Monday, January 19, 2009

Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever


Those were the words, awesome phrase from one of my favorite clips. We have pain, chicks & glory. Pretty significant words in the world of extroverts. And when we add spice & herbs, we get a deep beautiful meaning.

My first longest run & race combined into one superb combo endurance meal. First, I get to add my milage as part of my marathon training program. Second, I successfully logged my first 30k PR in this annual GE30k.

It was rather a cold morning scene at Lake Garden carpark after leaving home at 4.30am as I recalled. The carpark was crowded in a matter of minutes with about 1000 others scattered all over Lake Garden & Bukit Aman. The one hour wait flew unnoticed as my buddies & me rushed for our free half Powerbar for breakfast & our solat. The organiser decided wisely to delay the 30k starting time by 15 minutes to allow fellow muslims perform our morning task.

The run started without much anticipation as we just ran along with the 30k crowd exiting Tapak A towards some mini hills. Squeezing between runners & running up hill in half illuminated path was something to get over with as soon as possible. As soon as we reached Jalan Parlimen, we had a wider & open road for a breather.

The remaining route through Bukit Tunku (Double Hill in reverse) & to Sri Hartamas & back to Lake Garden via Istana Selangor & Tugu Negara was nothing more than hills, hills & endless hills. We have small steep hills & some long gradual ones. The only flat stretch was the 100m Jalan Duta to & fro. One tough route indeed.

Water stations were nicely placed at every 5km except for the last one which took us additional 1km. I walked at all of them taking my time swigging those cold Powerdrinks & cooling skyjuice spending not more than 30 secs.

My pace was great, though buddies complained that it was a bit fast in the beginning. The last stretch from the water station back to Jalan Parlimen was a bit of an ordeal. Every step of the run was painful. It was like running barefoot on beds of nails. Those uneven road surface was pestering. I started to notice most runners have started enjoying the green canopied road strolling along.

I was running with my heart out for the remaining 400m as all those pains & stings perished along the pavement towards the finish line clocking 3hrs 8min. A handful of credits & hurrah goes to Nizam, Saiful, Bacin & Akmal (in timing order) as my training & race buddies. I cherished the time & support from my beloved wife & kids they bestowed. Next chapter is back to the training program.

Split every 5-6km in minutes (water station walk break):
32:39.65 (00:24)
31:28.99 (00:28)
28:22.56 (00:37)
32:02.03 (00:39)
38:53.21 (01:10)
20:15.03

Smile walaupun sakit kaki tahap gaban

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