Today, I laced up my running shoes and head out for a run.
Nothing particularly unusual about that.
I've done some version of it every single day for the last 2,470 days. Through workdays and weekends. Holidays and business trips. Death in families and friends. Good weather and bad weather. Days when running felt effortless and days when putting on my shoes was probably the biggest accomplishment.
According to Strava, that's 362 active weeks.
But today's run will be different.
Today, I turn 50.
And somewhere during all those kilometres, I think about the wonderfully strange road that got me here.
Growing up being incompetent in sports, cycling to school, physical fitness in military school, rugby fields and adventure races. Being an office boy and fixing bicycles. Studying engineering and somehow ending up in advertising. Environmental work, renewable energy and a career that eventually took me around the world. An unexpected appearance on television. Running, triathlon and Tristupe.
But mostly, I think about the people who travelled that road with me.
Twenty-two years of marriage. Two children, now 20 and 18. A family that grew up with sport woven into our lives.
Today, it is Day 2,470.
But in another way, it feels a little like Day One.
Before Triathlon, There Was Rugby
Long before GPS watches, carbon-plated shoes, power meters and conversations about VO2 max, there was rugby.
Rugby was probably one of my earliest introductions to "serious" sport as something more than exercise.
Triathlon rewards efficiency.
Rugby occasionally rewards your willingness to run directly into another human being.
There's something wonderfully uncomplicated about that.
But those years taught me lessons that stayed with me.
You quickly discover that individual brilliance doesn't get you very far if the rest of the team isn't moving with you.
You get knocked down.
You get back up.
Occasionally somebody considerably larger than you assists with the knocking-down part.
And you carry on.
Looking back, I suspect many of my ideas about teamwork, resilience and leadership started on a rugby field long before I knew there were corporate words for them.
Then Things Got More Adventurous
Eventually, normal sport apparently wasn't enough.
So came adventure racing.
Long hours.
Mud.
Abseiling.
River boarding.
Navigation.
Heat.
Storm.
Fatigue.
Uncertainty.
And the occasional realisation, usually several hours into an event, that signing up had been considerably easier than actually finishing it.
But I loved it.
Adventure racing taught me something that has followed me throughout my life:
You don't need to know exactly how you're going to reach the finish when you start.
Solve the next problem.
Find the next checkpoint.
Take the next step.
Keep moving.
It turns out that's pretty useful advice for life too.
And Somehow, Television
Then there was that rather surreal chapter when I somehow ended up appearing on television.
And a few magazines and newspapers interviews.
Radio appearances included.
Even as an "Eligible Bachelor" in a teen magazine.
Life occasionally does that.
You follow one path, make a few unexpected turns, say yes to something interesting and suddenly find yourself somewhere the younger version of you could never have predicted.
I've come to appreciate those moments.
Looking back over 50 years, some of the memories that make me smile most aren't things I carefully planned.
They're the things that weren't part of the plan at all.
And honestly, there wasn't much of a plan.
From Office Boy to... Whatever I Am Now
I followed every single education pathway without skipping any stage - Kindergarten. UPSR. SRP. SPM. STPM. Diploma. Degree.
I finally graduated with an honours degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering.
That sounds like the beginning of a fairly conventional engineering career.
It wasn't.
Before landing my first "proper" professional job, I was an office boy. Delivering critical documents for my office. Never missing a dateline.
I was also a bicycle technician. My love for bicycles were because my family could not afford any when I was growing up.
Learning about bicycle (and repair) brought me very close to the things I love, and not afford at that point.
I like remembering that.
Before the increasingly impressive-sounding job titles came errands to run and bicycles to fix.
And neither job was beneath me.
They were simply the jobs in front of me.
Work.
Learn.
Do it properly.
Move on.
Then, armed with an engineering degree, my first professional career was naturally...
advertising.
Obviously.
Advertising to Engineering and Everything After
Advertising taught me things engineering school couldn't.
Communication.
People.
Ideas.
Persuasion.
Deadlines.
Clients.
How to take something complicated and explain why somebody should care about it.
Eventually, I returned closer to my engineering roots.
But still far from what I was trained for...
Wastewater.
Treatment plants.
Industrial facilities.
Then environmental work.
Contaminated land.
Groundwater.
Environmental assessment.
Remediation.
Safety.
The work became bigger. The responsibilities grew. One country became several countries. Projects became programmes. Eventually, managing the work became managing teams and regional responsibilities.
There was never one giant career breakthrough.
Just one thing leading to another.
Survival.
To pay bills.
To feed a young family.
One opportunity.
One problem.
One lesson.
One step.
Then another.
There's probably a theme developing here.
Turning Waste Into Energy
At one point, another unexpected opportunity led me into renewable energy.
I became involved in developing ways to turn oil-palm biomass into bio-oil and in the planning and development of sustainable bioenergy facilities.
It brought together three things I've always found fascinating:
Technology. Environment. Commercial reality.
Because a clever idea is interesting.
A clever idea that actually works in the real world?
That's much more interesting.
Big Career Change
In 2014, someone took a chance on me. He ended up as my next Boss.
Getting My Hands Dirty
Environmental work became an important part of my professional life.
Some of the most meaningful projects weren't necessarily glamorous.
Contaminated soil.
Groundwater.
Old industrial sites.
Environmental liabilities inherited from another time.
Problems where engineering, safety, environment, communities, business and responsibility all collided.
That work eventually took me across countries and cultures and into responsibility for complex programmes involving hundreds of sites.
Some of those programmes involved hundreds of thousands of hours of difficult work without a serious lost-time safety incident.
As I've become older, I've realised how important that is.
Behind a safety statistic aren't numbers.
They're people.
People who came to work.
People who sometimes worked in difficult conditions.
People who went home safely afterwards.
That matters.
And Then the Career Changed Again
Around 2020, my career took another turn, this time towards the commercial world.
Deals.
Negotiations.
Contracts.
Risk.
Governance.
Legacy liabilities.
Environmental obligations.
Litigations.
Directorship.
And the sort of problems that eventually result in everyone around the table looking at one another and asking:
"So... what exactly do we do now?"
Those are usually the interesting ones.
Over the years, I've been involved in dozens of major transactions and projects across the region.
On paper it sounds completely different from wastewater plants and contaminated land.
I don't think it is.
The fundamental questions are remarkably similar.
What's the problem?
What's the risk?
What are we responsible for?
What's fair?
What's the practical solution?
And sometimes the most important question:
What's the right thing to do?
Somewhere in There, Endurance Sport Took Over
Rugby gave way to adventure racing.
Adventure racing eventually led to running.
Running led to triathlon.
And somewhere along the way, endurance sport stopped being something I did and became part of how I lived.
Swimming.
Cycling.
Running.
Training.
Racing.
Repeat.
Endurance sport teaches you something brutally simple:
You cannot bluff the process.
You can buy the carbon shoes.
You can buy the bike.
You can buy the aero helmet.
You can buy the latest GPS watch.
And, yes...
I have tested an unreasonable number of GPS watches.
But eventually you still have to do the work.
Get out of bed.
Get into the pool.
Put on your shoes.
Get onto the bike.
Start.
Some days you feel brilliant.
Other days your legs feel as though somebody secretly replaced them overnight.
Both days count.
2,470 Days
Which brings me back to that number.
2,470.
That's how many consecutive days I'll have run when I go to bed tonight.
I'm not sure I ever intended to get this far.
That's the funny thing about a runstreak.
It starts with one day.
Then another.
Then another.
Eventually stopping becomes stranger than continuing.
There have been plenty of days when I didn't particularly want to run.
Death of my father.
Funerals.
Hospitalisations.
Travel days.
Birthdays.
Long workdays.
Tired days.
Rainy days.
Days when life had considerably more important things going on.
Sometimes the run was long.
Sometimes fast.
Sometimes slow.
Sometimes short.
And sometimes its only purpose was to keep the streak alive.
But I ran.
After 1,000 days, I've realised the streak isn't really about running anymore.
It's about showing up.
You don't have to be brilliant every day.
You don't need a personal best.
You don't even have to feel particularly motivated.
Just do something.
Come back tomorrow.
Do it again.
Small acts of consistency become surprisingly powerful when you give them enough time.
A run becomes a runstreak.
A job becomes a career.
An interest becomes a passion.
Days become years.
And ordinary moments eventually become a life.
Then There Was Tristupe
Somewhere amongst all of this came Tristupe.com.
But not before Incoherent Ramblings as a blog started in 1999.
It became a place where almost every part of me could happily collide.
Sport.
Technology.
Engineering.
Data.
Writing.
Curiosity.
And a slightly unhealthy fascination with sporting equipment.
I've had opportunities to coach, contribute to the running and triathlon community, test equipment and indulge my curiosity about how technology changes the way we train and perform.
But I've never been particularly interested in simply repeating specifications.
I've always wanted to know:
Does this thing actually work?
Perhaps that's the old bicycle technician coming back out.
Take it apart mentally.
Understand it.
Test it.
Question it.
See what happens in the real world.
Don't tell me what something is supposed to do.
Let's find out what it actually does.
My Most Important Team
But there is a danger when you write your own story.
You naturally put yourself in the middle of it.
And the truth is, very little of my life has actually been a solo effort.
I've been married for 22 years.
We have two children.
They're 20 and 18 now.
Even writing those ages feels strange.
Because I can remember when they weren't 20 and 18.
When they were small.
When family life revolved around totally different things.
And somehow, while I was busy with work, training, travelling, racing and the thousand other things that fill our days, those little children became young adults.
It happened far too quickly.
If turning 50 makes me emotional about anything, it's probably that.
You think you have so much time.
And then suddenly you're looking at two grown-up children wondering where all those years went.
Twenty-Two Years
I've also realised something about being married for 22 years.
The number sounds impressive.
But a marriage isn't really lived in years.
It's lived in ordinary days.
Normal mornings.
Meals together.
School days.
Holidays.
Family celebrations.
Family departing.
Stressful moments.
Difficult conversations.
Bad moods.
Bad jokes.
Laughter over something nobody outside the family would understand.
Little compromises.
Big decisions.
Quiet evenings where absolutely nothing memorable happens.
Those are the moments that eventually become 22 years.
And behind almost everything I've written about in this story has been my Home Binister and my family.
They've lived with the training schedules.
The early mornings.
The travelling.
The races.
The work.
The strange commitment to running every single day.
The bicycles.
The running shoes.
The cameras.
And an endless procession of GPS watches that, despite appearing almost identical, I continue to insist are completely different.
They've shared the good days.
More importantly, they've been there on the days that weren't so good.
That's family.
Not the highlight reel.
Everything in between.
Sport Is What We Do
One thing I'm especially grateful for is that being active became part of our family life, rather than simply my hobby.
We're a family that does sport.
It isn't something we turn on for three months because someone wants to "get fit".
It's simply part of how we live.
We move.
We train.
We challenge ourselves.
We understand tired legs, early starts and that slightly ridiculous satisfaction that comes from doing something difficult when staying in bed would have been considerably easier.
And that makes me happy.
Because of everything I've achieved through sport, that might ultimately mean the most.
My children are now finding their own way.
They will make their own choices.
Have their own adventures.
Make their own mistakes.
That's exactly how it should be.
But if there's one thing I hope we've given them, it isn't a race time, a medal or some particular sporting ability.
It's the idea that being active is something you carry through life.
Move because you can.
Use your body.
Challenge it.
Look after it.
Try things.
Lose sometimes.
Fail occasionally.
Laugh.
Get back up.
Keep going.
And hopefully enjoy the journey.
What 50 Has Made Me Realise
For much of our lives, we keep score.
Qualifications.
Jobs.
Promotions.
Money.
Projects.
Personal bests.
Race results.
Medals.
Social-media statistics.
We accumulate things that tell us we're moving forward.
At 50, I'm starting to realise the scoreboard isn't particularly important.
Race times eventually get beaten.
Job titles change.
Projects finish.
Medals end up in drawers.
Today's incredible GPS watch eventually becomes old technology.
But people are different.
Family.
Friends.
Rugby teammates.
Adventure-racing teammates.
Training buddies.
Brands sponsorship.
Colleagues who became friends.
People who believed in you.
People who challenged you.
People who gave you an opportunity when you needed one.
People you've helped.
Those things appreciate with time.
And perhaps that is the biggest difference between myself at 25 and myself at 50.
At 25, I probably measured success by what I could achieve.
At 50, I increasingly measure it by who I get to share it with.
Fifty Years of Becoming
Looking back, I've apparently been quite a few people.
Office boy.
Bicycle technician.
Electrical engineer.
Advertising executive.
Wastewater engineer.
Environmental specialist.
Remediation guy.
Renewable-energy guy.
Regional leader.
Commercial guy.
Rugby player.
Adventure racer.
Runner.
Triathlete.
Coach.
Blogger.
Runstreaker.
Husband.
Father.
And somehow...
that guy who appeared on television, magazines, newspaper and radio.
There was no master plan.
There definitely wasn't a straight line.
And I think that's what I like most about the story.
I didn't spend 50 years becoming one thing.
I kept becoming.
Each version carried something from the previous one.
Being an office boy taught me humility.
Fixing bicycles taught me to understand how things work.
Engineering taught me to solve problems.
Advertising taught me to communicate.
Environmental work taught me responsibility.
Commercial work taught me to look at a problem from more than one side.
Rugby taught me about teams.
Adventure racing taught me to keep moving when the route isn't obvious.
Triathlon taught me patience.
2,470 consecutive days of running taught me consistency.
Tristupe kept me curious.
My children taught me perspective.
And 22 years of marriage taught me something much more important:
Life is infinitely better when you have someone beside you to share it with.
Day 2,470
So yes, today, I turn 50.
I'm not pretending ageing isn't happening.
Recovery takes longer.
Sleep suddenly seems extremely important.
Strength training is starting to look suspiciously sensible.
And after five decades, I've developed a slightly better ability to distinguish productive suffering from plain stupidity.
Slightly.
But I don't think of this as slowing down.
I prefer:
Adapting.
There are still places I haven't seen.
Things I haven't learned.
Races I haven't done.
Problems I haven't solved.
Stories I haven't written.
Experiences I want to share with my family.
And presumably several completely unnecessary pieces of sporting technology that haven't even been invented yet.
Tomorrow morning I'll wake up.
I'll be 1 day over 50.
I'll put on my running shoes.
And I'll step outside.
Not because I'm afraid of getting older.
Not because I'm desperately trying to hold onto the person I was at 30 or 40.
And certainly not because Day 2,471 is magically more important than Day 2,470.
I'll run because after half a century, I'm increasingly conscious of what a privilege it is simply to be able to.
To wake up.
To move.
To have people I love.
To have work that has challenged me.
To have friends scattered across different chapters of my life.
To watch my children become adults.
To still have adventures ahead.
To still be curious about the world.
To still be here.
Then I'll come home.
To my wife.
To our children.
To the most important team I've ever been part of.
And perhaps that's the thing I understand much better now than I did when I was younger.
The finish lines weren't really the point.
Neither were the job titles.
Or the medals.
Or the numbers.
Even 2,470 is ultimately just a number.
What matters is everything that happens while you're getting there.
The people beside you.
The people waiting for you.
The people you meet along the way.
The laughter.
The mistakes.
The ordinary days.
The chance to wake up tomorrow and have another go.
So if the first 50 years have taught me anything, maybe it's just this:
Keep showing up.
Stay curious.
Keep moving.
Don't be afraid to change direction.
Laugh at yourself occasionally.
And above all:
Take care of the people travelling with you.
Today is Day 2,470.
My first run at 50.
A continuation of something that started a long time ago.
And at exactly the same time...
Day One.
Here's to the next adventure.
And here's to the next 50.
Ee-Van
Tristupe.com
No comments:
Post a Comment