Starting The Year With A New Year Run

2019 for me started with a 10K at KL New Year Run which was held at Dataran Merdeka. The run saw more than 7,000 runners participating in either the 10K, 5K or family run categories.

I registered myself for a 10K and this was my first race after Okhost-Abashiri Marathon in September last year. Yup, that long.

The route took us from Dataran Merdeka to Jalan Raja Chulan then Jalan Sultan Ismail, Jalan Kuching then a bit of Bukit Tunku before we made our way back to Dataran via Jalan Parlimen.

It was a nice route for me as it was easier than what a 10K route from Dataran Merdeka used to be. Less elevation! Hahaha

I haven't been training much so I took it easy and did the 1K run + 100m walk routine throughout the 10K route. 

With such a huge turnout of runners for the 10K category, the start was slow. I only cleared the Start Line 2:30min after flag-off and slowly made my way through the route along with other runners.

I think it was as we were running towards Jalan Raja Chulan that I saw an injured pedestrian (his head was hurt, if I am not mistaken) being led by a female runner. He was shouting "Get the police!" Oh dear, I hope nothing seriously bad happened to him but kudos to the female runner who was assisting him.

3 water stations were available for runners, located 3km apart. I reached the first water station and saw the crew being quite undermanned. A crew was busy putting out paper cups but no one was assisting her to pour water to runners. Since I wasn't in a rush or anything, I grabbed a bottle of mineral water and started to fill up cups for others. Better do something to help ease the crowd than just complaining, right?

There were no bike marshalls seen along the route at all while I was running, other than for the lead runners but traffic police and road marshalls were placed along busy junctions. But without busy traffic and roads leading out to Jalan Kuching closed for us, it was rather nice to run.

A lane was coned-off for runners along Jalan Kuching towards Bank Negara and fortunately, not much traffic plying the road so we ran pretty easy along the stretch.

I reached the second water station and this time, I saw the crew serving Lucozade drinks from cans. 

This 325ml can.

And I was like, WTF? 

Not only kesian the runners having to wait but also to the crew who had to open each can and served the energy drinks in cups.

The crews at the last water station apologised to us for being slow but I told them not to worry. It's not easy to open each can quickly anyway.

Dunno who lah got the bright idea to put can Lucozade at water stations and then made the crew pour it into paper cups some more.

Weather wise, Sunday was perfect. 

I enjoyed my run. I saw a few friends stopping to take selfies and I decided to photobomb their photos. Sorry! hahaha

KL New Year Run was essentially just a simple, no frills run albeit the rather huge number of participants.

The Finish Line was a bit chaotic as there was no crowd control in front of the Finish Line and a whole lot of runners were standing around to take their photos with their medals in front of the arch, not really concerned about blocking the path for runners who were finishing.

I crossed the Finish Line, took my medal, then made a beeline for post-race refreshment. 

Instead of handing out a can of Lucozade drink or mineral water to each runner who had finished, we got our drinks served in paper cups. So, what else? Long queues.

Some lucky folks managed to bring back packs of 6 Lucozade though. Lucky buggers.

I got my drink and bread and waited for the lucky draw winners to be announced. 

I didn't win the grand prize - bicycles but I managed to get a free sports bra. Haha

I didn't expect much from the run so I enjoyed myself. It was nice to finally be back to run in a race and meeting up running friends.

Some photos taken during KL New Year Run (for 10K runners finishing between 1:00 - 1:27 hour) can be viewed at Cik Arnab & En Kura-Kura Facebook page.

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