Run Run Run

Today I participated in the Push Play Corporate Challenge. There were around 15 from Orion who took part in the event. It was an enjoyable time, and I even scored a free T-shirt and some other goodies.

I didn't really prepare much for this, in fact I hardly trained at all. I did a few long runs (around 7-8 km) but I was completing them in 50 mins. Considering that I wanted to complete the run within the 25-30 min zone, it wasn't very comforting.

So I ran, and with the runners all around me this created more energy. By the end of the run I was absolutely shattered. The good news is that I managed a time of 23 mins 21 secs, which is better than I had hoped for. Overall I came third in the company behind the HR Manager and the Legal Counsel, who happen to be sports fanatics.

This race time, I'll use as a personal benchmark so that next time I can run the same distance sub 20! Yeah right........

EDIT: I managed to get a photo of the team in the carpark before we headed to the event. The poser is kneeling down on the left. I have to say the shades are cool but the hairstyle is not! Despite the bad tastes in fashion, courtesy of me and the dude in the John McEnroe jogging outfit, the atheleticism of the entire team was beyond reproach!

Return of the Cerocstar?

I haven't been dancing for about 8 months. I haven't had a need to go dancing, but I still miss it. Back in the days when I was doing Ceroc I was going up to four nights in a week! Somehow I must have burned myself out.

I just received an email from a lady who teaches ballroom dancing in the local community and who I acquainted myself with when I did lessons with her. She asked whether I'd be able to partner a lady who has just started dancing and is quite good. It's good to be kept in mind, but unfortunately I had to decline because of other commitments. Some people might say I have stupid written on my forehead. Maybe I have to agree........

Sigh, hopefully next year I will get back into dance seriously.....there will need to be a serious re-evaluation of my life for the new year as well if I want to go down the road of the dancefloor.

Slick Slick, Cool Cool

Last night I managed to score a complimentary entry to a private screening of Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. One person's comments on the movie echoed my sentiments about the movie exactly:

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is like a wildly expensive hooker who looks like she's worth millions yet is actually worth a hell of a lot less, but when the ride is so damn good you just can't complain and you'll be telling all your friends. Put another way, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has a certain something which the murder mystery genre tends to lack - a sense of fun. So much so, that I was crying with laughter!

Go check it out, you will NOT be disappointed!

Guy Fawkes

I was lighting a whole lot of fireworks this evening with friends in the driveway. Particularly fun was holding the roman candles in the hand while it went shooting off in the sky. I combined about five roman candles together, tied their wicks together, lit a wick which ignited all the wicks, held it up in the air and let off around 50 rounds into the sky.

Unfortunately not everyone shared our enthusiasm. There was this old guy up the road who came down to us to see how long we were going to be! I looked at my watch. It was only 9:50pm, for goodness sake! Lots of people around the neighbourhood were lighting up too, and were expected to go on later in the night. Anyway we were all pretty high from the drink and the fireworks, so we offered him a wine, which he flatly declined. We asked him to join us but he wasn't interested, of course. Finally, we said that we'll finish all our remaining fireworks within 15 minutes. This seemed to be a satisfactory answer to the man. He politely thanked us, wished us a good time, and went back into his house.

Obviously he was pretty pissed at the amount of noise we were generating so he approached us with frustration, but upon seeing how many people there were, and we had around 7 small kids with us as well, his attitude changed a bit to hide his frustration. I mean, Guy Fawkes only happens once a year. It's not like we generate this amount of noise every night, and we certainly won't continue into the dead of night like a bunch of yobbos. Just grin and bear it and let some young people have their fun for once.

Get over it, man!

Running Man

I have gotten back into running now that Orion is entering teams to participate in the Push Play Corporate Challenge. It's a 5km run open to employees of businesses.

It's been a while since I ran; the last time was Round the Bays in March earlier this year. I trained intensely for about two months for Round the Bays and managed a nice time of 41 mins 15 secs over the 8.4 km course. Then for some reason I stopped. I started doing weights, and gained some body weight in the process.

Now I have started training since last Friday, running whenever I get the chance. And it's so hard, I start fatiguing after 1km. Perhaps it's the extra weight that's making me more tired? Hmmm, or more likely because I haven't been running since March!

At the moment I'm taking about 29 mins to run 5.5 km, which isn't good enough. I would like to get it down to 23 mins, which would be comparable to my Round the Bays efforts. Alas the race is on November 16th so I'm afraid there isn't much time to be fit enough to achieve my target time. Guess I'll have to take some performance enhancing substances, such as carbohydrate-rich foods. You thought I meant steroids, right?