Date: 4 March 2012
Venue: Dataran Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Distance: 7km (Garmin: 7.5km)
Timing: 36:18 (Garmin)
Pace: 4:50 min/km (Garmin)
Result: 6th (Women Open) (results and pics on PT Lim’s blog here)
2 competing events over the weekend: 1Vision Run 2012 (1Vision Run) and World Kidney Day Run 2012 (WKD), both starting and using more or less the same route. Then again, if you’re starting either at Padang Merbuk or Dataran Merdeka, there’s really that many options you have. Despite the late launching of this event, the crowd and number of participants seemed be larger. Oh well, there are bound to be competing events when you only have 52 weekends in a year, minus 4 for Ramadhan.
Flag off was at 7:30 am, about 15 minutes after the 1Vision Run. Tham, Kei Ming, Ricky, another girl from the Permaisuri group and I were about 5 deep and chatting and joking while waiting for the start. No specific plan except to run slightly faster but not punishing fast since I was nursing a now-full-blown-flu and did the DH with Adam the previous day.
Km1-2
Let out my first expletive (I’m sorry…I know it’s Lent…) even before the first km, way too soon and it was not even about the hilly stretch. Why? Coz some dude elbowed me and ran right across me…just so he could cut the corner at Jalan Parlimen heading to BNM. Dude…that 10m of savings ain’t gonna help! And it won’t help if I crashed gobsmack into you either! C’mon guys, practice some running etiquette (for instructions, Jamie has put some a nice write up here).
The usual crowding at the first km but it more or less peters out because of the climb at BNM and heading to Bukit Tunku.
Km3-4
The rollers hills heading to and at Bukit Tunku mocked us (as usual). I was surprised to spot Kei Ming just after km4. Really surprised. I found out later he was pacing the girl from the Permaisuri group. Kept tab on them and somehow managed to pass them; thought I could have followed their tails but I guess the legs had other ideas of their own though at this point, I wasn’t speeding up drastically.
Km5-6
Downhill towards Lebuhraya Mahameru and then towards Jalan Parlimen. There was a long steady climb to Jalan Parlimen but with the downhill coming out of Bukit Tunku into Lebuhraya Mahameru, it was a bit of capitalizing on the downhill {speedy} momentum.
Km7-7.5
{insert mantra: it’s just another 6-10 min of your life, you can do anything. Repeat 1,000,000,000,000,000 times until you cross the finishing chute} Jalan Parlimen back to Dataran Merdeka and heard/saw the Sze twins – unfortunately I was looking like death. See evidence below – if looks could kill, this would be it.
Pros:
a) Fairly well organized.
b) Easy online registration through Hooha.
c) Post race carnival – there were a lot more booths compared to similar events around KL.
d) Marshals peppered along the route; especially important were those stationed along Jalan Parlimen turnoff to Padang Merbuk (1Vision Run) – these guys were great – giving instructions of “left for 1Vision” and “straight for WKD”.
e) One hydration station along the route – more than sufficient since the run started early and it was short.
Cons:
a) Emcee needs to do his homework. I distinctly remember him calling out that the start/finish would be at Padang Merbuk, pre-run. Tham also noted other misgivings.
b) They could have merged 2 queues into 1. Instead of giving out water bottle in a separate queue, they could have included it in the goodie bag saving runners having to queue twice and deployed more volunteers to the goodie bag station.
c) No road closure except at the start and the home stretch at Jalan Parlimen. Even though it was the weekend (and preconception of less traffic), we were made to dodge 1-2 vehicles at the back of BNM (km2) and again at km3-4. When will Malaysian organizers ever learn?!?!?!
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