Date: 7 October 2012
Venue: Harbour Place, Klang, Selangor, Malaysia
Distance: 5km (Garmin: 4.67km)
Timing: 22:56 (Gun); 22:58 (Garmin)
Pace: 4:55 min/km (Garmin)
Result: 8th (Women Open) (results on Moey’s blog here)
Pink + October = Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
This is the second edition of the event and featured 2 categories: 5km and 10km, run around Pantai Hospital Klang and Harbour Place. Local event which saw quite a number of runners coming as far as Cheras.
This is a looped course which started on the road fronting Harbour Place, Persiaran Raja Muda Musa, with the 10km off at 7am followed by the 5km, 5 minutes later (more on this later). The route was pancake flat and around the neighbourhood of Taman Botanical and its surroundings.
This was my third “installment” of legs as part of the Base Building Project and not a key event – so it’ll be a paid speed work training.
Km1
Overnight rain + cloudy during the run + early start = AAA-rated temps for a run. The overnight rain flooded the side road fronting Harbour Place and I was glad we started on the parallel Persiaran Raja Muda Musa. Was about 3-4 rows back, about a row behind Goh Shu Wei and we were chatting while waiting for the 10km runners to ease out. The usual humdrum mad dash and over eager school kids while I held back – just slowing reel everyone in, I guess.
Km2
Left turn and a boring long stretch with just the roads and trees for company. The 10km would go ahead of turning left here. Passed Liyanna after km2.
Km3
Another left turn to head into km3 and hydration station before the km3 mark. Backwaters of shophouses and residential area.
Km4 - Finish
Heading towards the shophouses, Pantai Hospital Klang and Harbour Place. Thank goodness, the flood waters had drained because we had to run through this stretch into the finishing chute.
Pros:
a) Another well organized event put up by Pacers Sport.
b) Early start – this might be a bother if you’re coming from the other side of town but the advantage is you’ve cooler temps and the rest of the day after the event.
c) Hydration point at the start, on route and finish. Plus they even stashed a bottle of water in the swag which was given out as you cross the finish line.
d) Post race grub included watermelons, chocolate drink from Vico and coffee from IndoCafe.
e) Good post race management: cross the line and you’re handed the swag with everything you need in it – water, 3 (!) packs of biscuits, finisher’s medal and finisher’s cert.
f) Entertainment by the local band, gracing the event by Sarimah Ibrahim and the-always-great-remarkable emcee, Julie Wong.
g) Aplenty of sponsor booths, especially the one put up by the cancer society/support group. Ladies were invited to learn how to do a breast examination etc. And look at the headbands the survivors were sporting!
Cons:
a) The black spot would be the earlier-than-scheduled flag off for the 10km, roundabouts 5 minutes. This had a lot of runners scrambling to cross the line, especially potential winners like Jason Loh and Daniel Tan – both were in the gents when they heard the horn! This lead to Jason coming in 4th and Daniel, 6th, in their respective categories. There was some delay for the 5km to have the 10km spread out but nothing more than 10 minutes (I think).
b) No road closures but again, backwaters of the neighbourhood (except for the start point) and early Sunday morning meant little traffic. The intersections were manned by the local Rela members.
c) That said, there were apparently some unmanned checkpoints which lead to some confusion for the front runners eg Ronnie (10km) and Kenny. Gathered that Ronnie had to backtrack after about 200m mid run.
All in, a fantastic event – both for the run and for Breast Cancer Awareness.
Photo log:
(credits to Fiona as well)
Swag, Event Tee, Finisher’s Medal, Finisher’s Cert
With friends
1 comment:
Which run calendar do you use? I always miss the good runs - somebody will tell me, hey have you registered? And then I go and the registration is over :)
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