Thoughts from a Techie

(Special thanks to my good friend/ ex-VPE for contributing to this report. And for agreeing that this might be a speed hack.) tl;dr: Not possible. It's just a click-bait title. I was quite divided between writing in Vietnamese and writing in English for this investigative issue. For a start, it's hard to do running terminology in Vietnamese; however the context is entirely Vietnamese so I'll attempt Vietnamese. Be prepared to laugh at running terminology. Vì phải đến giữa tuần trước mới thi môn đầu nên những ngày đầu nghỉ thi mình khá rảnh. Rảnh rỗi thì sinh nông nổi, trong rất nhiều thứ có thể làm được thì mình đã quyết định... mở forum vnntu ra nghịch (forum đã bị khóa nhưng không có nghĩa là nó không vào được. Mình khóa nó mà). Xem một lượt các sub-forum, đến forum past events, nhận ra một điều rất thú vị là sports comp cách đây 7 năm (2009) có một nội dung thi rất gần gũi với bản thân là Campus Marathon =)) Cái sự chạy một vòng quanh NTU cũng không có gì quá thú vị,...

Sunrise and cycling are two of my most absolute favorite things. Combining them gives sunrise hunting, and to be honest it's something I've been wanting to do for quite some time. But then life happens and the plans are shelved. Until Christmas Eve.  1600 Left NTU, heading for Pasir Ris, but... 1730 Took a detour and ended up at... Serangoon for dinner. KFC @ nex, $10 voucher for a $9.90 meal sounded really good. 1920 Finally arrived at Pasir Ris, where the planning really started. Supplies ready, routes finalised - do a Pasir Ris - Changi Beach - East Coast stretch, sunrise hunting at East Coast at 0705, then an East Coast - Siglap - Tampines - Pasir Ris stretch for bike return! 2010 Let the ride begin! Initial aim was to reach CBP by 2045, because somebody decided it's a good time to ask me to post stuff at 2100.  2045 . Sorry for the snapchat caption 2130 After I was done posting (and wishing the requester a merry merry Christmas), I rode...

Exam is a rather stressful period for everyone; coincidentally it falls on the same period as the final preparations for the race of the year - Standard Chartered Marathon Singapore - and running so happens to be one of my most effective stress reliever. Been clocking miles and conditioning and stuff and it feels really good. Another important part of prepping for a good race is good music; and while my phone has been serving me rather well for short races, it is too clumsy to hold in longer ones. Bought a cable converter yesterday during my travels at Daiso and attempted to revive my old iPod nano. Playback controls slightly off, but still usable. Only then that I paid attention to my rather long list of playlists and definitely this one stands out. Uniquely created to serve a single purpose, only used once, and untouched ever since. The SCMS 2014 Half-M playlist, also known as Err let's finish this race within 32 Blank Spaces. A little backstory: At that time when I wa...

I posted this photo on my instagram a few days ago. Cheesy captions aside, I was pretty excited. For this was my first attempt at finishing a marathon. So how did it go? Terrible I would say. So terrible that even 4 and a half days later I have yet to fully recover from the madness that is Sundown Marathon 2015. This is an honest race review. Before race I got myself a target of finishing in under 5 hrs. Preferably anything from 4:30 to 4:45. So I started out running a tad faster than the 4:30 pacers, knowing that my speed would degenerate over time. That plan worked out extremely well for the first 24km. In fact, counting the first 21 alone, I did the best 21 of my life at 2:14, 15 mins better that half a year ago at SCMS. And that's considering I stopped at all hydration and supply stations along the route, compared to last time when I was more reserved when it came to race supplies. So far, extremely chill and rather full of confidence. But that's only until I ...