Centro Run

Place : Centro Building, Klang (land of Bak Kut Teh)
When : 0745, 11 Oct 2009
Distance: 5.75km
Weather : Cloudy, but still slightly warm
Terrain : Pretty flat...
Participation : About 1000?
Organizer : KPAC
Overall Rating : 3.5/5

For somebody who is just starting to pick up running as a sport, and for those who want to do some speed work, this is an ideal event. With 6km on the books, the distance is a challenge for beginners and ideal for those who would like to get some serious speed work in.

The race had a staggered start, with Men's Open first, followed by the Women's and Veterans, and then Juniors.

If I was not mistaken, the starting time was earlier than scheduled, by at least 5 minutes. I can imagine that the serious contenders who came in a bit late would not be happy campers.

As the road was pretty narrow, the first km was pretty congested. I started about 40m behind the starting line, hence had to carve my way through. My first km time was 5:04, which was the slowest of the whole race. I may have had about 30 seconds to gain if I started up in the first 5 rows.

Going into the 2nd km, I pick up the pace for 4:35. I decided to throttle back a bit for the rest of the race, as I did not want to aggravate the existing issues with my hamstring.

The fun part of starting behind and also the staggered start was that you get to 'sayur' a lot of runners. When I mean a lot, I was talking 3 digit a lot. Even towards the final 2km of the race, I was overtaking about 10 runners per minute.

Coming to the finish, I was pushing about 14-15kph pace. I wrapped up the race in 27:39, a 12.5kph pace, which was within my targeted pace.

I finished no. 54 for the Men's veteran category.

A pretty satisfying race, all in all, with a good makan place close by, at Teluk Pulai Restaurant at Taman Rashna, with the KK pacers.

Next race....the premium 10k in Malaysia...Mizuno Wave Run on 25th Oct 2009.