just whack

today's water was cancelled after we waited 2 hours for the rain to stop. frankly speaking water trainings haven't been going smoothly the past few weeks. but well, there must be a way out of this.

went back to school at 5pm. It really works; channelling everything into training. At least working out leaves you feeling shiok and much calmer after that (: (see, tip number 1 to avoid burn out)

yea it's true, there are 2 kinds of motivation. The first works through weaknesses- anger, frustration, disappointment and fear. The intensity of these feelings forces you to train harder, do that extra pull up, extra push up, run faster, row harder, cos you can just feel them closing up on you, haunting you, trying to make you fail again. Then there's the other type stemming from strenghts. Happiness, satisfaction, encouragement and courage. All these positive thoughts will inspire you to put in that extra effort cos you know what you are doing now is bringing you one step closer to your dream.

Hm.. i think sometimes too much of the former might cause you to lose your passion, doubt yourself. and that's when you must be even stronger. Too much feel-good may leave you unprepared for the crunch time, when both physical and mental pressures weigh down on you.

javine k2 partner real man (: she went for a run (with the monkeys!) While our RJC13 learns to glide, meanwhile we'll just give it imba power (:

did 14 pyramid on my favouritest playground (: then made it up to 70. 200 push ups total, 50 real man IPUs and lots of stretches. actually it's quite fun training with/beside the j1 guys, they real man do 18 pyramid. not so much of challenging each other, but more of motivation. It's very encouraging to see them push each other and support (literally) each other too, albeit in a very guy-ish and rowdy fashion. I'm really thankful boon is my teammate and classmate, when it's time to play, 10 sets of 5 sounds very noob when i tell him, so must make it up to 10 sets of 6 or 7 (: haha, and since we need to finish 10 sets, must do faster, cannot anyhow slack. Slowly. one way i gauge myself is given any day any time, can close my eyes and do at least 5 (now it's up to 6)

gtg, another day awaits (:

wheeeeeeeee

today was a super ggxx day (: haha, gao gao xing xing

went to school after dropping the bro off for morning swim (x-country cross training). yep, anw pe we did fitness! yay (:

wheeeee, did push ups, crunches (hm... strangely familiar isn't it? ahhh, no wonder, we did 400 each yesterday!) and tuck jumps. jerryca ownz tuck jumps (: ran 4 rounds, could feel all the lactic building up. yep, javine and hannah and muddy, all our right butts hurt from suicides (: wheeeee, hannaha and i did 20 sets, javine 22, and figured each time we stop for push ups/turn we're just zamming our right leg first.

4 x 25 IPUs (: didn't play cos er... got owned from yesterday. overkill 150 pullups total.

wah, and physics lecture. first time i fell asleep not knowing i was asleep. totally filtered out the lecturer's voice. felt very drained. and best part, we were discussing "burn out" for civics!

yep, the strategies suggested quite cool, in line with muddism, very good. muddy strongly advocates half an hour of spongebob and neopets a day, loads of exercise, and wearing a favourite shirt most of the day, which in muddy's case is easy cos muddy has 5 RJ pe shirt! wheeeeeee (: haha, and muddy feels extra happy when muddy wears the favourite RJ pe shirt! probability 1 out of 5.

muddy can't wait for maths tutorial 11b and f to be over. 13 (complex numbers) is er... less complex than vectors! wheeeeee, ownage muddy finished the tutorial already. muddy looks forward to physics tutorial, esp when muddy has done the tutorial. mr kadir super cool (:

after school went to playground with boon (: yay, having someone to train with is nice, can keep pushing each other on (: boon real man, ahahahhaha. wouldn't have gone to play if he didn't ask cos aching like siao, but you know what?

(revelation of the day)
Even when you think you're completely exhausted, wasted, can't move, already pushed to your limits, there will always be another level of exhaustion that you won't know you can handle until you try... to beat yourself.

yesterday's training was very good, did push ups until i fell flat on my face and plus the pull ups= abs+rib cage area+ lats, deltoids aching. very good, muscles (: shall attempt to go for some sports massage to relax my back and get more flexi!

yep, respect for ms lim, ironwoman! and she completed my dream triathlon, ironman langkawi (: fyi again, 3.8km swim, 180.2km cycle, 42.195km run. "no triathlon, no life" exciting! Once i'm old enough, langkawi here i come!

was on the way home, NEL, just spacing out, doing what i needed to do, up the escalator, siam the travellator, walk walk walk, notice the starhub poster, down the escalator...

and guess who i met (: junli and gilianne (: and it's true; to make a difference to another person's life is something very special. it must have been what they said, or the way they said it, but after we went off, felt really happy (: like grinning to myself kind (: thanks for everything (: from gilliane i learnt what it's like to give your all for your passion, something you truly believe in, all her late nights pia-ing psb stuff. and from junli, will always remember this quote "...to inspire our juniors to dare to dream further than we did" and junli loves raffles (:

went to bishan park to help some sec 1 kids with maths. and... (hm.. i have problems phrasing it but let me try) the best thing you can get out of such "cip" is a chance to make a differnce in another person's life. yep, usually it's a case of the reward, cip hours etc, then maybe recognition? yea... followed by self-fulfillment, feeling shiok cos you know you're some nice kind soul helping others.

last thing before sleep:

Truth or Dare --> -->
"Truth": DON'T EVER LET THEM SEE YOU CRY
Dare to let them see your tears
"Truth": DON'T EVER LET THEM SEE YOU SWEAT
Dare to let them see your toils
"Truth": DON'T EVER LET THEM SEE YOU FALTER
Dare to let them see your mistakes
"Truth": DON'T EVER LET THEM SEE YOU SUFFER
Dare to let them see your pain
"Truth": DON'T EVER LET THEM SEE YOU BLEED
Dare to let them see your wounds
"Truth" or Dare
the choice is yours
Accept the "truths"
and you may be considered wise
but within you may feel empty
Risk the dares
and you may be taken for a fool
but blessed with feeling whole
And while you anguish
let them learn from
your grace
as you survive
amidst your
tears
sweat
mistakes
pain
and wounds
You are human
let it be
and let them see
how you strive
to set yourself free
-Unknown

Birthday Challenge

From the Editor ...
Why A Birthday Challenge?

People often ask me why I do these things and, I suppose, they rarely get a satisfactory answer. Am I crazy? Do I enjoy hardship and suffering? If I like pain so much than why don't I just do the Eco-Challenge then spend my birthday partying like everyone else?

This is because my reasons, like my life, are constantly changing. The beauty of a birthday challenge is that you can tailor something that is just for you, depending upon your feeling or mood at any place in your life. One year you may focus on a personal strength, the next on a weakness. You may choose it to be physical, mental, or a combination of both. It can be one, short hard task or a year-long epic. It's entirely up to you; and because of this, you can end up challenging yourself like no event tailored for the masses could ever do.

One of the things I always focus on is thumbing my nose at convention. Having someone say "You can't do that" is a great motivator. The reason is because I believe that we, as a society, have become too obsessed with living our lives on someone else's terms. We have become scared to do things our own way because others may frown on it, or worse, we may get hurt, lose some possessions, or our societal standing.

Our motto at birthdaychallenge.com is Live Your Life because, at least in our opinion, too many of us have become too frightened to follow our dreams. We live our lives in fear, but I'm always wondering just what is it that we fear. Failure? Losing? Pain? Suffering? These are all part of life. These things add experience, they make our lives rich, fulfilling, they make us human.

Like Captain Kirk said, "I don't want my pain taken away, I need my pain."

With no pain, there is no struggle, no struggle, no rewards, and if no rewards, then why bother living at all?

The good captain also said, "I take it the situation is grim and the odds are against us. Sounds fun." Because challenge is fun. Pain is fun. Suffering is fun. Why? Because when it ends it gives you a perspective on life you couldn't otherwise have. The only thing that isn't fun is sitting around thinking about the things you may have been able to do if you'd gotten off your ass and tried. That is the only suffering that I can't endure.

You can't always control your day to day life, but most of us can control at least control one day a year.

Sure, this doesn't have to happen on your birthday it's as good as an excuse as any. After all, it's the day you came into this world, it's a great time to start living in it.

exciting! chanced upon this website while searching for pullups/push ups records (: pleased with myself today for doing a total of 150 pullups, not a lot, but it's a start (:

uh oh, my legs are starting to feel soft.

NVM 2007

just woke up (:

today was super exciting! woke up early to go Republic Plaza for national vertical marathon 2007! reached there a bit too early, saw men's open number 130+ to 160 in holding area... fyi there's 450 for that category. haha, sat around, enjoying the nice grass patch and scenary.

yay, might consider switching to Activade from Gatorade cos it's uber nice, haha, good thing they change the formula from the last time i drank it (some rg interhouse soccer in 2005) and best part it's 70% cocount juice! yay, and i love the tab, it's the old H20 kind! wheeeeee (: more concentration of salts and stuff. now to find out if they sell in bulk.

yep, holding area at 9.44am, detail 81. lots of random people, some just good friends here for a "nice" stroll up the building (>30minutes), pple around my age (15-20 minutes) and the really hiong ones who should have done around 12 minutes. winner of men's open did 8 minutes 15seconds!! top 20 ranged till high 10 minutes i think.

the race this year was much better in terms of venue. last year's at some suntec office block had really bad ventilation, lighting and steps. and this year is the more conventinal railing-on-your-left form.

this caucasian lady in my detail flew up the stairs, by 6th floor couldn't hear her footsteps anymore, so all the way up, haha, thought i was in the wrong building cos it was quite quiet. level 10! by 10 i was gg-ed to the max. haha, stumbled stumbled all the way. overtook 3 people from level 10-40, but got overtaken by 2 people from the 82nd detail. and at level 56 i think, saw this quote from winston churchill abt how you measure a person's health, what he take 2 at a time, pills or stairs! so muddy chionged, overtook like 4 people in that short stretch. wheeeeeeeeee 60 storeys ggxx! don't have the exact figure, but suppose to be 280m in vertical height, tallest building in s'pore! (first time i'm hearing this)

wah, last part was super adrenaline rush, went up the stairs two at a time, something i stopped doing around level 15. wheeeeeeeee

dinner (:

back!

I SURVIVED VERTICAL MARATHON!

anw, suntec area/citylink mall is imba good for sports shopping! got Adidas and NIKE flagship stores, fila, and a super ultra huge royal sporting house! woohoo! haha, and something really amusing, a nautical shirt that says "real men wear nautical" (:

onward to week 9!

exciting!

muscles very worked out from trainings in the past 3 days. 17th pullup here i come!

colours

wheeeeeeee

today's training was super shiok. 14km row plus 8 rounds hill training. wheeeeeee

each time we run up suppose to touch one post...

and guess how many there are in total?

YES, YOU GUESSED IT!

120! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

shiok, enough to run marathon lah. i think it'll take at least 5 hours. exciting!

today was colours ceremony. thanks team (: Reminder of our duty to the college. winning with humility, losing with grace. to always carry ourselves with pride

sang college anthem twice today (: shiok rite?

Anthem
When Stamford Raffles held the torch

That cast Promethean Flame

We faced the challenge of the day

To give our school a name

The eagle eye and gryphon strength

They led us to the fore

To reign supreme in ev'ry sphere

The sons of Singapore

Come heed the call Rafflesians all

And let our hearts be stirring

We'll do our best whate'er test

And keep our colours flying

Let comradeship and fervent hope

With one voice make us pray

Auspicium Melioris Aevi

With God to guide the way

Composed by E W Jesudason, Headmaster, Raffles Institution, 1963-1966

and keep our colours flying...

wheeee cny!

i think my family very cool (: haha, my cousin's getting married and guess when's the dinner? 17 march, 2 days before CTs. wheeeeeeee

anw, his dad (my uncle) is the oldest of the 3 brothers and he's mega cool lah. tall, quite dark, got the towkay look. his chinese calligraphy owns all. wheeeee, and he has many 'god brothers', sworn brothers since 1950s till now. haha, think brotherhood kind. talk about loyalty, integrity, courage and stuff. yay, he's my favourite uncle, real man! ahahahaaha, first thing he offered me when i stepped into his house was tiger beer! woohoo (: and he thinks being big and black is ok and solid yay (:

wheeeeee, my bro and i realise that most of our relatives (on dad's side) all quite chao ta actually. wheeeeeee, then on to my 3 aunts, favouritest aunt is also the oldest one. yep, she's about 60 now i think, 3 kids, 4 grandkids. quite chao ta, very loud and shuang kuai (: ultra permed, red hair. does her own catering business. ahahahha, and like my uncle, she got her own sisterhood too! how cool is that lah. 50s' 60s' the super hiong kind, now all ah mas looking after their grand children. haha, and heng she thinks big and black is ok too (: wheeeeeeeee

yesterday was some mega imba eating spree. had steamboat TWICE. first one me and the brother sat there for like 1h and ate and ate and ate. second one we were stuffed but still must eat, haha, super big spread (: PLATES AND PLATES piled high with adult food= kidney, intestines and the works. chicken wings, huge prawns, sotong, cuttlefish, mushrooms, fish, toufu, special duck soup, stir fried mixed veg, tons of veg. the lo hei was some monster plate lah! and 2nd aunt bought a salmon! she works at some sushi place in centrepoint cold storage. not the imba hundreds of kg kind but big enough to feed 20 people! wheeeeeeeee

think cny is really a super festive thing esp for the older generation. lol, these are people who usually have simple meals but go all out (yes, all out!) during cny. ahhhh, the imba gambling from these usually prudent spenders too. and they all look so happy (:

happy cny

shiok

the best time to eat prata is on chinese new year. haha, the hawker centre was super empty.

wheeeeeeee

a good run in the morning is SBS (: wheeeeeee

took about 30min from home to Buona, then another 7.5min to Ghim Moh. not much traffic on the roads today. yes, the winding road is some monster road. firstly it's very exciting cos of the greenery and the er.. meanders, then it's upslope! and best, tilted at an angle meaning your right foot always strikes higher than your left. spent around 10 minutes for it alone (~1.8km) If RJ was still at Mt Sinai, i'll run there every day (:

wheeee, long day of visiting (and eating!) happy cny (:

SAT

yay, got decent grades for maths B 16/25, mr kok i'll work harder, honestly i didn't really study for the test. human geog A 12/16 and physics A25/35, thanks mr kadir (:

SAT Score: 2030
Critical Reading: 680
Math: 760
Writing: 590

writing quite screwed up, maths waiting for the report to see where i gone wrong, critical reading yay. haha, didn't leave any qns blank, just whacked everything, quite happy, aiming for something above 2000. happy, time to sleep (:

raffles biathlon- take me on!

wheeeeeeeee

went to check out Velocity and Novena, not as many shops as expected, but cool enough (: liked the new balance store though (: foot size ladies' size 7, width B-D (wah, when the person told me i'm like huh? range quite big ah) New balance shoes are min width D, so that's good.

today was raffles take5 @ CCAB! wheeeeee, mega carnival thingy with free food, drinks, games, inter class ultimate frisbee and soccer, bouncing castle, talent time finals, the grand overtake, and of course biathlon!

wah, let muddy tell you how exciting it was

woke up at 5.15am to "warmup", which basically involved lying there awake for awhile. haha, then back to sleep. 6.15am, got changed, breakfast and ready for the race!

reached there early, saw lots of familiar faces at the pool (the timekeepers, marshals, pe teachers), relaxed muddy. yep, checked out the lane draws, lane 1. xiang dang nian used to train at this pool. 3 times a week, the other 3 at Temasek. home ground. to think i miss the old and crummy toilets! water cooler's gone now, but the toilets, same old same old (:

then javine came (: and the rest too lah. haha, all wearing canoe singlets! wheeeeeeeeee, got our t-shirt and shoelace (anyone wants to swap red for yellow?) haha, and the waiting was ggxx, all the nervous energy building up, and the music was pumping muddy up. so the race!

lol, ended up with 5 competitors for the race only. haha, was in lane 1, lane 2 empty, lane 4 empty, hannah and bernice were lanes 5 and 7, couldn't see them.

first lap wah, super nervous so just chiong, second lap still quite numb, third still feeling damn powerful, 4th lap the adrenaline rush wore off a little, halfway through breathless already, 5th lap ggxx and final lap got back the momentum, just whack lah. 5min44s, under 6min i like.

climbed out of the pool, staggered to javine, touched her hand, and crumbled to the floor. felt like all the wind knocked out of me, much more exhausting than i thought. come to think of it, usually it's either normal swim "lian dong zhuo" kind for 20, 30 laps or the chiong 25, 50m. never really did an all out thing >50m. 3rd person out of the pool, bernice owned with 4min18s i think, and hannah ~4min41s. up to javine now (:

guys race next. haha, somehow only half the guys were ready then the blew the whistle. so abt 3-4 guys just plunged and continued the race! parker is some monster, really. he was barely kicking but easily cruised to around a 3min timing. after him was another swimmer, then ky! yay, lol, after he came out and tapped looloo, he piaked too. his first 2 laps were super fast, check out the 'backwash'. hm.. the j1 canoeist marcus swam w/o goggles? haha, not too sure if he started with them, but respect for completing it anyway.

went to the track to wait. and javine came (: mega fast, confirm she can fly lah. wheeeee, when she crossed under the finishing banner, woohoo! SBS (: canoe power! we got 1st 2nd 3rd 4th! haha, true that there were 5 teams only, but canoeists are brave for taking part (:

waited for the guys' race, and guess who came FLYING across the track? looloo! real man, he beat ben the man!

WHEEEE

canoe power! medal plus royal sporting house voucher, wheeeeeee

haha, other than that was super dead for the rest of the day. piaked around the place.

nice one people (: javine, on to the next medal: canoeing medal

thanks all who supported (:

and lesson of the day: don't mess with canoe secretaries/treasurers. looloo and javine will hunt you down cos they're got wings (:

monster monster training***

exciting

we survived monster training

make that monster monster training ***

haha, shiok (:

12 February Monday
MONSTER MONSTER TRAINING***
2 rounds warm up
12 x (25 push ups, sit ups thing, push ups, crunches, 30s rest) 38mins
12 x (15 push ups, sit ups thing, push ups, crunches, 15s rest) 25mins
11 push ups, 21 sit ups, 11 push ups, 21 crunches
10 x (25 IPUs OR 5 pull ups)
2.4km team run (j1 timing: 17.12)

Total count (including misc exercises): 1019 push ups, 501 sit ups, 501 crunches, 250 IPUs/50 pull ups, 2.8km team run

YAY (: ownage

and went to play during break! boon real man, 14 pyramid! muddy's total pull up count for the day: 101

very good, figured i'll do 50 a break (:

yay, my bro's starting morning swim training for cross (yep, you read it right) so i get to go school extra extra early on tuesdays and thursdays! WHEEEE (:

wah, i love the team (: i think we very qiang. haha, piaing through these monstrous numbers . 2.5 hrs. lots of mental toughness needed to pull through. and that's the way it is, fighting spirit to the max. keep doing, keep moving, challange ourselves. haha, it all seemed like a dream...

go raffles row!

wheeeeeeee

Several hours before you wake each morning, a tiny region at the base of your cerebrum called the hypothalamus sends a signal that ultimately alerts your adrenal glands, which sit on top of your kidneys, to start pumping cortisol, which acts as a wake-up signal. Cortisol levels continue to rise after your become conscious in what is sometimes referred to as the "Oh s__! It's another day" response. This may help explain why so many heart attacks and strokes occur between 6am and 8am. -TIME

lesson leant: train hard

another thing muddy picked up today: train hard.

yep, been a while since piaing all those every lunch break pullup sessions with boon, or extra extra (not just extra) stuff after PE, or gym sessions after school or hill runs at night. true that all these started cos official training stopped for promos, then there was the hols but guess what? now it's time to pick up the pace again (:

new year, new responsibility, and the love of rowing just got stronger (:

feeling very shiok training, shins and feet not giving problems and i'm really thankful.

"When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem." Steve Prefontaine

"Training is what you are doing while your opponent is sleeping in." Brian Owen

very good.

hi blog, muddy's back

water today, rowed till 5pm then back to school to take j1s for personal best training. wheeeee, very impressed by their strength and fitness level.

random stuff...

training's pretty exciting, gearing up towards nationals and having the j1s around. this year, we will challenge for gold. let's put up a good fight till the end, and see how much we are capabe of achieving.

one line that struck me from coach carter, (context: he's about to get sacked as bball coach cos he locked the gym and won't open it until the players get their studies right "this is the only way i know how to do this."

right now there are just so many decisions to be made, and honestly, i don't know if all these choices are the best, but to me at least, it's the way to achieving our goals.

one team. spirit. raffles row.

just watched hercules (:

5 more months...

got lots of stuff in my head

but all i know is i want this to be THE year for raffles canoeing.

there's still time to make our dream come true.

RAFFLES ROW!

entering the zone

yes, muddy thinks the J1s who came for training today very brave (: what struck muddy most was during the team 2.4km run, where all of them pia-ed their guts out to hit their target. The start wasn't too good, first 3 rounds was 20 secs behind target, but they managed to finish strong (: about the wrists hurting and palms blistering, haha, that was us one year ago.

just started by midi playlist, very good music for thinking.

• five for fighting-superman
• chariots of fire
• colours of the wind
• i believe i can fly
• power of the dream
• labamba
• can you feel the love tonight
• a whole new world
• stand by me
• go the distance (hercules)

today was monster training number 3

625 push ups, 300 imba jiaolian style sit ups, 300 crunches, 200 IPUs, 200 plank twists, 2.4km team run with J1s. thanks team (:

javine talked about the lesson of humility and i agree, it's been a long time since we had such a killer land training. and it's been a long time since muddy felt super destroyed (in a good way) during training itself, where each sit up thingy was ggxx and each push up became a challenge.

mental power

not the most accurate term, but the gist is the ability to enter the "zone". Where you just keep moving, keep going, where the surrounding noises seem to be blocked out, where there's no longer pain. It's very mentally and physically numbing and it's easy to lose sight of your short/long term goal hence the challenge is in staying focused amidst the absence of feeling/being affected by noise, tension, pain...

to take it one step further, where there's no fear. everything just flows along cos you've already told yourself you're going to do this and give it your best. where you're pushed to your limits.

same thing i felt while rowing with javine yesterday. the SB shiok row (:

powerful