This was one of those small local races held by one of the local running groups. For some reason, there were three of these held over consecutive days – Pacemaker-Newton Relay in Metropolitan Park Kajang on Sunday, Larian Patriotik 2010 in Klang on Monday night (since Tuesday/31 August was a public holiday) and this one on Tuesday morning around Padang Merbok/Bukit Tunku. Since the route was 60-70% uphill and after my weekend’s “Bikila galore”, this was going into the books as a training run.
Good:
(a) Option of a shorter distance – 5km. I was not going to kill myself conquering twice the amount of hills! (see point (a) of “Bad” below)
(b) Small local races tend to be inclusive and “homely” events where everyone helps out. I had a chat with Frank Chong from Runnerscirzle prior to the flag off and may call him up again if I spot anything interesting from his shop. Plus Kelvin Ng was the MC for the day! His boom-boom voice perked everyone up…as usual.
(c) Different from the run-of-the-mill finisher medal – this was a handmade (?) clay medal. Come to think of it, this year’s finisher medals have come in a variety of shapes, sizes and makes: Dow Live for Water and Race Against Cancer’s squarish medals, Nike Shape Run bracelet etc. Side note: I found it hilarious to collect the finisher’s medal from the back of a lorry. Of course it was more hilarious when Kelvin announced it.
(d) As the field was very light (I even thought of running in my Bikilas! Nope, changed my mind), I did not push it too much (not that I could do much given the uphills!), I came in at 25:38 minutes (Garmin: 4.94km) to come in first.
Bad:
(a) 60-70% of the route was uphill but since it was a short run, I did not start my tirade of cusses.
(b) Nearly started on the wrong route! Jeff who was pacing Kei Ming dashed up Jalan Berjasa (which was logical since the 10k guys who started earlier went the same way and it was the usual start off route for the Pacesetter’s runs) instead of heading to Jalan Parlimen. Apart from the missing marshall at this junction, there rest of the route was well manned.
(c) No road closure since this was a small race. I did not find this too troublesome since the roads were relatively free from traffic given the Merdeka public holiday and the route went took us through the less-than-light-traffic roads even on “normal” days.
(d) Limited finishers’ medal – 10 for each category. This isn’t really a problem for the ladies categories.
Photo credits to Tey.
Photo credits to Tey.
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