I only had about over 2 hours of sleep the night before. So when I got up at 5:30am, I was groggy as hell! Got up anyway, packed some stuff, and prepared myself in general. My friend Kay Ti, who also ran, picked me up.... thanks mate, didn't want to drive that day... and we met up with another friend, Alexis.
Reached at about 6:30 - 6:45am (earlier than we expected), stretched a little bit, and warmed up by running from our parking spot (near OCM building) to the start point, where the Contingent Police building was. Met up a few of the Pacemaker fellas, like Tey, Sim Boon Haw aka pm25 (who didn't run due to injury), Jason Lim, and met up with Jamie and Li Sar. Chatted with Jamie a while, and also saw Ronnie. Then we all gathered down the hill right on Jalan Hang Tuah, right in front of the Pudu Jail field, and the gun went off at 7:33am (on my watch),
The first 3k...Kay Ti and Alexis paced with me and we were conversing a little bit thru from Jln Imbi, right out of Jln Raja Chulan and then out to Jln Tun Razak heading towards KLCC. Even at our conservative speed, we were overtaking a whole bunch of high school runners (which we suspect as former NS trainees.. so much for NS training.. hahaha), as they were running and walking. The route went on into Jln Ampang, then left-turned into Jln Binjai (where Lotus and Nikko Hotel is) and then into Jalan Kia Peng.
5k... by this time, Kay Ti had already sped up a bit leaving me to pace with Alexis, but he's still a faster runner than me anyway. The route continued from Jalan Kia Peng into Jln Tun Perak past Hong Leong Bank and out right into Jalan P. Ramlee heading towards KLCC again. By this time I had sped up a bit. Because I didn't have that good rest, I could feel myself getting a little tired faster than I expected. As we turned into Jalan Ampang, we saw our first and last water stop, and i basically gunked some water and splashed myself with it. The sun's rays had almost gotten stronger since we started. Alexis had already begun stepping up on her pace... or I may have slowed down a bit at some point.
The route went on left into Jln Sultan Ismail past Concorde and TwelveSI. By then, there were some traffic problems with the cops and street cars... and I was just thinking to myself that the traffic control better be good (it's a POLICE-organised run, for crying out loud!). I am disappointed.. hahaha. Now, the good part... the HILL CLIMB left into the KL Tower road out to Jln Raja Chulan! My LEGS felt almost pancit from lactic acid at this point, so I decided to take a minute of walking to recover, before I resumed running.
Turning left into Jln Raja Chulan, I'd half expect that the route will turn into Jln Bukit Bintang.. but it didn't!! At this point I was thinking to myself: Where the heck are these bozos taking us! It's almost 10K and we're not there yet! The route went onto the right turn-off into Jln Bukit Bintang before Westin Hotel, with a slight incline. I ran slightly easy this time around to recover some more, and when I saw where we were heading... down Jln Bukit Bintang and left into Jln Pudu.. I stepped on the gas, right after Lot 10. At this point, I gradually increased my pace to about 5 or 10K pace, I think. All the NS kids were already walking their way back (lame!), and I kept left of the road to overtake them. We left-turned into Jln Pudu, and into the small road heading back to the police headquarters where the finish line was. Right into the HQ was a slightly steep, but short, hill. I still felt good even after running hard for 5 over minutes, I decided to pump it up and run up the slope hard and all the way to the finish line. My clocked time: 1:16:01. Not that great, but my conditions at the moment had pretty much decided on it, so I'm cool with it.
After cooling off, and chatting with my friends and the Pacemaker guys, me and Kay Ti and Alexis headed off to my (and Greg's) usual 'makan' haunt... Kanna's Curry House in Section 17 PJ. Nothing like some good food to end the race.
What's my next race ah?
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