Thursday, July 25, 2019

Welcome to der family Pacemakers #40 (Yong Yoong Joon)

Firstly, I would like to thank Captain Ronnie See for the honour to be part of Pacemakers Malaysia community. I’m never expecting to receive this invitation, until my wife Lily Ho told me to write an essay about my involvement in running.

I am Yoong Joon, an ordinary runner and avid outdoor person. I started running since my secondary school time, doing loop running on the trek around a lake nearby my home, in Ipoh. I picked up running as I can do this sport by myself without having a group of people or an opponent. I started barely basic, with a pair of school canvas shoes even without socks, I can start running already.

I thought that was it of what I can do with running, beside the track events like 100m, 200m, 400m, 4x100m and etc., which I am not doing as I cannot run fast. But I think I can run quite a distance. I can continue looped the lake for many rounds, until the sunset. Sun was my clock at that time as I seldom wear a watch.

I only came across a running event with the name marathon when I started working and managed to join some events at that time, during the early 2000 where the entry is by filling up participation form from newspaper cutting. Normally “The Sun” will have that kind of participations forms, once in a while. Really need to stalk the paper everyday every page if eagerly wants to join those events.

The first so called proper running event that I joined was the 2009 SCKLM. I was stunned at that time looking at the numbers of runners and since then, I never missed it. SCKLM became my annual must do event. In 2009, I was taking part in the 10km run. Very proud of myself and that was the longest distance I had achieved at that time. Proud to have my first running singlet and medal too, I still remembered the singlet was sponsored by New Balance. And only at that time, I learned that 10km is not a marathon distance…..instead should be 42.2km.

From then, I started joined more events and my distance increased too. 15km, 21km, 30km and 42km. Started to learn more about running and found that actually under the word “RUN”, comprises of many knowledge. Being a science and mathematics avid, my interest to study “RUN” grown. We need to have legs-on in the practical and to be complimented by the theory behind it, each of the steps we leap have an explanation behind it. But I cannot read long literatures and thick books; I will fall asleep very fast. I am the type who learns from the simplest way. I like browse webpages and study from there, piece by piece, not an organised syllabus.





  Besides running, I also do trekking and mountain climbing. I had completed G7 of Peninsular Malaysia. We did hiked and climbed some mountains and base camps in Indonesia, Taiwan, China and Nepal. I admire the scenery along the way which the beauty is beyond our imagination. Once and in a while joining triathlon sprint distance, duathlon, swimathon and century rides.








Heard from a friend about UTMB – Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc and being describe as the global summit of ultra-trail running. I started to aim my dream to run there. Study the requirements and started to collect my iTRA points for it. iTRA – International Trail Running Association. I ran some races which provide iTRA points, namely CULTRA and Penang Eco in Malaysia; Ultra Trail Tao Mo Shan in Hong Kong and Tarawera Ultra Trail in New Zealand. Under the old point calculation and balloting system, I was given a slot to run in CCC (Coumayour, Italy – Champe-lex, Switzerland – Chamonix, France); a sub race under UTMB with distance of 100km @ 6100mEG. The atmosphere at Chamonix during the UTMB’s week was awesome. The entire little mountain town was full of elements of trail running; the people, the volunteers, the booths, the decorations, the music and many more. I really enjoyed and I managed to complete this tough run. It was a great and valuable experience for me.






Lastly, I wish to extend my appreciation to Capt. Ronnie, who I knew vide his great results in running through social media. I met him in person in one of the REPC and later joined LGKL training on every Wednesday, where my wife; Lily Ho brought me there. The interval run improve me a lot from a slow runner become a not so slow runner. Capt. Ronnie also the one who brought me to tower run and I had participated in KL Tower Run 2019. I believe, with the hard work we put in the training, the improvement is there. I will not stop running.

brought 2u by PM40
Facebook ID : Click here!

No comments: