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Monday, December 5, 2011

Death at Standard Charter Marathon Singapore


Recently there has been a lot of hype about a dude named Malcolm Sng Wei Ren.

"SMU undergraduate Malcolm Sng was 22 years old, and had collapsed after finishing the 21km race at the Padang at about 8:30am.
Sng had finished the run in 1 hour, 53 minutes and 20 seconds, according to the tracking system on the marathon's website." - Yahoo news.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/runner-dies-after-stanchart-half-marathon.html

Young chap just a few years younger than me (now you know my age) Apparently he was a Golden bayonet in the army (top soldier among st sergeants.)

I agree with the fact that it is a tragedy and all but honestly speaking, deep down, I wonder if it was a case of pure freak accident such as a sudden cardiac arrest?

Or was it a case of an overly zealous "mind over body" attempt.

Back in the army, many of my company's fittest people all ended up with some form of heat stroke or severe injury. Back then, I was perhaps within the top 3 in fitness but never really got to the top. Neither did I get any major injury...
I always knew I could push that much harder but at the same time realised that my body was on the verge of collapsing and I was already far ahead of everyone else.

So that brings me back to the question of "Is it worth it?"

Some may say that's the mentality of a weakling. You settle for the top few but never had the balls to go for the top. Well I disagree. I believe that aiming for the top is a good thing. But knowing your own limit is another. We should always strive to be the best that we can be, master it, then move even higher. Understanding your own body and own mentality comes with alot of practice and humility.

Well regardless of reason, any innocent death is a sad thing indeed and I do offer my condolences for Malcolm's family and I will keep these "yuan wang" people's deaths in my prayers. Events such as these are designed to make you feel good about yourself and never meant for any mis-haps. Knowing the Singapore government... for all you know... the next thing they'll do is have a health screening before each marathon or it would be ILLEGAL! grinz

JJ

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