Nilai 3 Half Marathon

Nilai 3? Where ah? Nobody seems to know the exact location of Nilai 3. But there was a half marathon and 10k race in this "god knows where" town on 27 March. Anyway, it didn't matter much as I think runners are not only crazy, they are also adventurous!

So, my wife and I left KL earlier and headed south. We reached Nilai toll at 5.45am and saw one of the runner gang, the Pacemaker, was already there by the roadside before the toll. They were seen busy preparing the bibs on their running vests!

We continued our journey and followed closely the road signs to Nilai 3. However, we had no idea where the starting point was! Luckily, there was an ambulance passing by. We assumed it was for the race and just followed it to the starting point. Thanks to the ambulance but no thanks to the event organiser!

"Honk", the race began at 6.50am, after a 5-minute delay. It was like a mad bull run with some pushing. Come on man, it's a half marathon, you don't need to rush like crazy! After about 300 metres, it was down hill all the way. So early in the race? I had hardly warmed up so I couldn't take advantage of the decline to sprint down. At this point, I just paced with Patrick, a well respected short-distance sprinter. Breathing was hard. I kept my composure. After about 10 minutes of running, I found my rhythm and changed to a faster gear. The race course was generally up and down and was quite challenging. Yes, I like the challenges! Plus, we runners literally have the whole roads to ourselves. There's another good point. After about 10km, I increased my pace slightly and managed to catch up with some runners in front. Finally, at the last hill, I pushed to 80% of my capacity. Why not 100%, you may ask? It's because there were no markers along the road and I didn't want to be caught in their "set up", like running another loop around the finishing point! Nevertheless, I was happy with my result ... a 40th placing with a timing of 1:31:39. The "sad" part was the distance, as consented by all runners, was shorter than 21km.

My beloved wife came back strongly with a time of 1:45:04 and won herself a RM50 for her 8th position. Therefore, she had to buy me lunch today :)