KDU Hospitality-MAKNA 1Malaysia Charity Run 7 November 2009

Pre-Event: Friday 6 November 2009

I found out about this run from Wern Tian during yesterday’s training at Lake Gardens. And ho behold, I could still register for it despite it being 12 hours to the start of the event. Anyway since my immune system is still partial compromised and today’s workout was legs, I’m going to take it really slow and easy tomorrow despite Ronnie’s “warning” message. Plus the route isn’t exactly easy – there’s a steep upslope at Shell! – but it’ll be short (6 km). Then again, when I’m actually running, it won’t be short – I foresee a lot of cursing and swearing spewing.

You guys must be wondering how I know all this, huh???!!! Truth be told, the route is from KDU College running past the Damansara Jaya shop lots (e.g. Maybank, Kayu mamak etc) up past Shell and going further before the U-turn at the traffic lights at Yuk Chai. Yup, definitely my area!

On a worst case scenario, I’ll just walk home! Seriously.

Post-Event: Monday 9 November 2009

I clocked 27:31 minutes for the 5.25km run. And came in first! Can you beat that????!!!! The field was pretty negligible – which was why I was able to “win”. There’s no way I could be placed in the top 50 in any of the Singapore races with this kind of timing! But hey, I’m not complaining and for the RM20 I paid for the race registration, the returns (plastic medal, one bottle of sparkling juice and a black and white beaded necklace) were more than sufficiently covered. However the main objective for the RM20 is for cancer research and outreach programmes – the same as the SGD30 I paid for the Run For Hope.

The route was pretty straight forward – from KDU College to the Taman Megah primary school and back to the college. The drawbacks were the late start (an hour after the scheduled 7 am) and no road closures. The former made for an oven-baked-and heat-infused run (since there were minimal shades/trees along the route) and as the day progresses, the number of cars increased (exponentially!). I wouldn’t mind if there wasn’t any road closures so long as there’s some form of traffic control – there were minimal on Saturday and I had to watch out for oncoming vehicles as well as made my way across junctions and traffic lights.

There were two slopes to conquer – the one at the college (an uphill climb to the finishing line) and the one at Shell (thank goodness it was on the early part of the run rather than on the way back). The rest of the route was relatively flat. I even heard that Wern Tian overtook the traffic police outrider on the way back – it seems that the outrider slowed down a bit and Wern Tian was pretty impatient to get the run over and done with.

Since it was a pretty short run, there was only 1 water station – at the junction to Yuk Chai primary school, after the u-turn. However the junction turning was such that it curved further inwards, the water station was slightly aback from the road – Ronnie decided to skip rehydration because of this though I didn’t (not that I could have more than a sip – it’s pretty tough drinking from a cup when you’re running). All of us rehydrated after the run and most of us had the sandwiches and apples they provided to all runners ().

Der Pacemakers came in first and second in the team event. Actually there were only 4 teams! () Each team member received the same plastic medal (the cheap ones they hand out in primary school races!) whereas for the individual categories (e.g. Men’s Open, Women’s Open, Veterans etc), the winners receive the same plastic medal and a bottle of sparkling juice. And to agitate Meyya (team 1 of Der Pacemakers) further, the top 5 ladies receive costume jewelery (e.g. beaded or ornamental earrings or necklaces).