Sunday, October 25, 2009

Mizuno Wave Run 25th Oct - My first time on this UPM route


I had a good run this morning at Mizuno's Wave Run. Kind of missed Tey and familiar photographer, so did not have a chance to get my face snapped. There were a few photographers on the road but few of them really "snap" random people's pictures. (Photo from Chan Wing Kai taken from pacesetter's albums)

- First time I ever drove my car to a race for a long while, usually there was Kell Jay or I would drive my Toyota. Its either that or I have really not run a race proper for a long time during the day.
- Arrived at a good time, around 640+, leaving plenty of time to ease into a good parking. Picked up SK along with me, so I had company as well as a decent navigator.
- Started to see the crowd around 7am, luckily I queued for the toilets early. Lost SK somewhere along the way, but I realise he likes to start at the back, so I spiced up the challenge a bit with a bit of a soccer bet, asking for 5 mins. In hindsight, I should've asked for more. Either that or he responds better to challenges than my legs could.
- Could not find Ai Leen or Boon along the way, but saw Philip. This obsession with the pretty vest of stark yellow made it difficult to recognise people in the crowd, though I got to admit, the vest was pretty nice
- The starting point was too crowded for a 4000+ people race. There was too many people, and since this race did not have the chip, the starting was a bit of a disarray, there was no gun even. And the people just started randomly running, cutting across the grass to make ground, and the rest literally walked or shuffled for at least 100m, then slow painful traffic like jog downhill.
- The initial part of the race, at least the first 1-2 kms was a painful slow crawl. The roads were pretty narrow, and at one point, I was even wondering if we were in UPM grounds!
- The most jialat part was the last hill, which incidently was the first hill we climbed, when going from car to stadium, the first hill we ran down initial 500m, and also the last most jialat hill we had to do before arriving back for a quarter stadium finish.
- The race was probably a full 11km as claimed. I arrived around 1.23, if you count the time the first guy sped off and I was still standing around. Got a card which allowed me to claim a medal for 69 position in the category... whee!
- Eventually coming out of the race, I saw Ai Leen who walked mostly.

All, in, I thought it was a decent race, but slightly disappointed with my timing. And, I lost 10-12 mins to SK, which is literally impossible!

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