The Day of Energy

No one else has updated their escapades so far, I guess running a 21k or a 42k in the humid heat takes a toll out on everyone. When we left there were still people walking about in a daze everywhere around Cyberjaya it seems. If one didn't know any better, the whole scene looked like a grisly zombie scene - except all these zombies wore race ID number. We saw a couple people limping painfully and god only knows how far along they have to shuffle to the end. I love the inspiration the sight built inside me.

Anyway, I ran a pretty good race. If I was keeping score, I would say that this would be a PB for me. When I said I ran a pretty good race, I didn't mean the speed. I could have finished really fast but suffered throughout, or ran ok and didn't enjoy the race. No, what I meant is that the whole thing just felt put together. I ran the whole way strong, and finished equally well. I wasn't thirsty, and my knees didn't ache (but my ankles did, but it's not because of the run), and I paced myself really well, and I managed to beat the mental fatigue (mental fatigue for a10km race? I must be really rusty!)

Most of all, I managed to guide my cousin into her first medal run and a good timing for someone who's never done a 10k or any race in her life. When she did the Malakoff 7km, she walked the entire way. Starting at the race yesterday night, she told me to wait for her and that she'll never get the medal cause the cut off time was 1hr 30mins. I told her I'm going to help her get it. I told her I'm going to run with her until the halfway mark, where then I'll leave her to run on our own.

So we started slowly. I counseled her on the breathing. Breathing for me is the most crucial form in any exercise. Breathing hurts when you are tired. You began to take short breaths that don't really help. What you need is to fight it and regulate your breathing. It sucks, but it really does help. So I told her to breathe, and she ran with me the whole time. When she slowed down, I ran beside her again to make sure she was ok. At one point she gasped out, "I can't do this!" and I was like, "You can! Just slow down if this speed hurts but don't walk. And BREATHE!!!"

I left her at the 5km mark and went on my way. Met my other cousin at the goodie bag collection and later found my dad gorging on watermelon without even bothering to lineup for the medal! He told us later he must have had 20 cups of water. I think he enjoyed this part of the race more than anything! Then my cousin called me, her voice elated. She finished the race at 1hr 4mins! Personally, I think that it's a GOOD timing, for someone who's never RAN in a race before, and for a first 10k attempt. I remember when I first attempted a 10k race, my time was like 1hr 15mins. She did it. And the best thing is that she was so excited and happy and bubbling up with post race euphoria and she kept on saying, "Ohmigod thank you Nadia! Thank you!"

I was hoping to see Kash, Haza, Ian, Syah, Julin, etc and anyone else who were running so that I could shout out words of encouragements, but I guess the 10k course doesn't cover much. I did see a couple of people I know from my karate class, also old uni mates.

One bad point about the race:

1) Unorganized medal collection. The runners have to go all the way inside to get their goodie bags and even then there were no proper lines for runner to queue properly. People were left confused and cutting into lines and wandering about. Many people didn't know where to get their medal. Sometimes lines were nonexistent.

2) (make that 2 bad points) NO MILO DRINK! Why??? Or did I just leave this one yet again??? I miss my ol' trusty Milo drink :(

Personally, I was glad I had a good race. I had a REALLY good workout earlier in the morning which energized me to run later in the night. I arrived home at noon, showered, ate a really good meal of nasi with telur mata and kicap and slept for 2 hours before getting ready. Not before shoveling a bowl of mee rebus of my cousin's hahah.

I guess that's about it from me. Looking forward to read everybody's race experience.