Brooks Half Marathon 2013 Review.

Ok, ok. I know I’m late posting this up but I’ve been catching up with my sleep and hoarding food into my tummy as it’s been complaining about the lack off food. I myself am surprised by my large appetite after this run.

As some of you may have known, I’ve been preparing for this run for about 3 months already. Just a little bit off info, I was actually contemplating on going for the Half Marathon before this. I’m glad I signed up for the 10K instead because I’m pretty sure that I will never be able to finish the 21K at this period of time. Not because of lack of trying but rather, I want to enjoy the journey to completing a marathon. As it was, it wasn’t smooth sailing while preparing for this run what with numerous down time due to my calves complaining…. Sissy.

Going into this run, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to run the course the whole way. Instead I opted to set myself a challenging goal of finishing in 1.20min and not mind about the walking part at all. Reason being, in these 3 months of training, I’ve never been able to, not even once, completely run 10K without taking at least 4-5 walking breaks. Even then, each time I go for anything above 8K my legs will start protesting and giving me problems. So since it’s now crunch time, I might as well go out and enjoy myself.

I’ve arranged with some friends to meet up at the Baggage Drop off area on race day, however we have differing arrival time. After the experience from the Park City run last year, I decided to get to the venue as early as possible. Reaching the Stadium at 4.30am. I proceed to SMS my friends to inform them on the developing traffic and of course, eat my breakfast. Once that's done, it's time for a little R&R. Played a little game on the iPhone and check some statuses on FB. Come 5am, I went to catch up with the gang at the baggage area. Mana tau, they haven’t arrive yet….

While waiting for the gangs, I realised that there is a HUUUUGGGEEEEE number of runners milling about. At first I thought that they’re just a mixture of all the runners from the different categories. Imagine my surprise when after the gun off, we were left with only a handful of people around. WOW! Well, I thought nothing of it since the flag off area seems kind of small anyway. Back to the wait, Once the guys are in, and the time for flag off for the 10K got near, we proceed to the flag off area too.

Upon countdown, we all mill and slowly shuffle our way toward the start line with people jumping in from the side as the flag off area is insufficient to accommodate the number of runners. Me and a regular running kaki decided to run together since our pacing is similar. We both agree that when he start lagging, I’ll just go on ahead. We both know that there’s a possibility whereby he’ll have to walk partially as he wasn’t able to get ready in time. As an experiment, we decided to load him up with some Gu Gel 30 minutes before flag off to see if it’ll help to sustain his run.

In any case, our game plan was to maintain our pace, slow down on hills, hammer the descent and possibly walk up that crazy incline at Technology park. Well, that was our initial plan. We didn’t factor in the crowd that we’ll be facing.

Upon exiting the Stadium Parking, both me and my buddy went OMG! Instead of taking up one lane, the runners are taking up 2 lanes and it’s stretching ahead of us by quite a distance. Well, we thought, ok, let’s chill a while and the crowd will disperse in about 1-2km. Boy were we wrong. Not even 1K in, we have people starting to walk or slow down already, ON THE RIGHT SIDE! My thought was, here we go again. The problem was compounded by the huge crowd. There isn’t any space whatsoever to maneuver at all. We saw a lot of runners running onto sidewalks or even the side of the drain just to have some space to overtake people.

Not too far from the start, near by to IMU, the road started to get dark. A lot of people ran into the safety cones and some runners start bumping into each other as we try to avoid it and other runners. Shortly thereafter, there was some commotion ahead. We were wondering what’s happening when we saw that a runner was down and some runners were performing first aid. We thought that the runner may have fainted as there was a clear space around him/her and some runners have taken off their vest and am fanning the downed runner with it. I was therefore surprised when I heard the cue of CPR being administered after passing him/her.

I’m not sure who it is that was helping the downed runner as I do not have a clear view, and the crowd requires that I pay attention to what’s happening around me, thus I’m not sure if it’s a medical personnel or a runner who assisted. I DO note that I did not see any medical personnel personally throughout the 10K I was running. It COULD be that they are at the water station but I could not confirm as I didn’t stop for any water.

Talk about water station, What is it with Malaysian runners and Water Station? Seriously, everything went to hell the moment a water station came up. At the first water station, I had a guy on the left cut right in front of me to go to the right side and all of a sudden decided to cut back left to get water. He tried to squeeze into some space along the crowd and stop right in front of me, causing me to collide into him. Seriously?!?! No apologies or anything… The scene is worse than any mamak I’ve ever seen. I asked my partner if he wants a drink. He looked at the station and goes, no way. He’d rather get water from the 2nd station what with the crowd. I told him ok, I’ll leave him behind there then.

We proceed to skip over the runners stopping to water themselves and proceed to try and get some space for us to run at a comfortable pace. Unfortunately that’s not to be what with the runners weaving into our lane all of sudden and the sudden stops as well as us weaving to overtake slow runners on the outside. People, Please learn to walk or slow down on the LEFT! If you do this in your car on the right lane in Malaysia, you’ll get into an accident. Same thing with running….. Things were so bad that my partner almost end up falling into the drain when another runner bumped into him trying to run at the side of the drain. At least this guy is courteous enough to apologize. Kudos to him.

Since things were pretty bad, we decided to forgo any walk plans on the hills, including the big one at Technology Park. We hammered the descent to try to make as much time as we could and overtake as many people as we could, and we slow down to a manageable pace for the incline and flats. We thought we were getting clearer then we found out the 5K groups have joined up with us.

Things just got from bad to worse. Now  you have kids zooming in front only to putter out right in front of you. Jeez. Kid, this is an Endurance run. Not a sprint. Take it easy and you can go further.

2nd Water Station is no better than the first Water Station. It’s completely crowded and the volunteer have to scream their head off to let the runners know that there’s more water in front. I decided to speed up and finish the run as soon as possible at this point coz of the water cup war going on there. From here on it was solo run all the way back. It got difficult at some point and there are times I just want to stop and walk. But I reminded myself that I’ve come this far and it’s only 3km, 2km, 1km to go.
Reaching the finish line, I am surprised on 2 matters:

1. I finished the 10K without stopping once for a walk break.
2. I finished it in 1 hr 12 min. 8 minute ahead of my goal time.
3. Apparently my friend found that the Gel does help him sustain his run throughout. He finished just 2 minutes behind me, without any stop as well. :)

The result made me very happy and have indeed brighten my day by a lot. I’m a little bit more confident that I can get ready in time for the Standard Chartered Half Marathon. Just a bit
Now to the Pros and Cons of this race.

Pros:

1. Race kit collection is done in a large area. Yeah it’s not computerized and it’s a little slow, but things get done.
2. Lovely product exhibition at the Race Kit Collection and Race venue.
3. Ample parking (although I heard that they ran out of parking for the late comers).
4. Lots of open space for runners after the run. We know how we smell like and open air is much preferred.

Cons:

1. No medical Personnel that I saw. Please let me know so that I can correct this if anyone saw otherwise.
2. Running through dark streets. I was lucky not to get into any potholes but some runners aren't so lucky.
3. Safety cones became hazard cones, this is mainly due to the following 2 points.
4. Lack of Traffic Marshall on the road. Runners are running on 2 lanes instead of one.
5. Too many participants for the route. Seriously, we had to slow down at one point to get through a corner at one point.
6. Water station is overly crowded. This is partially the runners fault for crowding, but I’m sure if the organizer is to have a longer water station, this could help out.
7. No photographers. Come on, runners are all cam whore. How can there be no photographers till the last 400 meter?

Recommendations:

1. Looking at the number of participants, I would have recommended the organizer to corral the runners with estimated finishing time and stagger their departure.
2. As mentioned above, longer water station or double deck them into 2 lanes.
3. Huge number of waste paper cup on the road. As I don’t use the water station due to this issue I don’t know what’s the cause. I however suspect that the organizer can help by having more trash bin along the way for people to throw the waste paper cup into.
4. Be firm on the number of runners instead of trying to rake in more profit and allow more runners to sign up after the initial number has been reached.
5. More Road Marshalls, Volunteers, Medical Personnel.
6. Come out with a brochure to educate the Malaysian runners on running etiquette.

Pet Peeves:

1. Slow runners on right side of the lane. With the number of runners on this run, I can’t even tell where there’s a fast lane or not. We had to weave through the crowd just to maintain our pace. Please runners, if you need to slow down or stop, check behind you and go to the left before you stop or slow down.
2. Water Station Crowd. Looks like Zebra in the Sahara Watering hole. Seriously.
3. Come on, throw the paper cups into the rubbish bin. Or squash them and bring them along till you can throw them away. Put them in the pouch or your pocket. Please don’t litter all over the road. It could be dangerous for the volunteers to clean up after you. Please be considerate.
4. 10 second Jim. Sprint ahead of you then stop and walk then sprint again. Make up your mind dude. Or train up your aerobic base. RESPECT THE DISTANCE!!!
5. Kiasu Runners. They try to block you or speed up when you try to overtake them. Dafuq?!?
6. Impatient drivers. Nuff Said.

With all the above, I’m wondering whether it’s legal for me to bring an Air Horn or a Taser to clear the path ahead. Lol. Here’s looking at Stan Chart Half Marathon training starting next week.
Post script. We have the unfortunate news that the runner who collapsed during the run was not resuscitated successfully even though during the run we saw an ambulance leaving the area. Our condolences to the family.

Edit:
Just to show you how massive the crowd is, do check out Mr. Tey's video. Note the cam whoring and the chaos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLBaAtvACuA&list=UUewiMGqQJ31P0DzEY0vxK6g&index=1