The curious case of the Filipina Mary Joy Tabal?

Welcome back to another chapter of our journey!

In this post, we will go ahead and examine, using the TALENT BANDS we so proposed in the previous chapter, the athletic prowess of Mary Joy Tabal, whom everybody know has just finally attained an olympic ticket to Rio in the marathon. We must admit that we are less familiar with the details of her career than perhaps Agus Prayogo's or Eduardo Buenavista's, and we grant that we might not be completely accurate in some of the factual information we are about to present, such as her pbs at the shorter distances.

According to a few seemingly less maintained websites, and from scant recollection of her results, we come gingerly to a list of fastest BANDS(not times, since we aren't exactly sure what her pbs are, since the IAAF website doesn't provide any compilation) below:

5k:16:50 to 17:20
10k:34:40-35:40
HM:1:17-1:19
FM: 2:43:30 -2:47:30(for this band we already know exactly where in the band she stood with her recent achievement at the ottawa marathon of 2:43:30, but the band is nevertheless useful for statistical purposes when predicting how well some other female athletes with similar pbs run)

*Disclaimer: We believe Mary Joy's pbs for all these distances lie reasonably within the bands based on all our information sourcing, and if the predictor calculator that we are going to use together later below indicate some mismatch with the bands provided, the errors are acceptable if we can allow that there must also exists bands that overlap to some degree! As to what specific degree of overlap---this we can't say for sure until we actually run statistical tests on thousands and thousands of data. One should check personally with her to get more up-to-date information.

First and foremost, why the use of bands?

Bands are primarily used, in fact always used, in data representation in the real-time and dynamic environment because no measuring instrument is perfect! This includes the men/women conducting the data measurement with the already imperfect data collecting instrument! Does that make any sense? So whether you are collecting temperature readings from the sea of Antarctica, PM2.5 readings from the Air Quality Station in Bukit Timah, or taking a survey of the human population regarding a trending subject of society, you get band(s) of measurements. Using these or their like, and often in combination/comparison with pre-existing data, scientists and researchers from the respective fields can do all sorts of magic with these data with equally magical statistical tools(software) ranging from probability distribution analysis, multivariate linear regression analysis, analysis of variance and your more familiar standard deviation and mean---something all local highschool students study in very simple terms. The results of these tools are extremely important in painting almost a beautiful picture or story of the very article of analysis, and how perhaps the said article behaves in the presence of other articles that you would also put through the same tools! And the article(s) can be anything you define in the world! Just name it! There is a saying that goes: "nothing in this world is unquantifiable, except perhaps dark matter or energy!" If you find a proposed value/quality that hasn't been quantified statistically in any way yet, that is only because it has not yet been done so. Does that make sense? Before the downing of MH370, vast swathes of the bottomless Indian Ocean have never been sonar-mapped! Why? Because it just simply hadn't been done so! There was no reason to find out how it looked like underneath unless you, or rather many people thought a jumbo plane had gone down there!

Next to foremost, is there any precedence or suggestion of the use of such statistical bands in specifically the distance running world?

There are so many aspects of distance running sport to be quantified---that is virtually quantifying haven! For as long as sports science existed, sports scientists and their statistical tools of analysis, together with their coaches, instructors, physiotherapists, nutritionists, psychologists, doctors, technical directors and many more other assistants are constantly observing then recording and measuring everything and anything! Science attempts to want to control everything(though it really can't! And that's another topic altogether!), to find a physical, social, emotional, psychological reason behind anything and everything, and quantifying seems to be the only objective or non-objective way to go about the job! Our very own Singapore Sports Institute has taken the very lead in moving towards a more science-based(quantifying) approach to all kinds of sport, and one can peruse their website for evidence of such. Ruiyong has also probably been an unconsciously partaking exponent of SSI and the quantifying methods that had been the concept of its birth! He had embraced the altitude chamber in which he gain his oxygen carrying red blood cells, and gotten world class medical and technical running advice from them! He had ate, drank, and slept statistics and quantifying methods! But he now rejects virtually in wholesale the very thing that he has embraced, by claiming that one can overwhelmingly throw statistical trends and models in distance running performances into the dustbin when it comes to qualifying for the marathon in Rio! And perhaps leave it all to Father Miracle!


What a bitter irony!?!

Sorry for the digression, and back to the topic of Mary Joy Tabal and her seemingly impossible mission of qualifying for the Rio olympic marathon, as suggested by Ruiyong's language expression on his facebook page! Was it really all that impossible that a MIRACLE had to happen, as was implicitly implied by Ruiyong, for Mary Joy to go to Rio? Let us start the analysis!


To make our case clear-cut and simple for the average non-statistical or non-scientific folk who might not find or have any predisposition towards quantifiable methods, we shall use the time bands for Mary Joy Tabal in its singularity and find out if they are simply mutually statistically consistent within some acceptable error using the algorithm of the world famous McMillian pace/results calculator. Then one also finds the time bands getting bigger with distance, and the reason of doing so was to conduct some really basic and non-complex 'standardization' of the bands by a factor of 2, to reflect the proportionate increase in distance. Next, we are not going to consider the bands could overlap---though in an environment as real and dynamic as the human being's psychological and physiological body, they actually definitely will! (Comment in the section below to enquire about what I mean by overlapping bands!) We are also not going to even think about any other factors, controllable and non-controllable, from the external environment or internally within the human being, that might or might not have caused Mary Joy to run faster or slower! The bands provided above are what they are, based on the little information on performances of Mary that we have right now, unless Mary Joy herself comes on board and be a willing specimen of our analysis! Is there a reason why I use the McMillian calculator? I don't have a scientific or statistical rationale for this, but Renato Canova himself uses this tool to predict training and race paces for his athletes, and therefore I would like to use it as well. How did I know that? He mentioned it a couple years back on the American Forum Letsrun.com. So here is the website to calculate:

https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/

Once you are in the website, you may enter Mary Joy's marathon result of 2:43:30 into the box for 'recent race time' and immediately click on the 'calculate paces'. Why did we do this? Why did we key in 2:43:30 into the box? Because this time was indicative of her current marathoning ability, and using this information we were then going to check against McMillians ultra reliable algorithm whether the time bands provided from our information sourcing above could provide a reasonable match! After calculation, one finds that we get a compatible match for the 10k band of 34:40-35:40. We didn't get a match for the 5k band of 16:50 to 17:20, missing a couple of seconds. We then had a final match for the half-marathon band of 1:17 to 1:19.

It is worthy to note that Mary Joy had a career opening marathon of 2:48:00, already only 3minutes away from the female olympic standard of 2:45. Is it the same for a male athlete who is 3minutes away from 2:19? The 3minutes in Mary Joy's case would be statistically closer to 2:45 than the mathematical or numerical difference in time suggests! Why? Because first and foremost if you are modelling or comparing the value of a race performance outcome from scratch without wanting to collect any sample data from anyone, then many variables such as velocity, gender, age and perhaps a quantifiable ability/talent would be ordinarily factored into some hypothetical partial differential equations for race performance ratings, from which one can then model universally and accurately across all genders, velocities, and talents, how excellent(well-rated) any performance was. If one doesn't understand this, just simply then think about how vastly different the speeds for 2:45 and 2:19 are, and that 3minutes of running at these paces will yield completely different lengths or distances! Does that make any sense at all? These things, as well as the fact that Mary Joy had very good time band matches using the world reknowned McMillian race predictor calculator, show us that, far from the 'MIRACLE' Ruiyong had posited prematurely and perhaps embarrassingly on his facebook page, one could instead safely come to the statistically and/or scientifically acceptable conclusion that the result of 2:43:30 was just OPTIMUS!

But the same cannot be held for Ruiyong, because upon keying in the required pace from his pb at 10k(good indicator of marathoning potential according to Science in Sport magazine), one doesn't get anywhere close to 2:18:xx!

Till next time

Hardwork doesn't beat talent if all things being equal!

Welcome back to my blog after a long hiatus in which the few of us required some much needed retrospection and introspection about our motivations and intentions for setting up this blog. After which we decided that we had virtually zero ill will in our hearts and could peaceably, with ourselves, continue supplying the blog as per normal. This also allowed our main character Soh Ruiyong time to reflect on a personally disastrous life story in 2016 so far, for all the reasons we have already painstakingly affirmed in every of our previous posts.

Indonesia's Agus Prayogo has a pb for 10000m in 29:25. If we define such ability as 'talent', then the million dollar question is: can 'hardwork' beat 'talent'.

For context, we obviously use our main character Soh Ruiyong, who comes from a background of 31:15 10000m speed. We are not talking about a guy already running say 29:50 for 10000m working also already very hard, and still looking to continue even more 'hardwork' to surmount the difference to 29:25, the supposed benchmark of 'talent' in the definition above. We are talking about a drastically slower guy who is only running 31:15 on the track with MORE THAN his maximum effort, as illustrated by the race video of 2 years ago on Flotrack where Ruiyong totally capitulated from physical and mental exhaustion at the end of the race! If that is the case, can Ruiyong with his 31:15 pb, with the support of already one of the best training ideologies and guidances from a very good elite distance coach and group be able to continue to work hard so that, according to him, 'hardwork' may beat 'talent'? And that means, he would be running sometime in the next 1,2, or 3 years, faster than 29:25, which would be 2 minutes faster than his current best? We of the blog, and any reasonable and knowledgeable distance running fan, coach, or competitor would obviously and completely reject such a notion. In fact, we of the blog, are even willing to wager that this man will not even run 1 min faster than 31:15, much less 2minutes faster! In fact, based on analysis of the entirety of Ruiyong's running career and trajectory, performances, emotional and mental thresholds and tendencies, and biomechanical style and efficiency, as well as some other work  and climate related factors when he returns to Singapore, we do not think he even has a high chance of ever coming within a split second of his 31:15 again!

HARD WORK DOESN'T BEAT TALENT BELOW A CERTAIN CUT-OFF STANDARD! Can anybody disagree with that?! If yes, the onus is on you to prove it critically/theoretically/practically, for the sport of distance running only!

We would like every single Singaporean and non Singaporean runner, coach, parent, fan, competitor of distance sport, to stop promulgating notions such as these above without more critical thinking and analysis like we have done above, especially if you are well educated and have better ability to filter information and knowledge, and/or, differentiate reality from illusion, right from wrong, good from bad, morally and ethically!

Instead, we propose the existence of TALENT BANDS! There must be a band of runners of a certain ability by a certain age and perhaps also of a certain cultural heritage, who one would consider to be above the cut-off standard so that all their hard work may PROBABLY reap some small or large dividends! As you can see, being above the cut-off still doesn't guarantee hard work beats talent! And we speak mostly in probabilistic terms because so many other factors are at work still. We propose that for a senior runner in SEA to run 29:25 one fine day in his career, he needs to graduate from highschool at the tender age of 18 years or 19 years old with a pb for 10000m in the region of 30-31 minutes. This would be called a TALENT BAND! A runner falls into this talent band if he comes from either vietnam, phillipines, singapore, burma, cambodia, laos, indonesia, malaysia, east timor, brunei, and is at most 19 years old and has run 30-31minutes in a 10k track(or road) race. Needless to say, Ruiyong at 18-19 years old, was nowhere near this BAND. In fact he was 4 BANDS away in the high 34min region. For him, no amount of hard work is ever going to cause him to beat a talent of Agus' stature, or run times close to 29:25! If he is going to prove this wrong to all of us, and insist, in his delusion, that hard work beats talent(whatever else that means to him), we wish him all the best in what we definitely believe is futile.

At last word, we heard Ruiyong is hell bent on giving one last push for qualifying for Rio, by way of the Gold Coast Airport marathon 2016, in which Agus Prayogo is also entered(according to his instagram). We have spoken quietly to everybody in the knowledgeable local distance running community, and a quick survey of opinions in general showed that 9 in 10 conversations were totally disagreeable and expressed shock and abhorrence at his naivety! We have no reason to lie about this and our meticulously objective analyses in all our posts speak for themselves. Whoever is overseeing his running career at the moment, probably doesn't have enough influence in Ruiyong's life to prevent him from trying to qualify for Rio again in Gold Coast. That includes his PR agent Nicholas and his personal coach and assistant Ian. Even our own athletics association SAAA exponent C kunalan has questioned Ruiyong's questionable moral and ethical choices over the last few months of his running career, to no avail---no remorse and recourse by Ruiyong and his team at Blackdot. He thinks he can get in and out of the marathon game like an 800m or 1500m race---haphazardly putting together what he thought was a solid training block of 5-6 weeks, in between gingerly managing injuries and being injured and sometimes not training at all due to pain and discomfort, when real solid professional runners like Eliud Kipchoge settle for no less than 16-20 weeks except in this olympic year where the amount of time between the end of the London marathon and the Rio marathon allows for no more than a meagre 12 weeks of actual preparation. At his level, is this not showing any respect for the distance? Because this isn't an 800m or 1500m playtoy, and he knows that! He knows that the marathon distance is an extreme extension which requires months upon months of physical and mental practice to perfect, whereby any small chink in the armor, or weakness, is going to be amplified multi-fold----and he knows this! 

Question of the day: how does he act so obstinately dumb? 

It's a no-brainer outcome at Gold Coast, just as it was in London: Soh Ruiyong is not qualifying by merit of time(sub 2:19). There could be a window of chance with regards to the national marathon record, but even with our best optimism, we think that is a long shot as well. A really long shot...

Ruiyong's London marathon post race bits and thoughts.....

Ruiyong had this to say about his London marathon race:

"Challenging experience. Raced London Marathon today worrying that every step could be my last. 2:37 wasn't what I was hoping for but I'm happy with my race today. Did exactly what I wanted to do for 32.2km, but having barely trained since being injured a month ago, the lack of fitness really showed in the last 10km when I struggled with cramps and white vision all the way to the end. After running at 34min 10km pace for the first 32.2km, I took over 50min for the last 10km.

When I do my next marathon, I'll be better trained, hopefully without injuries, and have a stronger finish.

Thanks for all the support! Still a step forward. Staying positive and looking forward to the next one."

We have all along mentioned Ruiyong's London marathon race was specially setup for failure, in light of all the recent events that has occurred surrounding him, which we do not want to waste our breath repeating. Those 'events' have been painstakingly analytically explained to everybody in a series of blogposts since March, so review them again if you will at your own time and leisure.

Ergo, there was nothing surprising with Ruiyong's poor performance in what was fantastic arctic weather and gentle breezes for running fast and well. His obvious lack of training in the 1 month since the world half marathon championships was telling when the race began at 30km! He had no energy or fuel left, consistent with either 1)lack of specific training 2)started way too fast for the amount he lacked in training. Ruiyong's splits have been posted on the London marathon live tracking website, with a halfway time of 1:12:27, but everybody knows halfway in a marathon is virtually not even the start of the race itself! 30km is where it all begins, and Ruiyong slowed not gradually, but exponentially, very much like how outlier performances behave! Except this outlier was a performance so bad rather than so good that it is likely the worst, or one of the worst performances out of all bad performances of runners who hit the wall and implode, by a large margin! The stats say it all, Ruiyong slowed to 4:51per km average in the segment 35-40km, and then 5:36 per km in the segment from 40km to the finish. Elite professional, semi-professional and even amateur runners, male or female, about the standard of Ruiyong do not implode so badly(drastic exponential) from 30km to the finish, because we have seen so many results list after another from year upon year of marathon majors and we know what are the trends and statistics regarding pacing, performances and just about anything and everything at the back of our minds! What is more alarming is that 4:51 and 5:36 are just averages for 5km segments, the reality would be Ruiyong had way slower than 4:51 and 5:36 per km paces from 30km all the way to the finish, perhaps, by our rusty mental calculation 5:30s and 6:10s per km anyhow for the majority of kilometers from 30km onwards.

For those of you who thought his slowing down was within the realm of acceptable standard deviations, I am sorry to disappoint you people, because I have just advised that his slowing down totally demolished almost all acceptable standard deviations in statistical history for slowing down due to hitting the wall. You may ask how in the world that is possible? Answer: Ruiyong didn't just hit the wall, he was the wall itself after 30km, and therefore probably also one long before the race started, in the one month he took to nurse a plantar injury and a few adhoc and insipid workouts later. If he was supposed to be a walking wall for all of one month, then this was the reason why we had very accurately predicted that the London marathon race was specially setup for fools(ie failure!). Because how could a wall even think of starting the race? It pains us to call him a fool, because he is Singapore's precious 'talent' by local standards only. It pains us to see him eschew our team of guidance from great knowledge and experience to force his own path of self-deception--which he dogmatically rationalizes every now and then as something more noble such as self-belief or 'chasing your dreams with all your heart and mind!'. How foolhardy can such a belief be in light of the background of knowledge and experience we offer? In let's say a random Shakespeare example, Romeo and Juliet chased their dreams with all their hearts and minds and what happened? They offered up their lives on the sacrifice! There is a fine line between "chasing your dreams with all your hearts and minds MORALLY/ETHICALLY AND WITH WISDOM", AND, SELF DECEPTION/DELUSION!

We want the lessons gleaned from Ruiyong's career, with the help of all the analysis done in our 10 blogposts, to be a warning to all young and aspiring Singaporean teenage/youth runners, and even elite Singaporean adults in their 20s and 30s, that all the running, training and racing you are doing is inherently selfish or self-serving, first and foremost! Why? Because none of you belong in the category of Eliud Kipchoge and tons of other East Africans running by NO CHOICE OF THEIRS! These guys run for the most unselfish reasons---they run to make a living, feed families, and just generally upgrade to a better standard of living. They run to give! Give life and hope! You and I probably run, charity aside, to consume! You consume time and so many resources more than you can give time and resources back to mother Earth! So in general you consume! Those guys give more than they consume time and resources so in general they give! Can you see the difference between what your running stands for---at best a hobby and at worst a VAIN PREOCCUPATION(!), and what theirs stand for---LIFE AND HOPE! Ponder upon these carefully, we urge you! We are not saying to immediately ditch running or any hobbies from this point on, we only want to create first and foremost a stepping stone of social awareness about the hobby that you might have been too heavily invested(possibly obsessed) in, and hopefully our words and advice can subsequently down the road produce changes and effects in your life in the direction of ethical and moral living! No change is immediate, no rational mindset gets switched from one frame to another in a couple of hours, days or even years. As they say, it takes a generation to have any type of social awareness finally producing concrete and actual patterns of behavior!

Finally we hope the outcome of the race can bring closure to Ruiyong's yearning to become an olympian. Though it was foolish of him to run the race on the back of a plantar episode, he mentioned it was the only way he could gain spiritual ease. We take that, because that alone sounds reasonable by itself, but unpardonable based on knowledgeable wisdom.

For those of us who think he is over and done with his plantar issues just simply by his lack of mention in his facebook race report, I urge you not to jump so quickly to such a conclusion. The lack of mention doesn't equate to NO FLARE-UP. It could mean 1)NO FLARE-UP 2) FLARE-UP but dun dare to report 3)FLARE-UP and forgot to include in report 4)FLARE-UP but finding an opportunity to report in the coming days or even weeks!

All in all our top local coach Lexus always reminds his athletes to 1) BE HUMBLE 2) BE REALISTIC(NO DECEPTION) 3) ALWAYS LET YOUR RUNNING DO THE TALKING, NOT YOUR MOUTH!

Till next time :)

Exemplary morals from the protege of our current national marathon record holder Murugiah Rameshon

"He who glorifies himself will be condemned(by others obviously!), while he who humbles himself will be glorified(by others as well obviously!)"
Source: Universal book of morality and ethics!


It isn't very hard for any educated or even non educated person to understand the above quote. Is there anybody, or creature, since the beginning of time who had glorified himself/itself and not be condemned at some or all points in time subsequently? Is there anybody or creature? Can anybody name me somebody or some creature? I think you will find, in all history, whether in sports, politics, business or any other domain of life, as well as the animal kingdom(!), nobody and no creature who has glorified himself/itself with IMPUNITY! NOBODY! NO CREATURE! Again, if this is not true, just as I am not infallible, let it be known to us here that we may be forced to do what we do best: ANALYSE!


Without further ado, the couple of us would like to introduce one of the most humble schoolboy athletes of all time, who also happened to be extremely gifted in distance running with regards to local schoolboy standards, though not as gifted as the other secretly brewing talent from out of Australia--Lui Yuan Chow(8:50 3k and 3:58 1500m, while 16 years of age!).


But this will do for our purposes for now: his name is Jeffrey Ng, and our goal is to glorify NOT THE MAN, but the MORALS AND ETHICS the man carries! We want to make this absolutely and decisively clear! The man is disposable, for it could have been any other man, and man derives from the transient state of the disposable flesh that will soon wither away, whereas morals and ethics do not dispose ever, it exists in abstract spirit-like form that cannot die because it is not of the flesh, and men must always strive to not dispose with morals and ethics although his tendency is to be tempted to dispose with them! Once this is clear enough to understand, let us furnish you with the link to the website of our current local national marathon record holder, who is himself another very humble man: Murugiah Rameshon!

http://rameshon-m.blogspot.sg/2016/04/about-jeffrey-ng-3000m-heats-in.html


Once you are on the site, the story of one of the most, if not the most humble schoolboy athlete to ever grace the distance running scene in Singapore, becomes very clear, but maybe we shall just highlight one totally mind-bending act of humility in Jeffrey Ng. This man had qualified as one of the candidates of President Scholarship, the nation's most prestigious award. Mind you, he had been selected by peers and teachers to run for the award, as a result of his absolutely good running results and even better academic A level results. But guess what, and this is extremely mind-boggling even for us---Jeffrey turned down the offer to try running for the award by SECRETLY not turning up for an interview all candidates were required to grace. How is that possible for somebody his age(then 18!), in the prime of his life and probably also on the cusp of  some greatness whom everybody would think would be looking for the greatest and most advantageous benefit for his future endeavors, DARED TO TURNED DOWN AN OFFER OF SUCH MAGNITUDE?!! Unless the boy was deranged with a dose of psychosis, which he clearly doesn't just exhibit, then we can only look for more humbler explanations----Jeffrey was too clearly self-effacing, perhaps even balking at the idea that there should even be an awards ceremony for being great at sports and studies, perhaps for fear that such flattery might condemn him to egotistical and narcissistic views about himself in future? And maybe other presidential candidates would do better to mimic his mindsets and attitudes towards successes and achievements! We are simply brainstorming the origins of humble undertakings! We are not sure what really happened in that little teenage box wonderland atop Jeffrey's shoulders, and if we placed ourselves in his shoes, we would be thinking exactly the way we suggested, perhaps!

By all accounts as well, a good protege must have been laser-guided by an equally good, if not better, master---marathon record holder Murugiah Rameshon! This man might have retired from competitive distance running, but the beauty out of this man's achievements was his ability to STAY CONSTANT with regards to the upholding of almost perfect ethics and morals, foremost of which was humility. He could never boast a word of his training or race performance. You may say he was not talented for boasting, but whatever you call it, he was universally humble at the end of the day. And then we know from humility must spring truthfulness, love, patience, faith, trust, forgiveness, courage and justice/equity. There was no doubt throughout the career and life of Rameshon in general, there was always an abundance of these virtues of which we speak, from all the accounts and anecdotes we have gathered from mutual friends, friends of friends, and current SEA Games marathon finalist Ashley Liew, from as many as 20-30 years!

We sincerely hope that all athletes from any sport can learn from Jeffrey Ng and Murugiah Rameshon and glorify ethical and moral outcomes in their pursuits of sporting excellence, and if one sees errant behavior, or any suggestion of errant behavior from any athlete, one should sound the alarm bells and hyperbolize the possible consequences of such behaviors, so that the particular athlete has overwhelmingly no illusions of the severe magnitudes of his/her actions on his/her personal and public lives, and others' as well----seeing that youth and even adult athletes are constantly looking out the window for a role model to copy!

We are disappointed with Ruiyong's dogmatic insistence in running the London marathon despite his most serious injury yet. We totally do not endorse his participation on this back of an injury episode, that for all intents and purposes, definitely hasn't recovered 100% upon 100%! There are consequences for what we believe is a foolhardy decision, and you and I are forced to contemplate that now!

Ruiyong is going down a dangerous slippery slope! Please be careful not to continue validating, without FILTER, his thoughts, words and actions!

 Before we get into a new topic of discussion today, allow me to reproduce some words of wisdom from the world of proverbs!

"Listen to advice and accept discipline, and at the end you will be counted among the wise." Proverbs 19:20

"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, But a wise man is he who listens to counsel." Proverbs 12:15

If Ruiyong has or will have any wisdom from this point onwards, it would be because he started listening to our, or at least some of our advice that came from a combined total of 30 and more years of experience and knowledge with life in general, notwithstanding distance sport, which has usually been our primary domain of discussion and analysis. But a recent facebook post by Ruiyong on 'racing to deceive' has gotten us extremely uneasy and worried about how possibly deep he has sunk into the pit of ethical and moral depravity! This post has been reproduced below in its purest origin, just in case he deletes that post for fear of whatever repercussions. 

Disclaimer: Our views here for this post only are not intended to be pragmatic due to the nature of what we intend to write about: morality and ethics. They are instead intended to be absolute and decisive according to what we view as absolute and decisive. This is therefore also our bias. This bias, or view, is exclusively ours and ours only! We do not intend to claim that we have the best advice/bias on the planet, and that Ruiyong has to only listen to our advice/bias, in full or partially. We do not come, in all humility, from any appearance or lack thereof of ethical and/or moral high ground despite trying to be decisive and absolute in our views, and every one of our readers can be safe in the belief that all our hearts and minds are in 'the right place' FIRST AND FOREMOST, 99% guaranteed(since nothing is 100%). That really means for 99% we have as close to pure a desire as possible to simply and ably impart sound and absolute ethical and moral advice, according to what we view as absolutely ethical and moral, to a man we believe is going down a slippery slope slowly but surely to depravity and/or some sort of destruction, so that his distance career could in all probability become a warning lesson throughout the generations and generations of Singaporean distance and/or non distance athletes.

Here is Ruiyong's facebook post below before we delve into what we do best---CRITICALLY ANALYSE FOR THE TRUTH!

"The traditional Asian adage "Always Be Humble" is cliched. It does not always apply.

As much as training is about humility and honest hard work,
Racing is about deception.

Deceiving yourself - to believing you're faster than you actually are.
Bluffing your opponents - to fearing you're better than you look on paper.
Lying to your body - that no matter how bad you think you're hurting, you can always give more.

And no matter how much everything tells you to stop, you can go that one more mile.

Want to be always right? Just go into every competition saying you're not as good as everyone else, or you can't hit a certain mark. You can't jump this height. You can't throw that far. You can't run that fast.

You will always be right.

Want a shot at upsetting the odds? Psyche yourself up. Psyche the others out. Then hit them with all you have.

That way, at least you have a chance."

Let's now analyse the rhythm of the words in Ruiyong's post, and strain our ears to hear the heartbeat of the 'truth' we are about to put forth! Ruiyong says there are 2 categories concerning distance sport---racing and training. While he says, and we therefore assume he believes as well, that honesty and humility, or truthfulness, should apply in training, you should throw these infinitely beautiful, eternal and time-tested virtues out the window when you race?!!? He justifies these with SEEMINGLY(beware!) logical explanations such as "believing you are faster than you actually are", "making your opponents call your bluff that you're better than you look on paper", and "lying to your body so that no matter how bad you think you're hurting you can always give more." Anybody who truly possess wisdom and knowledge will know that the double virtues of honesty(truthfulness) and humility(meekness) are footstools and foundations of love, patience, kindness, thoughtfulness, forgiveness, respect, dignity and integrity, and always reliably with 100% guarantee(in a world where nothing is 100%!) work perfectly--providing you have FAITH to use these virtues in the first place, which one must provide for out of his/her own willing mind and heart! This brings us to the question--might Ruiyong have a lack of a willing mind and heart and therefore lack of a certain faith then? If Ruiyong cannot carry through the virtues of honesty and humility in racing, and instead have to rely on calling bluffs and other self-deception techniques, then he certainly has a lack of a willing mind and heart and therefore a lack of faith. If he cannot carry through the virtues of honesty and humility, if he cannot stay TRUE and be TRUTHFUL at all times whether in racing or training, might he be guilty of also lacking the other accompanying virtues that lay on top of honesty and humility, such as love, respect, dignity and kindness etc? Yes, to a high probability! When the foundations of truth and humility are missing, those on top of these will likely collapse under its own weight as well!!! Can we therefore say he lacks patience and therefore love for the sport because he is willing to believe a self-made delusion "that he is much faster than he actually is in training", and that this delusion is one of the primary causal effects of his lack of love, patience, respect, integrity and basically all of the virtues spoken of above? Yes to a high probability as well!

It's seems clear, to us, that for all the love of the sport that Ruiyong claims he overflows hitherto, that could not stand up to the weight of our analysis! Something doesn't add up in his love for the sport! You should be starting to then question his motives and intentions for wanting to do what he is doing and saying, whatever he is doing and saying!

Let us try another angle of analysis: we have thought about this momentarily and wondered if Ruiyong might have gotten confused over semantics(ie, confusing the definitions of deception or deceive, which is of something bad or evil in nature, with something of good nature such as thinking positively in a moderate and realistic sense, and/or self-defense in the sense of defending one's own turf and not allowing your opponents to think for even one moment that you are 'easy meat'. 

According to the Cambridge English dictionary, 'to deceive' can mean any of these 3 things, and we will be 'judging' Ruiyong's theories for 'racing to deceive' against the background of these 3 conditions below, AS WELL AS ONE PARTICULAR CASE STUDY!

1)deliberately cause (someone) to believe something that is not true, especially for personal gain.

2)(of a thing) give (someone) a mistaken impression.

3)fail to admit to oneself that something is true.

Case study: Haile Gebrselassie raced an Olympic 10000m final on a moderately injured Achilles Tendon, against a Paul Tergat in extremely fine form. The twist: Will Haile uphold honesty(truthfulness) and humility(meekness) in his quest for a 2nd Olympic gold, in front of the watching eyes of Paul Tergat, or will he ditch them and employ 'dirty' deceptive tactics to lure what you and I suppose would be an unsuspecting Tergat into a trap so that Tergat lets down his guard for the race! (though we think Tergat, a Kalenjin, is made of better spirit--ethics/morals than that!)

As documented in Haile's biography, "The Greatest", Haile landed in Sydney with one great concern---not to show any sign of physical and/or mental weakness to his greatest rival for the gold--Paul Tergat. As a result, his injury was a tightly secured affair, with no journalist privy on the matter, except for perhaps Haile's wife, and agent Jos Hermans. So from the press conference for the race to the race warm up at the practice track and call room race lane assignment, Haile did one thing he knew he had to do---NOT TO SHOW ANY SIGN OF PHYSICAL AND/OR MENTAL WEAKNESS to Paul Tergat. Haile even made sure to do some powerful strides within watching distance of Paul Tergat at the practice track. QUESTION OF THE DAY: Is any of what Haile is doing intending to deceive? That means, does any of Haile's actions satisfy any of the 3 conditions for deception above? Let us see!

First: Does the lack of presenting any signs of physical and/or mental weakness akin to deception? NOPE! CLEAR NO! That is the realm of DEFENSE, or SELF DEFENSE! Footballers have all sorts of worries on their minds, from personal worries like family and finance to universal ones like mortality knowing their playing days are numbered! Do they show this worry, or have the need to show this worry on the football pitch just because they don't want to deceive their opponents in that they are worry-free and mentally 100%? NOPE! They weren't even asked a question by their opponents if they had a worry on their minds, why the heck would they voluntarily present their mental struggles and worries in a free-for-all revelation to their opponents who are probably also strangers to them! Nobody in their right minds, including athletes, will present any hint of mental and/or physical weakness WITHOUT BEING ASKED A QUESTION! BECAUSE THEY ARE DOING SELF-DEFENSE! This begs the question: what if somebody asked 'how are you?' before a football match, and you do indeed have some physical and/or mental weakness/problem? The right thing to do would always be the ethical and moral way: BALANCE the TRUTH of your weaknesses with the need to also SAY THE TRUTH to your enemy(your opponent)!!! It's all about balance, it has always been about balance in anything and everything, an issue I spoke about in my previous posts! So you might say something like "oh well i've had some setbacks recently, but I'm looking forward to giving my best shot in this match and hopefully progress to the champions league finals!" While being careful not to reveal the 'setback' you have! This is saying the truth, WITH LOVE AND CARE! Truthfulness always accompanies the virtues of love and care, no matter the circumstance! This is something Ruiyong obviously have no clue about based on his beliefs above racing!

Haile then took some powerful strides in front of a watchful Tergat! Is this akin to deception, since Haile knows the existence of the injury, and is then trying to put on a seeming theater show for Tergat, to show Tergat his lack of an injury? BUT TERGAT DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HAILE HAS AN INJURY, OR NOT!!! Haile isn't trying to change the belief and/or attitude Tergat has towards him, since Haile already knows that Tergat DOESNT know the existence of his injury!!! Definitely NO DECEPTION ON HAILE'S PART!!! What Haile had been doing is this: SELF DEFENSE, AGAIN!!! Haile is making sure he doesn't lose the aura of invincibility already gained long ago from years of championships gold medal racing ability, THAT IS SELF-DEFENSE. If you are a lady and walking down the street with an expensive handbag and somebody snatches from you something that is ALREADY YOURS and you defended with kung-fu kick, THAT IS SELF- DEFENSE! Defending what is already yours, and already gained. Haile isn't trying to gain something more than he already gained by using a method of deliberately trying to cause someone(Tergat) to believe something that is not true, because 1) Tergat doesn't at all know Haile is injured 2) Haile isn't trying to gain anything except to conduct maintenance on what he has ALREADY HONESTLY gained with his gold medals in the years 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999!!!

So since Haile's doing and speaking doesn't satisfy the first 2 conditions of 'deceiving', let us see if he might be guilty of the 3rd conditions---failing to admit to oneself that something is true. Haile went into the race knowing he had an injury, he admitted his weakness personally as well as with his coaches and agents, and knew after the race he needed to go for reconstructive surgery on his Achilles tendon. At no point in time did he deceive himself or view the injury with much less respect than he should, which was why he employed the tactics he employed during the race, which was to sit and kick only at the last moment---in the last 100m! Instead of the usual last 250-400m! Of course you could argue that he shouldn't have raced in the first place knowing the destruction it will cause his achilles, but heck, distance running is his first and only professional job ever, and his existing and surviving depends solely on his ability to run fast and perform, and for a man of his talent and ability, he has a pretty solid exception to risk his personal health and safety for the sake of a chance at retaining his OLYMPIC GOLD! The highest athletic honor in the universe! Haile's circumstances are completely different from a certain Ruiyong racing and training on an injured plantar at the world championships 2 weeks ago! So Haile hasn't deceived himself in any way, although there is legitimate argument that he shouldn't have ran the race.

Bottomline: the legendary distance runner in the entire universe---Haile Gebrselassie, a runner who is an example to millions of distance and non-distance athletes alike, shows us that it is completely 100%(in a world where nothing is 100%) possible to race with 100% truthfulness and therefore 100% humility! If our young singaporean distance athletes do not take after the best in the universe--Haile's ethics and morals, what will they take after? Ruiyong?!? We strongly advise against that after all the analysis we have done for you! Make no mistake, Ruiyong---Haile was so humble in that 10000m race in Sydney, that he mentioned in the aftermath that he was RESIGNED, before the race EVEN STARTED, to LOSING THAT RACE OUTRIGHT TO PAUL TERGAT! He only decided to race because of the cultural weight of expectations from the entire Ethiopia, A DISTANCE RUNNING MAD NATION, and his out-of-this-world distance running talent which was also his professional duty!  It was also an OLYMPIC GOLD AT STAKE! You do not come from a 1) distance running mad nation 2) do not have out-of-this-world talent 3)Not running in an olympic final 4)this is not your rightful professional duty given your academic qualifications and other educated skills!

Finally, with all of the knowledge from the analysis we have made, let us kindly school Ruiyong in his attitudes and mindsets towards racing, so that he does not mislead the entire distance running population, of whom some might be partially or completely blind or taken over by the supposed ILLUSION propagated by a SEA Games marathon GOLD medallist!

Wrong and misguided statement by Ruiyong in black, and adjusted for ethics and morals in red:

"Deceiving yourself - to believing you're faster than you actually are." 

It depends on how much faster you BELIEVE you actually are as compared to your training evidence! If you are training with paces of 1:10:00 for the HM and believe you can run 1:03 on actual race day, surely my dear friend, you are DECEIVING YOURSELF(DELUSION!). However, if say, you believe you can run in the region of 1:09 or even slightly under 1:09, that is positive thinking done realistically and moderately, and you are in no way deceiving yourself! As mentioned above, deception is of an evil and bad nature, and in no way under any circumstances in your life in general should you be deceiving anybody including yourself. WHITE LIES included!! A lie is a lie, a deception is a deception!

"Bluffing your opponents - to fearing you're better than you look on paper."

As mentioned above in our analysis, you never get anybody to call your bluffs, never deceive, never deception! Never, never, never try to make gains by deliberately causing somebody, by your words or actions, to believe something that is not true(ie looking better than you look on paper!). That is not ethical or moral. As presented to you above, Haile didn't do any such 'dirty' thing. Question is, who is your mentor, and what has led you to conceive of sport in such a 'cheap' and 'dirty' manner! I wouldn't be surprise if you would resort to drug-taking, given the kind of ethics and morals you carry in this sport.

"Lying to your body - that no matter how bad you think you're hurting, you can always give more."

Again, clear cut self deception and delusion, if you are talking about injury! You telling yourself during your half marathon world championships race that you can hold out till the end of the race despite an acute pain injury is nothing short of mind-bending depravity. If you are referring to the 'pain' of lactate accumulation, you also DO NOT LIE for one moment to yourself that you are not feeling that pain! I cannot believe you are writing such a statement if you were referring to lactate pain. Ask any elite professional athlete on the planet, and they will tell you that the key to surmounting the pain is FACING AND ACCEPTING THE PAIN HEAD ON WITH COURAGE AND WILLPOWER. That is different from lying to your body, which I perceive as---ignoring the pain, or that the pain doesn't exist, WHICH IS NOT TRUE!  The pain exists, accept it, deal with it, but don't deal with it by lying or deceiving yourself thinking that the pain doesn't exists. Similarly, if you have a problem in life in general, you face the problem with courage and will power head on in a collision course! You do not lie to yourself that the problem is smaller than it is, or worst, that it doesn't exist in the first place, because you will then be digging yourself a deeper pit to sink into! That would then be a delusion!

So get out of the delusion, come back to Singapore for treatment and do not loiter in England any longer. Accept, with all TRUTHFULNESS AND MEEKNESS, that your Rio Olympic journey has come to an end, and work towards Tokyo 2020 for the sake of those who care about you!

If you want to have a shot or chance at Tokyo 2020(qualifying only, not top-ten), do it only with truth, humility, and in both racing and training, and outside of distance sport in your life in general as well! If it can't be done, it can't be done, nothing to be ashamed of. Don't do anything 'at all costs'. That will likely tempt you to deceive, to lie, and to get into an agreement with evil, to your demise. Then refer to the first 2 proverbs at the top of this post again.

It is opportune to repeat once more, to all his sponsors, agents, sports associations and people in top management levels in these associations that Ruiyong is going down a dangerous slippery slope that you probably haven't been concerned enough to heed against. Please be careful not to continue validating through the pathways you have been using to validate him, without FILTER in the form of the words and advice we have provided above to him.

Longevity and health in distance running (2)

As promised in this post, we go on and discuss why, if you love the sport of distance running, you ABSOLUTELY MUST have the desire to protect your distance running health, and express outward evidence that you do indeed desire to protect this health all the way till you leave the face of this Earth! Otherwise, we question your 'love' for the sport, that you are perhaps deluded in some aspects of the love for distance running sport, and would need guidance to be brought back on the right path. And we think Ruiyong needs some real guidance on how to conduct his mindsets and attitudes towards distance running sport.

1) In distance running sport, the INDIVIDUAL comes first. Considerations for safety, health, integrity must always come first. This is a little selfishness but a good selfishness to have. A good ego to have as well. This is something that must be taught and glorified in all forms of sport education. THERE IS SO SUCH THING AS SACRIFICING YOUR SAFETY, HEALTH AND INTEGRITY for the greater good of say the country's pride, honor and reputation. This isn't an patriotic act, just in case you are tempted to think that way---it is in fact a perversion of the good sense of selfishness or ego.

2)Once considerations for the INDIVIDUAL have been taken care of, we may then discuss about how well he/she may serve in the various areas of his/her life or career. If he/she were a professional distance runner, he/she may then consider how he/she may make his/her country proud and bring honor to her by perhaps showing great sportsmanship and ethics/morals. If he/she were a professional lawyer, he/she may consider how he/she may conduct his/her profession in such a way where he/she does not defile both the morals and ethics society demands he/she should know, as well as expecting the same from his/her clients, and then also show masterful ability to balance the safety, health and integrity of himself/herself and those of his/her clients, whatever that means in the profession of law.

3)Let's say you find while doing your professional job that you have to sometimes, or, all the time trangress some safety, health and integrity, or society's ethics and morals(assuming you know what they are), or been asked by those of your clients to start trangressing ethics and morals in the name of perhaps more rewards such as money or gifts, and you give in to that temptation, THAT IS CORRUPTION OR PERVERSION OF THE GOOD SENSE OF EGO AND SELFISHNESS, as defined above. You now have a bad ego, and you are selfish in a bad sense as well! Similarly, if you a professional distance runner and find yourself having to make the decision during a race when you suddenly acquire a serious injury with clear and acute pain signals emitted, and you failed to stop the race and drop out immediately to protect your health, safety and integrity, which is the ethical and moral thing to do, YOU HAVE CORRUPTED YOUR OWN BODY PHYSICALLY, MENTALLY AND EMOTIONALLY, BECAUSE YOU GAVE IN TO TEMPTATION AND SELF DENIAL TO KEEP RACING!


As everybody already knows, our very own local athlete Ruiyong has failed to uphold the proper ethical and moral considerations of his sport, and failed to therefore protect the safety, health and integrity of his own mind, body and spirit. This is regretful but unsurprising concurrently. Seeing how clouded his mind in thinking he has the wheels and body to run a 2:18:xx marathon, we do not find it any surprising that he can be equally clouded in failing to protect his safety, health and integrity! If you are cloudy in one area of life, there is a sometimes high probability that you are also cloudy in another area. This cloudiness is another way of describing DELUSION.


You might then ask, can a professional distance runner continue improving his personal best times and and run better and faster without sacrificing his/her safety, health and integrity, or perversing his/her own good sense of the ego and selfishness? Absolutely yes! And the key is obviously to not deceive or delude yourself at any point in your life as a distance professional or amateur runner, which means to always be working within the bounds of reality and realistic targets, which also means working within the bounds of societal expectations. What do I mean by working within the bounds of societal expectations? If you are a mum with say 2 young kids, and also hold a full-time stressful day job, but then also want to become a professional distance runner, don't become a professional distance runner in the first place, but you may work towards just becoming a good HEALTHY(READ INJURY FREE AND HAPPY) distance runner who makes sure she leaves enough family time and energy for her young kids and romantic dinners with her hubby, as well as enough time and energy for her full-time professional day job, and if that only allows her to run 3:03 for the marathon in the best weather possible, she SHOULD BE content with that time. She mustn't steal time from family and her kids, reapportion time from her romantic dinners with hubby, or frequently go off early at her professional day job, just so that she can put in training to only run 3:02! NO, THAT IS IN FACT  ALREADY DELUSION OR CORRUPTION of her mind and body, because she has perversed good ethics and morals and spoil the balance between what is only her hobby and family and career.

The point I am getting at is this: you do not destroy the balance between the various aspects of your life so that you may run faster and better, because running faster and better isn't your professional job, and a case could be made against you that you are indeed egotistical and selfish if you insist on running faster than the balancing of the various aspects of your life would naturally allow. Let me explain further: if you are already achieving a perfect balance in family, career and running, perhaps your family is prospering and happy, you are also doing well in the office and people are happy with your productive output, and you have ran a fantastic marathon of 3:03 as a lady, STOP THERE! Dun look for any improvements IF IT COMES AT THE EXPENSE OF SPOILING THE BALANCE! If you have to neglect the school soccer matches or birthday parties your young kids want you to be present at, just so that you can get in supposedly more rest and recovery so that you may have a greater output at training so that you may run 3hours flat for the marathon as a lady, DON'T DO IT, THAT ISN'T NATURAL! The natural thing to do is to be with your kids and spouses, or be working at your professional job! Your running hobby would have become your obsession, which isn't natural. So do just enough running---train and race hard and whatever timings result from your efforts are what it is! If somebody runs faster than you, say an American lady your age runs 2:44, she is simply more physically gifted than you are, and you simply accept it. This isn't defeatist attitude! Do not attempt to usurp the delicate balance that is your life. How does it apply to Ruiyong specially?

As Ruiyong doesn't have a career or family(wife+kids) yet, we will be speaking of 'balance' in terms of his attitudes towards injury and national patriotism!

At the world half marathon championsips, Ruiyong made the bad decision to even start the race knowing his plantar has re-emerged in kenya, and then making another bad decision to continue racing despite sharp, severe and acute pain setting in. That is a double corruption to the safety, health and integrity of his own mind and body, and therefore a corruption of society's ethical and moral values. Ruiyong has also selfishly and egotistically manipulated the balance between national pride and his own health and safety. Ruiyong has conveniently, by his corrupted self and ego, overlooked his own safety and health in favor of national pride and honor, and this act then brings a bad name to those who truly do bring real national pride and honor to Singapore. He is a terrible example for the young teen and youth runner anywhere in the world.

There is no point in destroying the balance so that one may achieve better results. This is similar to the concept of 'win at all costs', and such a concept is deluded and corrupted, and we see many instances of this in our sport today, most recently Alberto Salaazar's scandal here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics/2016/03/16/ethical-grounds-only-way-to-pursue-alberto-salazar/


It must be infinitely better for Ruiyong, to remain as a 2:26-2:40 runner well into his 50s, sensing how much he says he 'loves' the sport of distance running, while maintaining the balance in all aspects of his life! We cannot forsee(after considerations from the type of society we live in, the weather conditions, the amount of talent Ruiyong has, and many more factors) that, while maintaining this balance, he can actually become top ten olympics 2020 or be running 2:18:xx 2:17:xx or 2:16:xx, because many things are going to come along his way as he grows with more responsibilities and sensibilities to balance and manage, and it only gets more complicated to balance, rather than easier. Besides, he will age and he will slow down. This brings us to another point---examples of 30-something or 40-something runners who are still breaking marathon pbs are obviously heart-warming, but WHAT NOBODY TELLS ANY OF YOU IS THIS: THE PROBABILITY OF ANYBODY BREAKING THEIR MARATHON PB AFTER 35 YEARS OLD IS NOT HIGH, LIKE PERHAPS 10%, AND IN THIS 10%, MORE THAN HALF ARE PROBABLY PROFESSIONAL, and we have no idea if they are doing it ethically and morally. The chances are they are not!

At the end of the day, we just don't believe a SINGAPOREAN 3 hour male marathoner already training very hard and well, will one day run 2:30:00 or even 2:40:00 ethically and morally, a few years down the road. And we don't want ANYBODY to try to be so foolhardy to prove this statement wrong, because that is not the point of this post, and he/she could bring himself/herself untold physical and emotional hurt.

Feel free to provide some comments please.

Longevity and health in distance running(1)

In today's post, a couple of us are going to analyze a specific theme--longevity, using Ruiyong's career as a context.


An interview was conducted a couple years ago with Haile Gebrselassie and his wife. As everybody already knows, Haile is one of the greatest distance runners in the universe(not a hyperbole) and everybody recognizes the sheer precocity(or genius) of the words and ideas that spring from his heart and mouth! So let us get to what was gleaned from the interview. One of a couple journalists on a visiting trip to the capital of Ethiopia asked the both of them if they have any designs for all or any of their 4 children to one day be as great as Haile in the field of distance running? This was what was said, with lots of room for error in transcription and semantical translation:

His wife replied first:

"Both of us are very affirmatively united in the fact that for all four of our children, education come first. We do not say we are very against our children pursuing running as a career, but we would much prefer them to set their sights on getting a good education so that they may get a 'proper' job and be useful to society."

Haile corroborated:

"Yeah, you know being a professional runner is a very tough job and I am very thankful and blessed to be where I am and what I achieved but I was just very lucky that God chose to bless me in this way. His blessing isn't the same for everybody, otherwise any average runner will become like me. I and a few others like Bekele, Tergat, and El Guerrouj are one in a billion and the reality is it is very hard to succeed in distance running. You have to have no other choice, no education, no other means of surviving, and if you are feel very strongly for this you can bring your whole mind and body to focus on succeeding at running, but even this faith is very tough and I recognize that I am just lucky. It could have been anybody not named me(Haile)...."

"Running for health and fun is something I strongly recommend, and I have a strong connection with, because it has benefited both my mental and physical well-being. But running for a career is a different thing, and I would very much prefer if today's youths, if they have a chance and the resources, to stay in education and pursue a good one. That way they have a better chance of success and more stability, they also contribute more to society."


Barring transcriptional errors, one thing is pretty clear from the interview, Haile says: DON'T get into professional running, that should only be your last resort---that is you do not have any income and zero or negligible education, and you are very desperate perhaps in great poverty and you just want and have to make money to survive, and if you come from East Africa where genetic and environmental conditions naturally predispose you to likely have an infinitely better chance of success(read olympic medalling potential and world beater) than perhaps some young teen/youth from Singapore or Malaysia. Singaporean teens and youths: get yourself interested in your books and subjects and learn them well, even if they have little relevance to your career in the future. Because they do one very good thing for you---they train your mind to think critically, analytically and creatively so as to give you a very high probability of success in whichever area of work you want to specialize in the future! A good or educated brain/mind is infinitely easier to cultivate than a good set of biomechanical and biocellular parameters.

Do not get into professional distance running, the road is closed, says Haile Gebrselassie and therefore myself as well. Also by Haile, you can't be as useful to society as a professional distance runner as compared to perhaps some other professional jobs in the world. Your only usefulness as a professional distance runner is probably to inspire and encourage other average runners to be a professional runner by fawning over your relative celebrity-like status, but this is counter to what Haile recommends, and Haile is a man of great distance running experience! I respect him, you respect him, and we do the same with his opinions and ideas.

Bottomline: If you are a Singaporean distance runner in your youth, teens or early to mid twenties and dream or think of wanting to become a professional distance runner, YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GETTING INTO!

There is an old proverb: BECAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH(DESIRE) FOR! The things you desire are often times based on a very biased set of world-view and beliefs filtered by your own ego and pride, and you continually and stubbornly grant yourself those world-views and beliefs without any external moderation or guidance from more experience human beings on earth such as Haile and some others. Ryan Hall, if I can recall in some interview last year 2015, also uncannily said the same thing:"Becareful what you wish(desire) for" and he was having some regrets about how he conducted his professional running career and getting into situations he wished or desired to have so much but encountering some accompanying roadblock that simply cannot and never will be avoided no matter how hard he tried to dodge because they come in a package, and that it threatened him and his career time and again which all led to his demise and downfall at the end of his retirement. This concept of 'becareful what you wish for' can also be applied to not only distance running or sport, but any part of your life as well. 


As somebody with vast knowledge and experience with the sport of distance running, I can also guarantee one thing from statistical evidence. It is infinitely easier to train for and conquer Mount Everest, barring bad weather and avalanches, than it is for you to succeed(read as winning an olympic medal in any distance event) in distance running as a professional runner. This is not slighting all Everest adventurers and conquerors and their achievements, but statistics say so. You have disproportionately more Everest conquerors in every 4 year olympic cycle than you have medallists in the distance events. And to win only Olympic gold is even more rarefied.


But here's the thing: running as a hobby and passionate pastime is totally agreeably and pleasurable. And in our next post soon enough, we look at why the career of professional distance running is not all rosy and glamorous as it appears on the surface. We explain to you why it is better to run a 3hour marathon for the rest of your life and not look for improvements to that at all, than to keep trying to train harder and faster for better and better times, like perhaps to go from 3hours to 2:50, and then from 2:50 to 2:40, and then from 2:40 to 2:30.

We obviously will also explain to you why it is infinitely better for Ruiyong to remain running in the region from 2:26 to 2:40 for the next 20 years well into even his 40s and 50s, than running, by a miracle(and not by proper physical preparation because he has demonstrated none!), a 2:18 in London on an injured plantar foot that is GUARANTEED 100% not to be able to heal in time for London marathon on the 24th April, but have to be forced to retire early in say 2017 or 2018 because he had destroyed his body by causing disproportionate wear and tear by not being physically ready to handle 2:18.