Accidental Marathoner

Last month a bunch of my friends and I signed up for what we thought was a relay race for a Vertical Marathon. Vertical Marathons are races in which you have to climb a tall building (in our case it was a 64 storied building).

We were 5 of us. So for a relay, 64/5 came to approximate 12 floors per person. 4 weeks before the actual marathon, I started training for the event starting at 5 floors a day, and about a week before, I could comfortably do 12 floors. Just to be prepared for the race, I started doing 20 floors.

Anyway, on the day of the event, we were negotiating on who will do the extra 4 floors (we volunteered the fittest amongst us!). And then we went to line up for our turn. To our utter disbelief we were told that there was no "relay" and we had actually signed up for a "group" climbing event! What that meant - each one of us had to do the 64 floors, and our group would be timed by the slowest in our group!

And then the ordeal started. What I thought was a casual 12 floor climb, turned out to be a beastly 64 floor hike. Slowly and steadily I paced myself, and I am proud to say I survived to get my first (and probably only!) Marathon medal of my life.






If there is one thing that I have decided not to ever do, it has to be a marathon. I think I am physically incapable of that kind of endurance. While, I know that if I train long enough, anything is possible, I don't fancy putting myself through the pain.

So this thing was just lucky. Now I thank my friends for being as ignorant as me and not reading the rules! Anyway, after having completed the climb, I can definitely tell you that - climbing 64 floors ain't as difficult or tiring as doing an actual running Marathon of 42.195 km.

The running Marathon is not only tougher but also longer and I believe really tests your endurance to the limit. So while I fancy my medal, I still admire all my brave friends who have run marathons!

New Adventures

Been more than a month since I posted here. This time, I disappeared because around April I switched jobs. After spending more than a decade in SAP related jobs, I finally made the switch and came out of my SAP pond. Now I am a frog in a completely new pond and learning the new ecosystem.

Learning new stuff at this age is tough. But it has been exciting. I am learning a lot of new things and at a very fast pace. I have become a full-time student (sort of) because day time I work, and night time, I read to gear myself up for the challenge. Kind of reminds me of my blog about - the problem with experience. To put it in perspective - I have learnt a lot more in the last 1.5 months than what I got to learn in the last 1.5 years on my previous job.

Anyway that shouldn't be an excuse for not writing. So, here I am back again, shall post more often and thank you for being there!

National Steps Challenge

The Health Promotion Board here in Singapore, came up with a novel idea of making people walk everyday by launching a National Steps Challenge program.

The program is simple. You sign-up for the challenge. HPB gives you a steps tracker that you wear everyday and it counts your steps. HPB then gives you points (15 points for completing 5000 steps, 30 more for 7500 and 15 more for hitting 10,000 adding upto a max of 60 points a day). The points are then monetized and you are entitled to get a reward/ voucher/ or some other benefit when you hit pre-defined point levels.

The key is - consistency. 60 points is the max you can earn in a day by meeting your daily quota of 10,000 steps. The challenge doesn't care if you do 40,000 steps in a day. As long as you meet your goal of 10,000 steps for the day, you are not rewarded any more points. It's impressive that they do not reward spikes or one-off exercisers. They are training people to be consistent in working out and are incentivizing that habit.

This will probably turn out to be the best ever government led, incentive driven public exercise program ever conducted.

Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

Since I call myself to be the "God" of procrastination, I thought it apt to show you this nice little video from a TED talk on "Inside the mind of a master procrastinator". A funny take on how procrastinators work and with a serious message at the end. It's 14 minutes long but well worth the time spent watching it.




I can identify with what he says, and I can very well say that things without deadlines have been procrastinated for ever. A wake-up call for people (like me) waiting for that "someday" to start living their dream.