now it's finally july 1st, our "first to 400km" race is finally over! here's our little graph, and we're team 5!



unfortunately the race ran into a couple snags...

first, my nike plus and ipod gadget started really messing up and i probably lost about 30-40km in total, which annoyed me to no end.  couple weeks back, it actually completely broke down!  very fortunately apple actually has an excellent customer service program.  i brought it in, the service center was at times square, and actually they exchanged one for me immediately.  quite impressive.

secondly, my teammate got injured after completing about 120km - he was supposed to do his share of 200km!  according to the rules, each teammember can run a max of 240km (and the other one needs to run a min of 160km).  so, effectively we had lost.  BUT, the system seemed to be a bit faulty and kept on counting the miles even when i had gone beyond 240km.  so i figured i might as well complete the rest of it, and ran the last 13km today.  not sure what happened to team 1 as they seemed to be a good bit ahead, but seems they ended up not finishing the 400km...

so... well, we "kind of" won.  but not really.  since no other team actually finished the 400km according to the rules!  a bit disappointing really, but i'm sure we'll have another go at it.

i've never run so much in my life - probably about 310-320km over 8 weeks.  unfortunately, strangely, it doesn't really get easier.  take the 13km run i had today - i was in so much pain after only about 15 minutes in.  pretty much gasping for air for the rest of the way, which in turn meant i sucked in too much air, giving me stomach cramps.  ok, too much detail. 

anyway, this is way enough running for me for a while...

my friend romi posted this link the other day, where the guardian gives an excerpt of haruki murakami's upcoming book, "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running".

i have unfortunately not read his books, even though some of my friends are fans of his work.  but ever since i read he was going to put out this book, i've been looking really forward to reading it.  maybe in the mean time i will pick up one of his previous works.

i've had problems reading fiction since taking a job in the film biz - primarily because i watch so much fiction i feel like i need to ground myself by reading nerdy books.  (Speaking of which, recently read "Godel, Escher, and Bach".  If anyone's read it, i would love to hear from them about what they thought.  It's probably one of the hardest books i've ever read.)

i did my longest run today since completing the marathon back in feb - and managed 24 km at 2:19.  the first 8km and the last 4km was an immense struggle.  that's the strange thing about running - you can actually feel better if you struggle long enough.  but then, past 20km i think my  energy was just totally gone and it became incredibly painful...

you gotta see this, if you haven't!

i am thinking we should really do a sweding competition for celestial's classic titles.

and wtf is sweding anyway? the wiki entry says it all...

the premise is that mike (jack black) becomes radioactive/magnetized after a failed attempt to sabotage a power plant.  he goes into his friend jerry (mos def)'s video shop and as a result renders all the VHS tapes useless.

to save the day, they must reshoot ghostbusters by themselves in about 4 hours for an unhappy uncustomer...

i hate getting ppl's expectations high, but this movie will mean something to you, esp. if you're in the film biz.

as an update to our little running competition, i am glad to report that our team is first to cross 200km! so another 200km left. i figure if i can average about 35k a week then i only have 3 weeks left. (assuming my teammate jeff also runs his share). easier said than done of course. ran 8km this morning and that was totally exhausted. the heat is getting me...

so here are some screen shots from nikeplus!!! 

we're team 5 and in the lead!! team 1 has a crazy dude who has done 40km in two days. so they could overtake us any time.

and that's moi, ahsup! not sure how long that lead will last for, so going to post this up to brag while i still can...

on a related note, i met a truly hardcore girl the other day. her name is jocelyn and she recently won her division in the "racing the planet" competition. and what exactly is this?

it's a 250km race across the atacama desert in chile, the driest desert on earth. it's i) a desert; ii) you carry everything except water and tent iii) temperatures go from 0C-40C. it's over 5-6 days, so essentially a marathon a day.

now, my friend, that is truly hardcore.

while we are on the topic of sichuan, it is a truly gorgeous area of china. even being an obvious tourist myself, i have mixed feelings about china tourism (even eco-tourism and "responsible" tourism sometimes bring along unintended consequences). but i remain hopeful the fine balance between development and preservation can somehow be achieved.

my previous blog entry can be found here: http://www.alivenotdead.com/michaelchan/kids+in+western+sichuan-profile-9644.html

so, here are some old pix from my various travels there...

meanwhile, remember, consider a monthly donation, no matter the amount!! here are two to consider that i donate to. just do it! now!!

Medecins San Frontieres: http://www.msf.org.hk/online/donation_credit/

Orbis: http://www.orbis.org.hk/hk/friends/become_mem_eng.html