Adidas King of the Road 2009 - Glory and Mishap

I realise since I started running mid last year, there is such a term I call as 'the things I'd do to run, and the things that all those runs did to me'. I'll go back to this at the end of this blog.

At 5a.m., my friend Yon came to my place, and we drove with my car to Shah Alam. Harith, well, he 'harith-ed' us again and did not turn up. We arrived at Shah Alam Stadium at Parking B around 5.45a.m., and went to the loo etc. After subuh prayers etc, I did not have the time to warm up, and just did few stretches. I'll have to start the run slowly and pick up my pace along the way.

We went on at 6.30 a.m. into Persiaran Kayangan, Concorde and passed the junction to Bukit Cherakah. There are few inclines that defeated me early last year, and I was convinced it won't hold me again. I passed the hills, shuffling away, and I went on running strong. Knowing that I had very (very very) minimum training for this, I promised to power walk after the 90th minutes for 10 minutes. After 5 minutes, went through a WS and came Chew saying hi, a MAS pilot I met while queueing the other day, and I followed suit pacing him. Nasib baik jugaklah, kalau tak lagi lama jalan mesti lagi malas.

I lost my bearing in the factories area, but run was more enjoyable this year. I was running smoothly (still quite slowly), and forced myself to power walk every 3km or so for 5 minutes (after the 90th minutes). What was bad, was the absence of distance markers, and the volunteers were not made known of the km they were put in, and hence not being able to advise us runners were somewhat dissapointing. I think I am now beginning to make contact between my head, heartbeat and legs, and run quite effortlessly.

I need to practice more to be in sync, harap-harap cukup masa for the SCSM'09.

Coming towards the finish line, I followed all runners into an underground tunnel, and this is where it was the greatest. Like watching Kebede in Beijing Olympics coming into the stadium, I ran my heart out in the tunnel, turn into the ground where I went through the finish line (confession : baru first time masuk Stadium Shah Alam). What a feeling. Finished the half-marathon in 2:22:43 (my stopwatch - and my new PB), and the ladies refused me the medals in her kitty - 'tak qualified' katanya. O well, I had a great run today, a medal won't do me any good. I shaved off 37 minutes off last year's record. But thanks Adidas for improving a lot of things, water was adequate, route was a lot better, and the venue is good.

That was a great run, until afterwards.

Went to the car with Yon, opened the boot to realise my car was broken into. They opened my boot, where I and Yon put our gym bag together with our wallets. I never really bring my wallet into races (except for my IC, licence and some odd RM10) but this morning was different. I bundled everything into the bag, and headed out. I lost my wallet, together with some cash, credit cards, ATMs, identifications etc. So did Yon. After frantic calls to the banks, we went to Seksyen 11 Balai Polis to do our report to find there were some 10 runners there making their report. All our stories matched (their MO was to crack open the boots, take the bags and leave).

By the time we left the Balai Polis, 7 cases were reported. According to Sarjan Hassan, about 10 similar cases were reported at Seksyen 15 Police Station. When we walked out, there were some odd 7 runners making their reports. I would imagine the bastard could have cracked at least 20 cars. Some cars/van had 7-8 bags stolen with cameras, cash, handphones etc.

We were so hungry at that point but had no money to buy food. Luckily we found a water cooler at Sarjan Hassan's office, and thank God Farrizet from the Enchanted Forest came to our rescue with some cash (thanks bro!) - since he was the closest in Shah Alam.

Coming back to the term I mentioned in the first paragraph, the latter event in Shah Alam was not what runs did to me. What it does, and I felt it today, is how composed I was. I was not enraged with anger - I would few years back. I rationalised, weighed my options, prioritise of what to do - call wifey, call the banks, make a report etc. I surprised myself. All things happened for a reason, perhaps some of my income was not entirely legitimate, or I hadn't pay enough zakat etc, so that is alright. Perhaps it is a way God Almighty is telling me to be more humbled and mensyukuri all hik nikmat-nikmat. Whatever it is, I'll take it. I still have my loving family waiting for me at home. What if something happened to them - I'll be damned! So some loss of money, and meaningless cards are fine with me.

I have always hated the pics in my IC anyway.

Gonna rest now. Next week will see the start of the SCSM'09 trainings, albeit slowly as the Ramadhan approaches. No more short runs until October (Ekiden, Desa ParkCity, Mizuno and Genting Trailblazer).