Why do i race?

Had an interesting conversation with the medical doctor last week at Alexander Hospital where I went for the full medical checkup.

Doc : "From what I am looking at...you are quite overweight"
Fata : "yes. looking at the BMI, I am almost obese"
Doc : "but I see you are training quite hard....your excercise level and intensity indicates you have strong cardio strength"
Fata : "yah...I do that to train for the coming race .... the Half Ironman"
Doc : "oh...Wow.....sounds interesting...tell me. Why do you race?"
Fata : "erh..."

I did not have the answer to this question . In fact these days I keep getting similar questions

" why do you race?"
"why did you decide to be an entrepreneur?"
"What is an civil engineer got to do with Bioenergy?"

Actually yah...the mother of all questions seems to be ... "Are you mad?"

Many of my close friends would have understand the kind of person I am..that my life philosophy seem to be "to commit to something really ambitious and kill myself trying to get to that target.."

Today my coach, my dear sensei, voiced concern over me cramping everything I want to do in a super short time. That I want to do everything without actually thinking of the consequences....that if I were to carry on like this I would crash badly.

I have been doing a bit of thinking about this, about all the comments from my friends and my coach . And my question to myself is :

" Am I sleeping very well?"

I am attempting to use this as an indicator of both my physical health and my mental health.

My FATALOGY on Sleep postulates that :

"The level of one's well being is directly proportional to how much and how well one sleeps"

Simply,
1) If you worry too much you cannot sleep.
2) if you sick, you always want to sleep

Ok, the exception is if you your hobby is sleep, then boh pian.

I start by assessing what’s on my plate:

1) I am CEO of a startup company
2) I am trying to be a father, starting a family
3) Trying to run my first ever 70.3 race

what are my possible risk ?

1) startup company fail - risk losing all my efforts and all my savings and opportunities
2) lose health if continue trying to manage everything all the time (thus no time to recover)
3) Cannot finish the race well
4) Cannot complete the race at all
5) stress out too much so that everything fails!

I don’t have the answers to mitigate these risk.

But I am sleeping well. That speaks a lot


Most of the time...I fall asleep quickly and I wake up naturally without alarm.

Dix complains that I am cursed with the not being able to sleep later than 930am...even on Sunday.

In fact the last time I had failed to sleep well was before I took the jump, when I was still answerable to my boss and the worrying about reporting bad news about projects.

These days...I report to myself, I know the implications of bad news, good news etc. I don't get overly excited nor do I get depress. Yes there are moments of anguish and frustration but somehow I have inherited the mutant qualities of my ex-boss (current mentor)- the nonchalant yet purposeful attitude towards problem solving.

As for cramping too much stuff, I don’t know how much is too much. I am crazy but I am not stupid.

Therefore, in conclusion, I realize the concerns are real and the risk could be huge. But compare to a person who is buying a 1.5 million house with a civil servant pay hoping to flip that ….. I have a lot less to lose.

At most I will
- lose my business (but I would gain the knowledge so I wouldn’t fail again)
- not complete the Race (but I would have gain better fitness from the training)

But I am sleeping well!

PS : I passed my complete health check this afternoon and the doc has cleared me for the RACE! ☺