k r i s a n d r o

I just posted the picture below on Twitter, Plurk & Facebook to ask if anyone knew what these are for.

And these are the couple of interesting guesses I got from the peeps online…

LOL!

These are actually “adhesive buttons” called TackOnz from a company called LiquidXcape. What they do is to replace the common way of securing racing bibs onto tees using safety pins.

The problem with safety pins is that they damage the tees, are difficult to put on and dangerous (SHARP PINS!!!! HELLO???). If your safety pins are rusted, it will even stain the event tees.

With TackOnz, the problems above are solved and it will just leave a small nipple-like mark on your tee after use which will apparently go away after a wash. It also addresses a problem that I suspect a lot of people would have like me – I am damn anal about making the bib parallel to the horizon base of my tee. Safety pins are such a pain in the ass when it comes to aligning the bib.

I wanted to test the TackOnz for my Adidas Sundown Marathon race but if don’t already know, I am out injured. But, from what I can tell, it is extremely secure and I don’t see it dropping in the middle of any race unless the race involves wrestling with a grizzly bear with PMS.

TackOnz comes in a package of 6 buttons and is retailing at $12 per pack. It is available at New Balance Concept Stores in Singapore. Discounts are available for bulk purchases (That’s how I got mine thanks to the folks at SGRunners).

More info can be found at LiquidXcape’s website.

I’ll probably do an update if I ever get fit enough to enter my next race. If that doesn’t happen, I’ll find a PMS-ing grizzly bear.

I started joining long distance races only last year and signed on for 3 of them so far: Singapore Bay Run 2009 (21km), Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2009 (42km) & Adidas Sundown Marathon 2010 (21km).

A couple of weeks before Singapore Bay Run last year, I was out with flu for a good 3 weeks and struggled to complete the whole of 21km. I didn’t even go for the Standard Chartered run because of a persistent hacking cough that lasted for 3 months before the race.

The Adidas Sundown Marathon 2010 is just this Saturday and guess what? I have been out injured because of a suspected inflamed tendon in my right foot that has been plaguing me for the last 3 weeks. Did I trigger this injury from training?

Nope!

I got it from chasing down a bloody bus because I wanna get home earlier to run!

 

I know that people always have an impression that I am pretty fit and *ahem* I think that is not far from the truth. *cough cough*

But I am and have been quite injury prone throughout my life and while I embark on this long distance running phase of my life, it seems pretty apparent that my injury woes continue to bug me like a persistent STD. (Not that I have one…)

KuKuNehNeh claims that I am cursed from running and told me to stop signing up for races because SOMETHING ALWAYS happens right before the races that displaces me back to square one sometimes even when I was training very hard.

Am I cursed?

After a long rest, I finally started on my training again for the Adidas Sundown (half marathon event) in May and for my 1st full marathon at the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2010.

For me, running is really quite enjoyable and all I need is to start in order to get the momentum going and I did it on 19th Jan. I have since ran 7 times and I am slowly building up my mileage like any proper training schedule.

I absolutely love to measure and record various numbers I can get out of everything and running is no exception. It serves as a great way to check my progress, adjust my schedule accordingly and of course to stroke the ego of mine whenever I see myself improving.

As you can see, comparing the 1st, 4th and the 7th run which I just completed hours ago, I have not only increased the distance I ran, I also ran faster and still managed to reduce the effort that my heart had to make for each run.

I do know that because I just started, it’s easy to have vast improvements but it’s still pretty interesting to have all the data recorded like that and compare it down the road.

Can’t wait to hit 10km and beyond in 3 weeks or so.

 

Boy am I such a running geek.

I am alive!

And I’ve been a bad, bad blogger. So bad that you ought to have me on your lap so that you can give me some good spanking. But we both know that you don’t want that to happen so let’s just pass.

Work and life has been keeping me really busy and I really find it hard to update this space of mine. I won’t say ‘sorry’ because I don’t owe you guys any updates and I won’t promise anything because I probably won’t fulfil any as well.

Some PR agencies have probably given up on me as well because I’ve been attending events and have not been sharing my experiences even though I enjoyed most of it. So much for being in the social media scene and not practising what I preach. Even KuKuNehNeh nags at me about those posts.

My health has been really bad for the last 2-3 months and it pretty much killed the biggest event that I was looking forward to for the year. I had to give the Standard Chartered marathon a miss as my fitness level was not up to mark with all the flu and cough that plagued me like no tomorrow. I have however not given up at running my first marathon and I have signed up for next year’s Adidas Sundown marathon for the 21km event to prepare me for the Standard Chartered marathon at the end of 2010.

I am in the midst of stabilizing the priorities in life and deciding on the next big thing. There is something quite unsettling about turning 28 this Christmas and wondering why I haven’t been able to say, “This is what I want to do for the next 30 years.” My laid back personality is probably the cause of this uncertainty and I’d like to think that it’s high time I find what I want to do for the next chapter in my life before I can confidently ask someone to spend the rest of her life with me.

“Good things come to those who wait…”

So… happy waiting for my next blog post!

Meanwhile, catch me on and where I update much more frequently!