Run.Research.Rest.Repeat

A morning run in mid-Sept I visited the Lake district 2 weeks ago, right after defending my thesis. I have to say good bye to a place where I've learned to run. My first ever marathon also happened there. The time was horrendous, I clearly do not know what I signed up for. The most important thing that the place has taught me is to keep trying by working on my fitness, navigational skills and mental toughness. The mountains and its weather system will test you. On some day, you get to the summit and on some, you've failed. On top of Helvellyn with a dog (I wish it's mine!) I think the Lakes have been a great teacher. I don't think I've would have survived my PhD without spending time in the Lakes pushing myself  physically and mentally. I've ran/walked/got into a van with strangers in the Lakes. I'm grateful the place accommodated me. Now I must take these lessons on endurance and apply it to my daily life in Malaysia.  I'm a bit disapp...

The last time that I've updated this blog was last year. There are several unfinished posts on running and my transition from UK to Malaysia. 2020 is will mark the first year that I will be a PhD holder in academia. At the same time, I'm nursing my weak hip, so ambitious long distance running goals will have to take a pause in 2020. Here are my resolutions for the year 2020. Run  Be consistent in strength and stretching work, make it a daily habit. Daily commute by walking > daily commute by motorized transport (also good for environment) Climb a new mountain in Malaysia every 2 month.  Attend weekly yoga class for overarching muscles development.   Complete 400 hours of aerobic activities (run/walk/cycling) for the whole of 2020. I've managed to only do 342 hours in 2019 while it was 414 hours in 2018. Research As a young academic working in Malaysia, my research strategy will around under-promised and over deliver in terms of output. Given t...

Date: 25/11/2018 (Sunday) Distance travel: 15.9km Elevation: +405m/-422m Time: 04:05:50 After a month swapping the fells with the soft trail behind my house, I started to feel the itch to be outside in the fells but my right leg is still recovering from the tumble I took during the Lakes in the Day event last month. This is where Kong Mini Mountain Marathon come in. I did a navigation course organized by the Fell Runner Association in September. (Un)fortunately the navigation happened during a sunny spell in the Lakes District, so apart from the night navigation exercise, everyone can see where the control points are and the folks in front of them. Today’s event really put my navigation skills to the test. My objectives for this event are; i) work on my navigational skills, ii) enjoy the hills/fells regardless its conditions and iii) getting some elevation in as I have been stuck in flat Norwich for a month now. Mountainmarathon is where the fell running...

Date: 7/7/2018 (Saturday) Middle Route: 27.1km Elevation: +986m/-986m Race Details This is the second race I entered in fell/trail conditions. I signed up for the long route 46km in February and decided to scale back the distance to 27km as I found I could not fit long runs during the Ramadhan month. Then 5 days before the race day I was down with chest infection. I suspect this is due to lingering cold emerging from air travel and it just got worse on the return flight to England. I was bedridden from Monday to Wednesday, coughing up mucus while pumping a lot vitamin C and water in my body to get better. By Thursday night, I know there is no way I will be able to race on Saturday. A short email to the race organizer informed me that there won’t be any cut-off time for participants doing the middle route, aka I can walk this course. My peak flow reading on Friday morning was 300 when the ideal reading for my age and height is expected to be 420. It is settled then, I ...

I took a break from managing my research project to travel the Bintulu-Miri Coastal Road. Only the last 50km towards Miri that you actually drive along the coast line. Before that you will pass through petrochemical industrial complexes, newly built huge factories complexes (remind me of Foxconn-type of complex), palm oil plantations, forests and mountains and several small towns. I've managed for a detour to the Tusan Beach.  This is what a road trip looked like before fancy tolled highways;   dingy bathrooms stops, a random KFC and trading villages. You need considerable amount of risk preferences for every overtaking decision. If you are lucky, cooperative lorry drivers will provide signal when it is safe to overtake them.    

Paper Read :  Receipt of reward leads to altered estimation of effort (2015) - A. Pooresmaeilli, A.Wannig & R.J. Dolan; PNAS Abstract: Effort and reward jointly shape many human decisions. Errors in predicting the required effort needed for a task can lead to suboptimal behavior. Here, we show that effort estimations can be biased when retrospectively reestimated following receipt of a rewarding outcome. These biases depend on the contingency between reward and task difficulty and are stronger for highly contingent rewards. Strikingly, the observed pattern accords with predictions from Bayesian cue integration, indicating humans deploy an adaptive and rational strategy to deal with inconsistencies between the efforts they expend and the ensuing rewards. Implication for my work: Utilization of effort tasks in future experiments. The need to be clear on phases that were fully incentives and those that don't (in the case I'm running experiment with several st...