Project Runaway

For lil o'flabby me who haven been to the gym for months, my eyes widened when I read this:

Dear Biomedians,

In an effort to raise team spirit and foster camaraderie within the Company, the management has decided to embark on one of its most ambitious projects to date. This challenge requires a sharp body and mind, a never-say-die attitude and the support of all your peers - qualities which we strive for in our daily workings.
So what is this special challenge?

Befitting the name of the project (Runaway), we are ALL to train and participate in a 10km marathon on 2nd December 2007.

Excited ? Or maybe already collapsed from shock? Wait - there's more good news! Just like in work, we expect to be rewarded and in this special project, individual and group prizes await those that perform. A budget of $6,000 has been allocated for this event in order to motivate, train and reward the staff for their participation. This is a compulsory event for all staff under 50 years old and applies to all rank-and file i.e. directors, BMs, executives and delivery/store personnel will all run/collapse alongside each other.

We recognize that fitness levels amongst the staff vary tremendously, from superhero-fit to pathetically vegetative, hence we have derived a training program to boost everyone's fitness levels. The staff has been split into 8 teams with a designated team leader (see attachment for your teams). The role of the team leaders is to motivate their team and coordinate the training sessions. Team participation is especially important as we have prepared 3 smaller competitions to cultivate team spirit:

• " The Biggest Loser" - a monthly competition to select the team that has lost the most weight throughout that month's training (monthly prize). This competition was created because we realize, some people are better at gaining/losing weight than at actual running. $700 allocated in prizes.

• " Eat My Dust" - a monthly competition to select the team that has achieved the highest mileage during training sessions (monthly prize). This is
to encourage staff to actually train and push themselves in completing the 10km run. $1500 allocated.

• " No Horse Run" - the fastest team to complete the 10km marathon (grand prize in Dec).
Monthly prize details will announced shortly, but the prize for final 10km marathon is worth $1000 for the best team. The best male and female runners for the final 10km marathon will also win individual prizes.

Four trainers have also been appointed (Eric, Yi Ming, Lynn and Lina) who has devised a special fitness regime to turn each one of us into lean, slim running machines (see attachment entitled 'Training Programme.xls'). They shall be a total of 10 training sessions, over the next 5 months i.e. 2 training sessions per month, with the core objective of acclimatising the body for longer runs each session. The team leaders shall plan/coordinate training sessions. For example, there are 4 training sessions in July and each team must participate in 2 of these sessions:

17th July, Tuesday, 7.00pm, Clementi Stadium, 3km 20th July, Friday, 7.00pm, Clementi Stadium, 3km 24th July, Tuesday, 7.00pm, Clementi Stadium, 3km
27th July, Friday 7.00pm, Clementi Stadium, 3km

In August, again select 2 sessions but one must be a 4km session and the other a 5 km session:
6th Aug, Monday, 7.15pm, West Coast Park, 4km 8th Aug, Wednesday, 7.15pm, West Coast Park, 4km 21st Aug, Tuesday, 7.15pm, West Coast Park, 5km
24th Aug, Friday, 7.15pm, West Coast Park, 5km
The training objectives are clearly outlined in the attached training schedule and our auditing team will record weight and mileage data for each session.

Do not worry about transportation as we have enough staff vehicles to ferry staff to the training grounds.

In all seriousness, the emphasis herein is not for us to run ourselves to death, but rather for each individual to complete the distance. Time is irrelevant - set your own limits. You can run, walk, roll or crawl through these sessions. Completing the distance is more important as we all have our limits but the final 10km is definitely achievable for everyone. As a general benchmark, 10km should be completed within an hour for regular runners. For non-runners, maybe 90 minutes (jog and walk) or 2 hours (walking).

Completing the 10km is the ultimate goal. But half the fun is in the process of training for the run and the camaraderie to support/push/carry each other along. Therefore we want everyone that is able-bodied to participate in this event. The only exceptions are those with a recognized medical condition that prevent them from strenuous exercise - in such cases, kindly report to our Chairman of the organizing committee, Mr Gan. For those staff with family commitments, we politely request that you put those commitments aside for a twice a month, to train and to get healthy which ultimately benefits you and your family. Staff over 50 years are also encouraged to participate (including BMP's production teams. We had planned for the first aid training course last week in preparation of this event!).

The company will sponsor the registration cost of the 10km run. For more information visit http://www.singaporemarathon.com/en/ on last year's event. Registration and course detatils for the 2007 run has not been released yet but it should encompass the Esplanade area.
We are sure everyone is excited and flushed with adrenalin and questions. Please channel questions to your team leaders who will consolidate and forward the questions to Mr Gan. Team leaders - kindly confirm your team's participation by this coming Friday 20th July together with your July training dates (submit to Mr Gan). We sincerely hope for 100% participation as a company.

Thank you.

And here are some pics of yesterday's training:


Waiting for a few lost sheep to find their way here...


Waiting... & waiting...


Of course, we always manage to find someway to entertain ourselves =)


QT Mei Nuz heh heh


Bend ur head right


Hold ur arms out


Stretch ur butt


And we're good to go!

Like this pic =)


All queuing for the rubber bands


Yoco & her pursuers


Don't take my photo! Argh!

Joyful faces all around (& the universal sign of Victory)






SiaoCharBoh: Dare to be different (or just high on adrenaline)


Mr Mabok:...... enough said.


Group 4 =) missing a few team members

The comp @ home is officially screwed and Blogger keeps redirecting, redirecting, redirecting... stupid virus.

Moi is saving up for a new phone (budget $400) and here's what Starhub has to offer:

Sony Ericsson K800i (3G) Tri-band



*3.2 Megapixels Camera with AutoFocus and 16 x Digital Zoom
*Built-in Xenon Camera Flash
*Image & Video Stabilizer Function
*BestPic™ Function
*Red-Eye Reduction Feature
*Secondary in-built VGA front camera for video calls
*Supported Video formats: MP4, H.263, 3GPP and RealVideo8
*Video Recording, Playback & Streaming
*Supported Messaging: SMS, MMS, EMS, Video MMS, IM and E-Mail (POP3 & IMAP4)
*Supported Audio:a) MP3, M4A, MP4 (AAC, AAC+, eAAC+), XMF, WMA, RHZ, AMR-N/WBb) 3GPP, G-MIDI, SP-MIDI, eMelody, iMelody, Mobile XMF

*72-Chord Polyphonic Ringtones
*Video Ringtone (up to 10 seconds)
*Supported Connectivity: Infra-Red, Bluetooth (A2DP supported incl.) and USB 2.0
*64MB Internal Memory
*Memory Stick Micro™ M2™ support (up to 2GB)
*Music Player
*Voice Recorder
*FM Radio
*Picture Blogging
*Video DJ
*PC Synchronization
*Java MIDP 2.0
*GPRS
*WAP 2.0
*xHTML
*Supports Chinese
*Flight Mode


Sony Ericsson K810i (3G) Tri-band



*Up to 64 MB built-in memory
*3.2 megapixel camera with auto focus
*Xenon Flash with red eye reduction
*16X digital zoom
*BestPicTM of 9 picture
*Photo fix
*Illuminated camera icons
*PictBridge support
*Video / Image Stabilizer
*Mobile Picture Blogging
*Integrated VGA camera for video call
*Video recording/playback
*Full PlayNowTM Support
*Full HTML browser with RSS
*Media Player for Music and Video
*Java application
*MMS / SMS
*GPRS 4+2
*WAP 2.0 / WTLS class 1-3
*Push e-mail
*Media Player( MP3, AAC,eAAC+)
*Music / Video / Picture DJTM
*TrackIDTM
*72 voices polyphonic ring tones
*Bluetooth™ technology incl. stereo (A2DP)
*IrDa
*FM radio with RDS

Sony Ericsson W880i (3G) Tri-band



*2 Megapixels camera 2.5x digital zoom
*Video Recorder
*Video Streaming
*Music Formats (MP3/MP4/3GP/AMR/AAC/AAC+/e-AAC+/WAV/WMA/SP-MIDI/G-MDI/WMA9/REAL Audio 8)
*Music Player
*Voice Recorder
*72-Chords polyphonic Ringtones
*MMS/Video MMS
*Support Chinese Message
*Internal Memory up to 10 MB
*Support External Memory Card up to 1GB (M2 Card)
*Bluetooth
*USB / mini-USB support version 2.0
*SyncML
*Theme
*JAVA (MIDP 2.0)
*GPRS
*WAP 2.0/xHTML
*Walkman player 2.0
*RSS Reader

(specifications courtesy of Singtel haha!)

Anyone can recommend me a hp that has at least 2.0 MP integrated camera, radio, plays MP3, has extendable storage and is not easily spoilt (ie. no clam-shell, no joy-stick) ? Tag me okie? Me will source & try it out =)

Cheerios!