I Walked This Run

Today’s Standard Chartered Fun Run was held in conjunction of the “Himpunan Sejuta Belia” or Millions of Youth Gathering event. The best part of this run was it’s FREE! Instead of joining my age group and do 5K Women Senior, decided to go for 8K Women Open. This is part of my “training” for SCKLM in June konon-kononnya. I know I have this resolution of not doing anything less than 10K this year, but again – this is a FREE run! We love free stuff! Also, the month of May saw me doing two runs (the other one was the Larian Bomba on May 6th) instead of one; because 1. it’s free 2. it’s in Putrajaya.

Weeks after registering for the run, I seriously had doubts running it. For one, it starts at 8.00am and I was very much ready to DNS it. Do you know how hot it is at 8.00am now? Secondly, the route was in the shadeless Putrajaya. Again, it’s hot and without shades. OK, so I’m used to running at that time in Putrajaya on weekends but those were slow runs. Plus I usually start at 7.00am and finish by 8.30am. It’s not easy to run let alone race while getting baked under the sun! I always come back looking like a “kuda belang” if I did a late morning run there.

Hence, the full compression wear I decided to don for the Fun Run. I feel a bit “poyo” wearing it for a short 8K run, but as Zaini said – who cares about what others think. My comfort should be priority. By the way, this was actually taken after the Run. ^^

Back to the Fun Run. Collected my race kit the week before. Race kit collection was painless enough. Very straightforward but getting to the race kit collection site was a nightmare! It was the day Kelantan FC had a match with Sime Darby FC at Stadium Bukit Jalil and the roads and the surrounding area were jam packed with a sea of Kelantan supporters, all decked in red. Traffic jam!

 The starting line for 8K

The sea of people running 8K this morning. Can you spot me? I hyperventilated about which running vest to wear for this run days before the run. Why? For obvious reason - to make sure Zaini can spot me in any huge crowd and then, I can spot myself in the photos! LOL (psst... look for a pink cap) ^^ Anyhoo, you know you are not serious about a race when you care more about what to wear than whether you can actually run the race. ha!

Started the run with... a walk. Cannot run lah. Way to many people in front of me. I started at the back because by the time we got to the park at Presint 4, it was about 4 minutes before the flag-off. When lah I want to learn to be early to a race site?

3K Costume Run participants. They have my respect and admiration. I can hardly jog under the scorching sun and they are running in the heat in costumes? Salute, man. By the way, just look at the boy's expression looking at those happily "weird" runners. kakaka

The starting line for the Costume Run. Got Naruto. Got Pocahontas. Got Kermit. Got sami/monk. Spongebob also came (Patrick was MIA. kakaka) Saw Jessie of Toy Story somewhere.

 

 Costume Run runners sprinting towards the finish line.

 

and here's me, faking a run. I was already prepared for a slow timing for this run. Did I mention that the day was HOT? I can't deal with heat. Anyhoo, decided not to push it and get a heatstroke doing it. That's why I ran with my water bottle today. So I ran at a pace of 6:00 for the first 3K. Walk up the PICC hill. Jog down. Pushed a bit on the flat ground. Walk when there were inclines though I did push a bit going up the Seri Gemilang Bridge but stopped and walk halfway despite the many photographers there. (I usually pretend to run whenever I see photographers. haha) A combo of warm-up run (since I didn't do it prior to the start), walk, drink, jog, run, walk and smile smile at photogs for an overall of 7min pace for this 8K run. 56minutes 13 seconds. Slow, easy and "toasted". At least I won't be needing to take an MC on Monday to recover from this! LOL

After the run, we walked all the way up to the Ministry of Finance checking out the booths that were set-up along the route for the Himpunan Sejuta Belia event. There's even a Sasuke area set-up. It's yet to open when we were there this morning though. Would be fun seeing contestants doing it.

Plenty of youths about. There is a scout jamboree by the lakeside, so plenty of scouts going about. Youths "rempit"ing on motorbikes and bicycles too. Plenty of booths to suit everyone and the area (Presint 2 - 4, all 6K of it) will sure be packed by noon! Tomorow would be the last day of this Himpunan Sejuta Belia and there'll be an ekiden run tomorrow. Whose entering?

Next run : SCKLM Half Marathon on June 26th.