Monday, July 19, 2010

Siemens 10km Run

I actually prescribed myself with a zero running weekend during this last weekend prior to PD triathlon – with the main thought to give more rest to the knees. When Saturday’s plan for a swim did not get materialized, I secretly made a plan for a solo run on Sunday morning, as a revenge.

I did not really know which route to run. All I wanted was to do some low mileage, slow run. Just-enough-to-break-the-sweat kind of plan. I was partially aware that Siemens run would take place at Dataran Merdeka on the same morning, but that was not my initial plan (hey, I did not even intend to pirate the run... hehe). I parked my car at Bukit Aman, and as I was about to head out running towards my normal LSD route towards Hartamas, I spotted Julie and AJ and they offered me a Siemens run bib number they have spare, if I want to run the race.

So, I tucked in the race bib on my fuel belt, and changed my mind. I joined them towards Dataran Merdeka and as I was approaching, the memory of last KL Marathon came to mind. I could again feel the excitement of being in a race environment. I whispered a little prayer for my knees to stay tough, as I was about to do my first ever 10km race run.

Yeah, no kidding. I never did a 10km standalone run before (except for the run in triathlon la).

Not bringing any PowerBar gel, not knowing the race route at all and not really know what to expect out of this short run race, I can say this was one of the most unprepared run ever. I was only hoping that my usual slices of bread and Gatorade pre-run meal which I had during the drive will suffice me with the energy needed for the run. And since Julie said she won’t be pushing it hard as well, I made a plan to just stick with her pace for as long as I could survive. If you know how fast she can really run (if she chooses to), you’ll be as nervous as I was. But I was mentally ready to be dropped at anytime if I can’t take it (with her speed). AJ and Stupe was also in sight during the start. It was such a pleasure to be among our local Ironman triathletes. Naik semangat sikit.

Meet Ijam, in his first ever special appearance.
He’ll be very famous, if he continues doing this, surely.

Among the crowds at the front of the starting line.

I mingled around with two Ironman triathletes before the start, Stupe (left) and AJ (right).
Stupe’s wife, Aileen in the middle.

Noticed the “queen FMV” in the famous FMV vest (black/yellow>?
I guess she was looking out for somebody selling karipap at Dataran.

The big guy from Siemens gunned off the runners at 0730hrs sharp. Since I was somehow in the first 30% of the front crowd, I slowly made my move with them, with extra care not to trip down or hit other runners. A little bit of zig-zagging was required during the first few hundred metres, while slowly residing to a comfortable pace. For me, the crowd was very huge. Not always I can see this big of runners in the full marathon races I did before. Hopefully one day the full marathon runners will grow this large.

Among the crowd, I heard Nadia calling up my name.
If you could see her hair knots, you would say she resembles Pocahontas. Hehhehe.

The route quickly detoured into Bank Negara, and straight up the usual hills towards Bukit Tunku.
I was maintaining my pace, holding on to control the breathing.

At the first few two or three water stations, I saw the most havoc situations in my whole experience of running.
Luckily I was equipped with Gatorade in my Fuel Belt bottles.

As always, I’m not good with explaining the route we ran. Some areas were within my familiar zone, and I lost it at some other foreign regions. But the overall course was a good mixture of undulation inclines and declines, with lots of flats. I was glad that I can run the whole route without any stops or walks. Perhaps, pacing with Julie has helped me a lot. She looked strong and steady all the way.

Somewhere along the route, Zigman CheRaMiChe (Daud) overtook me sambil senyum-senyum je.

After the KM6 mark, we were running towards Dataran Merdeka again. The turnaround point as we were running on Jalan Raja Laut was very far. If it was a full marathon category, I’m sure everybody would be swearing out loudly in that final 3km. Luckily this time it was only a 10km run.

As we made the final turnaround and into Jalan TAR, Julie and I started to increase our pace a little bit. I started to feel a slight discomfort on my right knee, but kept on plodding along with her carefully. If there’s one thing I felt annoyed with the run yesterday was that, the F and G categories of runners (I think they ran the 6km category) were walking across the pathway where lots of other runners from 10km categories like us were still running, fast. I mean, we wouldn’t mind if they want to walk or run slowly. But please, if you have to resolve into walking or much slower pace, please walk at the side of the road and give some space for runners coming from behind. Good enough the runners did not just push and run into you guys. At least we have some respect for every participant, so please have some common sense for us as well. And another down side note was that, the volunteers manning the area did not do anything much of help either. They did not even instruct the slow walkers to make way for much more faster runners coming from the back.

Example of some walkers spreading out almost the whole width of the running area.
At certain points, we runners had to zig-zag our ways out of them, or ran on the outer side (getting nearer to other road users, buses, cars etc).
Dangerous la like that.

Into the final 1km (if I’m not mistaken), we somehow bumped into Syah. We started our sprint and it was fun to be able to push it to the max at the final stage of a run. We were like racing with each other to the finish line and as we crossed it, my stopwatch showed 1hr30secs. OK lah tu, kan? Slow and steady je. I was saving my legs for this coming weekend’s triathlon.

Great “strolling” buddies, Syah and Julie. Both of them are strong runners that I had difficulties in keeping up.

I took it as a good training run for myself, and as a gauge to see how my ITB would behave under such a torment. Well, the ITB pain came again at the end of the run. And I’m now re-evaluating my targets for PD triathlon this week. Janji habis je lah.

While cooling myself down, I mingled around with the rest of the friends, looking for some ‘special materials’ for this blog. Macam biasalah. Enjoy!

KA was running away from the Tok Mudim.
Ziff was singing; “Lenggang hai lenggang kangkung, kangkung tepi Dataran... ewaahhh!!”
Ijam should have won the fanciest runner of the day award, if there were any.
Zaki: “Jangan tangkap saya tok!! Saya tak pakai apa-apa kat dalam ni! Kain batik ni pun saya rembat bini saya punya… ampun!!”

Even a handicapped person can run 10km lah. So, what are you still doing on the couch in front of the telly hah?

The very last runner (in blue top) came in just under 2 hours.

“Wooppp.. tunggu tunggu!! Karipap belum sampai lagi ye. Tokey besar karipap dari Andalas belum sampai lagi ni haa. Sabar, sabar…”

Pelari-pelari bawah umur. Baru lepas jumpa tok mudim!

Queen FMV with her dayang-dayang.
Psst June, vest FVM tu memang outstanding lah. Well done!
Err… Azza, I know karipap tak sampai-sampai lagi, tapi jangan la makan kertas tu kot ye pun, takde vitamin pun. Hhihihi.

Zaki: “Bro, lain kali cukur la sikit bulu kaki ni. Dah panjang sangat dah ni, habis terbelit kat tali kasut ni haa…”
KA: “Ooh, panjang sangat ke? Wa ingat bulu kaki panjang la rock sikit!”

Ziff: “Eh bro, ini style ikat mati ke ikat pengsan ni?”
Zaki: “Ini namanya style ikat koma. Selagi kau tak koma, selagi tu lah takleh bukak ikatan ni.”

Alahai.. manjanya. Aaawww!!!

36 comments:

Unknown said...

Eh! Putih pulak kaki aku tuh! :P

iamsyah said...

wa echo your first 2 paragraphs :D

and zaki, betis kau memang gebu.... hahahaha kena jemur sikit tuh! bagi tan lines sikit

EnAikAY said...

Other than the kain batik, did you also kebas your wife's SKII sebotol for your legs? ahahahaa..

EnAikAY said...

Syah..
Yes yes, echo wa panjang, echo lu pendek.

Come and join me do triathlon je lah bro... more fun!
(I echo my own comment on your blog).. ahhhaha.

RaYzeef said...

Nik memang frust lah..

tunggu tokey karipap tak muncul muncul..

akhirnya semua makan manggis..terbaek dari ladang :)

Anonymous said...

AMBOI!!!

EnAikAY said...

Ray,
Tokey karipap pegi secret training kot..

Haza,
Hik hik hik...

Diket said...

So you almost pirate this one also ye? Hehe. Lucky you. Nice run there. Please take care of the knee ok. And wishing you an enjoyful PD triathlon. Too bad I can't stay till Sunday. Hometown folks coming to KL.

EnAikAY said...

Shakhir,
I thought u pirated Siemens run too, rupa2nya lu pegi training Tarzan kat bukit apek eh?
Good luck to your kiddo's triathlon this Saturday.
Nnti wa sampai PD wa call lu (utk paksa lu belanja wa makan).

Che said...

Nik, the picture and its caption are the best! esp yg last2 tu.. haha.. kelakar sungguh. Rugi tak stay back. Mmg org pakai sarung manja2 ek? hehe :P sorry i dont slow down. enjoying the moment, akhirnya korang potong gak..

TokZ bwk manggis yg best!

tsar said...

yup, your captions are da*n hilarious! :'D if i didn't know better, i would have thought you were in the clown outfit.

so u're swimming with the camera as well next week? :)

EnAikAY said...

Daud,
I didn't realized overtaking u at all masa kat final KM tu. I was focused not to bust up my knee. Lari berhati2 tengok bawah je gaya seorang jejaka pemalu. hihihi.

Zarin,
Ahah.. finally we met. Janganla malu2 kucing.
Clown outfit Ijam dah pakai...

Next week, i'll race camera-less. Mesti boring piang!

ziff71 said...

LoL...mmg lawak piang! Dah lari dgn awek besi, kene jadi org besi jugak..Cak pong Cak pong cak pong (ni apply untuk Syah sekali cak pong cak pong)

shuklazim said...

hahaha....towkay karipap dah bersuara tu oi! baik korang mintak maap cepat.

gambar last memang baek....awwww! cakpong cakpong

June Malik said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
June Malik said...

love ur captions .. i now have dayang and also loyal subjects (rayzeef katalah), kakak karipap sure bengang piang LOL .. had fun with u guys and gambar last tu memang manja giler!

iamsyah said...

ewah ziff... tak cukup kau lambung basikal, kau lambug aku kat sini jugak hhah... bernanah telinga capang gua.... cakpong, cakpong

ziff71 said...

Syah, ada peluang lambong tak boleh bg miss, rugi hehehe. Nanti aku recce kan beskal second hand kalau kau nak..cakpong cakpong cakpong

Anonymous said...

Aish...where got marah. No good to angry angry, nanti lekas tua.

Good luck in PD!

Azza said...

Hahaha..i always enjoy funny captions like these :D. Habis lari azza mmg lapar gila sbb x sempat mkn apa pun pagi tuh...not only me, org sebelah pun siap gigit jari lagi tawww :D Wish u all d best in Pd ok!

Deo said...

caption best, comments pun best. dah macam chat box pulak. adehhhh heheheh

EnAikAY said...

Ziff,
Lawak piang pun wujud?
Event org besi edisi 2011 cancel. Kena tunggu lain tahun lah.

Shuk,
Tokey karipap tu dah bersuara sbb nak bagitau karipap dia dah siap...

June,
Note to all: Be careful (read: please behave) when u see EnAikAY with his camera... har har har..

Haza,
Err.. kaunter jualan karipap cawangan PD tak bukak ke Ahad ni?
Hihihi.. Thank u.

Azza,
That's why.. ramai org komplen kat FB sbb karipap lambat sampai. Semua org kelaparan... :)
Thanks for dropping by. Please come again.. :)

Deo,
Karipap Andalas lagi best!

June Malik said...

alamak, sorry haza bukan kakak karipaplah dok baca karipap tulis karipap, kakak nasi lemakkkk LOL

Khairul Anuar said...

Tergelak-gelak baca post ni. As usual, it's always entertaining. Thanx Nik. Good luck in PD!

EnAikAY said...

KA,
Seeing all these, don't u feel like having your own blog?
*wink wink*

Ms Road Runner said...

well done on 'accidentally' completing your 10km nik! ;) your pictures and captions are hilarious! hehe... good luck again for your PD triathlon! :)

EnAikAY said...

Nana,
Yes.. "Accidento" it was.
Who knows one day ur photo will appear on this blog, with more hilarious caption.
The question is, sanggup ke? hihihi.
Thanks. Meh la dtg PD kalau free.

Ms Road Runner said...

haha... sanggup, for the love of running, letak saje la... ;) i won't be in town this weekend, but will be there in spirit... majulah sukan untuk negara! ;)

EnAikAY said...

Ok Nana, but don't say i didn't warn you ok! :)

Julin Julai said...

mak aii..zaki nye kaki punya la gebu ngalahkan anak dara.
and are you sure the clown is Ijam? yo yo la korang percaya..ntah mamat mana ntah tu..wwakakaka.
Jgn mara yee..
p/s Good luck for PD. make it worth shaving your legs for.

EnAikAY said...

Julin,
Oh ya, thanks for the reminder.
Besok je lah shave. Bahaya kalau bulu kaki panjang sangat ni, nanti terbelit kat rantai basikal. Har har har.

ian yusof said...

gosh ... I missed alot ... mcIjam is the coolest ... :)

Jaja Shah said...

hahaha nik, sabar je lah baca your report

will see u around soon :D

EnAikAY said...

Ian,
Don't worry. It's only the beginning of McIjam. There's be more i'm sure.

Jaja,
Sabar.. jgn tak sabar..
Yeah, see u around soon (tak sabar nak shoot a pic of you, and put 'wonderful' captions on it)
U better behave. Hehehe.

TriStupe said...

Nice one Bro...lawak gila those captions!

EnAikAY said...

Thanks Stupe,
I got nothing better to write i guess... :)