Place : Setia Alam, Klang?
Time : 0630
Date : 7 June 2009
Race distance : 21.41km
Target time : sub 1hr 50min for 21km.
Weather : Pleasant due to early start.
Terrain : Not too undulating, less than Bidor half marathon route.
Attendance :1,500? So so lah...Due to many distances and categories, I don't think my cat (Veteran Men) had more than 200 participants.
Organization : Good
Pros : Plenty of water stations (5), 1 power gel station.
Plenty of portable toilets! A must have for such events.
Punctual!
Wide open roads and less participants, allowing a quick getaway!
Timing - Earlier better, with weather being cool.
Many categories, prizes and lucky draw...better chances for everyone to take home something else other from a medal.
Cons : Couldn't find registration counter (too dark and no signage, or I didn't see one at least)
No mileage markers...(if you don't have a GPS watch, you would be cursing)
No goodie bag after the run, so sad.
No makan, like hot dog or sandwiches, or nasi lemak...only tauhu.
Lights for the portable toilets. Didn't know whether you were hitting the target, except by listening to the sound. Also, I wasn't sure how to flush as I couldn't find the lever. I only found out that you can step on a pump which releases the water into the bowl, after the event...
You know, sometimes your mind plays tricks on you, especially when you've had a few hours sleep and you're awake at 4.30am.
You know what they say, "what can go wrong, will go wrong". I was packing up everything into the car and mentally going through the must take items. Somehow, taping up, applying vaseline and "CHECKING WHETHER I WAS BRINGING THE RIGHT SHOES" didn't occur to me this morning.
We reached the Welcome center at 6.05am with 25minutes to spare. As I opened the boot, to my surprise, I brought the right shoe of my Asics and the left shoe of my son's New Balance. I couldn't help but laugh at the situation. A friend later remarked to me when I told him this "better to half 1 left and 1 right, rather than both left or right". How true!
Anyway, knowing that the shoe will fit, it was just a matter of any discomfort, or blisters forming towards the end of the race.
They were giving away half cut Power bars and some other stuff. Most of the runners were milling around, looking for free makan, minum and anything else free...hmmm maybe it was just me.
Anyway, my wife wandered off to look at the stalls as her event started 45 minutes later (at 7.15am). I did my 1km warm up run, some stretches and lined up at the starting line with 5 minutes to spare. No pushing or shoving as the starting area was wide and the participants were not that many.
3,2,1 Bang! Off we went. I managed to work through the crowd with minimum fuss and completed the first 2km at 11.8km/hr.
I knew I was going too fast but I was somehow sucked into the "racing with others" mode, with guys passing me left and right...
By 5km, I was more settled down. I still felt pretty strong with my pace settling down at 11.6km/hr. I wanted to get to the half way mark at about 55min to at least have a negative split.
By 11km, I was bang on target and was starting to pass quite a number of runners. I checked my times and it definitely wasn't me speeding up.
By 15km, I knew I was where I need to be to meet my target time. The pack was thinning out, until we joined the 4.5k and 11k runners on the route. At that time, I was using the runners in front to keep pace and held on pretty strong until 19km.
For some reason or another, my pace for 20 and 21km dropped off by 7 seconds. Maybe, at the back of my mind, I knew I had the time in the bag and there was no close competitors to chase.
I was also aware that the total race distance would be more than 21km as we had to loop back across the flyover. Coming down the last 800meters, I caught with another guy who was slowing down to a jog and told him "Just a bit more! Time to push for it!" He smiled at me and said "OK, let's go!" He definitely had a lot of acceleration in him as he shot off at had gained about 10m in a 100m distance. He, however, slowed down again towards the last 200m and again, I caught up to him.
"Last 100meters! Come On!". He happily picked up the pace and I gave chase. I think I need to do more speed work if I want to catch up with this guy. He finished about 5m in front of me but both of us were happy that we finished the race in style. We patted each other on the back and went our separate ways.
Looking at the time, 1:50:48, I was a bit deflated, but checking the distance, I knew I managed to do what I set out to accomplish. I was 1min 54sec better than my previous run in Bidor for the same distance of 21km.
My wife was waiting at the finish line with tau foo fah in hand, and surprise surprise! She was 2nd in the fun run.
I do all the training and she wins all the prizes!!
Anyway, we ended hanging around until the prize giving ceremony and the 2nd prize in the the fun run was..... a bicycle!
Well, looks like the investment paid off. With my daughter's birthday being tomorrow, looks like there's an extra present for her.
All in all, it was good run and it's a taper period from here on out until the Biggie! on 28 June 2009.
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