Sundown Malaysia 2015

It’s my second time running at JB, thanks to Bro Shaiful for giving us ride and place to stay while we were there. Sundown is a night race & based on few of my friends who ran there previous year it will be a humid race, I planned to do a run at Putrajaya to simulate the race condition but I didn’t have the time. Some of the runners complained how hot it was and they are drenched with sweat, so for those are planning to run Sundown next year, you might want to do a few session of night run at Putrajaya or somewhere humid to adapt.

I was worried with my hamstring strain and right leg metatarsal pain, so after I reached the race venue with Shaiful and Maz, went to the medic tent to apply RockTape on my hamstring. I met few friends from JB, and Wak Jaza gave me a portion of Marathon Baker chocolate cake bar. It tastes good, will try it in future as a fuel before race. Then I continued my warm up with drill and few fast stride. HM was flagged off on 8:00pm and 12km was flagged of at 8:35pm, good thing I managed to get to be in front after one of the race organizer helped me to be in front of the starting which would save some time for me to relax before the race. The crowd was huge, so its good to be in front so you wouldn’t stuck when the race starts.

After the race was flagged off, it was led by Soh Wai Ching( SWC), Ben and few others. I stick to the first pack since the pace was comfortable for me. I felt a bit windy during the start of the race and I started to get thirsty so I decided to grab a water at the first water station. After grabbing the water I realized I was running in front and others all slightly behind me, so I waited for someone to take the pace as I dont want to overshoot my race tempo. But it seems no one is coming up to took the pace. When I was reaching the U turn (6km+) I saw Ben in green singlet. After passing the U turn I asked the cyclist marshal of my gap between Ben, he said 100 meter and it worries me more as there’s another 6km left and anything can happen between that. So I started to check on my pace every KM and try to maintain it in each KM’s.

My shoe insole was getting hotter and I was thirsty but no more water station after the U turn.As I was reaching the 9km I asked the cyclist marshall, he told me Ben was away 200m but my legs were getting weaker so I try to focus on the upper body form to maintain the speed and save energy. I was hearing cheers from the opposite road from other 12km runner, but  I couldn’t respond to it . The cheers was really helpful and I can feel I’m adding up strength towards the finishing line , and I would like to thank them for that. As there were another 400m, I tried to sprint but my left leg was cramped so I slowed and looked behind just in case if Ben was closing.

Alhamdulillah. I managed crossed the finishing line in 42:26 . I would say I’m satisfy with my performance in this race, but hopefully I could avoid the cramp next time while racing. Thanks to Ben and SWC for making the race challenging, hopefully I can race with them again in future. The race wasn’t accurate to 12km (GPS showed 11.55km). Hopefully the organizer would consider a finishing at the stadium next time, that would be something grand for the finishers.

 

https://instagram.com/p/7RfvAYGjMG/

 

 

 

Lesson learned :

1. Apply your kinesio tape a day before the race so you can relax when you are at the race venue.

2. Get a good 8 night sleep even though the race is on the night of the next day to get the best performance from your body.

3. Prepare yourself some snacks( Snickers/ Banana) to fuel yourself before the race, I went there without no snack just a gel and there were no convenience store.

4. Do a simulation run according to the race you are going to run, just to make yourself prepared.

Had some good food after the race, thanks to  Bro Shaiful for driving us around.

I would like to thanks my coaches Shaharudin Hashim & Simon Lau for guiding me, my sparring partners, my physiotherapist Reza, my doctors Dr Lim, Dr Samiha, Dr Nahar, my friends and last but not least Kyserunkrew for the support. Till then keep on running people!

My next race will be 10km SCKLM 2015. Hopefully I would get a time off from my employee to show up for the race as I’m having a work related training course to attend, will keep you all updated.