Long delayed race report

This time round there were only six of us from our Klang gang who were going for the NB15k race. Peter, Lee, Leow, Lim and myself car pooled in Lim's car. Gopu was going to meet us in Bukit Aman. By the time we managed to find a spot for parking, it was almost 6.30am.

The race site was full of activity when we arrived there. However there was no sign of where we were to register ourselves and most of the runners were looking lost, especially when the start time was getting closer.

All of a sudden, many unfamiliar faces suddenly appeared at the main road and started calling for us to submit our registration cards. We were then given a ribbon each. I recognised some of the officials from FTAAA. This form of registration was surprisingly efficient as everyone would be proactive in ensuring they register themselves to get the ribbon, so they could get the finishers medal at the end

Once we started, I was running at quite a moderate pace. I remember Randy passing me at the Bank Negara intersection and told me that this was not a practice run... haha! The first few kilometres felt quite comfortable and the hills didnt seem to pose much of a problem. I was trying to keep up with Uncle Wong from Klang and use him as my pacer, but after lugging myself up double hill miraculosly without walking, I started to lose steam and had to let him move on ahead.

Along the way back towards the Jln Duta I saw km markers saying 5km to go, and 4km to go. I couldn't understand what it meant, but I knew that there was at least another 9km to go at that juncture. Those signs actually misled many runners, especially those who were not familiar with the route and those who were taking it as a fun run

I managed to hold a steady pace right up to the point where we turned back up towards the Tunku hills for the second time. My watch was showing about 46min at that point. This time my mind just took over and thats when all the walking started. From that point onwards, I found myself taking short walk breaks at almost every tough hill, this was definitely not part of the plan!! I am WEAK in the mind

Runner after runner started overtaking me and my confidence was crushed. Then came the KNN man and Carboman, both whom have not been getting much training recently (or so they say haha), and when I saw them whiz past me I got a little lame inspiration to follow suit but it didn't really last for long.

Clearing the Jln Duta u-turn and then the final hill passing the palace, I finally got an adrenalin rush which allowed me to bring in my finishing kick for the last 1.5km. My initial target was to complete the run in 1h30m and I knew that it was still within my reach. What made me even more frustrated was when I realised how much energy I had left in that last 1k.

Passing so many runners in the last 1k didn't really feel that good. In fact it put me to shame as I saw that most of these runners had put in their best in the race, and here I was with all this energy left in the last few hundred metres. I crossed the finishing line by clocking a time of 1h28m44s. My next race will be the PJ Half. With the amount of time I have for training now, I will be glad just to get a cert and finish within 2h15m.