Month: October 2020

Although Chanel Weng was actively involved and competing in sports from a young age, running was something that she had a love-hate relationship with.

“I was in track & field, basketball, touch rugby, inline skating and I loved sprinting but didn’t pursue it competitively as I thought I was too slow,” the 26-year-old solution sales specialist shared. “Despite the love for sprinting however, I really hated running long distances. I used to have childhood asthma and running long distances scared me.”

Her main sport has always been touch rugby, which she played competitively since Junior College. Last year, she started playing contact rugby and was training with the national team when she got injured and missed a chance at the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games squad.

“I’m not new to injury, but each time I get injured it affects me not just physically but emotionally too,” Chanel revealed. Back in her final year of university, she got into a motorbike accident and broke her finger, which cost her the spot in the Touch Rugby team for the Singapore University Games.

She went through surgery to reconstruct her finger joint and even though the doctor strongly advised her not to engage in anymore ball sport for risk of injuring the same finger, she still joined the Touch Rugby team for the Institute-Varsity-Polytechnic Games. 

“I worked very hard to get back in shape. When I was ready to play, I wore a splint and buddy taped my fingers. Every game I played, I fear my fingers getting jammed by the ball. Thankfully, I didn’t get more injuries after the league is over.”

Last July however, Chanel met with a major injury where she ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) during a game at the the Singapore Rugby Union Club 7s. “All my weight was on my left leg and I was tackled by the opponent,” she shared. “Then I heard a loud ‘pop’ sound.”

Getting sidelined because of her injury was a big blow to her. She chose not to do surgery for her knee and instead worked hard on her rehabilitation. As she gradually came back from the injury, a huge battle she had to fight was her self-confidence.

“When I was training competitively, one of my greatest assets was my speed. After I got injured, my stamina dipped drastically and that naturally affected my speed. I lost confidence and struggled to convince myself if I will ever be good enough again. Thankfully, with the constant support and encouragement from the people around me, I started training progressively,” she said.

Hence, Chanel wanted to join the Outdo Yourself programme by 100PLUS Singapore so she could build back her strength, physically and mentally.

“With the pandemic situation, group trainings have been limited and most competitions are cancelled. Ever since I ruptured my ACL, I haven’t done much running, thus I’m excited to be training alongside motivational runners in this programme. I believe we would spur each other to push our boundaries and most importantly have lots of fun. My goal is to make running part of my lifestyle again. I want to rebuild a strong aerobic base, fall in love with running again and break those mental and physical barriers.”

Photos by Tim Yap

Encouraged by her parents, Rebecca grew up playing a lot of team sports with her brothers like soccer, softball, netball, water polo and rowing. When she got older and started working a job which required lots of travel, it became hard to commit to teams, thus she started doing swimming and HIIT, before discovering triathlons and running clubs where she could still train individually yet feel like she was also part of a team.

The 35-year-old management consultant started to do some running in her 20s, but was never really convinced by it. Yet, it was the easiest form of exercise when travelling as all you need is a pair of running shoes and some tights and you are good to go!

Rebecca moved to Singapore in 2017. A year later, she did her first triathlon (sprint distance) in the Singapore International Triathlon. As Rebecca started to take triathlons a bit more seriously, she begrudgingly started running more and then her husband decided that he wanted to run a marathon before he turned 30, so before she knew it, she was running more and more!

Her first half-marathon was in Shanghai, China, and that was a bit of an accident. She was hoping to do the 10km event but when the slots sold out, she thought she could just buy a half-marathon spot and sneak out at the 10km mark. Then she missed the turnoff and didn’t realise until she saw the 12km marker, so from there she just decided that she might as well keep going.

Now a mother of two (including a six-month-old), Rebecca still finds running challenging but she loves the flexibility of being able to pop out for a run whenever she gets a moment. Six months postpartum, she is focused on building up her fitness again.

She used to do two to three runs per week, a couple of days cycling and swimming and a couple of sessions a week for yoga and strength work. Still a long way to go to get back there, Rebecca is just taking it a week at a time and enjoying the process.

Whenever she takes time out to work out though, she can’t help feeling ‘mum guilt’. “Everyone has their moments of insecurity, whether it is physical or emotional, in your career or as a parent. I have suffered from postnatal depression following the birth of both my kids and this is a complicated mental health issue which can be hard to spot. Lots of time people just put it down to a bit of ‘baby blues’ or tell you that it will just pass on its own,” she revealed.

Fortunately for her, she found a wonderful psychologist who helped her. “As I have gotten older, I feel that I have become more self-aware and also conscious that everybody else is also feeling a bit insecure and in all likelihood don’t even notice the little things that you feel bad about in yourself. Now that I have kids, I am also conscious of setting a good example and that means being confident in myself so that they can learn to do the same,” she added.

What drew her to the Outdo Yourself programme by 100PLUS Singapore is the opportunity to find motivation to get going again after baby number two. “I was moving again not long after giving birth, but it was getting to the stage where I needed a bit more of a push to build up my training efforts. It’s been particularly hard to find motivation this year since COVID-19 has cancelled most races.

“The Outdo Yourself programme by 100PLUS is definitely giving me that motivation which I was having trouble to find on my own. I am hoping to be able to complete the @sgmarathon half-marathon again this year after I ran it in 2019 when I was five months pregnant. Hopefully I can go a bit faster this year without the extra baby weight!”

Photos by Tim Yap