I notice from my morning runs that no matter how slow I go, I'm still faster than other joggers.

That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm fitter though. It just means my strategy is better. At least that's how I see it and I think it's applicable to life in general as well.

I have to say that some of the important elements of this strategy of mine were imparted to me by my father in the little time that we "hung out", weird as it seems. He was a warrant officer in the old armed forces. I emphasize "old" because they were sadistic back then. Here's what I do.

1) I don't get stitches in my stomach even if I don't warm up, so I don't really emphasize on this. Saves time that could otherwise be used for more important things like blogging.

Instead, knowing that my knees and my back are my weakest body parts, I just kinda bend down and touch my toes a few times while waiting for the lift down.

2) Then I walk to the traffic light which is also my start point. I use this walking time to sashay and show off my bulging thigh muscles to the morning office ladies who are on their way to work.

3) When the light turns green, I run. I can't be certain but from my experience I gauge the whole distance to be not more than 4km. It's short, but I run every other day and I'm not actually training for a marathon. It's called condition training. My season doesn't start in June every year (army reservist) and I don't step up my training till April.

a) Here's the important bits:

i) Breathing technique - tongue on the ceiling of your mouth as you run. This way, you stop yourself from breathing entirely from the mouth which would effectively make your throat dry. Instead, you'd breathe from both your nose and your mouth.

ii) Arm movement - the choo choo train. As the name suggests, you have to keep your arm moving like a choo choo train. Each time you thrust your arm forward, you actually move a few inches ahead too and every little bit of effort helps to get you there at the fastest possible time.

iii) Leg movement - NEVER walk. Have you noticed that even if you shuffle your feet forward, it's still faster than walking? Because it is, and it's not tiring. So don't be a lazy butt and start walking. Tip toe if you must. It's still faster than walking.

In the course of my life as a captain in various sports or an army sergeant, I always urge my charges to not STOP and keep on moving. I'll kick their butts no matter on the field, on the road or on the track. In time, they actually become fitter than when they started and would eventually thank me for encouraging them.

4) I stop at the same traffic light on the other side and walk to the little fitness corner near my place. I don't do any cooling down stretches. Instead, since I'm all still pumped and all, I utilize two of the equipments available there.

a) I pull myself up on the chin up bar and freeze while counting "one thousand, two thousand..." up to "ten thousand". Again my purpose is not to build rippling muscles. This exercise conditions my upper body to get used to my body weight.

b) To ascertain that my upper body remembers what weight to get used to, straight after that I crook my elbows at 90 degrees and count up to "ten thousand" again before I slowly let myself down. This is so that none of my body parts gets shocked and injured from any sudden movement, especially after being frozen for a while.

5) Then I do some diamond push ups on the sit up bench coz the floor's dirty. I do ten, slowly and deliberately. I do this so my arms don't get any weaker than it is. Diamonds are also for those who wants to build their chest muscles. The reason I have to maintain the size of my chest muscle is because my tummy cannot stop getting fatter. Hence when I put on a shirt, people think I'm not fat. Heh. It's all tactical. ;-)

6) Then I turn around and do some modified sit ups. My back is flat on the bench, my palms are flat on my not so flat tummy, my knees bent with my feet flat on the surface. Imagine that. Then with my eyes fixed at the sky, I start.

The key point of my modified sit ups is that I don't really "sit up". I only go halfway up 20 times with my back still straight. While I'm halfway up, I freeze there for a second during each count and go back down slowly with my head NOT touching the bench.

The purpose of this exercise is so that I don't hurt my poor bad back and still get to salvage whatever I can of my stomach muscles somewhere beneath my flabby tummy.

How is my strategy applicable to life in general again?

Simple - every little effort counts.