Lanun Orange Run

Beginning of last week, someone told me that there will be BHP Orange Run 9km on Sunday, April 13th, starting from The Curve, Damansara. By the time I knew about that, it was already too late for me to register for it. And that someone told me to just join the run and be a “pirate”.

That Sunday morning, I woke up as early as 5am just to find out heavy rain was pouring down. Then, with the doubt that the run might be cancelled, I continued my sleep. At 6.45am, I woke up again and this time the rain has subsided a bit and I though hmm, maybe the run will be on.

I quickly prepared myself, and rushed out from the house roughly at 7.20am. Fortunate enough my house is situated just a few km from The Curve. For some reason, I did not know what time exactly is the flag off of the run, so I had to slow jog from my house to The Curve, just to make sure I arrived there by 7.30am.

As my watch showed 7.33am, I was about 200m from the starting line and I could hear the gun off has been shot. “Oh man, I’m late!” I saw the runners have started their journey and without wearing any bib number, I just buat-muka-tak-malu and joined the crowd. By the time I reached the starting line, I realised I was in the middle of ladies runners. The male runners have been gunned off perhaps just few minutes earlier.

Well, I did not really start my first run (unregistered) in a good way. First of all, I was late for registration, secondly I was late for the gun off. But, for the sake of experiencing the so called race environment, I just hantam-buat-tak-tau and just ran with the crowd.

It was pretty fun at first, when I was fully energized. My initial plan was to keep on running without stop until the finish line, no matter how slow I run. But, just after 20minutes running, I gave up to my unfit body. I started to walk-run-walk. Distance wise, I would say it was roughly at 4km mark when I started to walk and jog.

As I passed the water station, I saw Stupe standing there talking to Ariff. I did not know them before, but definitely I could recognize Stupe from his blog. So, I stopped and said hi to him, and introduced myself as “Aini’s friend”. He was with Ariff, waiting for Senn I guess.

I continued my walk-run-walk up and down the pretty rolling roads. At about 7km into the run, Stupe and Ariff 'cut-the-vegetable' and passed me like they were flying. Stupe asked me to hop in and draft behind him, so I did. But, I cannot be pacing Ironman la. Not only they are Ironman, they are also superstars in this category. So, after about few minutes running with their 'slow' pace, I dengan segala hormatnya mengundurkan diri and told Stupe and Ariff to continue with their runs to the finish line.

I crossed the finish line with the time of 1:10 and with a painful ibu jari kaki kiri. First reason being that I was not prepared at all to run anything more than 5km on that day, tapi saja gatal tapak kaki to try run 9km. Secondly, I still felt a bit tired since I ter-bonk-ang again during Saturday’s Putrajaya ride. It was only a short 27km ride (initial plan was 46km), but I felt miserable with my performance. Anyway, after the run, I lepak a bit with the superstars Stupe and Ariff, grab some drinks and nasi lemak percuma, and then I walked back home feeling satisfied that I have became one of the lanun for the Orange run.

p/s: Lanun = unregistered runners.

Thanks to Stupe and Ariff for being so friendly and supportive to me on that day. They even suggested me to take up Ironman. They said, “Ironman is totally do-able la Nik, as long as you don’t push yourself too hard”.

So, am I going to register for Ironman 2009? Oh no, no, no. Even if you pay for the registration, I won’t be doing so, at least not for 2009. Wait until I can run 10km within 1hr, and cycle 50km in 1.5hrs, and swim 1km in 0.5hrs, then I might consider registering for it.

Until then, I need more trainings, more long rides, long runs and long swims. (and more blog updates, rite?)