May10 - Larian Bomba 2009

My 1st run back in Malaysia. The re-start for my collection of medals. I felt the humidity swished across my face as I opened the car door. Trying to calm the butterflies in my stomach, I kept telling myself “just a finisher medal would be great”. Limited medals for this race with only 100 for the women & 75 for the men.

Keat Seong decided to skip this run coz its too much of a risk pushing himself to the limit just for a medal. Especially for a 10km distance (spoken by the Ironman :p ). Eventhough the distance is short, that means it’s a sprinting race, something like 100m in a school event. For distance runners eg. 42km Ironman, endurance & speed needs to be incorporated, but for 10km its all about speed speed speed.

Met up with some old frens before the start of the run. Another 20mins, runners were directed into the runners cage aka “kandang”. Well, I guessed it seemed appropriate coz when the cage opens, all the kambing biri-biri rushes out. The sound of the gun starts us, the stopwatch in our wristwatch moves us and the finisher medal motivates us.

*WHY MUST THE FIRE DEPARTMENT (BOMBA) HAVE A SQUIRREL FOR A MASCOT!!!??

I was feeling sick from the start. Nervousness. U think ‘why’, I wish I knew. Maybe just coz …. I was nervous. Sorry, that was the best excuse I could come up with. It was the normal 10km route, passing Bank Negara, out towards Jalan Duta and back towards the Parliament building. It was a very straight forward route. My heart was working overtime, so was my sweat ducts. I couldn’t believe myself when I had to slowdown to a walk at the 7mins mark. A total disappointment to myself.

When the only water station came about at 5km, we were provided bottles & cups. Forgetting that my jersey wasn’t dry-fit, I poured water onto my head & body (too use to it during my triathlon events).

Thankfully the weather wasn’t burning shining sun, just the humid air accompanied us the whole way. I didn’t even need to wear my sunnies. I didn’t feel like seeing ‘clearly’ (prescript eyesight).
As I turned up the Parliament flyover, passing Padang Merbok, just another 400m towards the finished line, I started to put some sprint towards my steps. I spotted my targets when I noticed 2 ladies in front of me, whom had passed me before.

I didn’t show my custom ‘peace sign’ to the photographers. By the looks on my face, anyone would know it was a torturing run for me.

The feeling of grass on my feet felt good as we ran across Dataran Merdeka field towards the finishing banner. I couldn’t stop moving. If I did, I knew I would just puck my guts out. It took me about 5mins to compose myself to even mutter a word.

17/100 placing at a time of 64mins. Not something I was expecting, but it was great, I guess. Back to square one when I first started running.

Top 10 runners for each category were awarded $$$. Can’t say I was hoping for that, just yet. Too many great ladies runners in the market to beat. Kekkekek