Malaysia KL pacesetter 30K

Both Eric and me tagged along with SAFRA Toa Payoh to KL on Friday night. Reaching KL in the wee morning 4am, we have no where to go since it was so early. Luckily we saw a 24hr service Macdonald and managed to waste some time there until 6am. After that we went across the street towards Chinatown to have the famous congee at the roadside and also where our hotel is based. Hotel Malayan if i remembered correctly. Thank god the hotel staff allowed us to check in early since the rooms were not occupied. For lads going to race at KL, IMO this is a good place to stay as it’s centrally located with good rate and decent facilities; saw many S’poreans stayed there during the race period. Popular bookshop and the ‘LRT’ to Times Square are all just within walking distance.

Eric and I shared the same room. It’s good to have a good mate that share the same thinking. We both turned in quite early before 10pm as sufficient rest is important to us esp. on race day. However I struggled to wake up at 345am but eventually I managed to pull myself out of the bed maybe due to the lack of complete rest on the previous day. We met the rest of SAFRA mates at the hotel lobby at 430am and took a 15min walk to the start point. Upon reaching there, we met other SAFRA mates from Tampines wearing the same red Adidas SAFRA vests. Greeted each other and happy to see familiar faces again.

Only to complain was the lack of toilets. 4 portable toilets and 1 public toliet ain’t enough to cope the big local crowd. Race started at 530pm, I remembered queuing at 450am but could only finished relieving myself 5min before the start time GOSH! I can only do stationary warm up and jogged on the spot to keep my body ready. Seeing the start area pouring with runners, adrenaline started to rush in making me more anxious…. i hate to be at the back of start line where i need to waste time cutting those in front of me. Quickly I went to look for familiar faces and I saw Teo of Toa Payoh. He managed to shift the barrier and let me squeezed into somewhere @ the mid pack; better than to be at the back.

@ 530 we began our run and as the same as 3years ago when i was here, the initial 1km was a cruel uphill terrain (see the pix above). For those who didn’t do proper warm up, all i can said is good luck to you =). And I basically lost track of the number of ascending and descending we ran. It was entirely an up-down route from the start to end, IMO it was a very good challenge. For 1st timer, it was a sloppy race to remember. To me it was good coming back to face the challenge; I improved from 2:35 to 2:18 which could have been better since i did conserve much during the race. This was not the race i have planned but last minute thingy. The water points were sufficient although some people complain of it’s quality. Certain part of the routes were quite badly lighted, can be dangerous for some. Malaysian drivers are also reckless despite the police’s good effort to marshal the roads. I recalled 1 driver who ignored the police’s signal to stop for us to run across the highway and he just dash off, pissing the cop crazily mad!

Although this was not an international race, but I got to see some very good B-grade Kenyans both men and female and Caucasians as well. Initial part I was running with Ben Swee, a very strong fellow S’porean lad and it was good running with him. However when i realized my lock lace was causing both my feet numbness, I decided to stop and loosen them. By the time i was up running again, Ben was already a distance ahead of me. Then i began the quest alone.  At the middle of the race, I managed to catch up with 1 Kenyan lady and we were running together side by side having the same momentum. Although we didn’t talk but we knew that we need each other pace to push on. I was proud to be running beside her cause I think she was the potential candidate for podium. At 20k, I checked my split time of 1:30:22 and found she was dropping her pace and about 200m behind me. So i was alone again to conquer the last cruel 10k.

Slopes after slopes, I was thinking to conserve more energy for the last part. From the start my objective was to treat this as a sunday LSD run since i have passed my peak-performance window when I missed out my Chiang Mai Marathon in Dec Xmas . There were nothing longer than 20k since then. Also, I’m quite worried about my recurrent plantar fasciitis injury, should i or should not not go all out? Better to stay conservative. At the last few km, I saw 1 fit masculine guy wearing black nike vest with cap catching up beside me. Then I decide to run with him since companionship offers pacing. After a while i offered him my gel which he decline politely. Not far, I realized there was another lady running with us. Instead of the Kenyan woman I met earlier, there was this pretty Ang Mo lady who was breathing very hard as she ran. The 3 of us ran together and at 1 brief point we were cheering for each other… I enjoyed this part the most. At 29km mark, the lady had also drop her pace. Turning right was the last up-slope and both the guy and I were pushing for it. He then switched into his turbo mode and ran ahead of me but encouraged me to follow. Alas I decided i would only chase during @ the descending part. At the down slope, both of us opened up our strides and cadences and after a few turns, he managed to finish few seconds ahead of me. I wasn’t too disappointed as I knew I was conserving much of my energy and congrats to him =) We chatted at the end point and to realize he is a Singaporean commando regular and happens to be a friend of mine Jeremy Mok. What a small world! Not too long the ang mo woman crossed the line. Think 3 of us clocked 2:18 different by seconds and she was the champion for her category.

SAFRA runners stayed back to cheer our elite runner Wenlong who came in 4th in the men open of 2:08. He was in the podium with the kenyans and ang mo guy which was very competitive. The champion for men’s open did a record timing of sub 2 of 1:46! Astonishing Finished by the Kenyan!

Well that sum up my 2nd attempt of pacesetter and maybe I will be back next year with better result. Now is off-season… hence will be resting actively for 1month to heal my bugging relapse Plantar Fasciitis injury (dammit) before training resume in March =)

Signing off: Andy (reedited a few times due to poor ang mo haha)