Not crazy, just a little cuckoo
Jeanette Wang is an ST reporter who won the Women's Adidas Sundown 84 km Ultramarathon. This is the article she wrote in today's papers.
Not crazy, just a little cuckoo
Running 84km is not madness; it makes this ultramarathoner feel alive instead
(The Straits Times. Wednesday June 10, 2009.)
By Jeanette Wang
QUEUING 20 minutes for a plate of famous nasi lemak. Shopping at Orchard Road at the weekend. Spending $10,000 on a watch.
Now, that’s what I call crazy.
Running an 84km ultramarathon? Well, that’s hardly madness to me.
Many of my friends and colleagues think differently. After I won the Adidas Sundown Ultramarathon two Sundays ago, I was bombarded by as many congratulations as accusations of being cuckoo. Heck, the reason I’m writing this is that my bosses want me to explain why I’m not nutty.
This is my defence: Nuttiness, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. One man’s insanity is another woman’s inspiration.
Also, what the eye beholds is influenced by the company one keeps. The gauge of what constitutes kookiness is thoroughly subjective.
Endurance athletes - some of whom have been spurred to run after learning of my victories - have told me they are quite sure of my sanity. I, too, have been inspired by others, for my running 84km is nothing compared to what some of my friends have been through.
Take Harn Wei, for instance, who has completed, among other ultra-triathlons, 10 Ironman races - each consisting of a 3.8km swim, a 180.2km cycle ride and a 42.2km run - within 10 days. (No, that’s not a typo: 10 Ironmans in 10 days!)
Or Nghee Huat’s long list of ultramarathon achievements, including the 217km Death Valley Challenge (51h 49min), the world’s hottest run. Or Bernard, who will be doing a 166km mountain ultramarathon in the Alps this August, battling the bitter cold and 9,500m of altitude change.
I do not think any of my friends has lost his or her marbles, and I’m sure they believe I’m in firm possession of mine too. But why do we do it? Why do I?
Well, borrowing the words of ‘Ultramarathon Man’ Dean Karnazes: It’s about running, sure - but it’s mostly about life. Ultra-running has taught me that my dreams are only limited by my will and mind.
For example, for most of the second half of the Sundown race, the burn in my legs played games with my head. ‘There’s no such thing as pain,’ I repeated to myself, and miraculously, the hurt disappeared.
Singapore adventurer Khoo Swee Chiow told me he used a similar line during his conquest of Mount Everest and his trek to the Poles. ‘I told myself that pain is temporary, that it will go away,’ he recalled.
If I can handle such agony, if my body and mind can push through to the end, I know I can surmount any challenge in life.
And that comes from just finishing the race. Training for the big day - I had five months of sustained training, including numerous 4.30am runs, before the Sundown - is a life-changing experience in itself.
Focus. Discipline. Time management. Tenacity. Sacrifice. Humility. I learnt all these in the run-up to the race.
And in a life where so much time is devoted to pleasing others and meeting deadlines, running is my time to myself. My only companion, the road ahead of me; my only conversation, between my head and heart, legs and lungs; my only job, to put one foot in front of the other.
But still you might ask: Why put yourself through such torture? Because - and by the way, I do not see it as torture - it makes me feel alive. As the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky put it once: ‘Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.’
That twitch in my calves, the ache in my thighs, the burn in my lungs - I relish all these as they heighten my senses, which are in danger of falling dormant in the course of everyday life.
For this reason, over the years, even as my running mileage has increased since my first 3,000m track race at age 14, I have sought out longer runs, greater challenges, tougher obstacles to get that kick.
I remember completing my first half-marathon (21km) in 2000 and the immense satisfaction and adrenaline rush that my then-18-year-old self felt. Nine years later, even a 42.195km marathon does not do it for me anymore. I need ultras.
Apart from that kick, what keeps me thirsting for more is my passion for the sport.
People who are zealous about books can read for hours on end. Those who are fond of shopping can trawl malls the whole day. Others who enjoy clubbing can party till dawn.
Me? I love running. So a huge amount of my time is invested pounding pavements. And I dare say this love borders on obsession.
Going a couple of days without running makes me irritable. Hearing about my friends’ sweaty workouts makes me jealous. Driving past runners along the road on my way home makes me want to get out of my car and lace up my shoes there and then.
On my list of dreams at the moment are: The North Face 100km run along China’s Great Wall; the Leadville 100-mile (160km) trail ultramarathon in Colorado; the 250km six-day race across Egypt’s Sahara Desert; and a triple-Ironman.
If you had asked me when I was a Kentucky Fried Chicken-eating, 120per cent overweight Primary1 pupil, if I thought ultramarathoners were mad, I would have probably said yes.
But times change, people change, perspectives change. I’m now an ultra-runner - and I do not think I’m crazy.
But I do believe ultra-endurance athletes all share a certain idiosyncrasy. I can’t put my finger on it, but you either have it or you don’t. And if you don’t, you will probably never get us, you will never run an ultra.
Just as I will never wait 20 minutes in line for food.
jwang@sph.com.sg
Now, here is a woman who puts 90% of us to shame. In the article, she mentioned she toiled through most of the second half of the run by convincing herself that there is no such thing as pain. Somehow, it did not hurt thereafter.
The nerdy side of me asked myself what pain really is. Is it something that can truly be conquered and ignored? I remembered a paper I did two years ago on a similar subject for neurobiology on hyperalgesia. Some of the journals I read tried to define pain from a scientific perspective.
Pain-producing stimuli are detected by specialized primary afferent neurons called nociceptors. These remarkable cells respond to a broad spectrum of physical (heat, cold, and pressure) or chemical (acid, irritants, and inflammatory mediators) stimuli but do so only at stimulus intensities capable of causing tissue damage. Most nociceptors respond to mechanical, thermal, chemical stimuli and are therefore termed polymodal.
Maybe this is all that it is. Signals interpreted by the brain from external stimuli which tells you you should be distressed. So, getting down to it, it's just in the mind, isn't it?
This woman is an inspiration. So were the many whom I saw ran past when a few of us headed down to support
entropic82 and
biosynthesis.
I think I am going to put on my new running shoes and start training for the half marathon. Now.
Not crazy, just a little cuckoo
Running 84km is not madness; it makes this ultramarathoner feel alive instead
(The Straits Times. Wednesday June 10, 2009.)
By Jeanette Wang
QUEUING 20 minutes for a plate of famous nasi lemak. Shopping at Orchard Road at the weekend. Spending $10,000 on a watch.
Now, that’s what I call crazy.
Running an 84km ultramarathon? Well, that’s hardly madness to me.
Many of my friends and colleagues think differently. After I won the Adidas Sundown Ultramarathon two Sundays ago, I was bombarded by as many congratulations as accusations of being cuckoo. Heck, the reason I’m writing this is that my bosses want me to explain why I’m not nutty.
This is my defence: Nuttiness, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. One man’s insanity is another woman’s inspiration.
Also, what the eye beholds is influenced by the company one keeps. The gauge of what constitutes kookiness is thoroughly subjective.
Endurance athletes - some of whom have been spurred to run after learning of my victories - have told me they are quite sure of my sanity. I, too, have been inspired by others, for my running 84km is nothing compared to what some of my friends have been through.
Take Harn Wei, for instance, who has completed, among other ultra-triathlons, 10 Ironman races - each consisting of a 3.8km swim, a 180.2km cycle ride and a 42.2km run - within 10 days. (No, that’s not a typo: 10 Ironmans in 10 days!)
Or Nghee Huat’s long list of ultramarathon achievements, including the 217km Death Valley Challenge (51h 49min), the world’s hottest run. Or Bernard, who will be doing a 166km mountain ultramarathon in the Alps this August, battling the bitter cold and 9,500m of altitude change.
I do not think any of my friends has lost his or her marbles, and I’m sure they believe I’m in firm possession of mine too. But why do we do it? Why do I?
Well, borrowing the words of ‘Ultramarathon Man’ Dean Karnazes: It’s about running, sure - but it’s mostly about life. Ultra-running has taught me that my dreams are only limited by my will and mind.
For example, for most of the second half of the Sundown race, the burn in my legs played games with my head. ‘There’s no such thing as pain,’ I repeated to myself, and miraculously, the hurt disappeared.
Singapore adventurer Khoo Swee Chiow told me he used a similar line during his conquest of Mount Everest and his trek to the Poles. ‘I told myself that pain is temporary, that it will go away,’ he recalled.
If I can handle such agony, if my body and mind can push through to the end, I know I can surmount any challenge in life.
And that comes from just finishing the race. Training for the big day - I had five months of sustained training, including numerous 4.30am runs, before the Sundown - is a life-changing experience in itself.
Focus. Discipline. Time management. Tenacity. Sacrifice. Humility. I learnt all these in the run-up to the race.
And in a life where so much time is devoted to pleasing others and meeting deadlines, running is my time to myself. My only companion, the road ahead of me; my only conversation, between my head and heart, legs and lungs; my only job, to put one foot in front of the other.
But still you might ask: Why put yourself through such torture? Because - and by the way, I do not see it as torture - it makes me feel alive. As the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky put it once: ‘Suffering is the sole origin of consciousness.’
That twitch in my calves, the ache in my thighs, the burn in my lungs - I relish all these as they heighten my senses, which are in danger of falling dormant in the course of everyday life.
For this reason, over the years, even as my running mileage has increased since my first 3,000m track race at age 14, I have sought out longer runs, greater challenges, tougher obstacles to get that kick.
I remember completing my first half-marathon (21km) in 2000 and the immense satisfaction and adrenaline rush that my then-18-year-old self felt. Nine years later, even a 42.195km marathon does not do it for me anymore. I need ultras.
Apart from that kick, what keeps me thirsting for more is my passion for the sport.
People who are zealous about books can read for hours on end. Those who are fond of shopping can trawl malls the whole day. Others who enjoy clubbing can party till dawn.
Me? I love running. So a huge amount of my time is invested pounding pavements. And I dare say this love borders on obsession.
Going a couple of days without running makes me irritable. Hearing about my friends’ sweaty workouts makes me jealous. Driving past runners along the road on my way home makes me want to get out of my car and lace up my shoes there and then.
On my list of dreams at the moment are: The North Face 100km run along China’s Great Wall; the Leadville 100-mile (160km) trail ultramarathon in Colorado; the 250km six-day race across Egypt’s Sahara Desert; and a triple-Ironman.
If you had asked me when I was a Kentucky Fried Chicken-eating, 120per cent overweight Primary1 pupil, if I thought ultramarathoners were mad, I would have probably said yes.
But times change, people change, perspectives change. I’m now an ultra-runner - and I do not think I’m crazy.
But I do believe ultra-endurance athletes all share a certain idiosyncrasy. I can’t put my finger on it, but you either have it or you don’t. And if you don’t, you will probably never get us, you will never run an ultra.
Just as I will never wait 20 minutes in line for food.
jwang@sph.com.sg
Now, here is a woman who puts 90% of us to shame. In the article, she mentioned she toiled through most of the second half of the run by convincing herself that there is no such thing as pain. Somehow, it did not hurt thereafter.
The nerdy side of me asked myself what pain really is. Is it something that can truly be conquered and ignored? I remembered a paper I did two years ago on a similar subject for neurobiology on hyperalgesia. Some of the journals I read tried to define pain from a scientific perspective.
Pain-producing stimuli are detected by specialized primary afferent neurons called nociceptors. These remarkable cells respond to a broad spectrum of physical (heat, cold, and pressure) or chemical (acid, irritants, and inflammatory mediators) stimuli but do so only at stimulus intensities capable of causing tissue damage. Most nociceptors respond to mechanical, thermal, chemical stimuli and are therefore termed polymodal.
Maybe this is all that it is. Signals interpreted by the brain from external stimuli which tells you you should be distressed. So, getting down to it, it's just in the mind, isn't it?
This woman is an inspiration. So were the many whom I saw ran past when a few of us headed down to support
entropic82 and
biosynthesis.
I think I am going to put on my new running shoes and start training for the half marathon. Now.