Coincidently, today was the same day when Linda set off for her Everest attempt. I would wish to send her off personally. Unfortunately, my departure time to KL crushed with hers. The only possible thing I could do is sent a sms wishing her all the best of her endeavor.. Hmm.. I’m still hoping to do a climb in mid of this year. Perhaps, doing the Everest Base camp is another good alternative than a climb. HAHA..
Inside the coach, I had seen some of the familiar faces from sgrunners, e.g. David, Jancy and etc. Well, since I hadn’t booked any hotel yet, it seems a pretty good idea to join them as they would need one more person to share the room. The rest of the journey to KL was pretty much a solitude for me, listening to my MP3 walkman phone and thinking whether I should change my registration to Half-Marathon instead (My knees were seriously suffering from ITB syndrome again). I recalled those stories of MR runners and Henry (Mt Safra), Alvin, whom all suffered from knees injuries and had to go for operation. I wouldn’t want to take the risk of this marathon race would affect my aftermath plans (Sundown Marathon, Duathlon, Climbing, Powerman Series etc.)
We all settled down to Ancasa Hotel when reached KL. Somehow, memories of me participated in last year’s KL marathon flow back in my mind where I was staying alone in a noisy street in a small, four-walled room at Chinatown. I had passed by this hotel at last year but retreated from staying here due to expensive hotel’s rate. Finally, I came back here again.. ha.
After settling our things, we went to Wisma OCM Jalan Hang Jebat to collect our number tag. At the collection center, I met more of the familiar faces, those from Toa Payoh and Mt Faber Safra and few other runners from MR. The registration proved to be a great hassle for me. Firstly, the old Malay auntie couldn’t find my registration form and wanted me to check from the computer terminal. Secondly, my record was not found there at all. And worst of all, they won’t allow me to re-register for the event. Wow lau, can’t believe it!! Lai Chee had also suffered the same fate but in a much better state than mine. I did use my super selling skill to persuade them for me to do a re-registration. Apparently, this method did not work to a guy and an old Malay auntie. Thus, I had to ask the group to leave first while I cleared out the things with the management. After waiting for an hour, I managed to use my charm to induce a young Malay girl of allowing me to search through their forms. Yeah!! Finally, I had found it. Apparently, they had mixed up my application form with other categories.
At the center, I resigned to fate and decided to join the Half-Marathon. For the past 3 years, I had registered for Full-Marathon but never did I run for once before. Sigh.. The collection of the running package went smoothly then after. At the same time, I also collected Yong’s number tag on behalf of him. This year, the sponsor for the event was from Adidas. The running top was in red color with yellow strips running at the middle. The quality was also much better for those whom joined the full marathon. Sadly, as for mine, a white cotton, cheap looking Pasa Mala T-shirt for those participated in half-marathon. Talked about racism (=racer)!!
After leaving the center, I couldn’t able to contact Yong. Huh?? An hour earlier, we did speak on the phone and in the next moment, there was a message at the other end telling me that the number was invalid. Strange.. I couldn’t wait anymore, and walked to his hotel. Dark clouds were covering the city of KL by now. Before long, a heavy rain was pouring from the sky, lightening strike and thunders roared. Within minutes, the road was flooded with water. With great difficulties and an umbrella bought from 7-Evelen, I managed to reach the Swiss Garden Hotel. In vain, Yong was not in his room and I left his number tag with the reception and a message behind for him to collect his belonging.
After back to my hotel, the sgrunners were ready for dinner after an hour of rest. Yong had also managed to contact me by using a local line. There were some problems with his
SIM card. After looking through the hotel’s buffer menu, we all decided to try out some vegetarian food. At the dinner, David never stopped making fun of Jancy. It was a fun and cheerful chit-chat where we all questioning Stardust(vegetarian) about vegetarian food. Finally, the group reached a conclusion that being a vegetarian helped runner to attain PB based on Stardust’s past records. Ha..
Today’s plan for the Safra club was to run 2 or 3 loops around Marachite park. Although the turnout was better than the last, but many of the hardcore runners, e.g. Anthony, David etc were not presented. KK and Siew Lee had trouble finding a parking space and the group was waiting for them. I kept looking at the watch as I had to meet Mark (from MR) and passed the New Balance Shoes (MR1062SB) to him. Based on my experience, the MR-26 group (Not to confuse with MR) would finish their run within an hour or so.
At the start of the slope, Ricci, Trevor, Freddy, Jimmy and those fast runners were running in front of me. My ITB was still hurting me, and I had to take my pace slowly. Perhaps, I had run for Marachite too often. The trail had become a playground for me, and proved to be an easy run for me. I couldn’t feel any short of breathe or sweats in doing the trail except of the disturbance coming from my knees.
In the run, most of us were sticking together with occasional stopping by to wait for the rest. After we had ran passed the golf link, I left from the group and sprinted towards the Marachite toilet point. I was in short of time since Mark could finish his run soon. Again, it was amazing how the trail run had improved my running. Before I realized, I had reached the end-point and caught hold of the MR-26 group. They were gathering at our usual resting place. I took a break, passed the shoes and chatted with them. Again, our topics were surrounding running shoes. Somehow, I guessed I had become infamous in the group of providing opinions on running shoes. Ha.
After a good chat, I wanted to proceed to my run. Deva was astonished that I was doing a 20km distance since the next week was my Full-Marathon race. Usually, this would be the time for runners to do tapering. Moreover, I was wearing a knee guard.
The second loop was a lonely run. Till now, the Safra group was far ahead of me. I ran at my own leisure pace and managed to overtake a few Safra runners. I saw David in the trail running at an opposite direction of me. He was wearing his usual black cap, Nike tights and running shirt. After a cold bath, I hurried off to my Church Service.
