My fitness level wasn't too great when I decided to check this item off from my bucket list this November. I was 10kg over weight and I could barely complete a 4km jog in 25 minutes without feeling as if I was drowning.

What gave me hope were all the YouTube videos of trekkers who documented their journey to Everest Base Camp and even Kalapatthar peak. Many successful attempts were from ordinary folks and some were even 20 to 30 years older than me. Feeling more confident that I could also make it up this 'formidable mountain' of the world, I decided to train for it after setting a 6-month goal of regaining back my fitness level 7 years ago - to be able to run 2.4km in 11:11 before my own EBC and Kalapatthar adventure.

I started off doing 5 times a week 2.4km jogging at a nearby park connector every late night after my work which can end at midnight every day. From a 2.4km timing of 15 minutes, it slowly improved to 14 min, then 13 min after 2 months.

I decided to train my cardio endurance by running longer distances. From 2.4km, I went up to 4km and eventually 8km in the 3rd months.

I managed to improve my 8km timing from 53:35 to 48:55 in 2 months and improve my 4km timing from 24:45 to 21:28 as well.

During this period, I just use a free Actxa J1815 fitness tracker which I had got from the National Step Challenge in Singapore to track my running time and heart beats. As the tracker is a very basic one, I had to memorize my split timing lap by lap as I run. Often, I calculated the split time in my mind while I was running as the fitness tracker can only show my total running timing.

My breakthrough in fitness only really came when I was introduced to Strava App which uses GPS to trek my location via a phone. With Strava, I was able to trek my distance, speed, pace, altitude change and so on which further motivated me to run as there are then more quantity for me to see my small improvements. Soon after, I realised that a friend of mine had a sophisticated looking fitness watch which got me interested.

After doing some research online, comparing the different features, prices and what I really need, I eventually decided to buy an inexpensive fitness watch which has built-in GPS connectivity thus I no longer needed to carry my phone while I run.

What I bought was an ONmove 500HRM from Decathlon which cost SGD$150.00 only. It's considered a basic watch among the more high end watches that can track heart beats and location but it's functionality suit my usage habit thus I decided to just go for it. I never regretted since.

After having this watch, I no longer needed to do mental calculation as I run and I could just focus on my run. Within 1 month of using it, my 2.4km went down to 11:19, 4km to 19:52 and 8km to 45:40 as of this writing on 1 October 2019.

This is one of the best investment I made for my fitness and I am now much more motivated to train. In fact, unexpectedly, my fitness level now might even help me achieve my first ever Gold in my upcoming IPPT in February 2020 (Yes I am still serving my National Service in Singapore in my late 30s).