A new beginning (27th FTAAA Cross Country)

This was my maiden run in a new age Category – Men Junior Veteran.

That’s right, i’ll be 40 this coming March – how time flies.

Almost DNS this run due to food poisoning few days before, and still haven’t fully recovered on the race day. But being stubborn as always, i decided to give it a shot at last minute, i don’t wanna missed my debut Jr Veteran Category.

The crowd was not as many as previous year due to most of the runners flocking UPM Serdang for the Mizuno’s 10km Run. You can even register this event at the registration booth that morning, there were many bibs available. The fee for this run is still the same as last year – RM20 (very rare to find).

As i was running the Jr. Vet category the distance would be less than Men Open – 6.2km compared to 8.2km that i ran last year. But make no mistakes, it felt like a 10km or more due to the nature of the run, which consist of demanding trails, road and small hills around Lake Garden – you need to pumped your heart rate to the max.

Met many familiar runners before the race; CatMan, Irwan, Poh Cyhe, Dett, Nizam, Syah Avatar and Diket Mencanak (not running due to injury); so he made an appearance as a coach with his new George Clooney hairstyle.

Photos: Diket

The Men Open was gun off at 7:45 am, while the other Categories; Men Jr Vet, Men Sr Vet, Women Jr/Sr Vet and school kids were gun off 10 minutes later.

As we ran into the trails someone crashed into a beehive, which stung several runners; thankfully i passed the hive few seconds after the incident and escaped stung-free. The trails was technical, steep and tight – it’s difficult to overtake runners here and you get slowed down if the runners in front of you being too cautious. I wore my trails shoes and had no problem staying on the trails as the shoes gripped the trails like a glue.

I forgot how demanding this course was, it's only 6.2km course but it took me one hell of giant effort to maintained my pace and completed it in 50:22 at #17. What a way to celebrate your new age category.