Practice, Run, Eat Vege Burger, Sleep!

Heh heh.. that was my schedule yesterday, believe it or not.

Practice

Did a solid 3 - 4 hours of practicing my horn. A few technical exercises from Oliver Nelson's Patterns For Jazz, and revising Charlie Parker's solo on Au Privave. I believe I actually played some wrong notes at some parts of his solo. And, I just started on Miles' trumpet solo on that song.

Practicing. Something I haven't done in a very long time, admittedly. But that's what being busy with gigs is sort of like really. And believe it or not, not practicing for long periods does affect your playing, technically, and sometimes musically. You have an idea in your head during your playing, and it doesn't come out, or rather, it takes longer for your fingers to execute them. What a pain.

One thing though, trying to get yourself organized to practice also is another problem at times. If we don't set objectives before practicing, it's easy to get de-motivated, and then the practice session won't last more than an hour or so. And I've encountered that numerous times. I can only get past doing long tones, overtone exercises on the horn. A couple of technical exercises, and that's it. Talk about bad quality practicing time. Sometimes on odd times, like in a car or somewhere out in town, I get ideas to practice. But when it comes to the practice room.. BLANK! What a pain! It's even worse during busy periods, it's because there's so little time to spend on quality practice, you can only end up doing a small handful of practice ideas.

Anyway, thankfully during this Puasa month, I'm actually gig-less. No shows. Nada. I definitely want to take this time to catch up on some unfinished work, and some unstarted work. Hopefully I get to do it, and not procrastinate like I always do. Biatch. I can also chill a bit this month. Maybe catch up on some movies too... my last movie was... uhh, damn, I'm trying to remember as I'm typing this, but I'm at a loss. I can't remember. That's how long I haven't watched a movie. Bugga.

Run

Went to run at KLCC Park around 6.45pm. I was supposed to start at 6.30, but it was so jammed heading into KLCC, which was wierd. I think maybe it's because of the puasa month. Met Jamie, Newton, and Cheong, who were there from 6.30pm.

Decided to make it an base endurance run. In other words, I am running much slower than I usually do at some of my training runs. I wanted to keep my effort between 70 - 80% of max, slightly below aerobic level. The reason for running this slow is to slowly build up a running endurance base, and basically build stamina. If I keep this up for several weeks, I think I can begin to run a little more effortlessly at longer distances.

A common misconception from friends(non-runners), is that when I tell them I run, they would think it's the Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis kinda run. Totally not so. This is the long distance kind of run, the one where you can't run like you're being chased by a truck. It's the kind where you have to start out real slow and slowly increase your running speed, but even so, not so much of the sprinting kind.

Anyway, did 5 laps amounting to about 6.8km. Took me 52:01 minutes. Didn't want to push it, as I'm just starting to do base running again. My plan, to slowly pack in the mileage and base stamina, before I start my real training for KLIM 21k next March.

Again, with this puasa month, I actually can spend more time biking and running as well. Which is great!!

Eat vege burger

Went to meet Kevin, my sax-brutha and good friend, at Plaza Mont Kiara. I took the opportunity to go for a second round of McDonald's new Veggie Burger. Instead of the usual burger and fries deal, I just went and had TWO veggie burgers and a milkshake (nice post-run meal, too!).

It's actually not bad! Ahahaha... according to the ad, the vege patty is made of corn, carrots and peas (and I believe some pumpkin as well). The burger itself is breadcrumbed-fried, topped with lettuce, a slice of tomato, and their special mayo sauce. The last time McD's did a vege burger (they called it Maharaja or Maharani burger or something like that) a couple of years back, it didn't take off very well. It was okay for me, but I think commercially, the taste of the vege patty itself wasn't too viable. It was made with chick peas and lentils, and it was rather spicy. Didn't go with the mayo, though. This vege burger, on the other hand, tastes more suitable for commercial purposes. Well, at least I've got more choice as a vegetarian to eat there, rather than just McEgg and pie.

So McDonald's, I hope this veggie burger is a keeper. Can cover more market share.

Disclaimer: This comment is in no way influenced by any parties, either from McDonald's or any other persons. It is not an advertorial comment for or from McDonald's. Unless of course, they pay me lots of money to do it, then I'll do it in more interesting ways.

Anyway, after the meal, we just hung out and chat for a long time, about a variety of spicy stories and topics.

Sleep

Ciew.. that one also you need me to explain ah?