April 2019: Check-in

April 2019: Check-in

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I’ve recently felt like I’ve been losing myself a little. The last few weeks have been quite hectic with MSTs, work and other commitments and when April rolled around, I couldn’t believe it. It seemed like Week 1 of semester just a few days ago. It’s Good Friday today and I’m currently in Sydney visiting my amazing sister Lana and so I figured this would be a good time to reset and reflect on the semester so far – what’s been good, not so good, and what my goals are for the year ahead.

The good

1. Faith

I’ve been challenged to take my faith in Christianity more seriously this year – something I don’t know why I didn’t do earlier. C.S. Lewis put it quite bluntly when he said:

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

As a natural sceptic and follower of the world, it’s been difficult letting my ego go and exploring what it means to be a follower of Christ. But as I’ve confronted some of my biggest struggles against Christianity – things like the resurrection, predestination and free will – I’ve found the answers to be more satisfactory than I could’ve ever imagined. It’s difficult to describe, but as I’ve begun to ‘open the door’, I’ve felt convicted by God’s word and a very real presence. Huge thanks to my brothers and sisters at Christian Union and my church for facing my scepticism and doubts with love and patience. I’m looking forward to seeing where my faith takes me.

2. Uni

This semester is proving to be the toughest I’ve ever had in terms of course load, with an average of 13 lectures a week (“tutorials” are really just another lecture slot – thanks M2M and cell bio) on top of 12 hours of work, 6-8 hours of training and other commitments in a start-up, ministry and reading a book per week. Yet, I’m really enjoying myself – I love all my subjects and am learning a lot. Thankfully, I’ve managed to take my own advice from the start of March by working consistently and it’s paying off. Despite having more to study, I’ve found I’m working a lot less than I was in first and second year and being more relaxed overall. I hope I can keep this up as finals begin to roll around.

3. Running

Running wise, it’s been a fantastic year so far. Summer training with the Melbourne Uni Athletics Club has paid off and I’m beginning to peak in my fitness, leading to PBs in the 5k (19:21), 10k (42:18) and Half Marathon (1:29:40) just in the last two months. The club members are also very quick and also great people in general. The people I’ve met through running are honestly like a second family to me. There’s something magical about going for a run with other people and listening to their footsteps, their breathing and sharing in their experience. I can’t wait to meet some more runners this year and break more PBs.

The not-so-good

1. Relationships

I’ve realised when I focus on myself too much, I can lose focus on the people around me. Sometimes, it leads to not calling my family or talking to some of my closest friends for weeks. This one really frustrates me because I truly believe genuine relationships are more important than good grades or personal development and I don’t want the people I cherish to think I don’t care about them. I’ll make a more conscious effort to reach out and catch up with people rather than focusing on myself so much for the rest of the year.

2. YouTube

When I think of the amount of time I’ve wasted on YouTube in the past few weeks I literally cringe. I’ve probably been spending 1-2 hours a day on YouTube and I can’t imagine the things I could’ve achieved if I’d spent that time more productively. To be fair, some of the videos are more ‘productive’ than others (TED Talks vs Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen) but I would almost certainly feel better by reading more books, going for a walk or hanging out with a friend rather than on YouTube. The biggest danger-times I’ve identified are when I wake up, when I’m eating meals alone at home, or when I’ve just gotten home from a busy day at Uni or work. I have an AdBlocker on my desktop but my phone is the biggest problem – it is just too easy to access YouTube and I haven’t found an AdBlocker that isn’t stupidly easy to disable when I’m feeling very lazy. However, I’m hopeful now that I’ve written this down that I’ll find a way to get over this problem.

Goals

  1. Love God and love others more.
  2. <1 hour each day on YouTube.
  3. Running: Sub-19 5k and Sub-40 10k by July!
2019 MUAC 5K

2019 MUAC 5K

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A few days ago (March 14th), I raced in my first track event in quite a while: The Melbourne University Athletics Club 5k. I think the last time I raced on a track was in Year 10 for my high school where I ran in the 800m. I wasn’t even meant to run then – I was the reserve, and our fastest runner decided to get injured just before the race so I had to step in. I came either second last or third last. But anyway, that was a while ago and a lot has changed since then.

Over the last few months, I’ve been building up my running fairly consistently. Last year in 2018, I was averaging about 20k a week (~3 runs per week) but during January and February this year I was running about 30k a week (~5 runs per week) and now in March I’m running around 40k a week (~6 runs per week). It’s slowly becoming a part of my lifestyle. Just as I would eat, sleep or work, I run. But it’d been a while since I tested my fitness in an official race so when my coach brought up the MUAC 5k, which involves 12 and a half laps of UniMelb’s 400m track, I decided to go for it. The rest of this post details the night of the race and what went through my mind on this special night. The Strava details of my run can be found here.

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I’m on my kitchen floor with the foam roller under me. It’s about an hour before the MUAC 5k race starts and I’ve got the jitters. As I loosen up the fascia surrounding my calves, I tell myself to calm down and mentally run through my plan for the race. “Your goal is to break 19:30 – that’s a pace of 3:54 per kilometre. Don’t be a fool and get too excited at the start, you will burn out. If you do a kilometre split in under 3:50 you’re going too fast. But most importantly, enjoy yourself.”

I run this plan over in my head a few more times before looking down at my watch: 6:20pm. My heat is scheduled to start at 7:10pm and check-in closes 30 minutes before the race so I decide to head off. I’ve been blessed to live fairly close to the MUAC track – only a 5 minute jog – so I’m not too worried about missing check-in.

As expected, check-in goes smoothly. I meet a guy from my heat who I followed on Strava a while ago (he out-sprinted me in a Parkrun) and have a chat with him about the race. We’ve been mutually encouraging each other on Strava for a few months now by liking each others’ runs and though it’s my first time talking to him in person, I feel like we get on quite well. I later find my training partner who’s also competing in the same heat and warm-up with him. I have no chance of beating either of these two tonight but it’s nice having friends in the competition.

When the time to line up finally comes, I realise I haven’t put my bib number on my shirt as the club ran out of pins and I completely forgot to get some from the competitors in the previous heat. I begin to worry a bit since everyone else but me and my training partner have their numbers on but am relieved as the race coordinator decides to name us by blue and black – the colour of our shirts. Before long, all the competitors in my heat are ready to go. As I wait for the gun to go off, I smile and mentally prepare myself for 12 and a half laps of pain.

The firing of the gun is accompanied by 30 beeps of Garmin watches starting simultaneously. The first two laps go fairly smoothly. I feel comfortable and found myself in a pack of two other runners who I don’t recognise. During these first two laps, I hear familiar voices shouting voices of encouragement from my training partners and coach.  

As I approach 2 and a half laps, or 1km, I hear the coordinator at the line reading out the time: “3:48, 3:49.. 3:50.” I look down at the watch to confirm it and sure enough, my 1km split reads 3:50. I think back to the plan I had before the race and ponder whether to take the next two laps easy or just to go with the pace. For fear of burning out, I decide to slow it down a little and let my little group go ahead.

I wish I could give a more detailed recount for the rest of the race, but it all seems like a blur now. Over the last 2k or so, I get lapped by the fastest runners in my heat and lap a few runners myself. In the last two laps, I catch 4 runners ahead of me – including the two I was with at the start – and end up with an official time of 19:26. The ‘Runner’s Euphoria’ hits soon after and masks the pain of lactic acid build-up, replacing it with pure ecstasy.

I walk off the track and notice my surroundings. It’s a beautiful night with rosy-pink skies with small patches of white clouds. A cool breeze brushes against my face as I go and take a drink from a nearby water fountain. Talking with some of my teammates later reveal that one of them won the heat in an astonishing 17:17. As I clap him on the back and look around, I see runners from all walks of life around me. Running has this spectacular way of bringing people of all backgrounds together in this vibrant community. I wonder how long these people been training in preparation for this race and if they were as excited as I was a few hours ago. But I push these thoughts aside – no use wondering. All I can do now is enjoy the moment.

Fiction, “Sonder” and the Church of Ephesus

Fiction, “Sonder” and the Church of Ephesus

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Over the last two months, I’ve begun reading fiction. During this time, I’ve gone through six fiction novels including the works of Haraki Murakami’s ‘Kafka on the Shore’ and Gail Honeyman’s ‘Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine’. I’m not entirely sure why I got into fiction in the first place, but I think this video from John Fish (one of my favourite YouTubers) was a big reason for it.

At first, reading fiction was a little uncomfortable. Fiction encourages you to leave behind whatever prejudices or views you might have and let yourself be taken on this wild ride predetermined by the author. However, during this ride you see the world through new lenses and glimpse parts of human nature you were previously unaware of. And this happens in such a powerful way, surely more powerful than any non-fiction book could ever accomplish. It’s one thing to provide a compelling gold-standard study on the devastating effects of loneliness but something very different indeed to have experienced just how harrowing loneliness can be through the first-person eyes of a character.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from reading fiction, it’s that no matter how ‘ordinary’ somebody may seem, everyone has their own burdens, goals and views that make their lives every bit as complex as mine. I think the word sonder depicts this feeling in a much more eloquent way. I came across this word a few weeks ago when I was reading the weekly newsletter of Tim Ferriss and is now one of my favourite words. From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, sonder is defined as:

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

And this brings me to last week during my fortnightly Bible study with my pastor. We’re going through the book of Revelation and in Chapter 2, we are introduced to seven churches that John the apostle is writing to on behalf of Jesus. The first of them is the Church of Ephesus, and John begins by telling them that Jesus is aware of the good deeds they are doing – and they’re pretty good: 

2 “‘I know your works, your toil and your
patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil,
but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and
found them to be false. 3 I know you are enduring patiently and
bearing up for my name's sake, and you have not grown weary.

But then verse 4 comes with the critique Jesus has for Ephesus: 

4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you
had at first.

Reading this verse really resonated with me. There’s no doubt about it: right now, if I were truly honest with myself, I love myself more than I love God or the people around me. And while this is hard to admit, perhaps this sequence of recent events – reading fiction, discovering sonder and going through Revelation – might just be the catalyst I need to re-ignite the love I once had.

Thoughts When Running

Thoughts When Running

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One of the most common questions I get when I tell people I enjoy distance running is, “Don’t you get bored? I mean like, what do you think about?”

The first time I was asked this I wasn’t sure how to respond. During my three years of running, I never once reflected on what my mind was doing during a run. What exactly do I think about when I’m running? I guess when I feel sluggish, I wonder why I’m sluggish and when it’s hot, I’ll say to myself, “Oh it’s hot. I’ll probably sweat a lot – I’d better remember to hydrate afterwards.” But these thoughts only arise at the start of my run, and when I get into the rhythm of things they soon disappear.

This might sound strange but when I’m running, most of the time I don’t really think about anything. In Haruki Murakami’s memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami describes a similar feeling. He says:

“…as I run, I don’t think of anything worth mentioning. I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void. But as you might expect, an occasional thought will slip into the void. People’s minds can’t be a complete blank. Human beings’ emotions are not strong or consistent enough to sustain a vacuum. What I mean is, the kinds of thoughts and ideas that invade my emotions as I run remain subordinate to that void. Lacking content, they are just random thoughts that gather around that central void.”

Haruki Murakami

It seems a little odd – terrifying, even – to describe the mind as a void. Do we lose our sense of self and just become machines when we run, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other until we stop? It seems a bit unsettling.  

Obviously, this isn’t the case. Yet, the idea of a runner’s mind as a void is something that I adhere to, and is actually one of the main reasons why running plays such a large role in my life. I don’t think I would have continued running until now if it wasn’t for this ‘void of mindfulness’ that I can slip into. The feeling of being present in the moment – the ever-present breeze against my skin, the feeling of breath, the ‘pit-pat’ of my legs against the Earth – and taking a break from the barrage of thoughts present in everyday life, is so profound that as I run, I find most of my superficial worries disappearing, leaving behind a mind clear and focused. I imagine such similar states are achieved by musicians deeply engrossed in their practice, or sculptures pouring over a block of stone.

Of course, if there’s something I want to contemplate as I run, I will. It’s not like moving removes the ability to think – random thoughts do appear. But the act of naturally cleansing a cluttered mind and focusing on the present moment, listening to the polyrhythm of legs, arms and lungs… this is something that has helped me a lot in difficult times and is one of the main reasons why I continue to run.

Average vs Maximum Speed

Average vs Maximum Speed

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As Uni begins tomorrow, I’m reminded of this idea of average speed vs maximum speed. I first came across this idea a few months ago on the blog of James Clear and it has stuck with me ever since. The idea is that for long term progress, aim in maintaining a consistent average speed in whatever work you do, rather than focusing on a high maximum speed.

James provides the examples of writing books and going to the gym to illustrate the surprising power of consistency versus bursts of motivation. Writing 1,000 words a day over a year or going to the gym 5 days a week will yield better long-term results than frantically writing before a deadline or excessive sudden lifting. While this concept may seem like common sense, common sense doesn’t always equal common practice. It’s easy in the moment to skip a few study sessions early in the semester, where assessments are a long way off… only to have chronic stress and regret when SWOTVAC begins, grinding out 10-hour study days. Ah, the joys of first year.

I hope I can keep this in the back of my mind as I navigate my surroundings this year to make better long-term decisions in my goals. It’s often the little does done consistently that make the biggest differences.