Yours truly registered for the 5km Fun Run (although I really wanted to join the 10km).
Lucky I didn't register for the 10km this year as I was tired after the 5km run. Maybe next year, or maybe not. Maybe not this event after this not-so-pleasant experience.
I managed to drag my lazy ass out of bed at 5.30am this morning (poor me, those 42km runners flagged of at 5am). It was raining heavily at my place, which led me to think if they might cancel the run. (Yes, that lazy-shit thinking kept creeping up, since i wanted to sleep in). Decided no chance in hell I'll not do the run.
Woke my sister up as well as she going there as a photographer. And we left to pick up her friend FO at 6.15am. Since most of the roads around KL has been closed since 5am for the 42km run, we decided to park at KL Sentral and take the train to Masjid Jamek.
Arrived and waited for the rest of my team to arrive. Yes, I registered a team for the 5km Fun Run (I can safely say its no fun ;-p). There were a total of 6 people in this team. And the team name is (drum roll please)..... Boody's Boys and Babes!!! ;-p
Yup, this is us, the motley crew of wannabe runners, hahaha!!!
We met up at Masjid Jamek before heading to Dataran Merdeka where the race was to begin. At about 7.45 we gathered around the Start/Finish line for some warm up before at 8am sharp, we were flagged off.
I had some problems at the start of the race as I had drank too much water just before and I really needed to take a leak somewhere. After running up a hill behind the National Mosque, I passed by a DBKL public toilet. I ran to it only to find that I required 20 cents for entry. I asked the man in charge if I could use it for free as I didn't bring any cash with me. He was kind enough to me to say yes and I promptly did my business and thanked him profusely. I then continued the run as we raced towards the dataran merdeka once againheading back to the Start/Finish line.
This is where the problem began, instead of passing the Start/Finish line, we were redirected onto the field where all the other participants were getting their drinks after the race. Most of the runners for the 5km category were puzzled. Did the race finish already? How come we did not get to pass the Finish line? Most decided that it was the end of the route and started getting their refreshments and as well as resting from the run. I, however, decided to go across the field, behind the Royal Selangor Clubhouse. Thats when i caught sight of a few people of my 5km category who decided to walk further to see if there was more to the route. I joined them aswe asked each other if we were on the right track.
I knew it was not 5km when we got back to the field as I'm sure 5km course is not that short. So with a few ppl of my category in sight, we walked towards Bank Negara and up Jalan Parlimen. However, the longer we walked, the more nervous we became as we didnt see any1 else walking in the same direction as us. Here, I chatted with a little girl who was also running the 5km. She seemed all alone walking with us so I decided I should stick with her, just in case( U know lah, KL crime rate very high). Then we could see other 5km runners as well as some 10 km runners running in the opposite direction, going towards Bank Negara. I ran across theroad to ask them if we were on the right track, they said yeah, just walk all the way up to the Lake Gardens/ Tugu Negara traffice and make a U-turn to join the rest of the ppl. So thats what we did.
I was relieved when we joined back the rest of the crowd, though the were mostly from the 10km category. We ran back to Bank Negara before heading towards Sogo. There we turned back into Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman for the final straight into the Start/Finish Line. As I raced towards the Finish Line, I noticed some of my team mates were already resting by the roadside. They were waving me on. And I was thinking to myself, there's no chance in hell these guys overtook me. THey must have stopped at the padang the first time around. Once I completed the run, I found out it took me a little under and hour to finish the 5km.
Thats me!! Running towards the Finish Line.
Now this is the Picture of me running with the little girl I was talking about. She's trying to overtake me!! And that's me going, "WTF?!?!?"
And this is me thinking," WHere's the competition?"
Why was I so slow? Cause I walked about looking at where I should continue after being led towards the padang earlier. In the end, after coming back and looking at the map, this is the route I took:
We were led to run the route Marked in RED. Then most of the people stopped at the Pink area as they thought the 5km was over. I then continued with a few others after the Pink arrow all the way up to the Tugu Negara traffic light in which I managed to join back the main crowd. I then followed back the original 5km route marked in ORANGE.
All I can say is that I think I definitely did more than 5km, but the thrill was lost as I think about 70% of the people stopped at the padang, hence not many of my fellow 5km runners finish the enitre route.
There was no signs for the runners to show where they were heading. Nobody guided us and told us where to run to. Route management was poor in my opinion. I just followed the crowd and we all ran the wrong way. All my team mates stopped at the Pink arrow which i have made out on the map. It was sad because a lot of people felt short changed.
That was the least of the marathon's problems. Looking at the complaints on the websites, there weremore serious problems like running out of water at water stations for the 42 and 20km runners. Some ppl had to resort to running into 7-11 to buy water!! There are also more issues but I guess this has been highlighted to the organisers on the Facebook page. Hopefully the organisers will seriously buck up or else, this might spell the end of this race in Malaysia.
Anyways, I enjoyed the run as I was motivated to do some serious workout today and I got it. Super duper achy now, but thats alright. Makes me wonder if I can really do the 10km run next year. I was already very tired doing the 5km, as did my friends (who only did half of what I did ;-p). Maybe I shall start running more on treadmill. Maybe...
Boodyboy, out!!
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