Let me just go through some thoughts I had pre-run and later I will write about the run itself.
1. Sports gel - Power Bar, you guys must do a better job at getting your gels into the Philippines. Last week, I went looking for gels and they stared at me like I was speaking some foreign tongue - the locals and pharmacies have hardly heard of gels! Then I surfed and found out the gels were in Fitness First, and I ran to Fitness First to look for them, but they were out for the month!!! That is so shocking.... I am sure there must be a better supply chain for gels. I am wondering how runners here survive without gels...
2. The Fort - this has got to be the coolest running practice zone - can you imagine running 1km+ round and round this huge shopping mall - apparently this is such a good running zone that the locals train here every night. We took the opportunity to try this out last Sunday and boy, was it hip - it felt like a people watching scene. One mistake was to start too late to train - because the sun here is almost 1hr ahead, as such starting at 745am meant almost 845am equivalent = very hot. But two 6km sessions here was all I had for training for my 21km...
3. Running distances and speed - My other runner colleague and I realised that runners here are pretty casual, the distances on races are mostly 3km, 5km, 10km at most. In fact 21km races are rare, and marathons even more rare. I suppose this is the same as in KL, but in KL, most of the starting distances are 10km or single distances - so it can be pretty unforgiving. Generally I also found most people ran slower here - part of the reason could also be that there are not that many places to run or train.
4. Signing up for a race - this is pretty cool - the bib is given on the spot on payment, and there is typically distribution via Nike outlets or alternatives. In general, this is better than taking a trip to collect the bib a day before the race. The bib is also given in an envelope, and has a barcode for recording when you finish the race. Cost of signing up for the race is slightly more expensive than KL - it cost approx RM 40 equivalent for the 21km Condura Race, for a t-shirt and the race itself.
5. Running portals - this is also pretty cool - most of the running portals are quite established, and teams prefer to run in their own group. Some of the portals includes :
www.takbo.ph
www.bullrunner.com
and a few more....
Well, I survived condura.... dare I to submit the registration form for KL Marathon now? More on the race details in next blog... have been too busy to blog even...
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