Malakoff 12 km run

I woke up at 4.50 am this morning, had sleepless night, this is usually me when expecting a big day. I felt excited and nervous at the same time waiting for this day to come. This morning, i will run and compete with about 2,500 other runners in the 2nd edition of 12km Malakoff run in Bukit Kiara resort.

This time around the missus and my son would not be there to support me as my wife is too tired to move around as she’s into the final trimester of our 2nd son. I decided to use my scooter instead of Exora as i anticipated a large crowd and cars, it would not be enough parking space in the race area. Among the suggested parking areas for the race was Security Commission car park, i arrived at around 5.45 am and found out that the car park still have a lot of vacant spaces (it can accommodate 80 cars maximum). It’s still dark when i arrived at Start/Finish line in Bukit Kiara car park, later i went around searching for a surau to perform my subuh prayer and found it at the sport complex building.

By 6.30 am more runners came and the place becoming too crowded, well what do you expect with about 2,000 runners jam-pack the place. The race started with 12km runners flag-off at 7.00 am sharp, the steep hill after leaving Bukit Kiara car park into Jalan Beringin, Bukit Damansara was killing me! I stopped and walked near the top of the first hill, a clear sign that i am not fit for hill climb race, i sense this big problem and decided to conserve my energy for downhill and flat runs, and that’s what exactly the strategy i used throughout this race. Walk up for the big hill and then compensate by passing other runners at downhill run, this is a bad run for me, but i am not just gonna give up, it’s all about mental strength and for me i am racing with myself, it's all about completing the race which was after all my big objective for entering this race. In the end, I completed the 12km race with 79 minutes (unofficial record-the organizer will update official records in their website after all runners return the timing chips).

My 1st Medal