So I went for my 2nd run event and it’s another night run at MAKNA Founder’s Night Run in Putrajaya Water Sports Complex, Precinct 6. This time I am not sick and it was not rainy and I thought I should be doing better, plus the actual distance was only 4.44km.
Prior to the run, I was not highly prepared, let’s call it laid back syndrome or something. Many days I just didn’t feel like training. Then a few days before the run on a Tuesday, I went for my training and I trained extra hard, and boom my right knee started to be in pain, initially I only had left knee pain. So I had to skip my Thursday training as the pain was quite bad. Then on the race day, I had a whole day event at Sunway Pyramid, means no rest for me. We rushed from the event to Putrajaya with the kids, brought the kids along as I thought it would be a fun carnival like event. Besides the good location, where there was a man made beach for the kids to play and the Musical Fountain at the Marina, the event was hardly carnival like. The place was dim and dark and very crowded despite only 5000 people registered. Sure there was loud music but that was it, the volunteers were very soft spoken and look like kids from high school.
I just hung around booths, drinking Milo and Kopi and Enercal, and did some short warming up. Then, the volunteers ushered us to the starting area to do some warmups with the BodyTone instructor. The idea was to pump us up for the run. Big Mistake. I did along with her, more than 50 squats, jumping jacks and jumping on our toes. It was not a problem to do them but I really haven’t done them in a long time and never before a run. So after sweating it out, suddenly I realised my thighs are all cramped. I could hardly do my normal stretching. The veins even popped blue black. My legs became wobbly. Note to self, don’t overdo those warm ups next time. I went off to walk about to shake off the cramps and watch the flag off for the 15 km and 10 km. I was really surprised to see some 10 km participants didn’t run off at flag time but came like 10 min late. Very weird.
Then it was our turn for the Fun Run, Fancy Fool and the Wira Kanser Flag off. There were some mascots around like Pororo running ahead of us which was really cute. There was no fancy flag off like in BSN Night Run with Fireworks and stuff, it was just countdown and gun shot and then go. As usual everyone was running at high speed in the beginning, like I really wanted to slow down so I won’t tire too easily like before. Somehow, due to the dimness of the night and my bad night vision, I was not running well. I think my pace was worse than my first run and I stopped even more time even though the road is easy and just flat. It was inspiring however to run alongside the Wira Kanser, one I noticed had only one leg yet he was running on his crutches, very brave man. Then, people around started walking, seeing that it was really tempting for me to stop too. This is why I do not run well with large groups, I get easily affected by the people around me, more negatively than positively.
After we made a U-Turn, I took some water at the small dark water station which many people missed it seems. Some groups of people started making earlier u-turns, you can just jump over the dividers. Just a fun run anyways. As we all entered the Empangan area, it started to get rather cramped, not much space to run at all especially when everyone in front is really walking. I had to run at the side which was a longer road. The view was amazing though which prompted many to stop for selfies.
Finally I got nearer to the finishing line and saw John and the kids waiting, Josiah got rather excited and started running with me.
We had a separate finishing line from the 10 km and 15 km categories, maybe to help with traffic. Took our certs, water, medal and goodie bag. It was late and the kids were cranky. It was pretty much come let’s go home immediately.
I guess from here on I will continue training until I can tackle 10km, no more 5km events for me for now. That should be another challenge, onwards to C210k.