T-49: My oldest friends

Today’s motivation is a snapshot of where it all started. The catalyst for me wanting to run and to quit alcohol.

I was in Hong Kong in Feb this year and suddenly realised that it was now or never, that I had to do this run and get the excess weight off before I turned 30 or I would never ever do it ever. And I was with some of my oldest friends (as in, people I’ve known since I was 15), when I made the decision.

Today’s inspiration/motivation comes from this bunch of people, two of whom are avid runners themselves, and the third who keeps cheering us all on as we embark on various different running related challenges.

As I write this, one of them just completed a full marathon that began at 12.30am (Singapore time) this morning and met her target of finishing the 42km before the sun rose. Good on ya buddy!

So, onwards and upwards, only 7 weeks to go!

 

T-50: Chicken curry, rice paper rolls and a frangipane tart

Only 50 days to go before the run! That’s about 7 weeks, certainly not long now.

Today’s motivation snap was taken after a long day spent with my running buddies.

We first had a pho lunch in Richmond, a little arrondissement some of us refer to as Little Vietnam, before we made a quick stop at the supermarket to pick up the ingredients for tonight’s frangipane tart.

Post grocery shopping, we headed round the corner to the 2XU annual sale to pick up some running gear. I walked away with two compression tops and 2 running singlets for $100. Had I bought them full price, I would have easily spent triple that amount so I was really pleased with my purchases.

It was almost 5pm by the time we’d completed running all our errands and finally gotten changed into our running gear. And then off we went, to Princes Park for yet another group run.

Today’s run seemed better for me, despite the rain. The first 8-10 mins weren’t easy but I developed a steady rhythm after the 10 min mark and managed to keep going till 28 mins, even pushing myself to sprint the last minute or so.

We finished our run, came back to my place and started cooking dinner while we each took turns to shower.

We’d decided that I’d cook a Chinese chicken curry tonight while my brother would make some rice paper rolls and Yi would bake the frangipane tart. Cam played sou chef as usual, running between us as we gave out instructions.

Looking back, I’ve been running for almost 3 months now, having started my first run on 28 Feb. I really don’t think I would have made it this far without the support of the various people around me. Sure, it would have been easy to quit alcohol for a few months. But running, running is hard and I wouldn’t have kept going without my friends. Not just my running buddies but the many people I have cheering me on from different continents. From the friends who run with me to the ones who cheer me on via WhatsApp to the ones who send me little postcards of encouragement to the ones who have sponsored me thus far.

Thank you, my support network, I truly appreciate it.