Friday, August 27, 2010

For the LOVE of Running

Every morning or evening, I have a battle with myself when it comes to going for a run or working out...

Sometimes I win, sometimes my bed or my mind will win... And it's a constant and an ongoing battle that I have with myself on this... ;)

I am sure that all of you runners out there have to deal with your love/hate relationship with running...

So it was natural for me to share these 2 TVCS by New Balance when they launched this awesome LOVE/hate running campaign developed by BBDO New York back in 2008 today :)


Mighty spot-on!


The bed is always the kryptonite for us morning runners :P

So, put on your shoes and give 'em an awesome workout for the LOVE of running...

Have a good (and long for the Selangor workers :P) weekend everyone! :)

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Vision Board

Our mentor, Farhanah was telling us the Oprah ladies about the concept of Vision Board during one of the dinners at Armin's house last year...

Hence, the nickname Oprah ladies derived from that heart-to-heart session that we had that night :)

The four of us (Ili, Rose, Nyna & I) with our mentor, Farhanah :)

A Vision Board is actually your dreams depicted in pictures or words...  

Basically it's what you want or desire to achieve in your life... Be it career, life, health or love...

And the board serves you as a daily reminder so that you'll achieve each and every one of them in the future insyaAllah...

All you have to do is:
1. Gather all your old magazines or catalogues.
2. Go through them and pull out images, phrases or words that speak to you or evoke feelings.
3. Place the images and words on a manila card (or a magnetic board if you're lazy to paste them!) in a way that feels right to you.
4. Paste the images and words on the card and your Vision Board is done!
5. Review your Vision Board and ask yourself these questions (courtesy of Oprah.com):
- What have I learned about myself from looking at it?
- Do I see any patterns?
- Does anything on my Vision Board surprise me?
- If I knew that all of the images and this Vision Board would come into my life, would I be OK with that?
- Who do I need to become in order to fulfill the intentions of my Vision Board
- Based on the Vision Board, what quality will I commit to developing this year?

6. Put the vision board in your room so that when you wake up, it's the first thing that you'll see and gets you motivated to get through your day :)

Here an example:

Pic taken from here

I have yet to do mine, but will definitely work on it after being reminded about it again last night and when I'm 'planting grapes' soon ;)

So, go on... Do your own Vision Board and maybe we can swap or share stories on this in the near future... :)

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Sticky Date Pudding

When I was studying in Melbourne, I used to go everywhere with my dessert loving friends and try out the yummylicious desserts that the town has to offer...

The above mentioned dessert was famous during those cold winter nights and it was definitely ONE of my fav desserts there...

So, when I came back here for good and craving for them, I decided to look up the Internet and bake these goodies during the holy month (since the supplies of dates were never-ending during the month!)...

I tend to get a bit domesticated during the month of Ramadan since can't do much besides running/exercising/sleep/work... ;)

Will share more recipes as I go along k? 

Anyhoo, I got this super sedap recipe from allrecipes.com:

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 1/2 ounces dark chocolate, grated
7 ounces chopped pitted dates
1 1/4 cups water
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup softened butter
3/4 superfine (castor) sugar

1 cup heavy cream
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup butter

About 3 cups vanilla ice cream 

(The recipe above makes about 12 servings)

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder and chocolate in a small bowl, and set aside.
3. Bring the dates and water to a boil in a saucepan over high heat. Remove from the heat, and stir in the baking soda. Allow the mixture to stand for about 5 minutes, then scrape into a food processor or a blender, and carefully puree until smooth; set aside
4. Cream 1/4 cup of butter together with the superfine sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Fold in the flour mixture and the date puree until well blended. Spoon into the prepared muffin cups.

Before hitting the oven...

5. Bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, stir together the cream, brown sugar and 1 cup of butter in  saucepan over medium low-heat until the butter melt; set aside.
7. When the puddings have baked for 25 minutes, remove them from the oven, and cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Remove the puddings from the tin, and place them into a baking sheet.

Almost there... ;)

8. Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the sauce over each pudding, then return to the oven and bake for 5 minutes more.
9. To serve, spoon some of the sauce onto the bottom of a plate and place the pudding on top. Top with a 1/4 cup scoop of ice cream. Repeat the same for the remaining date puddings.

Here's the finished product:

Voila! :) 

Highly recommended to all of you (especially the Muslim readers) out there that doesn't know what to do with the excessive dates at home ;)

Or you can always pass to me and I'll do them for you... 

But not for a battalion k :P 

Monday, August 23, 2010

I Run To You

One day, I'll sing this beautiful song by Lady Antebellum to my future hubby ;)



I run from hate
I run from prejudice
I run from pessimists
But I run too late
I run my life or is it running me
Run from my past
I run too fast or too slow it seems

When lies become the truth
That's when I run to you

This world keeps spinning faster
Into a new disaster so I run to you
I run to you baby
And when it all starts coming undone
Baby you're the only one I run to
I run to you

We run on fumes
Your life and mine
Like the sands of time
Slippin' right on through
 And our love's the only truth
That's why I run to you

Can't stop singing this happy song at the moment...

Happy Monday to all of you! :) 

Friday, August 20, 2010

My Running Partner

When I'm not running on my treadmill at home, I usually run at TTDI park with:

Rose

and 

Mr Adabi :P

It's fun and motivational to run with a partner... You'll forget that you are there to train for your next run/half marathon/marathon knowing that you have someone running with you and have such fun conversing with them while running (at times)... 

Hence, today I will be sharing a campaign that was done by Asics in 2007 called "My Running Partner" :)

My Running Partner has eight arms
My running partner has eight arms (referring to the four people rowing in the background)

My Running Partner makes me carry two plastic bags
My running partner makes me run with two plastic bags (referring to the dog and its activities)

My Running Partner is my evil twin
My running partner is my evil twin

My Running Partner and I have never met
My running partner and I have never met 
Pics taken from here

You can check out and join their website called Your Running Partner, where it's a community of 6 runner-bloggers that will help you with anything to do with running... 

If any one of you out there are thinking about running for the first time, grab a friend or your lover or your dad/mom to run with you at the park... (I used to drag my dad to jog with me at the park a few years back :P) 

Trust me, it'll be much easier than running on your own when you've just started ;)

Have a good weekend everyone! :)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Coca Cola Village

Just had to share with all of you here on this supercool idea that Coca Cola has done in Israel in collaboration with Facebook...

Thanks to my colleague, Juliet for sharing this :)



I am not really a big fan of Coke (and Israel of course!) but I thought the concept was brilliantly executed and I wouldn't mind living in this village and share real-time experiences...

Aahhhh, the power of technology ;)

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Quote of the day

"You don't run against a bloody stop watch, do you hear? A runner runs against himself, against the best that's in him. Not against a dead thing of wheels and pulleys. That's the way to be great, running against yourself. Against all the rotten mess in the world. Against God, if you're good enough."

-Bill Persons, fictional coach in Hugh Atkinson's The Game-

That's right, fictional coach! ;)

But I can't help it if I keep on checking out my watch on the timing though... It's the kiasu runner in me... Hehe... 

On the running against God bit, too far fetched for moi... :P 

Monday, August 16, 2010

Runners I Met & Liked

I recently got myself this supercute Archie Grand notebook from one of my favourite stores, Old Blossom Box Store:

Pic taken from here (since I can't upload pics!)

The website even has a how-to-have-fun-with-a-journal page... Click here to check it out... Too cute!!!

There are other cute and funny cover titles to tickle your fancy for the notebook:

Pic taken from here

I am going to start bringing this notebook to all of the running events that I'm going to participate in and get you runners out there to sign or write about themselves in it...

Guess I'll be approaching any one of you from now onwards... Or you can always voluntarily come up to me too ;)

Maybe I should get myself a mini polaroid camera so that I could include photos in it...

Hmmmm... ;)

Friday, August 13, 2010

miCoach

Happy Friday to all of you! :)

I'm sure most of you out there has heard about miCoach from adidas...

It's something similar to Nike +'s sporting band that I have...

I have yet to try on their running shoes... Anyone out there, if you've tried them on, do let me know how they are k? :)

Here's the TVC on this coaching product from adidas:



If the product is as interactive as it's been told on the TVC, I wouldn't mind trying them AFTER one of my two running shoes goes kaputttt!!! ;)

I am looking forward to this weekend as I will get to go to the Param (Pasar Ramadan) for the first time! Sad I know... Hehe...

Have a good weekend everyone! :)

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Countdown Has Begun!

My bestie in Melbourne, Dhitry bb-ed me and told me that this has arrived in her mailbox:

My first marathon running bib has arrived! *Gulp*

And I realised that I have 58 more days to train 'til THE DAY... *Gulp*  

Well, NO excuses from now onwards!!!

Will definitely going to push myself and train hard for this insyaAllah... Even throughout this month...

Dear God, I hope that You will give me the strength to train and run as much as I can during this holy month, pretty pleaseeeeeeeeee!!! :S

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

White and Denim

It was OBC Bandar Utama's 2nd Graduation Party last Monday night...

And the title of my post was the theme for the party...

The party was held at Duke Bar & Restaurant, TTDI Plaza...

Pic credits to Rosey

For the month of July, I only went to 2 out of 6 sessions (since I was concentrating on running)... *Bad bad Nana*

Hence, I didn't really know most of the bootcampers there... *Padan muka*

Ody and I (Sarge Dann's beau)

Nyna and I
We were the last ones to reach Low's Peak, Mt Kinabalu last week! ;)

With Sarge Dann (the head instructor for OBC Bandar Utama), Nyna and Kak Nawal

The food was quite good and reasonable... I had Rib Eye steak (coz I was crazing for meat!)... 

It was a double celebration for me as my friends from the KK trip came as well! :)

The BF finally came to the Graduation Party! :P 

With the BF, Suriana, Adibah and Nyna

With the BF, Shaz and Adibah
Our porter/guide Syafiq had a major crush on Adibah and only wanted to take pics of/with her :P

After having our dinner, we had the certificate-giving ceremony for the bootcampers for the month of July:

With Doc Malek, Abe Yaz and Sarge Dann



With the BU Bravo's bootcampers
HOOYAH!!!

I was super excited for this party because I was waiting for these babies to be in my possession:

With Ili (our organiser for the trip)
Got my certs from the Mt. Kinabalu climb!!!

The BF with his certs
Pics above credit to Ody and Rosey

Those that managed to climb to the peak got 2 coloured certificates...

The BF and I with our certs! :D

Close-up on the certs...

My dadaa is planning to climb next year in April... Maybe I shall follow him and do round #2 :)

Can't believe that it has been a week since my trip... Need to climb somewhere soon! :P

I would like to take this opportunity to wish 'Selamat Berpuasa' to all of the Muslim runners/bloggers/readers out there...

And I would like apologise to anyone that I might have unintentionally offended through my writings on this blog yeah... 

May this holy month brings out the best in each and every one of you :)

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Project Mount Kinabalu - Part 2

Day 3 - The First Climb to Laban Rata

All of us woke up at around 530am to shower, pray and get ready with our stuff to have our carboloading breakfast session at 7am...

We left our luggages at the reception (to be picked up the next day after the climb) and left our backpacks (filled with our climbing gears for the next day) for the porter to carry at the checkpoint...

These bags will be divided and carried by 3 porters
Salute to them!

We quickly had our breakfast, picked up our lunch bags which the resort has packed for each one of us and we went back to the start point of the Mesilau trail for the guide to weigh our bags, charge us (it was about RM9 per 1kg) and brief us about the climb...

There are 2 trails to get to Laban Rata: Timpohon (which is about 6km long) and Mesilau, which is longer than the Timpohon one (about 2.2km longer)... We decided to try out the Mesilau trail since we've been told that the trail is quite scenic...


Posing with our hiking poles...

19 of us and ready to climb! 
Pic credits to Rosey

Shaz and I with our permits

As per Rosey's caption: Holoh holoh holoh :P
Pic credits to Rosey

These boys were READY!!!

Oprah ladies with the mentor :)

Our ranger, Mr Dominic aka Dom explaining to us about the Mesilau trail...

After a short doa recited by Ariff, the journey started for all of us eventhough we didn't have enough guides at that time!


Everyone was still smiling because we haven't even reached 1km! :P

Happy to take on the challenge! :)

The BF posing like a pro climber :P

The BF, Danial, Faizal and I at the 1km marker!

There was a marker at every 500m of the route and there was a hut for the climbers to rest at every 1km...

There were a couple of beautiful waterfalls along the trail...

The BF, Danial and I at the 2km waterfall...

The BF, Danial and Doc Malek...

An even super cantik one at the 3km route...

At that time, I was pacing with the BF, Doc Malek and Danial... We were complaining that the we kept climbing 'down' for the first 3km route...

Boy, we got what we wanted after the 3km marker... The route was pretty much like the below for the next 2.5km:

Yikes!

ANDDDDDDDDDD..... It started to rain!!! Double whammy for us... So we had to quickly stop and put on our disposable raincoats...

Me in my stylish purple raincoat! ;)

The BF, Danial and I posing with our raincoats!
Pic credits to Danial

We decided to take a break and have our superquick lunch at the 5.5km's hut... 

The views between the 5.5km to 6km marker were just so beautiful...  We were like in between the mountains... Felt scared since we could see how far we've climbed up but I was just in awe as well... 

The BF, Danial and I

The misty fog as the background was just perfect for this candid pic! ;)

I also felt like I was in the movie set of Avatar...

Don't you think so? :)


We were so happy when we saw this sign below after feeling that the trail was a never-ending one!

2km to go to Laban Rata!

Only God knows how I was feeling at that time and how my legs were at the last 2km route... It felt as though the trail was never going to end:


Super tired at this time already :S

While climbing up, I saw these lady porters and said 'Hi' to them and asked them the amount of weight that they were carrying:

"Tak banyak, 30kg je" 
(Translation: Not that much, 30kg only)
Super duper respect for these ladies! 

After seeing these ladies, I told myself to just keep going and going 'til Laban Rata... I was so happy when the BF and I finally saw our resthouse's signage:

Reached our destination after 8hrs 40mins of climbing!!!
Laban Rata is the pit stop for the climbers to rest before climbing to the peak in the am...

Eating our early dinner before our hitting the super cold showers! 
(The water heater was broken... 'Great'!)
Pic credits to Rosey

It was so cool to have all of us sleeping in dorm-ish rooms filled with double-decker beds:


With Nyna and Rosey

The lights were switched off at about 9pm and due to the cold shower that I had, I couldn't really sleep that night.. 

Day 4: The Climb to Low's Peak, Mt. Kinabalu 

We woke up at 1am to put on our climbing gears before headed downstairs to have supper at the dining lounge before the climb...

We had 4 guides in our group... Out of 19 of us, 12 of us decided to climb to the peak... We were briefed at about 230am and we started our remaining 2.7km of the climb at about 245am...

My penyeri Shaz decided to stop her journey at her 700m of the route as she was taking a no of breaks before that... So it was up to 11 of us to make it to the peak!

I must say that the last 1km of the route was really challenging as we had to depend on the rope ONLY that was lying on the path to the peak and that I was experiencing altitude sickness by then...

Basically, I couldn't breathe properly, felt my lungs were not functioning and I was having migraines... There were moments where I just wanted to breakdown and cry like a little girl but the voices in my head kept telling me to toughen up and keep going...

I was super grateful that the BF was with me throughout the journey... He could've left me as he was fine while climbing up but he just waited for me and walked hand-in-hand like tortoises with me 'til we reached the peak :) :) :)

Also, our guide Shafik was there for me and Nyna and guided us all the way to the peak!

A couple of pictures before reaching to the peak:

200m to go! (See the white rope that we had to use on the ground to climb up!)
Pic credits to Danial

The sun was about to rise when we were still climbing up!


Notty BF was having a smoke when I was having one of my many breaks...

Trying to put on a happy face when I was actually suffering like crazy!
Felt slightly better after I took off the headlight!

Our guide (in the middle in white) kept telling us that it wasn't too far ahead...
Yeah right la... :P

We're almost there!

The lovebirds: Nyna and Faizal
Nyna had a really bad reaction to the altitude, and she had to be carried down by the guide at her last 1km journey of climbing down from the mountain... :(

I teared up a lil' when I finally reached the peak with the other climbers cheering on us after 3hrs 45mins of climbing :)

ALHAMDULILLAH...
WE MADE IT!!! :D :D :D

Trying to be ecstatic with the achievement with the little energy that I have left in myself :) 

The BF and I  ♥ ♥ ♥

View from the peak! We were above the clouds!
Absolutely breathtaking!

Apparently this particular peak (in the middle) is featured in our RM notes!

We were hanging out at the peak for about 10-15 mins before we started climbing down (darn!) since we didn't want to hog the peak and there were other climbers waiting to have their pics taken there... And it was getting kind of hot up there ;)

We took our time climbing down and camwhored like mad since we had Rosey with us and she was happily snapping away with her camera :)

Sliding down is the laziest way to climb down! ;)

Rosey and I
Thanks for being the cheerleader in our group!
Love you!

Posing like a ninja ;)

Ariff was still climbing up to the peak when we were climbing down...
Salute to him for not giving up! :)

The BF and Rosey

When you have less oxygen in your head, cuckoness is one of the side effects ;)

Four of us: One of my fav shots from Rosey :)

We conquered Mt. Kinabalu!!! :D

Posing with our bootcamp tees! 
HOOYAH!

My FAVOURITE shot of myself climbing down from Rosey :)

Can't believe we were climbing THIS high in the dark!!!


We rested at the one and only checkpoint called Sayat-Sayat Checkpoint and this is when Nyna couldn't climb down anymore...

:( :( :(

I felt much better when I was climbing down since I could finally breathe properly and didn't have those painful migraines anymore...

HOOYAH again!!!

Shafik guiding us on climbing down the gunung!

This was the super scary part when we were climbing up and down from the gunung...
It didn't look so bad when we were climbing in the dark k!
Pic credits to Danial

Dancing in the jungle! :P

Squad pulses - one of Original Bootcamp's favourite workouts!

Pee-kaa-boo!!!

Pretending to be grandpa and grandma with our poles :P

As per my previous post, we found out that we had to immediately check out of the guesthouse and climb down for about 5 hours through the Timpohon trail in heavy rain to get our luggages at KK park and rushed to the airport to catch our 850pm flight back to KL!!!

Eventhough the last 2 days of my trip were just beyond madness and in pure 'rushness', I had a blast and it was definitely a trip that I will remember for the rest of my life :)

I'd like to thank all of the climbers for their never-ending support towards each other 'til the very end of the trip... You are all winners! :)

And I would like to dedicate this post to my one and only BF, Farhan... Thank you for being the sweetest BF and for sticking by me from the very first climb 'til our crazy-and-rushing climb down to reach to KK park within 5 hours (we were practically running at our last 1km in 15 mins!)... And for giving me encouragements when I felt like giving up when we were climbing up to reach the peak... I don't know what I would've done without you by my side... I've learned so much about you and us during the trip and I hope that you've had a wonderful time with my friends and I of course!!! ♥ ♥ ♥

When I was climbing up to the peak, I kept telling to myself and the BF that I will NOT do this again... 

Maybe I shall try the below instead in 2 years time? ;)


Can't wait for my next adventure! ;)