SCKLM 2012

“If I fall along the way
Pick me up and dust me off
And if I get too tired to make it
Be my breath so I can walk”

Pre-Race

It's my maiden KL Marathon, finally! Last year i choose to ran SDU 100km, i know i’m always a sucker for Ultra Marathon race. The last time i ran KL was in 2010, it’s when i ran my 3rd Half Marathon, felt like a million years ago.

SCKLM was my 8th FM so far, and still have a lot to learn in finding, learning and running the perfect Marathon.

I had great time carbo-loading for the race with fellow runners, the FMV dinner on Friday night. It was great to catch up with Queen FMV and Virgin Marathon runners, i’m also considered as FMV as it’s my maiden SCKLM full marathon debut :)

The Saturday lunch welcoming Freedom Freaks from SG was a great event, got to know more Freaks apart from Asree, Selly etc. Finally met the speedy Gonzalez Izat and his family.

Selly: When i grow up i wanna be a Police women…bla bla
Me: Mana nasik bojari aku ni? Madam Kwan nak jadi police women?

Race Day

Full Marathon start at 4:30 , i jogged from our Hotel with the amazing Saiful Catman (dah macam lidi mamat ni, overworked kot?) and Fazli the Flash (nasib bukan flasher..he he). It’s about 1.6km run to Dataran Merdeka and sufficiently warms up.

The first thing on the agenda that morning was…camwhoring, of course! It was great meeting old friends and making new one. Meet Cikgu Syed for the first time here, after wishing him good luck; off i went in searching for FMV & FF runners.

Ready to rock Kay Ell

About 4:00 am, i decided to follow Asree from SG to move forward to the front of start line. Asree was targeting sub-4 finishing, so it was nice to have a great pacer. When i looked back to my previous FM timing, I acknowledge that my finishing timing are inconsistent. Anything can happened in FM race, most importantly to finish it within your health limit.

Somehow i lost Asree in the crowd of runners while making our way to the front, and I decided to start the race with Gila Bola Karim (dude i seriously think you need to change your FB name :p).

A few days before the race, i prepared three sets of pacer notes. 4:59 , 4:30 and 3:45. But somehow i left it in the office, dang! (Getting older is no fun if you start forgetting things). My strategy that morning was to run with my heart and follow those green balloon (4:00 hour pacer) as close as i could. But most importantly to finish this race injury free, it’s only another LSD for my BIG event later this year. Gulp!!

The first 10km i maintained sub 5:30 pace, and the green balloon was kept within few meters in front of my view.

I completed 10K in 54:38 minutes, opps it’s too fast for LSD pace.

After 10km, i decided to ditch the sub 4 balloon and try to finish this within sub 4:30 . It’s too risky to get injured as i still felt the fatigue from last week LSD ( i didn’t taper). At SCKLM I did run slower than BIM, i learnt my lesson; i started too fast at BIM and got stomach cramp at 14km.

The weather was nice at the early stages of the race, it even rains a bit. Many runners worried about the haze invading KL a week earlier, that morning no sign of the haze, thankfully.

It was cooling in some parts of the route, the wind blowing your face like a good day at the beach. I just maintained my usual Ultra pace, no need to push for glory. The elusive sub-4 finish will comes later when i’m ready, either Berlin or SCMS – we’ll see.

I decided to maintained 6:00 pace which i felt most comfortable, i can run all day with this pace. After 18km, i stopped for subuh prayer at the Mosque around Jalan Cochrane. Took me 12 minutes here (according to my Garmin) and met birthday boy Syed Jay just finishing his prayer. I continued running after that and when i saw the 4:30 balloon flew by, i decided to give it a chase after Jeff Ooi (the pacer).

Completed 20.5K in 2:08:21 minutes, i’m glad i can still maintained this Ultra pace.

I met Karim around Jalan Ipoh, he was looking tired. I urged him to pace with me, which dully followed. We then saw the Marathon Man (Trent Morrow) in front us, Karim and i decided to give him a chase. As we run nearer, i shouted “It’s a plane, it’s a bird, it’s Marathon Man” which he replied with a weak smile and even weaker high five lol.

I completed 30K in 3:07:25 , not bad for an old pakcik running his Full Marathon Veteran debut.

When i looked back to runners at that point, i saw the Yellow balloon (4:30 pacer)  getting nearer. I asked Karim to increased our pace, which he chickened out by giving me some peculiar reason “i need to take my salt pill”. I think you could take the pill while running Karim..hehe

As i was nearing the roundabout from Jalan Kuching to Jalan Duta, i saw this cute little girl handing out cold Malaysian ice cream, thanks baby girl. I waved at her dad as a thank you sign. Jeff Ooi paced with me earlier before that roundabout, he was interested to know about this Gila-Ultra organised by Ben See from me. Well, i guess i will be seeing his face at the start line soon.

At KM36, i rejoiced seeing Kak June, Avatar Amsyah, Balkis and KayDee – I stopped by at the Kedai Runcit and refill my bottle with ice cold coke..thanks Kak June :)

30 seconds pit stop at Kedai Runcit FMV

I looked back to see if there’s any familiar runners at the back, i can only recognised James Wong from Marathon Shop. I congratulated him on his store opening ceremony and we paced a bit, while tackling the familiar Bukit Tunku route. Unashamedly i walked all the inclines here, i guess i got demotivated when all the Yellow balloons left me, i mentally calculated that i will finish after 4:30 hours. Whatever lah, lets finish this LSD/race, get the medal and finisher tee, and be done with my maiden KL Marathon race.

By the time i reached Sogo, my Garmin showed me 4:21..there 9 minutes left to tackle 1.7 km to the finish line.

As i always said, if you never try, you will never know!

So with that words of wisdom, i found new motivation and ran faster. I cursed after making the U-turn, there’s a sea of 21km+10km runners in front me. Dang! I had to zig zag across them like a mad man, not a problem since i’m used doing this, especially after running SCMS twice. To make matter worst, there bunch of idiots talking and blocking the Full Marathon lane at the finishing line. I had to shout at them to make way! Sorry but you deserved it, i could be vocal if need to.

After hive-fived Jeff Ooi at the finishing line.

I finished my maiden KL Marathon race sub 4:30, a minute to spare and Jeff Ooi was waiting at the finish line. High fived all the sub 4:30 finishers.

Congrats to all Virgin Marathoner especially Miss M, which finished her Maiden FM with amazing time of 4:39 . All those hard works, lack of sleeps, time spent on rolling hills of Bt. Aman – Hartamas finally paid off in the end.

Now i can focus on my Ultra training, no more events till KOTR :)

My Garmin stated an over distance race : 42.61 km

Splits:
10K - 00:54:38
20.5K - 02:08:21
30K - 03:07:25
FINISH - 04:29:01
Avg. Pace 06:23