32. WHEN THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD CAME (ONE MEET SIX WINS)

It was 1951, the fourth year of my medical studies. I was then twenty-five years old, well past the age for competitive athletics. I had never won a prize in any track event in my life. The fourth medical year was reckoned to be a relatively “light” year without the strain of a major examination. I thought I might have a go at the University’s Annual Athletic Meet.

Three years earlier I had run the 100-yard sprint event and came in last. The winner happened to be a loud mouthed, bumptious classmate, who was out to impress the lady students.

In course of time, the fourth year came. Could I afford to divert some time away from swotting at books to sweating it out on the running fields? It was a hard proposition with no ready answer. In 1948 I came nowhere in the race against the champion. What hopes did I have beating him in his favourite event? In my heart secretly I said to myself, perhaps. I prayed to the Lord. Should I or should I not? What if I should come last again?

Then I turned to the Word of God and recalled the extraordinary exploits of Samson, whenever, “... the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. ” In Judges chapters 14 and 15, it is recorded how Samson rent apart a young lion with his bare hands (Judges 14:6 ); slew thirty men single-handedly (Judges 14:19 ), killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass (Judges 15:16 ).

Samson was given amazing physical power (and God’s supernatural protection) to execute these and other phenomenal exploits, all because “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him. ”

So I prayed to the Lord for the Spirit’s help and inspiration, if indeed He would grant me the latter. But common sense told me, in athletics it is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration! Sitting with my books of Pathology and Gynaecology will not help me win the 100-yard dash!

I drew up my plan of training spread over six months. At that time I lived in Tiong Bahru. The King Edward College of Medicine’s running field was a 10-minute walk way, very convenient for my purpose. I remembered the saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. ” How true.

So I planned. I read books on athletics. I read of great runners such as Jesse Owen who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

He was my hero model.

I studied how great athletes trained and dieted, how they warmed up before a race, and how they ran to win.

But reading was one thing, training was another. Reading in an armchair is pleasant; training on the tracks is painful. A large part of the game is “mind over matter. ” The mind has to direct the body: how to breathe, how to use the arms to speed the legs, and how to strengthen every part.

In my research, I learnt that the 100 yards / metre race is best run in one breath! At first it sounded somewhat unbelievable, not breathing while running? But in actual fact, the holding of the breath is only for ten or eleven seconds! And it enables the athlete to maintain his sprinting posture without relaxing the rib cage and disturbing the rhythm of limb movement. I diligently trained myself to run the 100 yards without breathing at all, and I had no difficulty.

Every morning from six to seven o’clock I trained. Gradually the distance was increased, and the effort was made more demanding. The objective was to build stamina and increase speed. I bought a stop-watch and timed myself. I had in mind to run the three short distance races: 100 yards, 220 yards, 440 yards. These were the outdated distances of track events before conversion to the metric system of metres.

In those days (the 1950s) it was all DIY, that is, DO IT YOURSELF. There were no coaches, no gymnasiums, no “gym-work”, no sports medicine, no sports doctors or anything. Nobody used starting blocks, and we ran on grass tracks. The only thing not lacking was “guts, grit, and determination. ”

From my reading and research, I learned to diet, to keep the weight down to the desired level, and to consume large quantities of glucose and honey before a race. I realise that I am simply recalling what was done before scientific advances and refinements arrived. What I am relating must sound woefully primitive.

Nevertheless it worked for me in that one outing in 1951. As mentioned, before that meet I had not won any trophy for running, and nothing afterwards.

During that week of the University of Singapore Annual Athletics Meet I took the first prize in the 100 yards individual event and the relay; the first prize in the 220 yards relay; the first prize in the 440 yards individual event and the relay. But strangely the prize for the 220 years eluded me, and I had to be contented with the second prize.

Conclusion: To this day I can hardly believe that these things happened in 1951. I do not know how, but I know it was a fact. The reigning champion, my provocator, at the finishing line of the 100 years dash gasped at me, “Siang Hwa, I never knew you could run! ”

“Neither did I! ”