What Next?



Colour coded. Blue is HM, Yellow for FM. Purple for postponed races

 What a year it is, 2013. Running in races, that is.

I registered in 24 races in total for 2013..

Only managed to do 17 with two more to go. DNS (Did Not Start 5).

One because of injury. Two because of lack of training, after recovering from an injury and part of it; pure laziness.

One because of postponement and I can’t afford to run in it on the new date.

One, because of change of venue and it became too far and too inconvenient to run in it.

Not a good year. One race offered to refund runners not willing to participate due to the change of venue. That’s rather an exception rather than the rule here. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my refund. They printed out the tees and medals it seems and I was too late requesting it. Ooookay.

The one that was postponed in May; it was just burnt money for me. Registration fee, shuttle bus fee that was paid to the organizer and also the donation made (yeah, I’m being calculative). Let’s not talk about flight tickets and travel arrangement.

One, Zaini ran on my behalf. (sue us)

I’ve never complained about this ever. I sucked it up and be a “good” runner, co-operating with race organizers and adhering to race rules as stipulated in the race guides.

Most times, when races are postponed and the new date clashes with another race; we runners are not offered an option for a refund or a way to have the bib officially changed to another runner’s name to not let it go to waste. Or maybe they did, but they don't advertise the fact. Of course, race organizers won’t feel it was wasteful lah kannnnnn… After all, it’s all according to race organizers discretion. Fair or otherwise.

All in all, a lot of money burnt.

So I am gonna change for 2014. Instead of blaming others, pointing fingers or judge people; I am going to change what I can change. ME.

I am going to stop being so excited about entering and paying for road races that I may or may not be able to run in. Most times, if I can’t run; I don’t really have any option other than seeing my hard-earned money gone to waste. There’s always this clause of “no transfer of bib” and “no refund” by race organizers. No negotiation. Full stop. Tough luck, babe. Suck it up. This is SPORT. (and here I thought I was doing this for fun and the love of running).

It’s not really a good option for runners; not when even a 12K event opens their registration 6 months before the race date! Female runners can get pregnant in-between registering for a race and race date tau! (Ops) Then how? Dah burn…

This is also not good for newbie runners who most, if not all; are not minutely updated on what races are being opened for registration.

I wonder how other countries can accept registration up to the day before (some on race day itself) but not here. Because we are all a bunch of kiasu runners izit? Because ordering event tees need 3 months to print izit? Medals too, I guess.

Sorry race organizers if I’m being unfair about this. But please, get down from your high-horses and think about us runners’ predicament, once in a while. Yes, we understand you face lots of problems and issues that we don't foresee. But life is hard. Life is hard for us too, you know.

I’m going to miss the race excitement. Running in a race with like-minded people is fun. I do it for the fun of it. Running in races is probably the only way I can get up early in the morning and run long distances without worrying too much about my personal safety. At a price, of course. The price is getting higher and higher, by the way. So so darn expensive to even run a 10K event now.

Anyway, I am not a runner who really gives a hoot about nice event tee or medals. I don’t even hang my medals. The only ones that sees the daylight is my MWM 2013 dog tag finisher medal, and that’s because I can wear it as a piece of jewellery. The rest, are all stashed in my mooncake boxes. What I care is running in it, not how I can show-off a piece of metal. And no, no need to give me an 8K “finisher tee”. I don’t even want a 15K finisher tee, if you dole out that kind of thing.

So yeah, no see you in 2014? I’ll probably do a Millie and do like 3-4 races only in 2014 because no way I wanna do a 42K run alone but that’s about it.

There goes my blog traffic, I guess. I do get crazy traffic when it comes to race recaps. I am eternally grateful for the four-digits pageviews for each of my race recaps. But ah well… four-digits pageviews doesn't pay for my race fees.

I am feeling disillusioned.

Anyway, let’s hashtag this :

#flipshair

#divatantrum

#drama

#Iamentitledtomyopinion

#youareentitledtoyours

#somepeoplejudgewithoutofferingsolutions

#kalauakukayalaincerita

#inisemuapoyo

#korangpunpoyo

#sayahanyasemutmerah

HAHAHA

p.s. I’ll run in Alpha Run if they’ll have it in 2014. It was a good, properly organized fun run for a mere RM8 fee. Kan Faei? Nita? Gai? ;-)

And yes, Jufri. I might consider UKM Victory Run again just because of

1. challenging route

2. last minute registration accepted

And this, despite me trashing the race organizer when I ran it earlier. ^^ See ya there again in 2014?

Hell! I think I’ll do Seremban Half Marathon again too!This race, no need to be kiasu register half a year in advance!

800+ words worth of ranting. Whoah!