Category: 21km

Another weekend another race 🙂

The lead up to this race was quite eventful – Thursday during a normal training run I fell and ended up with a slight sprain to the right ankle as well as several cuts and grazes to my hands and knee. Not ideal preparation and I was considering not running…..

There was still bruising and swelling to the knee and ankle on the morning of the event so I was always going to relax more on this race. That, and the fact that the start was from 7:00 with the heat and humidity left me with a target time of around 2hours 30 minutes.

Pasar Salak is approximately a 2.5 hour drive from Penang. So we drove down with the family on Saturday morning, collected the race kit and then headed to a local hotel in Iskandar. Still about 40 minutes drive from the race.

So on race morning I left the hotel around 05:30 and headed for the course. As one of the first to arrive I was able to park very close to the start location. The course was along Sungai Perak and through paddy fields, so very different to every other race that I have participated within Malaysia.

Judging by my race number of C022 in the Male veterans category I assumed that there were not many runners. There were a few more than expected but certainly a smaller field than the events in Penang and KL.

So at the flag off I set to run and stay steady. The first 1.0km along the river was a bit tighter to run due to the narrow road, but as we continued through the first 5 km the runners began to spread out. It was very peaceful running along the river (although with the sun rising it was considerably hotter).

I tried to remain as much as possible in the shade. The first 5km was all high knees at a pace that surprised me a little (5km @ 29mins 31secs). I wasn’t in pain but I could feel the strapping on my right ankle a bit. I did loosen my shoe a little and retied it but it was still noticeable. Fastest 1km was 5:39 which is too fast for my Marathon pace for sure.

The first 12 km was through the Kampung and along the river. It was different. Very little noise – peace was only broken by the sound of feet and heavy breathing.  10km in 1 hour 14 seconds based on garmin. Again this was at a good pace compared to my marathon pace and was even inside the time I had the previous week in Taiping.

As we turned away from the river and headed through the paddy fields it was very noticeable that that shade had gone and as such the heat greatly increased. I did drop the pace and I did notice that the right ankle was aching a little (too tight strapping and shoes).

The pace slowing and drinking more to compensate for the heat meant that my time was dropping back quite a bit.

Noticed that @FIZ SAID was there taking the photos. Thanks Fiz for providing permission to use some of the shots in the website/blog..!

The last 5 km I did feel that I was struggling with the heat and there was no shelter for a lot of the road.

I was able to speed up and give a little more for the last 2km and finish inside the target time (just…). Although this course also measured long with Garmin measuring 21.9km

So final stats – official were 2 hours 26mins 12 seconds (net) which was good enough to be 18th of 50 in the veteran category and 92nd of 319 overall. Interestingly if I was able to replicate my time from Taiping the week before I would have been in the top 10…! Something to aim for next time.

So ending in a little discomfort was the only downside to a very well marshalled course with plenty of drink stations (luckily).

My only comment would be that for a half marathon the start was at least 30 minutes later than it could have been. Starting earlier would have made it a lot more comfortable and maybe that is something that the organisers can consider for next year.

The medal was very unusual in the shape of a bull.

I wasn’t able to collect the “finishers T-shirt” as I was not informed that this was at a different location. I went to collect the medal, drink and some food but was not informed by the organisers about the shirt. After discussion with them by email they have agreed to send to me which is another positive sign of a good organiser – compared to some I have seen in Malaysia.

Thanks @TeamPacat