KK City Run 2008

My cellphone alarm went off at 6am this morning. It was so hard for me to drag myself out of bed so early on a Sunday morning. But today's the KK City Run 2008. Several of us from my company have promised each other that we would run this year.

I got out of bed, freshened up and left the house shortly after 6:30am. It's so nice to drive at that hour in the morning. There were so few cars on the road. I reached the Town Padang at around 6:45am; there were already so many people there. My partner arrived some half an hour later.

Although the official flag-off time was supposed to have been at 7am, nothing happened until a good half an hour after that. Some aerobics instructors went onstage, played some music and started doing some aerobics dance. The Mayor was there to see us off. By the time we were flagged off, it was almost 8am.

It was such a big crowd. When the whistle blew, we could hardly move. So I merely walked together with my employees for some distance. About 2 minutes later, the runners began to space out and we were able to start running.

This was the first time I joined the KK City Run, so I was not even aware of the route we were to take. At first I thought we would run pass Bandaran Berjaya, then passing the Chung Hwa School, turning into the road leading to Jalan Kolam, reach the roundabout and then make our way back to the Town Padang. That would have been about 4 km too. Instead, when we got to the roundabout, we turned into Jalan Istana and had to run uphill for a distance of almost 2 km. Oh it was so punishing because I had not expected that route, and did not preserve my energy for it. By the time I reached that winding Jalan Istana, my employees were nowhere to be seen. I kept going eventhough I felt like half dead.

And then finally it was time to go downhill again. What a relief! The Town Padang was very beautiful from afar. Surprisingly I felt there was still enough in me during the final stretch, and I was able to increase my pace to the finish line. 25 minutes and 34 seconds, covering a little over 4 km. Not exactly the kind of performance that would make the national marathon team, but I'd like to think of it as leaving some room for future improvement (smile). My employees arrived about 10 minutes later; and my partner another 5 minutes after that. A mild exercise on a Sunday morning. If only I did not have to wake up so early!

There were free drinks and snacks for all the participants; and there were lucky draws after that. Attractive prizes were at stake, i.e. mountain bikes, and numerous electrical goods including desktop computers and a laptop worth RM3,500. I lingered on for a little while longer, but soon gave up on the lucky draws. I am never lucky when it comes to lucky draws, you see. I left my employees who were still eagerly hoping to win something from the lucky draws. Later on, I called them up and found out that they did not win anything at all. Oh well, maybe next year they'll get something.