Lets start by writing this. If the organizer decided to do this event again next year, I will be the first to register. Why? Because of the hills. Two monstrous hills along the route was a killer. First was after Stesen Bas Jalan Duta and the second Bukit Datuk Bandar. It even harder than the hills of Dragon Back Run.
I was skeptical of the event at first because the organizer was from Singapore and the official website were left not updated for so long.
Only 3 days before the event that they release the official race route. I even discussed on bringing my on bottle, thinking they could run out of water especially for the slower runners like me.
I reached the starting area early around 5.10 am. Walk my way towards the venue and was looking for Surau, there were none. I have to scour for any suitable place for my Subuh Prayers at the moment. Rain started to fall around 5.30 am. It was really heavy. Managed to locate Salman and both of us walks towards any decend area to pray. For the 1st time of my life, I was praying under such a heavy rain beside a parked car. The organizer should take note on this next year.
The start for 15km was delayed for 10 minutes due to rain. I starting line was way back and it takes me 1 minutes to reach the starting line after the flag off.
I started slow as the first and second corner of the route will quite hilly. On the 2 km mark, there is a U- Turn for all runners near Lembaga Pertubuhan Peladang and have run up towards Bank Negara.
The route take us to Jalan Sasana Kijang which was again another hill and run towards flyover at Lebuhraya Mahameru.
Another two hills before the route leads me to Jalan Duta towards the 1st big hill just after Stesen Bas Jalan Duta. I befriended an uncle before running up the hill. Man he was fast. He even manage to past me some tips on attacking these hills. He ran past me after 200m as I could not cope up with his pace.
 |
| the uncle. he is a warrior on this hill |
The view after this hill was magnificent. You could clearly see the KL skyline on top of the hill.
The second monster hill was the 1km hike towards the official residence of KL Mayor. It felt like forever going up and it put some mental block as you could see many runners doing their U- turn after reaching the top.
Going down was fun as were running down the hill but I have to pace my self as it was still slippery. 8km runners merged with the 15km runners 500 meter before Lembaga Pertubuhan Peladang.
After the merge, the space to run is very much limited, faster runners have to run zig zag to past others. Another 2km before the finishing line.I ran slow up hill and sprint my very best towards the finishing line.
 |
| my sprint down. left foot shown bad under pronation and heel strike |
It was a very good race for me because of the hill. It shows that hill work is a very important aspect on your training. Where most runners tends to slow down on the hills, this is where you can pick up your speed and run past other, if you did any hill work before then.
With that been said, I conclude that this is my best run yet. Nothing much to complaint on the part of the organization of the event but the organizers could provide surau for Muslim runners and maybe provide other than just 100 plus and bananas for the finisher after the run.
Looking forward for this event on 2014.
 |
| my trusted Brooks Pure Flow |
 |
| taken right after the race |
 |
| Fat Boy |
 |
| the medal have a very cool lanyard |
No comments:
Post a Comment