Injured.

I am still injured.

In February this year, i took part in Hill-Crest Marathon -  42km in South Africa in an attempt to qualify for the Two Oceans Ultra-Marathon - 56km in May in Capetown. Due to a lack of time and my eagerness to qualify, I did not train much for it - a terrible mistake one can make in running. I ran a time of 3.45, but ended up injuring my left ankle and right knee in the process.

   Crossing the finish line at Hill-Crest Marathon.

  Mission accomplished.

 My running mentors. Uncle John (left) and Uncle Mike (back) - both are very seasoned runners and have completed more ultra-marathons than the number of years i have lived.

After much reading, i found out i had anterior tibialis tendonitis (left ankle) and ilio-tibial band (ITB) injury (right knee). 

It took me two months to be able to hit the road again. Before that, each time i ran, my right knee started to hurt so i had to stop. I tried ice therapy, deep frictioning, rolling my lateral thigh (where the ITB runs) on a foam roller, and even acupuncture for the ITB injury. They did work to a certain extent, but the pain did not go away completely.

Three weeks before the Two Oceans, out of the desperation, i started running despite the pain. I ran within the vicinity of my hospital (i was staying in doctors' quarters in Grey's Hospital then), ran with my host father in the street and to the park, and ran to Edendale Hospital (where i worked) early in the morning, and ran back to Grey's after work (12km each way).

Finally the race. I finished the entire 56km. With much walking and slow running. Did it in 6hr13min.

The joy of finishing Two Oceans Marathon.

Now i am down with additional injuries. Am nursing patellofemoral tendonitis of my left knee, commonly known as runner's knee. A very common injury indeed.

Gold Coast Marathon is six days away. I signed up for the half marathon.

God help me to recover.

Beginning

Everything has a beginning. Here is mine. 

So why did i start a blog? For a person who does not even have a facebook, or other forms of online networks to keep in touch with people, the thought of having a blog must be quite a surprising thing to my close friends and even myself. For a long time, many of my friends have been urging me to start a facebook, that way it's easier for others to keep in touch with me and vice versa. I agree in the concept but not in practice. I think facebook is great in a lot of ways, but it also allows us to get a easy peak at other peoples' lives wherein derive a very selective/narrow understanding of our friends. I'd rather have a proper conversation with them to know what is happening in their lives. More importantly, the facebook effect has far-reaching consequences which i want to spare myself from. The facebook effect, as i define it, is the syndrome of switching on your laptop and opening your facebook account the moment you return from work/school, leaving it on for the rest of the day, and using it frequently as a tool to update, chat and sometimes stalk. Admittedly I think i am too weak to handle this effect.

So why publish your thoughts online where other people could see it? People who know me know that i am mostly a very private person. Yes i do share parts of my life with other people, even to strangers, if i think it will be beneficial for them; but in most parts, i keep my private thoughts to myself. I keep a hand-written journal, where i document all my struggles, secret fears, victory and defeats, challenges, conversations with God and myself, and i still want to keep it that way. Hence, my very very private thoughts will not appear to this blog at all. However, i intend to write what i think will be encouraging to my best friends, my girlfriend, my family and other unknown people whom God leads to this blog. I would not waste my time in this blog if i did not think that we are all acting as human agents, to impart, inspire, provoke and challenge. Perhaps the most important reason of all is to connect with like-minded people. I think, if we were to completely honest with ourselves - somewhere deep inside everyone of us - we all long for people who hear us, who know what we are going through inside, and who validate our feelings and existence as human beings. This concludes why i am writing this blog.

As you can read, the title of the blog carries a two-fold meaning. First is obvious. It's about running. I love to run. To me, running is one of the very pure experiences of life. All of us were born to run. Just look at children in the playground, or in the school field. The way their bodies burst into running is so natural and it's really a great wonder of the creation that we all have such ability. I could sit all day watching children run and admiring them for their natural flair and rhythm. Hence, i would write about all things running. My training, injuries, races and some of the important lessons that i have learned from running, i would write it here.

Cambodian children running.

African children running.

Second meaning is more subtle - running with the horses. It's actually a verse from the book of Jeremiah. It basically summarised Jeremiah's life where he was racing against people who are much tougher, spiritually hardened and morally corrupted than him. God asked him this question where he was ready to call it quit in the beginning of his ministry. 'If you have raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses?' Jeremiah did not answer God directly then. But i think he eventually did, by the way he lived his life. He raced against horses and prevailed. Hence this blog is also to document my spiritual journey, the tough challenges and struggles that i face, and the hope and victory that are in Christ. I hope you would be encouraged by what you read here. 

Run with the horses.

Finally.. If you are reading my blog, you could be one of the following:

1. You know me personally and you would like to know what goes on in my life. In this case, i am glad to be sharing my life with you.
2. You are my acquaintance and you happen to stumble on this blog. Well.. I can't say much really. Hope you enjoy it.
3. You totally have no idea who i am. You are going to find this blog very boring so don't waste your time. 

So here you go. For now, i don't intend to let anyone know i am blogging. That may change in the future. But i want to keep it this way now.