KLCC park was the place and it was full with runners wearing bright lime green tee when I arrived at around 6:30 am. Immediately my friends and I took some photos and did our own warm up for the run. Music was blaring entertaining the crowd. It was a great atmosphere to be in.
Back to the run, to my surprise there were more participants for the 10k run then the 5k one. You can immediately see which group is a more serious runner when each category had to line up beside each other. Of course the 5k one is more relaxed ... laughing and chit chatting while waiting for the run to start. While the serious runners in the 10k category is still busy doing their warm up and me included. Heheh.
The run started on time as scheduled at 7:15am. Again, I'm surprised because my 3 runs before this didn't start on time at all. Which was a good sign .. the earlier I run the less sun exposure I got and that means less dehydration. Less dehydration means I can run longer before the exhaustion starts to kicks in. And living in tropical climate like Malaysia, one can suffer dehydration very, very quickly. Thank god that was avoidable last Sunday when the wheather is a bit cloudy. :)
So, the 10k and the 5k category started at the same time and that means we were all released at the exact same time too. The funny thing was, at the start of the race, you can obviously see one huge crowd of 5k runners were wakling leisurely when the 10k ones were already huffing and puffing their way forward! Hahaha. I mean it is nothing unusual to see participants walking especially when it was half way through. But this is at the beginning of the race! Haha.
So, I ran from KLCC park towards Pavillion and then all the way through Jalan Sultan Ismail. Turned left into Jalan P Ramlee towards KLCC. Then ran all the way in front of Zouk and Renaissance Hotel before I made a turn into AKLEH. Now I'm all fine until AKLEH. AKLEH is a bit torturous for me because the road inclines at least for a good 2.5k. Phew! I can felt at that moment all the tissues and fibers in my muscles were aching like crazy! I had to slow down to a power walk. That eased the pain a bit but I had like 4 km to go! This is where mental game is soooo crucial. I kept telling myself that the finishing line is closer with every step I made and that what motivated me to go on and on and on and finally completed the 10k race. You see, long distance run is not so much physical. It's about mental strength!
In the end, I completed my race in 01:24:38. Not bad. This is 10k man! Haha. Hopefully I will do better in my next 10k run. Do enjoy some photos from the scene!