After entering the middle age group, turning from 20s to 30s, I begin to seriously looked back at what happened to those 30 years. What I had achieved and what is going to happen next. I had made some amazing achievements. But the future is unknown and sometimes fear just grasps me. I soon realized that everybody had to die someday, somewhere in the future. While my brain says, I don't want to die at all, it is an impossible task. The aging body will become weak, useless and its destiny is to ends up in the furnace. I have no doubt about that.
Since, there is no way to avoid that fact, I begin to analyze how much time do I really have. This is a precious resource to me. I will need to deplete it very efficiently. Assuming that I lived "normally" and die naturally at 65 years old. That means, it is half time for me. There is only another 30 more years! While it seems like a long time, but it is definitely not for me. In life, we plan for many things but seldom, we plan our life. This is a taboo that nobody wants to talk about. I guess when we create life, we get a new life as well. My son asked me "What is death? when he is 30 months old. That strikes me to really think about it and respond with "Death is when we fall asleep and never wake up again". My son quick and natural response is "What do we do now?". So, let see what do I need to do now.
The first task for me is to identify the priority in life. Going back to the basic of life, it is about survival. Being able to survive, then the rest of the goals are achievable. As the saying goes, only the fittest survives. Looking into the mirror, I was really obese. Doctor advised me to lose 20KG of weight. That number seems like an astronomical number to me. Nevertheless, it is an doctor's order and it is almost a perfect excuse for anybody who ask me why are you going to exercise? You never did.
In order to make the plan work, the "goal" will be a marathon at the end of the year(2010). The goal of completing the marathon will be my motivation throughout the entire period. There are two simple reasons why the marathon motivates me. Firstly, it is an obvious achievement universally recognized. There is little explanation needed. Even my mom knows what is a marathon but maybe she doesn't know the exact distance. It is simply running 42.195KM. Secondly, it has been bugging me that my army-buddy-turn-foe who acted throughout the entire army career for being hypothetically weak. This guy always complete the run last because his mentality is "I get more cheers finishing last that the first runner". True enough, he always get cheered when he crossed the finish line as the last guy who looked so tired and seems to put all his best effort. I am dumb enough to trust that guy for a year. Realizing that he is such an actor, I stopped talking to him completely. Even though we lived in the same room for the next one year. After our military obligation, he actually went on to complete a marathon!! Once again, I proved myself correct that this actor is an insincere bastard! I am glad that I don't consider him as my friend because he is a snake. Ever since he completed the marathon, this actor had been boosting about his marathon experience during the in-camp-training. It is utterly disgusting. But I used that as my motivations.
My plan to improve my fitness gradually without injury. My routine begins with runs on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. The first few days are really tiring. After work, I had to drag myself to a nearby gym and start running on the treadmill. It is like a rat running on the wheel. It is tough and the distance I had completed is pathetic. 2.4KM on Tuesday, 3KM on Thursday and a 5KM on the Sunday. Minutes seems like hours and running indoor is really boring. Nevertheless, I managed to fill in the void with gadgets that seems to make running more scientific and fun. I shall discuss those in the next section of the blog.
