Salomon X-Trail Run 2013 (Malaysia)

I was under the weather right after my 16 hours trans Nuang adventure, flu and cough were my best friends for the past week.

So this 10km Salomon Trail run was my first run after zero mileage for the whole week, there' goes another week of training mileage into the dumpster.

The plan was to take it easy, just roll with the other runners on Mardi trail, finish the run, take the medal and go home continue snoozing.

I didn’t even know where the place was, a quick glance on Google map right before sleeping confirmed that it was 20 mins from my place. Great, i could do with extra sleep and rest.

Woke up just before subuh to a windy and rainy morning, man it’s going to be a wet and dirty race i imagine. Arrived at start line around 6:30 am, go around the place and met the usual suspects – Khairi Muin, Jamie Pang, Captain Nick, Dafi, Azlan Aiman and others. I didn’t see Puzi not until after the race.

Azlan Aiman with his selected pacers. Only the elite can have two pacers at one race :)

I started the run near the front group with Dafi and Azlan Aiman. We’re talking and i remembered at the time the race suddenly started. I turned around and Maman was gone, “puff” (insert smoke effect)  running fast catching the front runners. Such the ability of the great Maman, super ability to know the start of the race 2 seconds before it happened.

I tagged along with Dafi and run our paces, it was neither slow nor fast pace – it’s just a happy pace. It’s my very first time running the Mardi trail and the hills/inclines were quite challenging. I was very far from the physical state of being fit, at few of inclines i was reduced to walking. Yes the hills beat me up pretty good. But i really loves those nasty hills, i can imagine myself doing hills repeats here in the future. It’s a runnable trail with a good challenging hills, would be great for my Ultra trail training.

Photo credit: KH Tang, Tristupe

I looked at the distance marker and soon found out that it was under distance when i compared it with my Garmin. It was great to see friends volunteering their time here, Kelvin and Uncle Onn was working the water station. Glad to see those friendly faces.

After the last inclines, it was all downhill from there on and we passed the WS once again going back to finish line. My of my, i was surprised to see a lot of runners just starting to climb those hills that we endured earlier. I think to myself that we couldn’t be that fast coz there’s a lot more runners in front, finally it hit me – 2,500 runners in one single track trail.

After 5km, we were turned back into tarmac from the trail. Still i was pacing with Dafi but with great difficulties, i was so not fit and my stomach hurt – side stitch, either i ran too fast or drank too much water.

As we entered the final turn, i looked at GPS watch with disbelief. It’s only 7km plus, where’s the rest of the 3km route. Upon seeing the finish line, we scrambling faster and pushing for that final effort.

It’s only 7.25km, according to my GPS watch. I finish my second “10km” for the year in 40 minutes, it would be my greatest PB if it wasn’t under distance. Dang!

There wasn’t many runners at finish line but Maman and Khairi was already there. We went to collect our medal and food, the counter was quite empty – so no need to queue. Most of the runners are still in the trail i guess at the time.

Photo Credit: Azlan Aiman, Kam, Aizat, Jamie Pang.

Met Puzi at the food counter, he finished 2nd place in less than 30 minutes. The race was overall great except for the under distance route. I was informed later by Tristupe who was doing Marshall work that the route was change in the final minutes due to “a family day” event and parts of the trail was in bad conditions due to rain.

Most of the participants were happy with the race, the medal was nice (great quality) plus all finisher were given Salomon water proof waist belt (2 pockets) bag ala SPI belt. I tested the Salomon waist belt earlier today, it perform better than i expected – better than SPI belt. I don’t think it’s sold in Salomon store – more of a momento for this race.

The best part – all Salomon shoes was on sales. 30% discounts at RM300 – RM350 per pair, it’s a steal for a good quality trail shoes at that price.

Till we meet again next year. Train well and race safe.

Gears used:

• Salomon S-Lab Sense Ultra Shoes

• Salomon Exo- S Lab Tee

• Salomon Exo S Lab Twinskin Short

• Wright socks