have i had a passion for anything before?

i believe i did. when i was in charge of athletics at balestier hill secondary in the 70s, i was passionate. i was crazy. i was thinking, eating and sleeping athletics. i was prepared to train my students 7 days a week. i was prepared to sacrifice my free time, my holidays and my personal life.

when my colleagues went on overseas holidays, i would be with my athletes sweating it out in school, at farrer park or at the macritchie cross-country track. we trained in the morning and also in the evening. we were over-enthusiastic and so we over-trained.

we even had a training session on the 2nd day of the chinese new year. i spent a lot of time drawing up the training schedules for my athletes. i entered them for competitions organised by clubs. i arranged friendly triangular meet to give them more opportunities to compete.

training meant running with the athletes, competing with them and leading them. apart from track work, we also did weights and circuit training. we did resistance training by running up the slope.