My fitness level throughout my life is and has always been a rollercoaster. There is always a decline whenever I reach somewhere near my peak. Maintaining an encouraging level of fitness has always been a problem and I must admit most of the time (so far) is due to unforeseen circumstances. While maintenance is always down to a person’s dedication and perseverance, it is hard to do anything when you’re ill or injured.
I never had the habit to run or exercise during my own free time. I felt that I didn’t need to since I’m getting sufficient amount of exercising time whether is it during school or in the army. Now that I’m out of school and the army (semi), it is up to myself to maintain a good habit of exercising and keeping myself fit. As mentioned at the start, I always had troubles whenever I hit the peak of my fitness level. There was a time in school when I had lots of training (physical) due to a sport that I partake in. I had some intestine malfunction of some sorts that caused me to be hospitalized for several days. Can you imagine how disruptive that was? Not only do I feel weak and destroyed due to whatever illness I’ve gotten, the few weeks without consistent training simply cause so much momentum to be lost. Not only was I physically weak but it is a huge hit on my mental strength. Since that incident, I didn’t reach anywhere close to my peak until I was enlisted in the army.
In the army I was certified combat fit. That meant that there was lots of physical training to be done. I reached new heights in my fitness level and what happens right after that? I had a lung infection and was hospitalized. I mean seriously?
Now that I’m out of the army (semi), it is all up to me. I’ve only recently started running every other day. I knew I was extremely unfit but not to the point that it took me a whopping 26:19mins timing to complete a mere 3.1km run. For reference, the best timing I got for a 3km run was something like 15+mins (that’s by no means good but compared to the 26mins? Oh my.) 3 weeks later and I just did the same route in 18:13mins. The good old days are coming back but the more important thing is maintaining it.
It is tough to keep running every other day especially when the air condition is so unpredictable. Thankfully it is only some periods of the year (such as now) when the haze comes to Singapore but it sure is irritating. I’ll probably check back in a month’s time to see how far I’ve gone. My goal is to be able to run 5km under 30 minutes and ultimately 10km under an hour. Let’s see if I can ever reach that state.
[photo by Living Fitness via Flickr]
