Cross Country Taman Botani 2012

This must be the cheapest race fee that i ever paid for an event, for RM15 you’ll get NO frills race, no goody bag, no useless coupons, just an old school style cotton bib and medal plus certificate once you completed the race.

This was one of the rare event that you could come by in the morning of the race and registered!

That’s right, you could register on the spot – just like Karen did after completing her morning 12km LSD. In addition, she walked away as No. 4 finisher in her age category and RM100 richer.

Although this was a small race but it attracted many known fast runners including; Jasni, Rozmi, Shaharudin, Mark Williams, Jean Pierre, Yuan Yu Fang (National Walker) etc.

For category, A- Men Open, B- Men Jr. Veteran, C- Women Open, runners need to run 8km, while the rest of the category was set at 6km.

I knew from the start of this race that it would be tough and demanding, based on my experience running FTAAA Cross Country last January.

It was the same route, except that this time it started at Lake Garden. I like this setting better as when the runners reached the trails near Tugu Negara, they would be spread all over the route unlike the January’s Cross Country, where runners start from Padang Merbok and jammed the trails at the beginning of the race.

When the gun went off at the start of the race, i knew that this would NOT be one of my better races. I felt hungry when i started running, i guess two slices of Gardenia bread and a cup of hot Milo for breakfast was not enough to fuel my run. Note to myself – need to eat properly before the race, Beef Burger for dinner the night before was not an ideal meal for pre-race.

I had side stiches few hundred meters from the finishing line – first time for everything. I tried to fight it off, it was painful and hinders me from speeding my way to the finishing line.

It was a huge relief once i crossed the finish line with the timing of 60:08, almost got that sub-1 hour, no thanks to the side stiches – drank too much H2O at the water sations.

I was happy to secured that limited medal and completed at position #14, Men Jr. Veteran category. It was supposed to be 8km race, but Garmin showed over-distance race at 10.08km. Overall, it was an enjoyable Sunday morning race.

1st Run with Titiwangsa Runners

Photo credit: Din Sofia

I just finished my first Wednesday night training with Titiwangsa Runners. The best part was, i had the opportunity to learn from the best and ran with Malaysia's No. 1 Marathoner – Shaharudin Hashim. Sorry but no Dean Karnazes and Killian Jornet here.

The training started at 8:30 pm, Shaharudin as coach put us to the paces. 5km warm up run (two loops) around the lake, i could only pace him the first 2km before my lung gave up on me ..blergh.

Then it's the interval training, 10 x 50 meters. We were divided to four groups and raced against each other, it was different and fun training with groups compared to solo training.

It's been such a very long time since i put my body through this kind of lung bursting torture, by the end of the workout, i felt dizzy and almost puke..dang!

It’s that tough, i will try anything to throw that 9 minutes for my sub-4 Marathon finish. Hopefully this will bear results in near future.

It was a fun workout, especially when you trained with 38 others spirited runners. Now you know where i'll be for Wednesday night training from now on.

40th Birthday Run

What better way to celebrate your birthday by running LSD. As my birthdate is the same with Uncle Onn, we decided to celebrate it together. It’s my 40^th and 63^rd for Uncle Onn.

Coincidently Pacesetters Club was also organising their frequent LSD today, that’s mean we have Water Stations along the route at IKIM and Hartamas’ brand new renovated Petronas.

The Bukit Aman cark park this morning was full to the brim; many runners came for their weekly fix of Endorphin run.

 

I decided to run 40km for my birthday, can’t wait for 42^nd birthday for a Marathon distance run. I ran 20km on Saturday, and planning to complete the final 20km instalment today.

 

I’m glad that many runners turn up for this run, and my 20km run was paced by Azmil, Nik and Capt. G (Shanaz). The route was fairly easy enough from Bukit Aman to Hartamas and return, no double hills though.

 

With Princess G & Capt. G

The post run party was a blast, I brought Black Forest Choc Cake and Cup Cakes, Karen brought her homemade Cheese Cake (thanks Karen), KA supply bread and chocolates. Uncle Onn provided Mineral Water and traditional Mak Ti’s (Puchong) Malay Kuih.

 

Thanks everyone for coming the Birthday Run, if you were not there this morning; you missed a great party. No worries it’s going to be annual affair, see you guys next year.

StrollerMan@Kidney Day Run

The return of the StrollerMan, this was our 5th Stroller run – TIBI Run 10km last year was my last incarnation as StrollerMan.

Met and greets a lot of familiar faces while waiting in the starting pen, and as always there’s few runners requested to take photos with StrollerMan and kids :) . We gladly fulfilled it.

Nice to see more runners pushing strollers as well, doesn’t mind if the distance was only 3km fun run.

After the flag off, Bobby (my youngest) decided to get down from the stroller and walk the 1st 1km. After bribing him with a bottle of warm milk, i managed to get him into the stroller and thus the run begins. Took me 15 minutes after the start to actually ran, it was near the Bank Negara's hill climb that we began our 5th Stroller race.

The route was crowded with runners as there was another running event started at about the same time from Padang Merbok – 1 Vision Run. We overtook many runners especially during the hill climbs, their expression when seeing the stroller came by was somewhat priceless :D

The route was similar to last year TIBI run, the double hills was challenging; especially pushing the stroller with two kids, and the boys are getting heavier (more than 20kg).

Met the only G - Nana near the Parlimen road, she was running the 1 Vision run and did extremely well. She completed in 10th position, congrats Nana on your podium finish.

Made it back in time (55 minutes) for the limited medal, just few left in the Men Jr Vet category when we reached the finish line. It was a great family outing nevertheless :)