seat around (a.k.a waste time) to cool down abit more before I board the train.

Weekend Climbing

Did a couple of things over the weekend, but decided that I'll blog abit about climbing yesterday first.

Due to some rare cosmic alignment, we have 3 rare guest from Adsports: Piak, Bowl and KM. JJ, who's in the picture also, doesn't count as "rare" because he's quite a regular climber.

As usual they came fashionably late, but since we already expected that, we started with our climbs first. Sigh... I think I've gotten weaker from lack of climbing, and ended up with rather sore forearms and a blistered finger.

It was nice to have the adsporters down; compared to the first time the adsporters came down, we were more quiet. Mellowed I guess. :) And unlike the first time, none of the girls were hoisted up, and no squeals of excitment.

Overall, good day of climbing.

Training for StandChart

I decided to challenge myself and signed up for the 21km standchart run. I think my last 21km run was also at the standchart run about 3 years back, so can I re-gain my ability to cover long distance after such a long span of time? I'm finding out.

Hadn't been running much for the past few months, well, perhaps more than just a few months, so my stamina isn't really good at this point.

I started running on monday, covering 4km using the threadmill at 1% gradient. The 1% gradient is supposed to simulate the actual effort taken to run on the road. Personally, I think it should be much more than 1% because the roads aren't flat!

I run another 5km today, and targeting to hit either 6-7km on friday. My actual target was 10km, but I really doubt I can hit that distance and I really should be doing progressive training. Actually, since I have about 3 months in total to train, even if I hit 10km (i.e. about half the distance) by end of the month, its a pretty good target right? Hmm.....

Well, lots more running to come!