This event is a lesson learnt for me. Never ever try to race any event if you are half fit. I was in the 5th day of my 9 days diarrhea week. My wife have advise me on running this event but I'm still stubborn and insisting on running. In the end I almost DNF. My timing was so bad that I was off my usual timing by 40 minutes.
Six of us join the half marathon category Azfar, Ameer, Clarence, Hezlan, MKA and me whereas Pat join the 10km category.
Races starts around 8.20 pm, as usual the plan was to start slow and try to finish strong. I had a very consistent first 3km that is until the 1st water station. They all went haywire. My body felt like shutting down, fatigue comes in and my mind keep on telling me to stop running.
From there race become a painful experience for me, I keep for stopping,walking throughout the route than running. Every kilometer my goal is to reach the the water station and at every water station I will to convince myself that I need to finish this race.
One of the worst part of running this race is most of the route is really quite. Running under complete silence is really boring and seriously weaken my spirits. I keep on looking at my back to make sure I was not the last runner so that I will not be running alone.
I believed I walked almost 75% this race. I even don't drenched out as I usually do during running. The run out of water at the 3rd water station, that makes me almost stopped running but managed to push myself to walk all the way to the 4th water station. I drank half of 1.5 litre bottle of 100 Plus.
That drink, that half of bottle drink really brings my spirit up and energy up. From the 4th water station I managed to to run most of the balance of the race. My pre run target was to finish around 2hour 30 mins and half way on the race I was targeting to finish around 3 hours 30 mins.
The isotonic drinks actually really helps me in to finishing at 3hours 7mins (gun time).
In the future the will be no way I will race any event if I am half fit. Its better to DNS than DNF.
If I would to give a review on this event I don't have much to complaint except of the water station management. They should make the water station bigger and ensure there will be enough water for all runners especially slow runners like me. They ran out of paper cup at water station 6 and they are giving runners the whole bottle instead. You could see a lot water being wasted at the roadside. Some of the road was without streets light and was really dark but the organizer did have the their volunteers stations around the area with blinkers. It might sore in the eyes but at least there is some lights.
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