Bursa-The Edge Rat Race 2010

I had been trying to get out of the bank’s team for the longest time ever! Obviously, I did not succeed because I was at the 5:15 pm flag off yesterday. Then again, I achieved one of my better results to date – 4.8km (it was billed as a 4.5km “fun” run! LOL!) for 24:30 minutes or 5:06 min/km. This is one of the most competitive races around – national runners are roped in to boost the firms’ (usually banks) standing; teams practicing on the actual route for weeks on the end; teams training in their corporate/office wear; I have even heard of a bank that gives the national runners 2 months paid leave just to train for this event!



Good:


(a) Superb goodie bag – this is the best from a local race I have received. In fact, it was much better than the winner’s bag. A recap of some of the items: 8-9 sachets of Nescafe Teh Tarik, 5 sachets of Milo Fuzz, 1-week entrance to Fitness First gyms, Loreal face wash, Perkinsdol muscle rub, Nature Valley granola bar, quality collared event tee, Evian mineral water etc.


(b) Crowd support along the route - Maybank had quite a number of teams but I think we did not do too shabbily. I found out from Adam and Kenneth during dinner that it was the Auto Finance guys at the route leading to The Weld – since their office is in Menara Hap Seng. LOL!


(c) Partial road closure and good traffic control – at least I did not have to wait at traffic lights or weave in between motorcyclist – they were on their best behaviour!


(d) Short distance – my preference! Plus no killers hills like those in Bukit Tunku or Lake Garden’s Bird Park.


(e) Post run dinner spread although I skipped this because of my vegan diet. Dishes spotted include chicken and beef satay with peanut sauce, onions and ketupat, roti jala with curry, fried chicken wings, rice, fruits like the standard bananas and watermelons, langsat, rambutan, curry puffs and varieties of Malay kueh.


(f) Vijay ran an amazing race and powered to the top spot in the senior category. Nonetheless despite Vijay and my winning, the team could not garner a podium finish. The mixed team did even better – 2 winners each in the individual male and female category and the overall team prize. Ah…but this team is peopled by our national runners and Jessica Tang and Azri (both regular podium finishers in the local races).


Bad:


(a) The weather was a downer – we were probably hitting the mid 30s and 90% (?) humidity. I was literally sweating just standing while waiting for the flag off.


(b) The winners’ goodie bag include a 3-month entrance to Fitness First (Michael suggested I sell this; god knows what I would have done with 2 passes had the team won the event as well!), 4 bottles of Perkinsdol muscle rub (I can’t stand the smell of muscle rubs/heat, counterpain etc – so Aunty Mabel was a major beneficiary).


(c) I was forbidden from wearing my running skirt by Nik and found out later that both Michelle and Yin Yin wore theirs. Darn!


(d) The bank running tee, a collared one, and another, which we had to wear to the dinner, was extremely huge despite being a size “S”.


(e) Traffic on the way home along Jalan Tun Perak and this was at 8:30 pm – I left after the prizes were given out since I was hungry (only managed three bites of the Malay kueh) and I had a session with Michael this morning.


(f) Since they were using the RFID timing D-tags, they should have started in waves or do a corral start – the narrow pathway is a potential disaster-in-waiting! Jessica had her shoe come off and there were a lot of shoving and pushing.

Photo log from various sources.