Panting like Mimi

Mimi was Ho Keung and Yin Ping’s dog in Australia. On one evening, we took her out for a walk in the neighbourhood, just for about 300 metres. On her return journey she began to pant, breathing heavily, sitting down several times and looking up at us. We understood quite well that she was tired owing to old age and lack of exercises. When she arrived home, she kept on panting. Instead of eating her dinner, she lay down to rest. She took totally an hour to recover.

This reminded me of a similar case with me! It was on a school sports day at Hong Kong Government Stadium some 30 years ago. At that time, some of our teachers were invited to join a relay race between teachers and students. Towards noon, the 4x100 metres relay race began. I was the one to run the last 100 metres. When the baton came into my hands, the teacher’s team was still in the lead. Close to the finishing point I was passed by two students and so our teacher’s team came third. We LOST and felt a little disappointed because we did not get any consolation prize such as a bronze medal for each runner. I was sweating, panting, feeling very exhausted with a rapid-beating heart.

Soon it was time to have lunch. All our staff went to the canteen of the SCAA(South China Athletics Association). At our dining table my heart still beat very hard for I had not recovered my breath. I drank a lot of water and that destroyed my appetite for the lunch. It took me half an hour to calm down and turn better. I thought the teacher’s team had found the wrong person to run the last 100 metres. I could be fast at walking, but not at running!