We wanted to cover the flag off of the Full Marathon at 4:00am
but we woke up at 4:30am! It was a mad mad dash to Dataran Merdeka. How did we slept
through 4 alarms that we have set in our phone earlier is beyond us. Perhaps we
ate too much at the pasta party and had gone ito a food coma? Heheh!
Thank god we managed to get a cab at that hour. The pakcik
driver was on his way home after his shift has ended. Lucky us! See, not all
cab drivers are bad. Heheh! We reach Chan Sow Lin station about 5am.
The LRT arrived about 10 minutes later. Saw there were quite
a lot of half marathon runners in the train. We arrived at Masjid Jamek station
about 5:20am and made a quick dash to the starting line. Phew! Made it with 5
minutes to spare!
We went to the end of the line, at start pen 4 - the place where tortoise-paced runner congregate. It took us 10 minutes to clear the long queue before reaching the timing mat at the start line.
The weather was cool in the morning. No sign of haze. Thank
god! Slowly, we jogged along with 9,500 runners in the Honda Half Marathon.
The first water station was kinda chaotic. The volunteers couldn't cope with the surge of runners. So, runners had to pour their own water or drink from the 1L bottle like what we did.
Apart from the first couple of chaotic water stations, we have all good things to say about SCKLM. From the free LRT rides to the excellent traffic control. It is the best marathon in Malaysia!
The run in the city is not that interesting because the sky was still dark. We passed by many iconic landmarks but it was too dark to take a nice photo. The above photo was taken at the KLCC-Bukit Bintang area, a tourist and shopping haven.
We chanced upon a few fellow runners wearing the Lucozade
vests near AKLEH. They are from SMART Athletics Clud and so obliging for a photo.
The AKLEH stretch is most enjoyable part of the marathon.
Basically we have the highway to ourselves. You can run, walk or roll if you
want to.
We ran a little slower here, to enjoy the beautiful KL skyline. KLCC being the most prominent
landmark in Kuala Lumpur can be seen along the highway.
Toll ahead!
These girls must be jumping for joy because they get to use the highway without having to pay toll!
AKLEH is not exactly flat. Those hill work came in handy here.
Love that the fact that the sun was shining from behind and not directly into our eyes!
Did you guys notice the route passes by a cemetery? Later in
the day, I found out that three of my friends who did the full marathon had encountered
some sort of weird experience when they ran pass the cemetery. All of them felt
sudden loss of energy. One had to be carried away in an ambulance! Thank God we
didn’t experience anything unusual there. Probably because the sun was up by
the time we hit AKLEH.
No pain, no gain!
We couldn't resist taking a selfie with the most iconic building in Malaysia in the background.
Back to the city again!
We did not get lack of support and cheers in the few km. There were buskers, drummers and cheers from various run crews to motivate us to soldier on!
These two caped superheroes runners were too fast for us. Tried to follow them but ended up eating their dust. We slow tortoise! Maybe we should get a cape next time. Heheh!
The sun is up and it is getting hotter. We quickened our pace to prevent getting roasted by the sun.
500 meter more! Huff! Huff!
Saw a familiar face in the crowd cheering as we hobbled to the finish line. It's Edan Syah, the Lucozade sponsored athlete. Edan was on his recovery mode having achieved his Personal Best of 2:35:05 in Gold Coast Marathon 2016 a month ago. Thank you for the support!
Yay! We made it back on time to attend the press conference of SCKLM 2016. Congrats Kennedy Kiproo Lilan for emerging champion with the timing 2:18:57. He said he will be back next year to defend his title.
We quickly rushed home after the PC. Tummy was drumming! Heheh! Had a quick bite and rehydrated with a bottle of ice cold Lucozade before taking a long nap in the afternoon.
Life is beautiful!
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