KL 10K Road Race Report and Review

This report and review is a little overdue but with what had happened on 15.04.2013, I felt that I should defer posting this up by 1 week as a sign of respect to the victim of the Boston Marathon bombing.

REVIEW

Ok, first thing first. KL 10K Road Race is organized by Cadence Project Services and supported by DBKL. It's Co-Sponsored (quite last minute I would say) by Milo, Kinesio Garage, and Protex. Just so you guys know, I couldn't google up anything on Cadence Project at all and I've always been good at finding information of these sorts. The main reason for me to join this race was to have consistent "higher" (by my then current standard) mileage race to continue to motivate me onward in my training. Below is the review in point form:


The Good:
1. Dry Fit Round Neck T-shirt. I'm a sucker for them since I'm kind of shy. Vests are too sexy for my taste.
2. Smaller number of runners result in less traffic congestion for runners, making it easier for us to run.
3. Great volunteers. They direct clearly and cheer you and encourage you along the way.
4. Marshall and RELA members escorted vehicles through the runners safely. Good job on that.

The Bad:
1. Information seems to be slow in coming out. Race Kit Collection was announced about 1 1/2 Month before event, and Race Route was only out 2 weeks before the event. Is this due to lack of preparation or lack of experience or lack of personnel?
2. Race kit collection was poorly done. There was no direction provided to get to the room. Wisma OCM is multi-faceted. Where should we go?
3. Bib was made out of paper, which disintegrated before I finished the race and only realized it when I wanted to take it off.
4. You're required to write your own name and emergency contact number. Not a biggie but we WERE promised a personalized bib. Also, with the guaranteed disintegration of the bib, what's the point?
5. No medical personnel as far as I can tell. Not sure if they're at the water station or not since I BYOW anyway so I can't confirm on that.
6. Insufficient personnel at water station? I have a lot of feedback whereby runners have to stop to fill up their own cups.
7. No notification on REPC was sent to the runners. Coupled with the fact that REPC information was not given upon registration, quite a few runners actually forgot about it. It's not fully the organizer's fault but it would be nice to be reminded since no info was stated beforehand.

The Ugly:
1. Promises were not kept. e.g. Personalized Bib Number, Goodie Bag, Light Breakfast. There's also no XS T-Shirt available.
2. "Route will cover notable landmarks in Kuala Lumpur and opportunity to view a piece of Malaysian
history." The route goes through from Padang Merbok, to Mahameru, to Bukit Tunku and then back. Can someone please enlighten me on the historical aspect of this route please? I failed my History.
3. Bad runner mentality. At both water station, I see runners throwing cups on the floor when there's a rubbish bin 2 feet ahead of them. Throw it in the bin or carry it all the way back please.
4. Organizer seem to have reduced down the prize money as well as those entitled to the prize money. I'm not too sure on this matter since I don't run for the money, but if it's been promised and the organizer is to do that, it's extremely wrong.

As of now there's still a debate as to whether we should still give the organizer a chance for next year. What do you guys think?


REPORT

What have I to say about this race? Well for one, Ouch comes to mind at the moment. It took me a few days to get my "spring" back in my leg. Considering that it's the 4th race that I've ever joined, I would say I'm still kinda ignorant to some things like whether it's a good idea to have a race once a month and how long is the recovery period and etc. This race was actually set as a low priority race as I wanted to concentrate on my training the Half Marathon at SCKLM, that is until Eugene from Team 2ndSkin got wind of it.

I know Eugene from the KL Runners Group in Facebook. We've never actually met but we got along well and had fun chatting and sharing online. Anyway, Eugene kinda found out my timing for the 10K I ran in Brooks Half Marathon 2013 and volunteered to pace me to a new PB. I was a bit hesitant, seeing that it's only my 2nd 10K race and only 1 month after Brooks. Half of that 1 month I wasn't able to train much at all. We had a short chat and Eugene advised me to start incorporating faster kicks at the end of all my runs for at least 500m, so that was that and we kind of agreed to it. When the race course came out two weeks before the race, I plotted it into Garmin and found that it was quite hilly, oh well, it's just a few hills right? Which race in Malaysia doesn't have hills? I kind of thought nothing of it after that.

Race kit collection day roll around and since I don't know where the place is, I hitched a ride with a friend who knows the way. Locating the building was not too bad. Problem is locating where we're suppose to collect the Race kit. There was a lack of signage to point us in the right direction. When we asked the staff of the hotel, we only manage to get a general direction which did not help at all. Luckily a kind guy saw that we were still struggling to look for the place and walked us there. :)

Things looked to be pretty standard, with 1 team of people checking your Confirmation slip to get the Bib Number, while another team go about gathering  your Race Kit. First surprise came when the T-shirt size requested by my friend (XS) was not available. 2nd surprise came when there's no Race Program included. Instead, it was printed on a banner for you to see. That's it. When I got back to prepare the items, I found that the Bib was made out of paper. I accidentally tore it before the race day even came about. Not a good start of things.

Before heading back, my friend decided to go for a drive to Padang Merbok to see where we can park as well as to survey the route. Imagine to our surprised when we saw the amount of hills that we had to traverse. I wasn't too intimidated, but it certainly is daunting. What with the amount of hills as well as the incline, the first thought that came to mind was whether I would be able to finish strongly at all, let alone a PB. Oh well, one can only do one's best. As you can see, I've already started thinking negatively about the race.

Race day come about, I went over to fetch a running buddy that wanted to carpool and drove on to the race venue. We decided to go earlier to ensure that we can get a parking lot due to the lack of parking facilities there. There wasn't any guide on alternative parking area so we wanted to make sure we can get a space. Well, we were one of the first participant to arrive. The rest of the people, as far as I can tell are volunteers. Pretty soon, the parking was filled up and the Rela volunteers stopped anymore cars from coming in. Where to park leh then? Side of the road as far as I can tell. This proved to be correct as after we start the race, we could see cars parked along the side of the road. In fact, there are people who even parked on Jalan Parlimen itself!

Closer to race time, we decided to get out of the car and go in search of toilet. Imagine our surprise when we were informed that there's none. Apparently the Organizer have applied for permit for Porta-loo but was rejected by DBKL. We were informed that there's a public toilet at Padang Merbok itself but it'll only be opened after 7am. Guess what, the start time of the race was 7am. Some enterprising soul managed to talked the guards at the one of the academy nearby into letting them have access to the toilet there. It was briefly opened to the public but quickly closed after a while due to the huge number of runners. It's understandable since they are responsible for the security of the academy and they may be questioned if the toilet get messed up.

Be that as it may I saw the legendary Yim Heng Fatt holding a camera walking about and went up to him and introduced myself. We chatted for awhile when out of the blue, someone came up to us and ask whether he's the photographer ET Tey. Both of us had a good quiet laugh as he kindly and humbly corrected the guy. After that, he got busy taking photos so off I went to look for others that I've met and gotten to know. I managed to catch up with Joanne, and Lorna and her friends. While waiting for Lorna to warm up, I managed to catch sight of Eugene. We've never met before but the shirt he wore was just too bright to be ignored. :) I went up to him and introduced myself. We chatted a bit and then I introduced him to the rest of the KL Runners gang who were already there.

As we chatted, we went back to the topic of getting a PB here. I voiced my doubt that I could do it due to the huge number of hills, but Eugene was undeterred. He was pretty certain we can do it and convinced me to follow his pace until I pass out. I looked at him incredulously as I've never been paced before so I wasn't too sure on what to expect. Sure, I've paced others before mainly as an encouragement, but this time round, we're going on a mission to break a time record so I hope you guys understand why I'm a little nervous about things. At about 6.50am, we were all asked to report to the starting corral. So off we went, lining up like sardines in a can. As I looked around, I realized that we were slightly further in front than where I'm used to and prefer to line up. We're up at the 2nd quarter of the corral whereas I'm usually at the 3rd quarter. It's a clear indication on the expected pace Eugene will be setting.

As the gun went off and we started shuffling toward the timing mat like a bunch of zombie. Before we even reached the mat, you can see the fast runners setting off up the hill already. The moment we got out, we hit the first hill. As we're still shuffling for position, we didn't mind going at a relatively "slower" pace of 7:14min/km Pace. I'm starting to not get surprised to see walkers appearing within the 1st KM. Anyway, as we near the end of the hill, we stumbled onto a kid who's running with his dad. According to Eugene, this is the first time the kid is running in a race. His dad signed up for him as so that he can run with the bib.

Kid finishing the race in style. Dad in yellow shirt carrying his shoes. Photo Courtesy of Yim Heng Fatt.

Check out the guys behind the kid. Whoever you are kiddo, you're my hero! Photo Courtesy of Yim Heng Fatt.

We started to speed up as we get to the downhill section. We were going way faster than what I'm used to, mostly sub 7min/km pace to 6min/km pace. I'm a slow starter and usually need a few km to warm up before going faster. I mentioned it to Eugene and he assures me that we're on the right pacing for a PB. When we hit the Bukit Tunku hills, I know I'm in trouble as my heart rate has been elevated more than usual for quite some time already. I voiced out my thought that the hills are gonna be hell and Eugene patiently told me to get rid of such negative thoughts and concentrate on shortening my stride length to go up the hill instead.

As we're going up the hills at Bukit Tunku, we heard a motorbike coming from the back with whistle blowing. After a while, the motorbike came around and behind it, the Kenyans are passing us by. There goes the locals dream of getting the prize money lol. Things were starting to get tough for me at this point of time. I'm feeling out of breathe, my heart rate is more elevated than I would like it to be, and we're going faster than I'm accustomed to. As we near the top of the killer hill at Bukit Tunku, Eugene noticed I kept glancing at my Garmin, so he told me not to look at it and to trust him instead. I told him I was checking my heart rate, of which, it was at 178 bpm.

Well, with my heart rate like that, Eugene decided not to speed up during the downhill, instead, we used it as a recovery phase for me but even then that was not enough. I have started off too fast too soon and my body is starting to deplete it's store of glycogen, not surprising since I've gone anaerobic quite early on. I took half a packet of Hammer Nutrition Gel at about KM5 and the other half about KM 6. By this time I'm at the stage where, I am reserving my breathe to talk already. I know I slowed down alot from KM6 to KM7 as it was an uphill section and I really needed to slow down to catch my breathe and recover.

I can't really recall much information except that Lorna came up from behind us and got a drink from my bottle before speeding off as usual. :) Eugene egg me on and continue to give encouragement throughout the race. Even when I felt like stopping to take a walk, which I know is a bad idea, he throw out little challenges to make me dig deeper in myself to just go that extra distance further. Thinking back, I'm really glad I didn't stop to walk because I'm pretty sure I won't be able to start back up again. By the time we reached KM 8, Eugene let me know we have the PB in the bag as long as we don't stop running now. Come to think of it... Duhhhhh. Kena conned. -_-

After passing the KTM station, we saw Yim taking photo in front of us. Eugene went hyper on me. I'm still surprised he's still got so much energy. For me, all I could do was to try and catch my breath and continue running, and of course, look smart on photo.

Eugene going Hyper when he saw Yim. Photo Courtesy of Yim Heng Fatt.

Truth be told this antic made me laugh. Cheered me up but I almost couldn't run due to the lack of breath. Photo Courtesy of Yim Heng Fatt.

With less than 2KM to go, I did what I could to speed up which I doubt I did. I'm just glad it's sub 7min pace all the way back to the finishing line. Crossing the line was a huge relieve. I totally forgot about the timing. Eugene congrats me on a new PB and all I could do was smile stupidly. I'm sure he must be wondering what's going through my brain at the moment. Truth is, brain is on "collect" mode. Processing mode kind of switched off a few KM back. :)

Once again, I just want to thank Eugene for pacing me on this race. Your encouragement and belief in me made a huge difference to me. I've learned a lot on this race with you.

After a job well done. I'm completely drenched and couldn't even stand straight. lol. Picture courtesy of Xydra Lau

Things I've learned in this race: 

1. Shorten your stride length while maintaining effort when going uphill. Overall, you don't tax your muscle as much as when you take your normal stride length.
2. When you think you're running on empty, dig deeper. You'll be surprised to find that there's more there.
3. When you think you can't, you can't. Mental strength plays a very crucial role in your run. If there's a huge challenge or obstacle, turn it into a motivation or cut it into manageable bits. When you take it head on positively, you will be able to overcome it. (Thanks Eugene for showing me. :))