Tell u the truth, i dun know what to expect on d race day. With my almost zero knowledge and xperience, i just got the tips from the booklet that was provided in d race kit, which was minimal. But one thing for sure, I was caught in the pre-race excitement in the infamous chaotic race kit collection that friday. Chaotic as it was, I partly enjoyed the scene. Though had to que for more than 1 hr under the hot afternoon sun after jumaat prayer, it thrilled me to see fellow participants (i dare not call my self a runner then) esp d gals (hahaha Dun label me as abg miang OK).
True to what the booklet said, i could not sleep well that nite. Since I know parking my car would be a problem, I planned to go out early and park plus perform by subuh prayer at masjid negara and I did just that the next morning. So far so good. No rush.
Met with Fariz at Dataran Merdeka but did not find Gies around. Walked around...tgk-tgk org lagik and then do my stretching (but no warm-up, which now i know is wrong). Bumped into few frens and clients. Dun know they are all into running as well.
With the adrenaline n excitement at their peak, we were gunned off. Me n Fariz started at d back and we took nearly 4 minutes to hit the timing mat. As expected, a newbie like me easily sucked up with the pace of faster runners. I think I started with a "comfortably hard" pace (now i know its called a tempo run) which I shud not. It would only be a matter of time that I would slow down, stop and walk and that happened at km 3.5. Looking back, the first half of d course is pretty flat but true to my fitness level then, from that point I did the run/walk routine and was overtaken, like no body's business by all type of ppl, young, fat, skinny, guys, gals, mak cik, pakcik and atuk!!!! (a guy who looks like in his 70s did overtake me). Something is really wrong with me, i haplessly told myself!!!! I walked through out the hill portion of Jalan Sultan Salahuddin with the plan of reserving my energy to run all d way to the finish line. Hahahaha what a joke. Yes i did run the downhill but after reaching City Hall building at Jln Raja Laut, I gave up. Just could not pushed my self anymore. Looked at my watch and finishing in 90 mins seems impossible now. I knew Fariz and Gies were in front and i did prepare myself with the prospect of facing the humility of not finishing in time. I really felt that I was a failure and regreted to participate in the first place!
By then the target was to finish the run. Continued with my mostly walk with jog routine until i made the turn to Jln TAR. One thing is I was extremly familiar with that area since my office is somewhere near there. Looking at my watch, I have about 10 mins left n suddenly my mind told my body to give it a try and try i did. With whatever energy left I run non stop to dataran merdeka though the urge was so strong to stop, and there I was, finishing the run in the nick of time.....86 mins. Hahaha..i did it, dun really give a dem about the timing. I will get my finisher's medal and cert, that were all i cared about at that moment.
Then it hit me, the thing is I did not compete with other runners but my self! That is what this running thing is all about. Challenging urself. Do what u think u cannot do before n getting satisfaction from it though u finished in the back pack.
Without me realising it then, I started feeling envious of those runners with the blue (1/2) and green (full) bips who i saw around. Those bips were like a badge of honour for runners. But the real wake up call occured before i left for home.
There were 3 very ordinary looking guys (in their mid 40s) who came in a car parked beside mine at masjid negara. I know they were runners in SCKLIM. Out of courtesy i asked one guy "abg tadi lari ker?" He answered in affirmative. "Lari category mana?" i asked. "Half marathon", he responded. It was rather an unexpected answer. "Timing abg macam mana?" I asked further. "2 jam 10 min camtu", he told me. There was I, thinking that finishing 10k was such a great achievement but being humbled by this unpretentious guys. I was further humbled when he told me that a couple of their frens were doing full marathon and all of them are from geng surau seksyen 7, shah alam. His parting words were "elok kita org islam masuk aktiviti macam ini. Islam mmg suruh kita jaga kesihatan". I thanked him for that piece of advise.
These ppl reminds me that fitness wise, i am nothing! All this while i had been neglecting and abusing my body. Infact i had my cigarette after my breakfast with Fariz! Thats it! Enough of giving excuses. I will start running..................irregardless of how slow that run will be.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur International Marathon 2009 (SCKLIM 09)- 10k Run (Flash Back 1)
How it Started
It all started one day, sometimes in late may 2009. I was at home, around 6pm something. I went straight home from a mtg with a client. No point going back to my office if I have to spend 1 hr in the KL evening hour rush. Got a call at my mobile. Gosh! i dreaded calls at this hour, hate it when a client wants me to look at some document on an urgent basis and to revert to him/her ASAP as he/she needs to present it to the Board meeting the next day etc..etc. U know at the end of the day, I was just being a victim of somebody's poor time management but i accept it as my job hazard though I will not entertain a "bad pay master". Pls wait for tomorrow ok!
The call was from Fariz, my office mate. "Hey, aku dgn Gies (another office mate) nak register StanChart 10k run. Kau nak join sekali?" "Bila event tu", I asked him. "27 June", he replied, "sebulan lebih lagi, sempat training" he added. Hmm, 10k, that is far, very far i told myself but hantam saja lah, at least its for fun and with that in mind i confirmed my participation "Hmm...ok kot. Orait, i'll join u guys". "I passed u the form later" he said before ended the call.
After that i kept thinking. The longest distance that i'd ever ran for the past 3 years is 3.6 km (9 laps of the 400m running track at padang sultan sulaiman, Klang). That was the best that I could do! infact my most recent run (which was 2 weeks back, i only did 3 km around my neighbourhood and i ran really slow just to get to that distance). How on earth could i run 10k. This is crazy. Its Ok, i consoled myself, Fariz said we got 1 month to train, shud be orait then. At that point, for a totally ignorant ppl like me on the "science of running", the term "training", at least in my mind, is my once a week run (during weekend) where I will try to put whatever xtra km that i could in that run. Hahahaha, what a wishful thinking.
Fast forward, 2 weeks went by and i only did one run for a pathetic 3 km. Seems that I'd perfectly trained my body to run up to that distance only! Up until 2 weeks before the race day, my mind was occupied by all sort of things except running. My schedule was tight and I was bogged down with works and works and works. I told myself that I will tell Fariz and Gies that I would give SCKLIM 2009 a pass, that I am perfectly happy with my once a week/fortnight 3km run until Gies came to my room one evening and asked me, "kau dah training ker?". I answered, nope, not really. I told him that i may not turn up on the race day. He sort of scolded me and said to the effect of just do it. He told me that he did a time trial for 10k at FRIM the recent weekend and managed to finish well within qualifying time. Yes, for your info, our target is just to finish within the qualifying time, of course secretly i suspected my frens were targetting to do better than that. That fired me up a bit and I then told myself that i will make sure that i'll do my run at Kiara Park the coming weekend. Fariz told me the distance of the smaller loop is 1.2km.
Came saturday, i went to Kiara Park in the evening. It was my first time there and saw a crowd of runners doing their chores and i suspected that quite a number of them were preparing for the SCKLIM. After a bit of stretching, I started my run, i think a bit over pace at my then fitness level as I was huffing and puffing by my 2 1/2 loop, i.e. 3km! Stopped and walked and continued my run at the starting point of my third loop and managed to finish the loop but stopped and walked at the ascending part of the subsequent loop and ran at the descending portions until i finished 8 1/2 loops, i.e. 10km around 87 minutes. I wished i could do better and decided that i will run again the next day.
The next day, about same time, i brought along my entire family to Kiara Park. One good thing about Kiara Park is that it has a small stream running through. At least the kids can enjoy themselves playing in the stream whilst i do my run. I made sure I ran at the correct pace this time and I managed to run non-stop for about 3.8km but after that I started my run/walk routine as the day before. The result, 10k in about 85 mins. Not much improvement from the day before but i started to believe that to finish 10k in 90 mins is doable, and hopefully the adrenaline and the excitement on the race day will push me to the finish line in time.....hopefully.
6 days before race day, on wednesday i decided to do my final run at Kiara Park. Left office earlier and reached Kiara Park around 5.30 pm but minutes later the wheather turned awry and there u go, a heavy down pour! Patiently waited and at 6.45pm i started my run once the rain turned into a drizzle. Completed 4 loops (4.8km) and I stopped once I heard the azan maghrib from Taman Tun mosque.
The next day, I accidently noticed in the SCKLIM website that the distance of the smaller loop at Kiara Park is only 1.1km. That translates my 10km during my time trial run to be off about nearly 1km! The news dented my confidence a bit but then I told myself that finishing in 90 mins is still doable if i pushed myself enuf during the race. I then waited for that day to come.
Next Entry- The Race Day
It all started one day, sometimes in late may 2009. I was at home, around 6pm something. I went straight home from a mtg with a client. No point going back to my office if I have to spend 1 hr in the KL evening hour rush. Got a call at my mobile. Gosh! i dreaded calls at this hour, hate it when a client wants me to look at some document on an urgent basis and to revert to him/her ASAP as he/she needs to present it to the Board meeting the next day etc..etc. U know at the end of the day, I was just being a victim of somebody's poor time management but i accept it as my job hazard though I will not entertain a "bad pay master". Pls wait for tomorrow ok!
The call was from Fariz, my office mate. "Hey, aku dgn Gies (another office mate) nak register StanChart 10k run. Kau nak join sekali?" "Bila event tu", I asked him. "27 June", he replied, "sebulan lebih lagi, sempat training" he added. Hmm, 10k, that is far, very far i told myself but hantam saja lah, at least its for fun and with that in mind i confirmed my participation "Hmm...ok kot. Orait, i'll join u guys". "I passed u the form later" he said before ended the call.
After that i kept thinking. The longest distance that i'd ever ran for the past 3 years is 3.6 km (9 laps of the 400m running track at padang sultan sulaiman, Klang). That was the best that I could do! infact my most recent run (which was 2 weeks back, i only did 3 km around my neighbourhood and i ran really slow just to get to that distance). How on earth could i run 10k. This is crazy. Its Ok, i consoled myself, Fariz said we got 1 month to train, shud be orait then. At that point, for a totally ignorant ppl like me on the "science of running", the term "training", at least in my mind, is my once a week run (during weekend) where I will try to put whatever xtra km that i could in that run. Hahahaha, what a wishful thinking.
Fast forward, 2 weeks went by and i only did one run for a pathetic 3 km. Seems that I'd perfectly trained my body to run up to that distance only! Up until 2 weeks before the race day, my mind was occupied by all sort of things except running. My schedule was tight and I was bogged down with works and works and works. I told myself that I will tell Fariz and Gies that I would give SCKLIM 2009 a pass, that I am perfectly happy with my once a week/fortnight 3km run until Gies came to my room one evening and asked me, "kau dah training ker?". I answered, nope, not really. I told him that i may not turn up on the race day. He sort of scolded me and said to the effect of just do it. He told me that he did a time trial for 10k at FRIM the recent weekend and managed to finish well within qualifying time. Yes, for your info, our target is just to finish within the qualifying time, of course secretly i suspected my frens were targetting to do better than that. That fired me up a bit and I then told myself that i will make sure that i'll do my run at Kiara Park the coming weekend. Fariz told me the distance of the smaller loop is 1.2km.
Came saturday, i went to Kiara Park in the evening. It was my first time there and saw a crowd of runners doing their chores and i suspected that quite a number of them were preparing for the SCKLIM. After a bit of stretching, I started my run, i think a bit over pace at my then fitness level as I was huffing and puffing by my 2 1/2 loop, i.e. 3km! Stopped and walked and continued my run at the starting point of my third loop and managed to finish the loop but stopped and walked at the ascending part of the subsequent loop and ran at the descending portions until i finished 8 1/2 loops, i.e. 10km around 87 minutes. I wished i could do better and decided that i will run again the next day.
The next day, about same time, i brought along my entire family to Kiara Park. One good thing about Kiara Park is that it has a small stream running through. At least the kids can enjoy themselves playing in the stream whilst i do my run. I made sure I ran at the correct pace this time and I managed to run non-stop for about 3.8km but after that I started my run/walk routine as the day before. The result, 10k in about 85 mins. Not much improvement from the day before but i started to believe that to finish 10k in 90 mins is doable, and hopefully the adrenaline and the excitement on the race day will push me to the finish line in time.....hopefully.
6 days before race day, on wednesday i decided to do my final run at Kiara Park. Left office earlier and reached Kiara Park around 5.30 pm but minutes later the wheather turned awry and there u go, a heavy down pour! Patiently waited and at 6.45pm i started my run once the rain turned into a drizzle. Completed 4 loops (4.8km) and I stopped once I heard the azan maghrib from Taman Tun mosque.
The next day, I accidently noticed in the SCKLIM website that the distance of the smaller loop at Kiara Park is only 1.1km. That translates my 10km during my time trial run to be off about nearly 1km! The news dented my confidence a bit but then I told myself that finishing in 90 mins is still doable if i pushed myself enuf during the race. I then waited for that day to come.
Next Entry- The Race Day
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Recitals......
Hi, never thought of creating a blog. But there must be a first to everything rite! So, here I am, trying to write my newly acquired interest....running.
I was never a runner since school days. I love sports but distance running was totally out from my mind. A quick dash of 100m might sound interesting (though i never won any medal in any sprint race i participated at school level) but I would frown if asked to participate in any distance exceeding 400m. Hate when i need to gasp for more air.....you know that feeling when u are short of breath. The shorter the distance and period the better.
I was never a runner since school days. I love sports but distance running was totally out from my mind. A quick dash of 100m might sound interesting (though i never won any medal in any sprint race i participated at school level) but I would frown if asked to participate in any distance exceeding 400m. Hate when i need to gasp for more air.....you know that feeling when u are short of breath. The shorter the distance and period the better.
I am quite fortunate that I did not start from zero. For the past 3 years, i tried to jog a short distance of 2km to 3km (top) once in a fortnight (yeah, I really struggled to reach that 3km distance), more of trying to maintain a certain level of fitness for myself. Yes I know that is a pathetic level but its better than no km at all :-)
Then it all started about 4 months ago, the SCKLIM. The eye opener...the wake-up call...the beginning. Though in a snail pace, i am surely moving forward and will not retreat from this new journey, Insyallah.
Till then.
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